I only saw his father beat him once, but that was by far enough. He would run away a lot, andI would ask him if it was because he was getting beat, but he always said no, that was the only time.I don't know if Ibelieved him, but he would come over sometimes after school, wearing his Banana Republic khakis and nice shirt, and he wouldn't worry about going home. Sometimes he'd rush home, say something like how he can't miss what was on TV or he wants to get to the leftover desserts before his sisters. We didn't do much at my house. He was the one who had the pool, but it was mostly cold during school months, they'd close it in September. He told me once that he liked my house because it was falling apart. He liked the wood floor torn apart from the Snubbull's nails, un-lacquered and bare. That was from the old one we had, the dog that died too young and made me see my dad cry for the only time in my life when he refused to leave his side on his last night. We've always meant to redo the floors in the ruined areas, but it never happened. Even when we sold the house 8 years later, the wood was still ripped to pieces in some areas.

We drank in the grassland, by the Moomoo Milk farm, and got mosquito bites on our eyelids. He was always concerned about something. I was never concerned about anything. He would run through the grass and wheeze. I would sit there and hope he passes out from an asthma attack. We had shoes on, but we would always find grass between our toes when we got back. It was like we couldn't escape it. It might as well have followed us for the rest of our lives.

I remember us being in my laundry room one afternoon, him sitting on the washer while I dug around for the soda we kept in there.

"You know, all of this is fake." He started kicking his legs while he talked. "My ma said that I'm going to hell, but Idon't care. Let me go. Iwant to see what happens. Hopefully my dad will be down there, too. I'll kick his ass."

During the summer, we sat in the grocery store parking lot sharing a tub of ice cream. We were in his part of town, there was no one out on a Wednesday night. At least, no one walking around. Now and then, a car would drive by. He would make jokes about how fast of slow they were going, though he wasn't the best driver himself.I dropped my spoon and he picked it up, licked it clean, and handed it back to me. He was like that. It wasn't hot outside, but the humidity was high. The ice cream made us thirsty, but neither of us wanted to go back into the store. Iswore Iheard something, really far away. Faint music, maybe coming from a bar a few blocks down. I was wrong. It was Wednesday. I stopped eating to look over at the stoplight.I didn't know how they worked late at night when there were no cars. Did they turn off until 6 or 7am? Or go all night? When I turned my head, I saw his little sister running down the street. They didn't look all too alike. If you squint, maybe, but all that really stuck out were their high cheeks and pointy chins.

"Eusine, it's 1:45." Her little pink nightgown was way too short on her, but no one would touch a kid on this side of town. Her feet were black from dirt, she never wore shoes and her feet were covered in callouses that her mom would try to file down at least once a week. "Momma said she's locking the screen door at 2. I don't want you to get locked out again." This late at night, she seemed so much younger than she actually was. There was the same age difference between her and her brother than my sister and I. Except she was four years younger, my sister's four years older.

She grabbed his hand and pulled him. I watched them both run down the street as I sat there alone. Iheard their faint laughter.

Everyone thought his mom was a babe. She did hair out of their basement on the weekends, and worked weeknights at this spa down by the mall. Rumor has it that they wouldn't fix bad haircuts that women gave themselves. They'd send those choppy-hair women down a few blocks to the discount salon that didn't assume you would typically want your hair washed before you got it cut. She looked exactly like you'd think. Long fake nails, giant knockers always hanging out of her too tight Zebstrika print shirts, red lipstick and a beauty mark by her left eye. She took a cigarette break ever half hour. She never smoked in their house, though. Isaw her standing on the balcony a few times in nothing but a robe, hanging her head low and holding a cigarette up between two fingers. She made us sandwiches on white bread sometimes. There was always too much mayo, but I never said anything. I think she always had fun making those sandwiches. It made her feel like a real mom. The drinking would start when her husband came home. If I was over, I'd always try to leave by then. He would walk in the door with his briefcase and nod at me.

"Seeing my son again, hm?" He had a small burn scar on his neck that I always tried not to stare at. "Is my whore of a wife home? I want to see her in that new lingerie I got her last week." Years later when I would go over there for Christmas, his dad was still as awful as ever. He never liked me, but he didn't need to. I would keep fantasizing about his son, even if he said he'd kill me.

Eusine had this car. It was a 1990 Honda of some sort. He bought it from the old lady that lived down the street from him for $400. Even that price was too high for what he got. She should have just given it to him. It was a two-door, had to fold down the passenger seat to crawl in the back. He always gave me shotgun privileges. He had one cup holder filled with marbles, and the other with mayo packets. I always hoped he never used those mayo packets, especially in the summer. He held his drinks between his legs while he drove. If he didn't have all that shit in the cup holders, he wouldn't have been spilling all over.

"Iwant to go to the east coast of Kanto" His hands looked like they were gonna rip the steering wheel right off the dashboard. He didn't look at me. He just kept looking forward.

"You're stupid."His car wouldn't make it. He was talking about a 23 hour drive, here.

"I know." We were on a country road somewhere. The only lights were coming from his car. The radio didn't work. He was singing under his breath. The dim green lights coming from the odometer hit his face. He was an angel.

He cried before, but he never cried as hard as he did when he hit that Stantler, and the marbles in the cup holder went flying at the windshield, cracking snowflakes in it, and the body rolled over the hood onto the roof, and our arms were covered in glass, our cheeks scraped. We were okay, the Stantler was dead, but he wailed. He bashed his head against the steering wheel as it beeped, his tears mixed with the little bit of blood on his cheeks. The car was still running. He was lucky. I got out of the car to look at the poor thing. It was small, practically a baby. Bones were poking out of its back and its neck was twisted. It wasn't as big as it felt when we hit it. I wanted to drag it to the river and push it in, but I heard him calling my name through his sobs, so I got back in the car, and he drove home, barely able to see through the broken windshield and his own puffy eyes.

His legs were almost completely unmarked. Not a single bruise or cut, just clean, perfect skin. It was a weird thing to notice. When I worked delivering pizzas, there was this one old lady I would deliver to once every week. I told her about his legs. I think she was a witch. Her hair was wild and gray and she wore elaborate beaded dresses she said that she got from her travels to regions I've never even heard of. Her house smelled like coriander and roses, and her skin like cocoa and lavender. There were candles everywhere. I never stayed to long while I was on the job, but I would visit her off the job too, and we would dance to her records on her old shag carpet that was falling apart beneath our feet. And drink the sweetest tea I've ever had, that she mixed with dried Crawdaunt claws instead of a spoon.

"To even out the flavor." She would bang the hollow claw on the side of the cup and boy, did it sound brittle, but it never cracked. I never knew if she used the same claws every time, or if they were always new ones. I never dared to ask.

"Those perfect legs, yeah? They have their flaws too, as bad as your own ratty legs." She never made eye contact when she talked, so to be polite, I never did, either. "You're gonna find something wrong with them one day, you hear? And when you do, you won't tell anyone about it. Not a soul. You keep it to yourself, that's what you know. That's your own, your own."

16 days later, lying on my living room floor under the fan, on one of the hottest days of the year, I saw a birthmark behind the bend of his knee. I grit my teeth until I felt like they were gonna break.

His littlest sister would make her dolls kiss.

"They're in love. They're gonna get married. I want to marry a girl in my class, but momma says I can't do that." She handed me one of the dolls. She was plain, had brown hair and pink lipstick carefully painted on. "Brush her hair, Morty, but be gentle. Brushing knots hurts her." I sat there and made her hair as smooth as I could. I wanted her to look good for her date. He came into the room and pulled me up by my hood.

"Come on, let's go get some food before I keel over."

We would go out to eat, and I would pretend, in the way back of my head, that we were on a date, our chins covered in gyro sauce.

It took 20 minutes to drive out to the nearby grassland. He said he wanted to look for small Pokemon, though he had no idea what even lived there besides bugs. It was the kind of long, rough grass that hurt your ankles. No one would even dare not to wear shoes. There were probably Ekans in there, anyway, though we never saw any when we drank. Gotta watch where you step. I sat on the hood of his car as he stood and squinted into the sun.

"Yeah, yeah I feel like this is gonna be a good one today."

"A good what?" I started kicking my legs back and forth.

"Good day for rats."

I never replied. I just sat there and watched him take a long stick and hit some of the grass with it, mumbling.

"You mind?" After about 5 minutes, he turned to me, his shirt half lifted up.

"Do shirts scare away the rats?"

"Hell yeah." He pulled it all the way off and threw it by my feet. "I need to be a rat-hunting professional about this. Don't care if they're Rattata or Raticate, just gotta find them." He kicked his shoes off, after. The sun was starting to set. All the long, scratchy grass looked like wheat. With nothing but rolled up jeans, he ran into the field. He ran, and ran, and ran, until I swear he was just a speck in my vision. I wanted to watch him run forever. I wanted to see him catch a rat with his bare hands, and scream my name. I wanted him to put the rat in my lap, and tell me he loves me.

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