We need to do something, p.1
We Need to Do Something, page 1
ALSO BY MAX BOOTH III
Toxicity
The Mind is a Razorblade
How to Successfully Kidnap Strangers
The Nightly Disease
Carnivorous Lunar Activities
Touch the Night
Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing
Cibolo, Texas
We Need to Do Something
Copyright © 2020 Max Booth III
All Rights Reserved
The story included in this publication is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
www.PerpetualPublishing.com
Cover Art by Lori Michelle
For Dylan
EMERGENCY ALERT
Tornado Warning in this area til 11:30 P.M. CST. Take shelter now. Check local media.
Our phones won’t stop screaming, each slightly out of sync with the other, making the noises jarring and insane.
We form a line and pile into the bathroom—Mom first, hugging a rolled-up blanket to her chest; followed by Bobby with a stack of board games nearly matching his height; then me, still soaked from the storm outside, walking on autopilot while jabbing my thumbs against the weather alert on my phone; and behind me, whiskey fresh on his breath, my dad. The only thing he’s brought with him being his thermos. Nobody has to guess what’s inside it.
“Oh my god,” I say, turning off another alert. Another one immediately generates in its place. Anxiety’s threat of total annihilation increases with every additional pop-up. “Why won’t it stop?”
Dad flinches, clearly annoyed by the pitch of my voice. “Just give it a second, would you?”
Mom motions for us to clear space so she can spread the blanket out along the floor. Pink flowers and butterflies decorate the fabric. The design has always made me nauseated. Grandma—on my dad’s side—had gifted it to the family several Christmases ago. She also had always nauseated me. Yes, the way she looked and smelled didn’t help, but it didn’t end there. Her mannerisms were truly atrocious. The way she laughed could boil water. Once I heard her refer to those tiny black heads people get on their faces and necks as “n-word babies”—only, she’d actually said the word. Of course, Dad had thought that was the funniest thing in the world. Thank god for cancer.
Mom snaps her fingers until I look away from my phone. “Where were you? You should have been home by six.”
Bobby plops down on the blanket and inspects his stack of board games as if, somehow, he’d forgotten one of his favorites.
I set my phone on the sink and attempt to dry my hair off with a nearby hand towel. “I told you guys I was doing homework at Amy’s tonight.”
Mom points at my arm. “What happened there?”
“What?” I follow her gaze and realize I’d forgotten about the band-aid. Amy had slapped it on for me, just below my inner elbow. There had been a moment earlier tonight when I thought it would never stop bleeding.
“Did you hurt yourself?”
I swallow, thinking fast. “Amy’s cat scratched me. It’s no big deal.”
She waits for more. I offer nothing. “Why weren’t you answering my calls?”
“I didn’t hear it ringing.” And, for once, it’s the truth.
“You need to answer your phone when I call. That’s why we pay for it every month.”
I ignore this rerun of a lecture I’ve heard a thousand times before by retrieving my phone from the counter and cancelling the weather alert again, only for another to regenerate almost instantaneously. “I told you, I didn’t hear it ring.”
“Not good enough.”
“That’s why I pay for it,” Dad whispers, standing next to the closed bathroom door.
Mom turns to him. “What?”
The anger arrives in his eyes before it finds his lungs. “THAT’S WHY I PAY FOR IT. THAT’S WHY I PAY FOR THE PHONE.”
We flinch and stare at him, wide-eyed, waiting for the outburst to progress. Mom shakes her head, dismissing the tantrum. “You know what I meant.”
“Wow, Dad,” I say, “what’s—”
“—Mel, goddammit,” Dad says, holding up his thermos to cut me off, “when we call your phone, you answer it. No excuses. Next time, you lose it.”
“Okay,” I say, then add under my breath, “god . . . ”
Outside, thunder spooks all four of us. Bobby clutches a Monopoly box against his chest, shaking. “I think it’s an EF5.”
Mom sighs, no stranger to this game. “It’s not a tornado, baby.”
“It might be an EF5.”
Dad snarls. “What the hell is an EF5?”
Excitement replaces the terror across Bobby’s face. “It’s like when two tornados come together . . . ”—he drops the Monopoly box and claps his hands together—“ . . . and make one giant tornado . . . it rips everything in its path.” He points to the left, both arms stretched out, stiff, like he’s directing a plane to land. “If it goes this way, everything would be destroyed.” He gestures the opposite direction. “And everything this way would be destroyed, as well.”
“Oh my god,” I whisper, heart pounding as I visualize our entire town obliterated. “Is that true?”
“It isn’t a tornado,” Mom says. “It’s just a thunderstorm. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Dad groans, rubbing the space between his eyes that always seems to be the source of all his pain and frustration. “Bobby, will you stop trying to scare your sister?”
“Or it could be a fire tornado.”
I gasp, suddenly feeling flames heating my flesh. “A fire tornado?”
Mom reaches out for him, but is unsuccessful. “Bobby—”
“—Like, if you get gallons of gasoline, and you . . . ”—he mimics pouring a gasoline canister along the floor—“ . . . pour it, and if you want to be all the way over here, you can just pour it more, and you throw a match and the flame would shoot up into the tornado and that would be a fire tornado and everything would catch on fire.”
“Are you planning on starting a fire?” Dad asks, sipping from his thermos.
Bobby gives his response serious consideration, then says, “No.”
“Then there’s not going to be a fire tornado.”
Another realization strikes. “Someone else might.”
“Someone else like who?”
Bobby shrugs. “I don’t know. Just . . . you know, people.”
None of this can be real. These alerts are merely exercising caution, something the weather people have to issue or they’ll get fined or fired or something. “Mom,” I say, “is there really a tornado?”
“No, Mel,” she says, voice warm like honey, “there’s not a—”
Thunder booms, drowning out any remaining hope.
“That was loud,” I whisper, voice cracking.
Mom nods. “It was a little loud.”
“A little?”
Dad clears his throat. “Sounded like a gunshot.”
“Maybe it’s an EF6,” Bobby says, then pauses, face all screwed up. “Wait. Is there such a thing as an EF6?”
“I don’t know, Bobby,” Dad says, chuckling with exhaustion.
“Bobby,” Mom says, stern now, “there’s not going to be a tornado.”
He points at her phone. “Then why is it saying there’s going to be one?”
“It’s just in case, okay? We only have to sit here a couple more minutes. It’s almost over.”
Dad smirks into his thermos. “Most things come to an end, don’t they?”
“Oh, will you knock it off?” It’s amazing, how quickly Mom can transform from soothing parent to bitter spouse. Both of them have practiced this trick to perfection.
Bobby interrupts whatever the hell was about to happen between our parents by snapping his fingers, excited again, like a brand-new idea occurred to him. “Oh! Maybe it’s a . . . water tornado.”
“Wouldn’t that just be a hurricane?” I ask, wondering if he’d asked a doofus question on purpose—anything to extinguish the argument before it got out of hand.
“We’re too far away to get a hurricane, sweetie,” Mom says.
Despite all his fear, my brother looks disappointed by this answer. “Really?”
“Yes, baby.”
He shrugs, never defeated. “It could still be an EF5.”
“Okay,” Dad says, in no mood to hear us talk, “that’s enough, Bobby.”
“But I’m just saying—”
“I said knock it off.”
Bobby slumps his head, momentarily beaten, then starts shuffling through his board game collection again. “Can we play Exploding Kittens?”
The three of us answer in unison: “No.”
“Oh, come on! Please?”
“That game takes too long, baby,” Mom said.
“Yeah,” I add, “plus, you don’t even know how to play.”
“I do, too.”
“You can’t even read.”
“I can read!”
Dad lets out a growl behind us. It sounds inhuman. “Guys
“Mom, tell her I can read!”
“Mel, your brother can read.”
“See? I told you.” He sticks his tongue out at me, which I respond with by flipping him off. He gasps. “Mom did you see what Mel—”
Dad slams a fist against the sink. “—ENOUGH—”
Thunder booms again, rendering us all quiet for a while.
Once, when Bobby was much younger and refusing to eat, Dad grew so frustrated he threw Bobby’s plate across the kitchen. It exploded against a cabinet, SpaghettiOs and shards of plastic flying every direction. We all sat at the table, watching him standing in front of the mess he’d created, breathing heavy, reeking of shame. The silence that followed then is similar to the one that follows now.
Mom takes several deep breaths. A fish gulping for water and only swallowing air. “Okay,” she says, “why don’t we all play Crazy Eights?”
“Not Exploding Kittens?” Bobby says, on the verge of whining again.
“Not right now, honey. But we’ll play Crazy Eights, if you want.”
“Okay . . . ”
I squeeze my fists and dig my nails into my palms until it hurts. I don’t want to play any dumb card game. I don’t want to be here in this bathroom with my family. I don’t want to be trapped here listening to them bicker every couple minutes about things that don’t matter. It’s not my fault they’re unhappy. I didn’t tell them to get married. I didn’t tell them to have children. If they hate each other so much, they should just kill themselves, do the whole world a favor.
This sucks. I need to call Amy. She hasn’t responded to any of my text messages since I got home and worry has started consuming me whole. Everything that has happened . . . we can’t let these memories exist only in our heads, otherwise we’ll go insane, we’ll lose our goddamn minds. We need to talk about what happened. We need to have a discussion.
I need to know she’s okay.
“When can we leave?” I ask, wondering what would happen if I got up and walked out. Would they try to stop me? Could they? Or would they simply allow me to disappear into the storm, swallowed up by lightning?
“Soon,” she says, zero confidence in her tone. “I bet, by the time we finish this game, the storm will be mostly done.”
“Unless the tornado picks up our house and carries it away,” Bobby says.
“Bobby, shut up,” I say, not quite believing such a thing could happen, but at this point my mental state is open to just about any possibility.
He sticks his tongue out at me again, the little bastard.
“That only happened in TheWizard of Oz,” Mom says, trying to calm us down.
“It could happen here, too.”
“God,” I say, sighing with exaggerated effect, “you are so dumb.”
Dad takes a swig from his thermos next to the sink. “Goddammit, what did I tell you about talking to your brother like that?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
“Let’s just play this game, okay?” Mom says.
Dad considers, then shakes his head, disgusted. “I ain’t playing shit.”
“That’s fine. You don’t have to play. You do whatever you want to do. Bobby? Mel? Come on.”
“Do whatever I want?” He laughs, then keeps laughing, getting louder and louder until he has to double over, nearly spilling the contents of his thermos. “Do whatever I want. Whatever. I. Want.” He wipes snot from his face with the back of his hand. “Tell me, babe, what is it you think I want to do?”
Mom ignores him and motions for us to join her as he continues laughing.
None of us understand the joke.
***
We sit on the blanket next to Mom as she shuffles a deck and deals the cards out to each of us. Dad remains leaning against the sink, taking short sips from his thermos, watching our game with absolute disgust. He keeps smacking his lips together. It sounds disgusting. Like something from a swamp discovering life.
Outside, the storm rages on. The rain has gotten so loud we have to shout to make ourselves heard. Wind screams. Every time thunder cracks, we flinch—except for Dad, who no longer seems to care about what’s occurring beyond our house. All of his hatred is focused on my mother. This is not a foreign stare, but never before have we all been confined to such limited quarters while rage inhabited him. None of us could possibly guess how he might lash out.
Come to think about it, I can’t remember a time all four of us had ever found ourselves in the bathroom together. What reason would we possibly have had, except for tonight’s tornado warning? Residential bathrooms like this are built for one person at a time. One door, a shower/tub combo, a toilet, a tiny trash can, a sink and mirror. All of us crammed in here together, the room has never felt so small. The reality of its size burns into my skull. Once sweat locates my flesh, it wastes no time in overextending its welcome. There’s not even a fucking window in here, which might be a blessing considering the storm outside. My stomach spins in knots as I visualize shards of glass flying across the room and entering my flesh.
“Can you please check the weather again?” Bobby asks, about halfway through our first game.
“In a minute.”
“Mom, c’mon, please!”
She sighs, set down her deck of cards, and scoops up her cell phone. She stares at the screen for a moment, without responding, looks at Bobby, back to the phone, then lays it on the floor with the screen facing down. “It says it’s almost done.”
“Really?”
“Yup. We just have to wait a little bit longer.”
Bobby smiles, total relief washing over his pale face. “Whew. I thought it was gonna be an EF5 a second ago.”
“Nope. Just a little thunderstorm, baby. Now, are you going to keep playing or not?”
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s your turn, dummy.”
Bobby focuses on the cards. Meanwhile, behind him, Dad pulls out his own phone and concentrates on the screen, then clears his throat. “Weird. The weather app on mine says something completely different.”
Bobby whips his head around. “Is it an EF5?”
Dad shrugs. “I don’t know about that, but it certainly doesn’t look good.” He licks his lips, enjoying the attention. “There sure is a whole lot of red on the map. Oh, boy . . . ”
Bobby gasps, drops the cards, and hugs his knees to his chest, rocking back and forth. “Let me see, let me see, let me see . . . ”
Mom casts Dad an ugly stare. “Goddammit, Robert.”
“What?”
“You know what.”
He smiles. “This is pointless. You think this bathroom’s gonna save us if a big ol’ tornado comes swooping through? You think it’s gonna make any fuckin’ difference at all?”
Bobby points at the bathtub. “But Dad! You’re supposed to take shelter in a basement during tornados and if you don’t have a basement then you’re supposed to hide in the bathtub! We don’t have a basement so that’s what—”
“Bobby, we can’t all fit in the tub. And even if we could, there’s no point.”
“Dad! If a tornado—”
“There’s no fucking tornado, Bobby.”
“Don’t talk to him that way,” Mom says, squeezing the cards in her hand hard enough to bend them.
“Oh fuck off. Try telling me how to raise my son again and see what happens.”
A long silence follows, everybody too afraid to speak. Dad has never struck me or Bobby, and I don’t think he’d ever hit Mom either, but the rate things are spiraling tonight, who knows what’s gonna happen? The moment I got home this evening, it felt like he was begging for a fight, it didn’t matter with who—anybody would do, as long as they could bleed, as long as they could break.
Eventually Mom says, in the calmest tone possible given the circumstances, “If you don’t want to wait in here with us, you know where the door is.”
Dad chuckles. Everything is a joke tonight, until it isn’t. “Oh, now I got a choice?”
“I’m done talking to you.”
“Finally.”
Dad turns toward the door and Bobby freaks out. Like, total panic attack. He springs up and grabs Dad’s leg, hysterical. “Dad no don’t go please don’t go the tornado there’s a tornado—”
“Bobby, c’mon . . . you’re being ridiculous,” he says, trying to shake him off.
“—the tornado’s gonna get you please Dad stay here please don’t go—”
