Aliens on Aventine Hill

A Good Kid [Part 3]

Joseph lay idly on the living room floor, listening to the morning news drone on about the election and the situation in Palestine and Northern Ireland. He glanced up at his parents, who sat on the couch with glazed-over eyes and vacant expressions. No sensational headline, no clip of violence inspired any change in those expressions. They simply sat and watched, shifting only so his father could lazily loop his arm around his mother's shoulders. The lids of her eyes were half shut.

They were exhausted. Friday nights were always hectic at the restaurant. He'd worked enough of them himself to know the ache in their bones and the haze in their heads; he'd spent enough mornings sitting on the couch just like them. And yet he wondered if it wasn't something more than exhaustion.

If they hadn't worked the night before—if there were no restaurant at all—would their eyes widen at the tragedy on the screen? Would they turn their face away in horror at the blood smeared on the pavement, or cry out in fury at the crooked politician smiling in the pixels? Would they have listened to him about the scar on the back of his neck or tried to fight harder against the rumors Freddy had spread instead of blindly accepting them?

You're killing your mother, his father had told him over a bottle of whiskey. Joseph remembered the way his heart had sunk as the man had pulled out his checkbook and began scribbling in it. How much do you think you'll need to get yourself on your feet?

He had wondered then, and he wondered now, if they had really felt anything at all about those rumors, if they really cared whether they were true or not, and if all this supposed loathing towards him was really there—or if all this was because they thought it was something they were supposed to do.

The anchormen shifted their attention to the preparations being made for the Olympics in Munich, and Joseph rolled onto his back with a heavy sigh. Tracing constellations in the popcorn ceiling, he smiled at the memory of watching the Mexico City Olympics at Arnold's house. He and Roman had mimicked the gymnastics and synchronized swimming routines to try and cheer up Gray.

Jim Hines had just broken 10 seconds in the 100-meter dash the night Gray was abducted for the fifth time.

A sharp knocking at the front door startled him from his thoughts. The doorbell buzzed ten or fifteen times in quick succession, and shaking his head, Joseph pushed himself up from the carpet and hurried to answer it, "Jeez. Where's the fire?"

His brow furrowed as he peered through the peephole. Joseph swung open the door and stared at his cousin, "Morning, Jimmy. Everything alright?"

"I need to talk to you."

Joseph frowned at the tone in his voice, "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Jimmy nodded, lips pinched together. His eyes kept flicking from side to side, and every couple of seconds he glanced over his shoulder. Joseph stepped out onto the porch, scanned the suburbia and shut the door behind himself, "What's this about?"

"Did you really have neck surgery your senior year?"

"Neck surgery?" Joseph rubbed at his scar, wincing a little.

"Yeah," Jimmy replied, a desperate note in his voice. "You got hit, don't you remember? During the homecoming game? You got buried under a couple of linebackers and twisted your spine up."

"Oh yeah," Joseph bit his lip. That had been a bad fall. It had been smart of Enzo to use it as the cover story. He shrugged and laughed half-heartedly, stretching his head from side to side, "Had to have them click everything back into place, but it's good as new now."

Jimmy nodded solemnly, gaze dropping to his feet. Joseph gritted his teeth. He saw Jimmy's hands bunch into fists out of the corner of his eye.

"Is that all you wanted to ask me?"