Alex Perez
Eggs

The eggs reeked so bad I had to lower all the windows. We were on the highway, psyching ourselves up to rap music, when Ricky started losing it. I’d been glancing to the side, watching him crack his fingers like he did before chickening out. I knew his routine well, how it started with the fingers and ended with a lone tear running down his cheek. I shut off the radio.
    “Do you need a hug from Mami or something?” I said.
    “No,” he said. “I’m just scared.”
    “Of what?”
    “Papi.”
    “Don’t pussy out on me, man.”
    The three dozen eggs in the back were for my father. A month earlier, he’d shacked up with one of his skanks. Most of the men in my family have their side projects, but they respect the household and keep shit quiet. But no, not my pops, not Rigo Alvarez. Papi, as Ricky still called him, had turned my mom into a bundle of nerves, and for that he would have to pay. Like Ricky, I was scared of the guy—he had that man strength—but after a week of staying up and consoling my mom, the fear was gone. Ricky, twelve and just starting to shake off his girly voice, needed a push.
    I reached across and slapped his hands. “Stop that. And stop acting like a little bitch.” He crossed his arms and looked at his feet. “You weren’t scared when the eggs were marinating in the closet for two weeks. Man up. That’s all I’m saying. You’re not a little kid anymore.”
    “I know.”
    “So get ready to egg the hell out of him.”
    “And the white lady?”
    “The white lady too.”

    
    He brought her into our house while my mother was working the graveyard shift at the hospital. He came in late all the time, so I dozed off, only to be wakened by a knock on my door.
    “It’s me,” Ricky whispered. He closed the door. “Someone’s here with Papi.”
    “Probably one of his drunk friends. Go to sleep.”
    He started cracking his fingers. “I think it’s a girl.”
    “It’s Mami. Home early.”
    He turned the light on. He was wearing only his tighty-whities and shivering from the air vent overhead. His vanilla body, soft and rubbery, posed no threat to anyone. The hairless bird chest barely expanded as he breathed, the stomach, still without a happy trail, was slightly distended and doughy. His arms, like mine, were long, so I knew he’d have trouble building up his biceps when he started hitting the iron. If he was anything like me, he’d been looking at his armpits ever since his tenth birthday, waiting for those coarse hairs to sprout and signify whatever it is they’re supposed to signify.
    “What did you hear exactly?” I asked.
    “A girl voice. She was laughing.”
    As I got out of bed, I already knew it was true. Rigo had probably been waiting all along for the day my mom landed a nightshift gig. For him, it must’ve been the natural progression. Fuck them at a hotel. Fuck them at their house. Fuck them at your house.
    “Listen,” Ricky said. “The stairs. He’s bringing her upstairs.”
    “The lights,” I said.
    Darkness. Ricky’s deep breathing. My heart, my stupid heart, pounding so hard that I was afraid Rigo would hear it.
    The stairs in our cheap townhome were nothing more than wooden planks covered in carpet. If you stepped too hard or shifted your weight too quickly, the screeching could be heard throughout the house. Whenever I was drunk after a night out and trying to make it into my room quietly, the stairs would wake my parents.
    It was clear, however, that Rigo didn’t care about getting caught.
    I’d been standing in the same spot for what felt like an hour when they started. I walked toward the door and turned on the light. Ricky was sitting Indian-style on the floor, covering his ears.
    I smacked his head. “Listen. So you never forget what kind of prick he is. And get up.”
    He shook his head. I turned the light off and we walked out together. My parents’ room was directly across from mine, so Ricky and I tiptoed straight ahead. Rigo’s grunting grew louder as we approached, drowning out the quick moans the woman was making. It was like listening to a stranger, even his Spanish sounded different. “Te gusta,” he was saying, but I didn’t recognize the voice, couldn’t trace it back to any childhood memories. I could feel the vibrations from the heavy slamming of the bed, and I imagined things falling and crashing around the house—family pictures, Ricky’s framed report cards, my mom’s Precious Moments collectibles. At the door, Ricky whispered, “Who is she?”
    “Te gusta,” my father kept saying. “Te gusta mucho.”
    “Who is she?”
    I put my hand over Ricky’s mouth.
    “Te gusta.”
    Then she spoke.
    “You know I love it, Rigo. My Cuban man. My big Cuban man,” she said.
    The English froze me. Ricky grabbed my arm but I pushed him off, sending him down the hall. Alone, I listened to her, how she said, “My Cuban. Right there, my Cuban. That’s the spot.”
    When she started moaning again, I walked back to my room. Ricky was in my bed. I could hear him cracking his fingers.
    “She’s a white lady,” he said.
    “Get off.”
    I heard a pillow fall on the ground, and in the moonlight, I could make out Ricky’s body on the floor.
    “He cheated with a white lady.”
    “If you’re staying here, shut up and go to sleep.”
    They finished in twenty minutes then made their way back downstairs. The front door opened and I looked out my window. Ricky stood up and looked out too. Hand in hand, they walked to the Camry. She was short and thin, blonde. Her skin, glowing, looked immaculate next to Rigo’s. But what really struck me was her clothing, how everything seemed to shine. My mother, always working in the kitchen, never wore anything that called attention to her. This woman, this white lady, must have dipped her entire wardrobe in glaze or something. He kissed her and opened the passenger side door. Inside, in the seat I used to call my own, she started messing with the seatbelt, unaware that it had long ago stopped clicking into place. My father reached over, and as he had done for me countless times, rigged it into position. He kissed her again before they drove off.
    “The white lady,” Ricky said.

    When we got off at the exit, Ricky stuck his head out the window and looked around, even down at the street, probably wondering if it was paved in gold.
    “Do you smell it?” I said. “Take a whiff.”
    “What is it?”
    “It’s money, man. Smells like dollar bills. They got so much, they burn it. Rich people potpourri.”
    He grinned and stuck his head back out. “Damn,” he said.
    It’s a testament to the craziness of a city like Miami, how all the hoods, rich and poor, are connected by the highway, but people only get off where they’re supposed to. But here we were, on the side of town all the immigrants wanted to get to. Ten minutes from our place, and this was the first time Ricky had seen driveways littered with the finest in German engineering.
    “All the backboards are made of glass. Like the NBA,” he said.
    “You haven’t played basketball until you bounce it off the glass,” I said.
    “I want to play.”
    “Chill out.”
    “I can’t believe he lives here.”
    “He finally made it.”
    I stayed five miles under the limit as we circled the neigborhood, taking it all in with Ricky, shocked at how bright everything was. Floodlights were hitting the houses from all angles, making sure you looked—at the high windows, the French doors, the little red flowers in the garden.
    “How do you know where she lives?” Ricky asked.
    “Mami had me follow him once.”
    “What did you see?”
    “Both of them together, making out like teenagers. Out in the open.”
    The time I followed him, I waited more than an hour for Rigo to come out of the house. She trailed him to the Camry, wearing a nightgown that made her breasts look huge. Against the Camry, my dad got all Rico Suave, touching her hair and whispering sweet Cuban muela in her ear. I felt like running toward him and messing up his game, but I sat there behind some bush and watched him lie with his hands. He caressed her face and ran his long, brown fingers down her arms. He used those same fingers to touch her lips before he kissed them. I’d seen this routine my entire life, how he appeased my mom with the same charade. Then he slid his hand up the white lady’s leg and shoved his tongue down her throat.
    We stopped at a red light and Ricky asked, “Are we close?”
    “A few blocks. How’s that throwing arm?”
    “It’s good. I’m gonna aim for the windows.”
    He rolled up the window and looked back at the eggs. It seemed that our drive around the neighborhood had been enough to clear away any doubts he might have been feeling. It was simple: Our father had left us. He’d jumped classes. We were about to jump him.
    “Just sit back and relax,” I said. “It’s still too early for the attack. We gotta scare them good.”
    “We’re waiting until they go to sleep, right?”
    “You know it.”
    His hands were clenched into fists.

    I showed the guy at the counter my fake and paid for the beer. As I walked out of the convenience store, Ricky gave me a thumbs-up. I hadn’t told him about the beer, but he looked ready. Through the open window, he said, “For us?”
    “If you’re down.”
    “Hell yeah.”
    I reversed and got out of the parking lot. The week before, I’d planned out the whole attack. I’d scoped out the neighborhood and driven down the side streets, looking for the best way to back to the highway. I’d counted all the windows on the house and peeked into the backyard, seen the doghouse.
    “Where are we gonna drink?’ Ricky said.
    “This park two blocks from the house.”
    I pulled into the last spot, next to a tree that shielded the car from view. I turned the lights off. The baseball field at the far end of the park looked Major League. Even in the darkness, the ivory white bases shone like beacons. I wanted to run out of the car and dive headfirst into second, embracing the base like one of the pros. Then I saw the glove. It was in the third base dugout, under the bench. How could you trust a neighborhood that abandoned gloves? I wanted it, but as ballsy as I was feeling, I couldn’t imagine setting foot on the diamond. Maybe they had an alarm system. Maybe the glove was a trap.
    Ricky pulled a beer from the six-pack and handed it to me. “You go first.”
    “Are you wearing cologne?”
    “I got nervous.”
    “How much you got on?”
    He shrugged.
    “At least you’ll smell good when we mess the place up.”
    We drank in silence for a few minutes, the breeze cooling our faces, and I almost forgot about the thirty-six eggs in the back. I looked at Ricky and wondered how much he knew, if he had any idea what a piece our father was. The old man had been screwing around since my last year of middle school, always getting home late and saying he’d picked up some extra hours. I used to hold it against Mami, but what can you do when you have two kids and a mortgage that has you strapped? You wear it. And that’s what she did, she wore it for years. But this was different.
    “Do you think he loves her?” Ricky said.
    “Hell if I know.”
    “I think he loves her more than us. He lives with her.”
    “Maybe.”
    “Can I ask you something else? Why did he start doing this now? He’s old.”
    The kid had been around for all of them. He’d seen Tina the Boricua, with her huge boobs and tight eighties jeans. He met all the fat ones too, during that period where my father must’ve been trolling the buffet lines or something. I swear, during a six-month stretch, they got bigger and bigger, until I expected him to start fucking the blowhole on an orca or some shit. But that’s the thing, you spend your early years clueless, thinking everything is peaches, until you catch your beloved Papi knocking the boots with a white lady. That’s how Ricky wised up.
    “I don’t know,” I told him. “Some guys just can’t stop chasing the new tail.”
    “Tail?”
    “Pussy.”
    “Oh.”
    No point in telling him about the past, since I didn’t know about the past either.
    Maybe when I was ten, Papi was jacking off guys at the park. The thing is, when you’re a kid, a moron is all you are.
    “Do you think we’ll be like him?”
    I looked him dead in the eyes and said, “Men don’t cheat on their wives. Never. You get a divorce or whatever, but don’t sneak around like a rat.”
    “From now on,” he said, “I’ll call him The Rat.”
    “The Rat,” I said. I shut off the engine. “Are you ready?”
    We made eye contact, but I didn’t recognize him right away. He was sitting next to me, so I knew it was him, but for a moment, I didn’t see my brother. I saw a grown man with stubble and yellow teeth from smoking too much. I saw bloodshot eyes and tiny hairs sprouting out of his nose and ears. In that instant, I was looking at Rigo.
    “I’m ready,” he said.

    Rigo was wearing his best jeans the night he left us. I remember looking at them, how tiny splotches of paint were still visible on the denim, even though my mom had washed them repeatedly. He painted houses for a living, and everything he wore was a reminder of that. To the untrained eye, these were right off the rack, but I was his son. Even if no one else could, I could see the small white spot under his right knee, the dab of green near the crotch. I imagined him earlier in the day, sweating in the closet, looking for his best pants in an attempt to impress the white lady.
    “You’re still my sons,” he said. “You’re my sons and I love you.”
    Ricky and me were sitting on my bed, but he was standing, holding a suitcase. Even though I couldn’t believe it was happening, I was strangely calm. But Ricky was breathing heavily and shaking.
    “Why? I don’t get it, Papi.”
    “Things change. But I love both of you. You’re my boys.”
    “So stay with us. Please don’t leave.”
    He dropped the suitcase on the floor. I never knew he owned one, but there it was, old and leathery, just like him. From years in the sun, his skin had hardened, and the suitcase, somehow, had aged in the same way. Cracked and dry, it was an extension of his hand, his fingers disappearing into the handle. He had only moved once, when he had left Cuba as a teenager, and it hit me at that moment—this must’ve been the same suitcase that flew over the Atlantic all those years ago.
    He sat next to Ricky and squeezed his hands. “You’re gonna get arthritis if you don’t stop that.”
    “I don’t care.”
    Then he brought Ricky’s hands up and kissed them. “I’ll see you soon. I love you.”
    I kept looking at the suitcase. More than anything, it resembled a handbag. You spend so much time trying to grow up that you never look at your parents. Sure, you glance every now and then, but you don’t see them as they are. You don’t see the man with the small suitcase.
    He turned to me and stuck his hand out. I squeezed hard as soon as I grabbed hold, remembering what he had told me about handshakes, but his strength surprised me. It was the first time we’d ever shaken hands like men.
    “I love you too,” he said.
    I tried to squeeze harder, but my hand grew numb.

    Ricky fell out of the car when he opened the door. He started laughing and I told him to shut up, to not be one of those sloppy drunks who bring the heat.
    “Am I drunk?” he said.
    “You’re buzzing, just feeling good.”
    He smiled and composed himself, waited for me outside.
    The nerves and the fear hit when I stepped out of the car. It was real now, and the wind was letting me know, beating into my face and up my nose. I thought about crawl¬ing back in and starting the car, but Ricky was already pulling out the eggs. He placed the three cartons on the grass and yanked one out.
    “Look,” he said. “Like little bombs.”
    “Put it back in. Calm down.”
    The last time I’d gone egging, my father had given me a severe beating. A few of the neighborhood kids had gone crazy on some asshole’s house, and I was identified. Rigo went over the next day, apologized to the asshole, and cleaned the place up. Afterward he wore me out with a belt, lashing me until blood dripped down my back and onto the carpet.
    “Ricky,” I said. “You need to follow my lead. We can’t get caught. You got me?”
    “I won’t leave your side.”
    I opened the trunk. At the junkyard I’d picked up an old license plate, which I now switched with my own.
    “Just in case someone tries to get our plate numbers,” I said.
    “Is there going to be a chase?”
    “Life is about precautions, bro.”
    He kneeled down and watched me, his breath stinking of beer.
    “Hey,” he said. “Look.” He’d pulled out a pack of cigs. “Want one?”
    “Since when do you smoke?”
    “Never have. I got them from a friend.”
    I pulled one out, lit it, and took a quick puff. “Good shit. You gonna hit one or what?”
    He shrugged, so I jammed one in between his lips. He looked like a dog with a biscuit in his mouth. I leaned in close and lit him up.
    “Puff, man. Don’t act like a rookie.”
    His face bobbed up and down a few times, but he held it in. He blew smoke into the air and grinned. “Sweet.”
    I tossed my license plate in the trunk and pulled out two flashlights, giving one to Ricky.
    “Just in case,” I said. “Don’t turn it on if you don’t have to, we don’t need these rich people calling the cops because they see some light in the bushes.”
    He laughed and stuffed the flashlight in his back pocket.
    “Did you bring the pocket knife?”
    He put it on the hood of the car.
    “Good,” I said. “Let’s go.”

    Every few steps, Ricky laughed and looked into the bag. Here we were, walking slowly through the park and infecting the money-smelling air with these eggs, with our rot. The breeze, clean and crisp, was our worst enemy. “Smell that,” it was whispering, “rotten eggs and aimless bastards.” I’d flicked away my cig a while back, but Ricky was still puffing away, tilting his head up like a pro and savoring it. When we got to the sidewalk, I took the bag from him and made him toss the cig. I was holding my breath as much as I could.
    “Be cool,” I told him. “We’re just two brothers taking a walk.”
    “With thirty-six rotten eggs.”
    “Shut up.”
    By the time we got across the street I almost couldn’t take the smell anymore. Next to me, Ricky was drawing deep, long breaths, but just one more whiff and I knew I’d be done in. The bag, somehow heavier, kept rustling in the breeze. Now they could hear us. I knew they were hearing us. Their virgin senses were being awakened by our intrusion. I imagined the nastiness seeping through barely open windows. People were looking and calls were being made. Dogs were howling and scratching at fences, trying to get at us.
    “We’re a block away,” I told Ricky. “Don’t speak, and listen to what I tell you.”
    It was midnight on a Monday, and the white lady’s neighborhood was silent. We walked nonchalantly on the sidewalk, Ricky a few steps ahead of me. He kept looking up, straight up, as if waiting for an explanation from God himself.
    “They’re huge,” he said.
    “Just walk. Don’t stop moving.”
    With his head to the sky, he kept moving. At night the houses looked like castles. I was gazing up too, wondering if some punk kid was spying on us from his room.
    “Are we close?”
    “Look at the Camry.”
    His pace quickened and I had to jog for a second. Rigo’s beater would’ve destroyed the white lady’s setup, so I figured she made him park it on the small patch of grass across the street—the same patch that Ricky and me would be setting up shop at.
    “Is that the house?” Ricky asked.
    I nodded.
    “He’s in there.”
    “Let’s go, Ricky.”
    I’d thought the same thing when I’d first seen the place. How I couldn’t imagine my Cuban father inside that mansion, his painter hands staining silverware and turning pristine light switches gray. He liked eating chicken from KFC and drinking cheap beer. He’d sold us out, I thought, had finally made it to the America he’d been looking for all those years. Now, if he wanted to, he could really call the people still on the island and say, “Oye, I shit in a golden toilet.”
    I grabbed Ricky’s arm and led him across the street, but he escaped and ran toward my father’s new place.
    “It’s huge,” he said. “Like four of our house.”
    “Let’s go, man. This isn’t the plan.”
He made it to the driveway and started tiptoeing toward a window on the side of the house. I walked over to get him, trying to avoid the floodlights. He was peeking through the window, calling me over. My heart was beating so hard I thought my shirt was going to rip apart. I put the eggs down and looked.
    “That’s him,” Ricky said. “He’s there.”
    I kept my head as low as possible, but there he was—Rigo, our father, on his knees and massaging the white lady’s feet. He was wearing pajamas; his head so close to her feet that I held my breath and waited for the inevitable kiss. The kiss never came, but I saw everything else: his clean-shaven face, the moccasins on his feet, the new haircut.
    “He looks like a bitch,” Ricky whispered.
    He did. He was in one of the biggest houses I had ever seen, and he’d become a certifi¬able bitch. I didn’t know why, but as I looked around the house, at the massive staircase and the leather couches, for one second, gave him the benefit of the doubt. Right then, I knew that I’d never make it to such a house. I wasn’t good enough for Harvard, and I certainly wasn’t about to massage feet for women who weren’t my wife. Maybe all those other women had been preparation for this moment, for the day that he’d finally make it to a house that justified his exodus all those years ago. I didn’t know, probably would never know, but I had to tell myself a story.
    “It’s time,” I said.
    Ricky was cracking his fingers now and shaking his head. “He’s a bitch.”
    I grabbed his arm and squeezed. “Now.”
    We got out of there and passed three more houses, finally making it to the island of grass. A few bushes blocked us from the houses in the back, and the Camry shielded us from the rest of the neighborhood.
    “Just stay low,” I said. “Don’t stand up until I tell you.”
    Ricky was staring at the house, the top of his head visible over the hood of the Camry.
    “Get down already. You’ll take a good look when we egg it.”
    With the flashlight in hand, I pulled out the first carton, placed it in front of Ricky.
    “Ricky,” I said, “once we start, shit’s going to get crazy. Neighbors might come out. Dogs will bark. Papi might chase us. Are you ready?”
    He grabbed the carton. “Yes.”
    Then I pulled out the pocketknife and slashed all four tires on the Camry. Ricky, in silence, watched as I struggled with the small knife, kicking it in deeper once I’d pierced the tire. I kicked and stabbed and watched the tires slowly deflate. Then I dropped the knife on the ground.
    Ricky picked it up. “I’ll hold it.”

    The plan I’d devised was a simple one: we’d each carry a dozen eggs to the driveway and unleash the first nine. At one egg per second, we’d be back behind the Camry in less than thirty seconds. Then, when our father and his girlfriend came out, we would throw the last three of the eggs.
    It seemed like a workable plan. But as I pulled out my mother’s stockings and gave one to Ricky, things didn’t feel that easy anymore. I watched him slide it over his head effortlessly and pull it down tightly. He tried smiling but his lips were too pulled back for his teeth to show.
    “Go,” he said.
    I put my stocking on and stood up. “No matter what happens, we don’t separate.”
    “I know.”
    As we left the island and crossed the street, my entire body tensed up. I smelled wet dog, even though the barking was coming from blocks away. Then, as if we had drifted there, I was standing on their driveway.
    “Now?”
    I nodded. The first egg exploded against the garage. Earlier, I’d planned on distributing the eggs evenly, but there was no rhyme or reason to my egging. I just threw egg after egg, inching closer to the house as the crate emptied. Ricky, behind me, grunted with each throw. His eggs looped way over my head, and a couple, like he had planned, splattered against the windows. I had thrown my eighth when lights started coming on upstairs. A dog started barking inside the house.
    “Go,” I told Ricky. “Go back.”
    He threw an egg at the garage and ran off, laughing maniacally, but growing quiet once he reached the car. I aimed at the front door and unloaded. After the splat, I sprinted back and took my spot next to Ricky. Breathing heavy and reaching into my carton, he said, “Here. Let’s do it, Danny.”
    I took the egg and was just about to crack it when the close barking told me that the dog was outside.
    “Just wait for my lead. Be quiet.”
    He tried to smile again, but the stocking wouldn’t let him.
    “Listen. The white lady.”
    “Check,” she said. “Go check.”
    She was pushing my father outside, telling him to scope out the scene. Rigo, all talk all the time, hadn’t signed up for this. Whenever we heard a noise outside, he’d just tell my mother to look out the window. I peeked out from the corner of the car and saw him, leash in hand, just stepping onto the driveway.
    “What is it?” the white lady said.
    “Eggs,” he said. “Just some bastard kids.”
    The front door slammed shut and she walked out, saying, “Hose it down before it sticks.”
    “Now?”
    “Give me the dog and grab the hose.”
    Ricky grabbed my arm. “I’ll get the dog.”
    “Don’t egg the dog.”
    “I got it, Danny.”
    “Fuck it, get it then.”
    I took my last two eggs and Ricky grabbed all three of his. Before I stood up, I looked at Ricky one last time. His gaze locked on mine as I stuck my fist out and waited for his.
    “We’re bros, right?”
    “You know it, man.”
    Fist in the air, Ricky shot passed me and ran at our father. With no other option, Rigo turned the hose on us and caught me square on the chest. The white lady yelled and tried controlling the dog, but she wasn’t having much luck. In the second before I released my first egg, I saw it all: My father wearing rich pajamas that gave him the look of an old guy you’d see on a sitcom. He actually looked clean, his hair shiny and parted perfectly. His calloused feet, ruined from years of wearing work boots, were tiny and dainty in those moccasins.
    “What?” he said. “What?”
    Ricky missed with the first two before my father could do anything. With his last egg in the air, he charged the white lady. My father, still clueless, responded with the hose again, but soaked the dog. I caught my father on the chest twice and he finally let go of the hose. He ran at Ricky, but didn’t get there in time. From less than five feet away, Ricky drilled the white lady in the face.
    “No,” I said. “What the hell.”
    We had agreed on not injuring anyone, but the white lady yelled out as soon as it hit her. She started to fall backward, but my father caught her just in time. She let go of the dog.
    “Now,” I said. “Now.”
    “Get the hell out of here,” my father yelled. “Before I call the cops.”
    When the first neighbor came out, cell phone in hand, I wanted to take off, but Ricky just stood there and waited for the dog. Next door, lights came on, but nobody appeared. And that’s when I saw it. Really saw it. A poodle. A white miniature poodle.
    “Come here,” Ricky said.
    The poodle, wagging its tail, shuffled toward my brother and collapsed at his feet.
    “Bruno,” the white lady yelled.
    “Bruno,” my brother said. “Fuck you, Bruno.”
    He picked the dog up by the collar, choking it until it wailed. The lady clutched my father. “Get Bruno, Rigo.”
    “Let’s go,” I said.
    My father walked toward Ricky, but he still didn’t know it was us. Then it happened: Ricky digging in his pocket. Ricky pulling out the pocket knife. The white lady yelling, “Bruno, Bruno, Bruno.” My father, my coward father, putting his hands up. And Bruno, poor fucking Bruno.
    Finally, I said, “Let’s go. Bro!”
    “Shut up, Danny,” he yelled to me. My father put his arms down. Then the white lady looked at him and back at us. It was quiet for a moment, until Ricky brought the knife to the dog’s head.
    “Ricky,” the white lady said. “Please don’t hurt Bruno.”
    Ricky placed the knife on the dog’s nose. “How do you know my name?”
    The white lady yelled, “Call the cops. Call them now.”
    The neighbor hurried inside.
    “I’ll kill it,” Ricky said. “How do you know my name?”
    My father, holding the lady back, said, “I told her. Meredith knows about my boys.”
    I made eye contact with my father and started creeping toward Ricky, but he yanked the dog again. Bruno’s nails were clawing at the cement, but Ricky had him suspended. Finally, I lunged toward him, but he dodged me and held the knife to the dog’s neck.
    “I hate your dog,” Ricky said. “Meredith.”
    Her name was Meredith and she was trying to break free from my father, crying and
    begging for her dog. She didn’t look like she had that night outside my house. Her face, I noticed, was wrinkled. The shine was gone. She was sweating.
    “I know you’re a good boy, Ricky,” she said. “Give me my Bruno back.”
    Ricky started cracking everything. He snapped his neck to the left and to the right, unleashing a sound I’d never heard from his body before. I saw no tears.
    “You don’t know me,” he said.
    He did it so fast that I thought he’d decapitated poor Bruno, but when Bruno ran toward thehouse,onlyoneearwas flopping up and down. Ithowled and shookits head, and that’s when Ricky finally ran off, pushing past me again. Behind me, I could hear my father, but Ricky was too fast for both of us. He was pumping his arms and running perfectly straight, taking the same route as before. Behind him, neither of us called out. He’d left us like trash, but I was the older brother. I knew better, and I should’ve done better for my brother. I caught up to him at the edge of the park. My father, tired and winded, was walking toward us when Ricky and I leaned against the car. During the run, I’d crushed the final egg without noticing and sprayed myself with yolk. Ricky was covered in blood. He held the ear like a medal, waving it every few seconds.
    Rigo was shaking his head as he got closer, but he still didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure where the car was, and his eyesight had gotten progressively worse throughout the years, so I was the first one to take out my flashlight. Ricky took his out too and started waving it, the light bouncing off trees and rocks and houses. I held mine out, straight as an arrow, until Rigo appeared.
    “What were you thinking?”
    “Fuck the dog.”
    He was getting closer. The light was bouncing off the gaudy gold chains he always wore.
    “What are we doing?”
    “We’re gonna jump him, Danny. Right?”
    I said nothing. I’d just wanted to confront my father and tell him how he’d fucked us over, that he’d left us with a mother who only made her presence known when she cried.
    “Ricky,” my father said. “Ricky.”
    Ricky punched my arm. “Look.”
    I looked down and saw the pocket knife in his hand.
    “Give me that shit.”
    “Get your own.”
    Then he was in front of us. We hadn’t seen him in a month, but he looked older, tired. He took a breath and put his hand on Ricky’s shoulder.
    “Fuck you, Rigo,” Ricky said. “Go with your whore.”
    “I’m your father.”
    “No, you’re Rigo. Just Rigo.”
    I knew I was next, but I watched my father bring his hand up slowly and touch my brother’s head. Ricky started crying, and my father took off the stocking. He slapped his cheek gingerly and brought him close. Ricky wept. My father looked at me. I could still hear Bruno.

[Read an interview with Alex Perez.]