Oh, Sinnerman,

The burial was brief and clean. And sudden, but Clark’s brother had been such a well-liked young man, that it was no bother for folks to drop everything and attend.

After the ceremony an uncle from Topeka muttered: “So damn young.” and when his wife scolded him, said: “What? He can’t hear me from here.”

It took a moment for Clark to realize they were talking about the priest. At first, he thought the man had meant Eugene. He snorted. On his way back to the house, Clark passed the parked cars and the men propped up against them. They were smoking and cursing and gossiping.

“Goddamn railroads.”

“Goddamn railroads.”

“-- too cheap to put up some -- some signs, or fences, or something like --”

“Not even fourteen, you know that?”

"Lemme get one of them Marlboros, Lou."

“You wanna feel sorry? Boy. You feel sorry for the brother. He was right there when it happened.”

“Christ. I heard that too. Tried pulling him out of there, and just couldn't.”

"Lord."

Clark went inside.

There had been mourners in the den, earlier, and so he took care to be silent as he passed in the hallway. But it was empty. So Clark relaxed, and reached his room, and felt himself tighten up again when he saw the door was open.

Roy was sitting on Clark’s bed. His back was facing the doorway, so Clark could not see his face, but Roy was the only boy in five counties that had the body of a man, at only fourteen, and a back that fearsome and shoulders that broad and hardened. At the moment they were trembling like a child’s.

Clark stood cautiously in the doorway, watching. “Parents are waitin on you, Roy.”

Roy was quiet.

The wood beneath Clark’s hand was turning warm by the time he bit the bullet and said “Roy? Why’re you in my room?” Then he frowned, thinking that maybe he should have said that to begin with. “Parents’re waitin out front.”

“Eugene’s too.” The man-boy’s voice cracked for the first time in years. “It's Eugene’s room, too.”

“Yeah, well you’re parked on my bed.”

Roy went quiet again. His shoulders were shaking and caving, slowly, like steel girders. Clark decided it would be wise to clear him out.

“We all had a rough day, Roy.” His dress shoes clacked against the hardwood as he walked over, and patted the older boy on the back. “Go on, parents’re wai--”

In Roy’s big monster hands - all crumpled, and dirty - was the train schedule. His shoulders rose and fell a little faster under Clark’s palm until Clark took it away, slowly.

They sat quiet.

“What’s...” Roy’s throat backfired like a truck as he cleared it. “What’s this doin under your pillow.”

Clark’s mouth would not work right for him. It squirmed. He took a breath, to try and steady it. “Roy--”

Then his nose exploded into the parade glitter-and-gold of fresh pain, and his sight went liquid and useless as he crumpled back on the floor. It was like Roy had driven a railroad spike through his head.

“You killed him, didn’t you!”

The shriek sent another guncrack of pain through Clark. He had been clutching his face, shielding it, on raw, panicked instinct, but then pulled his hands away in time to watch the creature of a boy pounce and throttle his collar.

“You’re a murderer. A goddamn murderer.” Roy’s grizzly arm cocked back, way up high, glossy tears smeared across his cheeks and the backs of his fists. “Your own brother, your own brother and you murd--”

Roy flinched and reeled when the other boy spat full-on in his face.

His arm wilted.

Clark had just spat at him, spat full-on in his face.

He sat back and stared.

“Prove it,” Clark whispered, and licked his lips. They were wet with his own blood. “Prove it, you dumb son of a bitch.”

Roy looked down at the little brother of his best friend. There were a few family traits that they carried. A sharp nose. Rounded ears. But the most of him, most of Clark, did nothing to resemble Eugene. Absolutely nothing. Looking down at him, Roy thought that he did nothing to resemble even a person. His eyes were sharp and flat and plastic like fishing lures.

They sat quiet.

“Get off me, Roy.”

He did. Slowly. Clark found his feet and stood, watching the boy who was watching him. They sat quiet.

The younger boy uncrumpled himself, squaring his shoulders. His chin was high and red and his eyes were hard and oily. He licked his lips again.

“Parents’re waitin on you, Roy.”

The train schedule was still sitting on the bed. Clark glanced at it, and then looked back at Roy with a silent dare.

“I’m gonna go wash up, now.”

But he stayed for a moment. Still watching Roy. Still daring him to try and make a sound story from such a wild, whirlaway tale, to try and sound believable as the grief-addled best friend. He stared hard at Roy.

Then Clark turned and he left. He was not there to see Roy’s wet face, shaking back-and-forth-and-back, his lips curling up and mumbling “Won’t do you no good.”


((Okay, this is a strange one. Last October I scraped up a ~5000 word story detailing all the events up to this point, and left it alone at the end of Clark’s shoving his brother in front of a train. I thought "Hey, the ending's only gonna be 300 words or so. I can mop that up later." And I did!... just... with an extra 700 words or so. But I still did!... just... nine months later. Ahem.

Still, I really think it's better as a stand-alone, flash-fiction type deal. It’s pretty much the whole story run through a compactor. And therefore tastier. I was gonna take a pair of shears to those 5000, anyway.))