Pinocchio

"Pinocchio's now a boy who wants to turn back into a toy."—"Vibrate" by Rufus Wainwright

Beaver's favorite story when he was a kid was Pinocchio. Dick could never figure out why, though. He thought the blue fairy was hot, so he tolerated his mom reading it to them over and over and over again. Plus that whale part was kinda cool. But he could tell that for Beav, the story wasn't about a hot fairy or being swallowed by a whale. It was all that crap about becoming "a real, live boy!" Whatever that meant. Beaver always lived like he was the puppet boy in the story, or something. It was like Beav never told a lie in his life for fear his nose would grow and he'd never become real. But then he died. Leaped off the top of a tall building and hit the ground—a broken, wooden boy.

Beaver had never told a lie until he'd started to live one—the lie that he was okay, and his life was normal, and he wasn't some puppet with a curse hoping to one day be good enough to experience magic and become real. To somebody. And yeah, he'd had that weird thing with that chick Ghost World, but by that point he was already gone. Lost in the belly of the whale that Dick had always thought was so cool. And there was no one there to help him build the fire that would let him out.

Beaver got his wish the day he cut his strings and jumped. He became a real boy, although the whole "live" thing kinda got messed up. But leaping off the Neptune Grand brought Beav something he'd never had in life—recognition. Suddenly the mother, the father, the brother, the whole damn town had to stop and acknowledge that Cassidy Cassiblancas had lived.

But now Beav was in the ground, his body busted up as if he actually had been made of wood. Dick had to watch the whole damn thing. He had to watch his little brother get put in the ground in a solid block of wood. He had to watch Kendall and his mom and countless others actually pretend to give a crap. Like they didn't all have somewhere better to be. His dad, of course, didn't even show. He did send flowers, though. So that was something. Kinda. Beav would have appreciated it, at least.

Dick was the one who was affected by his brother's absence. He had to wake up in the morning to an empty house and walk by an empty room where his brother used to sleep, and the room where their mom used to read them Beaver's favorite story. Dick had to feel, damn it, and he wasn't used to that. It wasn't in his character to be bothered by things. But this was his brother. His baby brother. Beaver lived a lie for a long time, and Dick didn't even know it. He didn't even guess. He just went about his life worrying about the surf and getting laid and now… Now he had to deal with the realness of what had happened. And it sucked.

Dick understood Pinocchio better now. He still thought the fairy was hot, and the whale part was cool (which he'd never admit), but he understood the point now. Pinocchio wanted to be a real boy so that he could breathe and dream and feel. Dick could feel now, that was for sure, but he couldn't really breathe, and his dreams… well, they were a bit more disturbing than they used to be. Sometimes he woke up crying. Now that had to stop. It just wasn't him. He used to be a wooden boy and now… he was real. Thanks to Cassidy. And no hot fairy to come to his aid and change him back. Shit.

God damn Pinocchio.