Read The Safety of Objects: Stories for Free Online

shoulder and I thought he was going to push me away and say get lost or something. I thought he might crack my head against the wall.
    “Are you feeling better, Johnny? Are you ready to go fishing? Do you have a fever?” He pressed his hand up to my forehead, held his palm there for a minute, and then flipped his hand over so that the back side was against my head. I felt his knuckles digging into the thin crevice in the middle of my forehead. “It’s gone,” he said, taking his hand away and walking farther down the hall.
    When his hand was off my head I could still feel the knuckles in that small crack in my skull. I thought about how I’d always figured that gap was a sort of structural deformity. I didn’t know it was normal. I thought it was something that could start moving, an earthquake of the mind. I thought the two halves might separate and split my head open. I thought the gap could close and force my brain out through my ears. It always seemed that if anything happened to that place, I’d end up the same as Rayanne. It was like a warning that something could go wrong and I’d be just like my sister. I rubbed my forehead, letting my fingers dip into that place. I rubbed and wished Randy hadn’t touched me there.
    “Hey, Johnny, is it time for medicine?”
    “I’m fine,” I said.
    “It’s good for you, come on.” Randy held out the bottle. His fingers were wrapped around the label. He unscrewed the top and took a small swig, swished it around in his mouth, and swallowed. I shook my head. “I’m not about to force you. That’s not what I’m about.” He recapped the bottle and put it down on the ledge above the sink. “My mother used to dose us sometimes. Sometimes at night she’d want us asleep and we’d still be going full speed, and she’d come into the bedroom, hold my nose until my mouth opened, and pour stuff down me; sometimes it was brandy, sometimes I didn’t know what it was. She always did it to me and not to my brother because he had asthma real bad and she didn’t want to mess him up.” He paused. “Are you hungry?” I shrugged. Randy opened the refrigerator. “A Fig Newton might work. I’m not a cookie person, but Fig Newtons aren’t really cookies, they’re more of a medical food, you know? There’s milk in here too. There you go, Johnny.” He handed me the cartons.
    “I still want to call my mom.”
    “No phone.”
    “She’s probably wondering where I am.”
    “No she’s not, Johnny. She knows you’re with me. I told you that yesterday.”
    “But aren’t I supposed to go home soon? And why don’t you have a phone? Everyone has a phone. It’s probably illegal not to have one.”
    “Don’t talk law and order to me. Everyone has a phone and a television, and every other one has a video recorder and a washing machine. And then they have microwave ovens. It doesn’t mean they’re smart. Start collecting things and you get in trouble. You start thinking that you care about the stuff and you forget that it’s things, man-made things. It gets like it’s a part of you and then it’s gone and you feel like you’re gone also. When you have stuff and then you don’t, it’s like you’ve disappeared.”
    “You have empty bottles in rows all around your room,” I said.
    “Empties aren’t stuff. What are you, stupid?”
    “I’m not stupid.”
    “Keep it that way,” Randy said, and then he walked away and I heard the slap of the screen door.
    *  *  *
    I walked from room to room eating Fig Newtons and drinking milk straight from the carton. I remember thinking it was great that no one was making me pour it into a glass. The rest of the house wasn’t much, just a living room with a busted-up sofa and a green chair made out of the same stuff as car seats, the stuff your legs stick to on summer days. I sat down on the sofa and then had to move over to save myself from one of those springs that you can’t see but all of the sudden pops through and stabs