Collecting Dust

Excerpt from

He nearly didn’t recognize the man seated at the breakfast table. He’d always thought of Dad as imposing—a man who filled a suit the way Clark Kent did. Here instead was a man who might have collapsed and blown away in a good wind: hair receding, a face so sharp it might have belonged in a comic. He could almost see the penciller’s work.

As though he hadn’t had the energy to undress last night, Dad wore a stiff white shirt and a tie.

"Hi, Tommy," he said. "How’s my boy?"

"You’re dressed."

"Well, your mother doesn’t like it when I come naked to breakfast." He winked, as if a joke could smooth everything.

"No, you’re dressed for work."

"I have to go in. Finish what I couldn’t yesterday."

"But you didn’t get home ’til eleven!"

Mom interjected, "What were you doing awake at eleven, young man?"

"No, it’s all right, it’s okay," said Dad. "He doesn’t understand. See, son, it’s almost time for the quarterly report. And even though it’s sure to show a profit—it always does—there are bound to be some cutbacks. Layoffs. Got to increase those profits any way we can. You don’t want me to lose my job, do you?" The way he emphasized "my" made Mom blush and turn away.

Thomas barely withheld his response. They’d been down this road before. If he said what he felt—that it would be an excellent thing for his father to lose his job—he would just suffer the longer version of the "dog-eat-dog, cut-throat-job-market world" report: It was practically all he’d heard while Mom was out of work. Instead, he grabbed the Cheerios box and started pouring.

Dad leaned in closer, touched his hand. He twitched a little, put down the cereal and stared at the light streak of dust leading across the wood veneer tabletop; at the trace of it like baby powder on his wrist now. "Tommy, I’m sorry I can’t be here for your softball game. I know you’ll do fine."

"What are you talking about?"

"Why, your Saturday game. I know that’s why you’re upset, son."

"There’s no game."

"Well, was it cancelled?"

"There wasn’t any game."

Dad’s mouth worked as if he was trying to get at something caught in his teeth. He looked to Mom for help, then at the calendar on the refrigerator. "But it’s scheduled right there." He pointed. Dust sprinkled lightly down from his sleeve.

Thomas didn’t even turn around. "The team died," he said. "We all quit. Okay? Nobody was showing up regularly anyway, and the dads who coached kept making excuses why they couldn’t come, and everybody kept forfeiting games, so we just quit."

Dad looked at his empty bowl for a moment, then quietly pushed back his chair and walked out.

A few minutes later, with his suitcoat hanging loose upon his frame, he slunk past the kitchen and out of the house altogether.

Mom went after him. She came back as the car started up.

Thomas didn’t look up at her, but ate his cereal attentively. He could feel the crunch of every bite through his skull. He focused on the fake grain in the table, as if by staring very hard he could blend into it and become invisible.

Mom sat beside him. "Tom, why didn’t you tell us?"

He set down his spoon. "Tell you what?"

"About softball?"

"There’s nothing to say." He wanted to leave, but she wouldn’t let him.

"But why didn’t you tell us?" she repeated.

"Why would I? I haven’t had a practice or a game in a month. It had nothing to do with you."

She looked like she might start to cry. He almost hoped she would. Finally she got up and left the table.

His sister came down quietly. Her radar attuned to the emotional pitch in the room, she glanced around, trading a portentous look with him, then slipped past the kitchen and was gone. On her way to meet the zombie-herd, he supposed.

He got his jar and swept up the dust Dad had left. He was glad at least that Dad always sat in the same chair at the table. A little order was helpful now and then.

The jar was full. He placed it in the closet, on the shelf beside two others, then pushed his clothes in place to hide them. He had no idea how many jars it would take, or what would happen when he was finished. Somebody had to hold everything together, and nobody else was going to do it.

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from White of the Moon: New Tales of Madness and Dread, edited by Stephen Jones.

Available in the collection ATTACK OF THE JAZZ GIANTS & OTHER STORIES