Brick stared up at the painting. His eyes fixed on the Garden, the Garden of Earthly Delights, smack in the center of the triptych. He had to crane his neck a long ways to see it, and realized that he had turned back into a child.

"You aren't looking at those naked people in the Garden, are you?" His momma asked, peering down at him with a suspicious brow raised.

He shook his head, no. He dimly understood what she meant- in the vague way that children were always aware of sex- and it embarrassed him. His face, already flushed by the heat belching woodstove, turned an even deeper shade of crimson.

"Liar," his momma said, the corner of her lip turning up in an amalgamation of a sneer and a smile. She ruffled his hair. "I saw you lookin'."

Brick, now an adult again, stood in a meadow. He knew it at once: the Garden.

Naked people played in the fields and lakes, all milky limbs and laughter, their voices tinkling like bells. Some rode animals, some rode each other, and they all looked gloriously happy. A nearby group investigated the inside of an enormous broken egg. Another ring of people huddled around a large fruit, worshiping it with greedy touches and hungry, red-ringed mouths. On closer inspection, Brick saw that the fruit was actually a beating heart.

He stumbled backward. The sensation of sliding came over him, but he bore down to keep his footing. Somehow he knew that if he didn't, he would be pitched into the past again.

One of the figures turned away from the heart to look at him. Its eyes were utterly human until they blinked, and when they opened, they had turned into lidded, silver disks...twin half-moons.

"Slip," it said. Although the being sat some distance away, its voice came from right beside Brick's ear, murmured into it like a lover. "The curve, son. Can you see the curve?"

Brick tried to argue with it, but his mouth didn't work.

"Slip."

He did.

A boy stood on Brick's doorstep, holding a plate of cookies thrust out in front of him like a ward against evil spirits. The cookies looked like the good kind, maybe chocolate chip. They bulged against the plastic wrap.

"My ma made these for your family," he said.

"That's nice of her," Brick said, and took the plate.

"Not really. She only did it 'cos your ma hasn't, and it's her way of letting her know she's disappointed. She thinks everyone should kiss ass with new neighbors. I'm Emmett, by the way."

"Oh." Brick said, and nothing else. He was silently furious at himself, at the deep blush that started across his chest and crept up his collarbone, and at his mouth which refused to produce any more words.

Mercifully, Emmett broke the silence. "I better go. I'm 'sposed to hurry back, and I stopped to take a piss already," he explained. "I missed your name."

"Maurice," he said, shocked to hear his real name fall out of his mouth. He never used it. Something about this freckled stranger's smile made it hard to think. "But everyone calls me Brick," he added quickly.

"Good to meet you, Brick." Emmett tipped up his frayed baseball cap. A mop of blond hair tumbled loose, and his ears popped free. Brick thought of that old cartoon, Dumbo, when the elephant sneezed and his huge ears flopped out from behind his back.

Brick laughed before he could stop himself. "Sorry," he said. "I was thinkin about something else."

Emmett grinned from ear to giant ear. "Don't fib. I know what you're looking at." He twitched his ears. Brick had never seen anyone do that before, and another laugh escaped him.

"That's amazing," he said.

"You think? You should see what I can do with my dick, then," Emmett joked obscenely.

At least, Brick was pretty sure it was a joke. His cheeks burned. "Uh..."

Emmett had already started down the steps but he turned around to look back at Brick. "If you wanna hang sometime, I'm your new neighbor. You know where that drunk bastard used to live, down the road a piece?"

Brick nodded.

"That was my uncle." He paused. "I better warn you. You might have to help with chores if you come by. We moved in two weeks ago, and the place still ain't clean."

"That's okay. It sounds fun," Brick said.

Emmett shrugged. "It's not, but it might be more fun with you. So I'll see you sometime?"

"Yeah," Brick said. He heard his momma's footsteps in the kitchen and he ducked inside, shutting the door behind him. He didn't know why, but it seemed important that his momma not find out about Emmett.

But he did know. It was because of the way he felt after talking to the foul-mouthed boy; how his pulse thundered in his ears, how his thoughts returned to the exchange over and over, like a tongue to a chipped tooth.

For the first time ever, Brick heard the Garden calling.

Now it shimmered back into existence around him.

Brick found himself standing in a round pool. Nude women waded around him, each with a bird roosting in her hair. When they saw Brick, they clutched each other and pointed, and he realized that he was naked, too. He tried to cover himself, but the women flocked to him with gentle lust. They pried his hands away and kissed his lips, and ran their delicate fingers over his body. He closed his eyes.

"I can't," he said. "I'm..."

"Sick?" One of them asked. Her voice came out as a loon's mournful song, but he understood.

"...Gay."

She quacked her amusement. "Same thing, but that's alright. Look."

Brick didn't want to, but he opened his eyes.

Only one figure remained in the pool- a young man. Brick knew him at once. He recognized the constellation of freckles across the boy's nose, the ears that still stuck out too far from his head, and the crooked grin that made Brick's heart lurch painfully, even though he knew he was dreaming.

"Emmett?" he asked, as if he didn't know.

The young man didn't reply, but stepped closer to wrap his arms around Brick's waist.

Brick smelled the hay sticking out of Emmett's hair, could see every freckle on his shoulders. Impossible. The green-eyed boy looked up. Brick bent to kiss him, aching all the way down to his bones.

When their lips met, Emmett suddenly had none. Only bare, gray teeth, his crooked grin transformed into a skull's grimace. Brick staggered back. The young man's skeleton collapsed into the pool, bone by bone, shattering the moon's reflection.

Brick and Emmett walked side by side down a dirt road, close enough that their knuckles brushed. Amanda whistled as she skipped ahead of them. Brick had recently taught her how, and she was making him regret it by constantly whistling the theme from that old movie, the Lawbringer. She gripped a plastic toy pistol in each hand.

"Your sister is cute," Emmett said, leaning against the fence when they stopped for Amanda to pet a neighbor's dog.

"Yeah, she's great," Brick agreed.

"I got an older sister. She lives in our old place. My folks think they kicked her out, but can you call it that if we're the ones who moved, and she's gotta send us money for food?"

Brick shrugged. "Why'd they kick her out?"

"She's got a girlfriend. Not a friend who's a girl, but the other kind."

"Like...gay?"

"Yeah," Emmett said, as though it wasn't damning evidence.

"That's cool," he said after a conspicuous pause. "My momma got kicked out of her house for marrying my daddy."

"Her folks are bigoted assholes too, huh?" Emmett asked.

Brick must have looked confused, because the other boy seemed embarrassed and cleared his throat.

"Uh...It was because your daddy is black, right?" he asked.

"N-no. I mean, I don't think so," Brick stammered.

"Aw, hell. I saw your daddy the other day, an I just guessed. It seems like a lot of folks around here are...never mind. Sorry."

"Nah, it's fine. My momma was young, is all. She dropped outta school when she got pregnant with me. I guess her parents wanted somethin different."

Emmett snorted. "Don't they always?"

A breeze swept by and cut the oppressive summer heat, pleasantly chilling the sweat on Brick's neck. The dry grass rattled behind them. It was high summer, brushfire weather. Frogs bleated lethargically from their hiding places.

Brick stared at the dusty ground, at his own bare feet beside Emmett's busted up sneakers. It occurred to him that both of their families were poor. Brick rarely thought about money, because nobody in their small farming town had enough of it to bother.

He hadn't noticed the other kids coming down the road. Now he heard their voices and boisterous laughter- harsh, like a pack of barking dogs- and looked up.

"Hey, it's Brick," one boy said.

Brick wanted to get away, but there was nowhere to go on the singular stretch of dirt road. The group of boys would have to go by them.

"Friends?" Emmett asked.

Brick shook his head.

A tall boy sauntered up to them, hands stuffed in his pockets. "Ain't seen you in awhile, Brick. You been staying home, servicing your ma? Nah. You'd be taking care of your daddy's cock, right?" He crowed a laugh at his own joke, and the other kids cackled along with him.

Brick's face burned, and he knew he'd be bright red. He wished, not for the first time, that he'd inherited more of his daddy's complexion, so he wouldn't show every blush so plainly. The sight of blood in his cheeks always seemed to rile his bullies worse, baited like sharks to chum.

Emmett scowled. "You think so? 'cos I saw him slippin' out your momma's window last night."

The tall boy snarled. "Emmett, right? I heard about your family. Heard about your sister, too." He formed a V with his fingers and waggled his tongue through the parted digits.

"Don't talk about my sister, you son of a-"

"Hey!" Amanda yelled, brandishing her twin pistols. She waved them menacingly. "Leave my brother an' his friend alone!"

Brick's heart leaped into his throat. He thought the boys wouldn't hurt a four-year old girl, but he remembered the frogs, and wasn't so sure. "I'm fine, Mandy. We were just talkin."

She remained unconvinced, her young face twisted by a scowl, her toy guns raised toward the bullies. Her eyes flicked between them. "Six o' you against us three. That ain't fair."

"Yeah?" the tall boy said, leering down at her. "More like two and a half."

"I can fight. I got my girls," she said, waving the guns. "You wanna duel, one on one?"

"Shoot, nah," the boy said, laughing. He looked at Brick. "I like your sister. She's not a yellow-bellied bitch like you. I ain't gonna start nothin in front of her, neither, so you're lucky."

He reached out, and Brick flinched, thinking that he was going to slug him after all. But the blow never came. Instead, the boy's hand rested on Brick's shoulder. The gesture might have been friendly some other time, from someone else, but it made Brick feel clammy and sick.

"Next time," the tall boy promised.

"You better bring more guys then, shit stain," Emmett retorted. Thankfully, the other boy didn't take the bait. He only shoved Brick back against the fence and stepped away.

Amanda holstered her pistols, glaring at the boy when he ruffled her hair on his way by. Brick lurched forward to grab her hand.

"Don't mess with those guys, okay? They're not nice." Brick said.

"I'll be fine," Amanda said. "I got the law on my side."

Something monstrous thumbed through Brick's mind. It flipped ahead.

Brick sneezed. The strong, seedy smell of hay made his head swim, and Emmett's constant chatter lulled him into a pleasant working rhythm. A shovelful at a time, he shifted hay from one side of the loft to the other. He hadn't been listening to Emmett for awhile.

"Maurice!"

Brick blinked. "What? Why'd you use my real name?"

"To get your attention, dummy. I was trying to tell you about the game last night. You said you missed it."

"I don't really watch baseball," Brick admitted.

Emmett sat up from the nest he'd built around himself. Although it was his family's barn, he'd stopped for a break nearly an hour ago and never resumed work. Instead he'd sprawled out in the hay and chatted with Brick- or chatted to him, anyway.

Brick didn't mind. He liked Emmett's voice.

"So you weren't listening?"

"Not really," Brick said, and grinned. He dropped the shovel. It clattered against the old boards, disturbing the birds in the barn's rafters. They flapped and bickered, and one of them shit, missing Brick by mere inches.

Emmett grinned back. "Come take a break with me."

Brick crossed the barn and flopped down in the hay beside his friend, close enough that his right knee touched Emmett's left. A strip of light fell through the window, across the floorboards and over the blond boy's legs and stomach. Brick saw his shirt riding up, revealing the faint suggestion of muscle around his navel.

He was about to look away, but a pale mark above the boy's hip caught his eye: a long, curved scar. Emmett noticed his gaze.

"I'm supposed to say I fell out of a tree," he explained, pulling his shirt down.

"You didn't?"

"No."

Brick touched one of his own scars, the deep nick in his forehead that ran along the hairline. His momma had carved it out with her wedding ring.

"Did you fall out of a tree, too?" Emmett asked.

"Yeah," Brick said. He laughed, even though it wasn't funny.

Emmett didn't say anything for a moment, just stared at him solemnly. It was the longest silence between them all day.

Brick was just about to break that silence when Emmett surged forward, eyes scrunched closed, and kissed him.

Brick stood alone, back in the Garden.

He recognized the absurd scene around him, knew it like the face of an old friend. The duck feeding berries to a prone person, the man pulling a bouquet of flowers out of another man's ass, and the two people copulating inside a clam-shell while another carried them on his back. Even the bewildering depravity of the Garden was a welcome change after being forced to relive the past. Even the good memories hurt.

Because I know what happens, Brick thought. He knew what would come next, and was desperate to avoid it. Please, not again.

The figures turned to him as if he'd spoken aloud. "Stay," they said, speaking all at once, their voices melding together. "Stay in the kingdom of man, and take your pleasures here."

"No. I gotta wake up now."

The figures parted, and Emmett stepped through them. He was alive again, and more naked than Brick had ever seen him. His bare skin seemed to glow.

"Come take a break with me," Emmett said. The voice was his alone, and it made Brick feel like crying.

"I can't."

"Why?"

Brick tried to remember. Two faces floated out of the darkness of his confusion- one light, the other dark. "The girls need me."

Emmett closed his eyes, and when they opened again, they had become silver moons. A titanic laugh rumbled through the Garden. It reminded Brick of the constructor's call, bellowing with a force that shook the ground, making him stumble.

One more time, he fell.

Brick's consciousness burst forth as his animal fled, leaving him exposed. He didn't know where he was. Steam filled his lungs, trying to warm him from the inside out, but wasn't able to. He shivered violently.

He opened his eyes and found himself in the shower. Alarm thrilled through him when he realized that the spigot had been turned, that the normally unused shower-head sprayed warm water over his naked, shuddering frame. They weren't allowed to use the shower. They couldn't afford it. Once a week his momma filled the tub and the family would take turns bathing, and Brick was always the last, after the water had gone murky and cold.

But now the shower spit warm water over his freezing skin, and it might have felt good if he wasn't so scared and confused. A coppery smell filled his nose. He finally saw the bottom of the tub, saw the blood rushing down the drain, slaking off him in sheets.

A startled squawk burst from him, and someone shifted outside the curtains.

"You're back," the person said. Brick could see a silhouette through the thin curtain, the straight posture and hooked nose, just like his own. It was his momma. "Thought the devil had you for good this time."

"What happened?" he asked, his own voice sounding distant in his ears.

"You really done it this time, baby. But I took care of everything. No one'll find out, even if they come looking. I made sure. I'm your momma, and you might belong to the devil, but it's my job to protect you," she said. Brick thought she sounded like she was trying to convince herself when she repeated, "It's my job."

"What, momma? What did I do?"

"You killed him. Killed that neighbor boy."

Brick remembered it instantly. Not all of it, not the parts after his animal took over, but about the argument with Emmett. He'd wanted Brick to run away with him, wanted to move in with his sister. As usual, he had been a stubborn, impulsive asshole. It was what Brick liked about him. What he usually liked about him.

But Brick hadn't wanted to go. As much as he hated some things in his life, he loved other parts. He loved playing gunslinger with his sister and working the farm with his daddy, and even loved his momma, the way every boy loves his mother, long after she'd given him enough reason not to. Long after she'd given him enough scars.

Now she gave him another one in that low, gentle voice. "I heard him screaming, and I came running, but Brick, baby...I was too late."

He looked down at the floor of the tub, at the blood, and his stomach flipped.

"No," he said.

But he believed her. He'd nearly killed before, but those had been the other boys, the bullies, and they'd lived. They'd always lived.

His momma pulled the curtain aside. He wasn't embarrassed to be naked in front of her. She must have stripped him, after all, and gotten him into the tub, and he was too upset to care anyways. He felt like a boy standing on the precipice of a yawning pit.

"Yes," she said. "I dragged him to the cellar. Nobody will find him."

Someone had bruised her eye, and Brick had a pretty good idea who. His knuckles felt raw. He'd been hurt in several places, wounds like burning brands under the water. An especially bad cut on across his lip was still bleeding, pulsing wells of crimson with every heartbeat.

"Did he fight?" he said, not knowing why he asked.

"Some. I think I hurt you worse, though. You didn't come easy."

Brick began to cry, enormous tears that rolled down his cheeks, and buried his face in his momma's shoulder, folding his arms around her. She returned the embrace and held him. Brick was dimly surprised that she allowed it.

"I'm sorry, momma."

"Shhh, baby. Shhh."

Brick wondered if Emmett would go to heaven. After years of staring at the painting in the kitchen, he wasn't even sure that he believed in a heaven. There was no panel depicting it: only Eden, the Garden and Hell. But for good people like Emmett, there had to be. He deserved to go somewhere good after what Brick had done to him.

"Can we pray?" he asked, mumbling the words against his momma's shoulder. "I wanna pray for Emmett."

"No. God doesn't want to hear about that boy." Her words, which had been so soft, suddenly turned hard. They rattled in Brick's ears like pitted stones. "He doesn't want to hear from you, either. I'd like Him to forget about you."

Brick was too sick and sad to argue. He would worry about it later; long nights he'd lay awake and think about Emmett, and wonder if he'd gone to some kind of better place, and if Brick might be able to glimpse him from his own spot in Hell. He'd even wonder, briefly, if he hadn't killed the boy at all. His momma might have done it herself, and it wouldn't be surprising.

But in his gut, he knew that she hadn't.

Someone was praying. His momma had told him not to, but he could hear it, faintly, over the hissing water. It seemed to come from miles away.

Now I lay me down to sleep...