The Dragonfly Lure
Marcus took modest pride in the fact that his face looked like that of a mole rat. It was a face that only a mother could love, but truth be told, even his mother found it disgusting how he walked around with yellowish, worm-like entrails swaying above his upper lip, or sometimes, when he was breathing hard, peeking in and out of his nostrils.
“That cat was cute,” he said, wiping his face with his shirtsleeve.
A forest fire raging in the hills near the edge of town made the sky a supernatural cocktail of blood orange and rhubarb. The smoky, acrid smelling air made him wheeze and feel light-headed.
“I thought the rat was cute too,” Parker said. He was eleven, one year older than Marcus, and had nearly transparent skin and hair, and deep-set, eerily pale blue eyes.
Marcus and Parker—or Mukey and Pukey, as everyone called them—walked with uncharacteristic solemnity down the front steps of Eddy and Bug’s house. Eddy and Bug were twins with laser beam eyes and tufted unibrows who lived near the lake, next to the sawmill at the other end of Mukey and Pukey’s street.
“That wasn’t just disgusting, it was evil,” Mukey said.
“Hm. Yeah, they kinda crossed a line.”
It took a lot for Pukey to say a line had been crossed. Mukey knew; they’d spent all their free time together since before they could talk, taking apart almost everything they came across including, occasionally, living things.
“I’m never going to back to Eddy and Bug’s,” Mukey said. He shook his head, and jellyfish-like globs from his nose dangled back and forth as if to emphasize his point.
Pukey turned away, his naturally sad-shaped eyes looking sadder than usual. Mukey knew he was contemplating the bleakness of an Eddy-and-Bug-less summer.
“We’ll find stuff to do without them,” Mukey said.
Pukey looked doubtful.
Mukey poked him. They’d known each other all their lives, and Mukey couldn’t remember them ever really disagreeing about anything.
Pukey said nothing, just walked on, looking down. A chill ran up Mukey’s back. Raucous rat death-squeaks were on replay in his mind.
“They’re losers,” Mukey said.
“Yeah maybe,” Pukey said, a little reluctantly. “Even the flying saucer wasn’t so great.”
“Whad’ya mean? That was awesome!”
Earlier in the day they’d built a flying saucer in the front yard out of painted boxes and scrap metal. Mukey had admired how the twins knew what their dad’s tools were called, and how to use them.
“My dad says aliens are too far away to reach us by spacecraft,” Pukey said. “They’ll contact us through other dimensions we’re not attuned to.”
Mukey wished his own dad talked to him about stuff like that.
It was a long street with large oaks and modest 1940s homes at the edge of an industrial zone. It was a half hour walk from Eddy and Bug’s to Mukey and Pukey’s homes, which were next door to each other. Mukey couldn’t stop thinking about the torture he’d witnessed that afternoon, sometimes from the point of view of the pets themselves, sometimes from the point of view of their owners. He imagined the looks of disgust he’d get if his sister ever found out he’d been there and done nothing to stop it.
As they passed the decrepit Okawee Metal Fabrication Company, they scanned the muddy patch of lawn for interesting scraps of metal. In winter, the almost century-old foundry was encircled by icicles hanging halfway to the ground which, when they were younger, they used to pull off and use as swords or batons or magic wands. But now, in the early summer heat, its rickety doors and windows were thrust open. White-hot light sprayed from its depths with the same intensity as the crazed look in the eyes of the cat the instant before it died.
Months later, a flashback of these eyes would launch Mukey like a projectile doomed in its mission to separate the force of life from the force of destruction, and he would collapse, splayed out like tangled fishing line, knowing that his sister was wrong about why blood was jetting from his gouged forehead and streaming in rivulets down his face.
The next day, Mukey was sitting on the front step, when and his dad drove up. Mukey ran toward the truck, elated. There was a new ding on the driver’s side. When he saw his dad’s frown he stopped running. Had someone told him about the missing pets?
“Hi Mukey,” his dad said, giving him an absentminded hug. “Just picking up some stuff.”
Mukey was relieved he wasn’t in for a lecture. But he felt worried. He’d known for weeks that his dad was moving out, but it didn’t seem real. His dad glanced around the yard as he trudged up the walkway. A few minutes later, he emerged from the house with a suitcase in one hand, a beer in the other, and the painting of a fishing ship that had sat on the mantle under his arm.
“I like that painting,” Mukey said.
“You’ll see it again. At my new place, when I get it fixed up.”
“You’re going now? For good?”
“First I’m gonna drive around the alley to get some stuff from the garage.”
Mukey had the strange sensation of living a moment he would remember all his life.
“Can I come?”
“Why not.”
His father drove recklessly up the alley behind their backyard, beer between his legs, his bony, weathered hands slightly shaking. Mukey sensed that his dad was seeing the neighborhood from the point of view of someone who no longer lived there.
He ran over a pink bicycle. “God damn!” he said, swerving, and then hit someone’s garage door.
Mukey noticed there was now a dent in the garage door. By the time they approached their own garage, Mukey was clutching the door handle so hard his hand ached.
His dad put the hand drill and circular saw into the station wagon. Tools, car jack, shovels, pails, wheelbarrow, lumber, chicken wire… all kinds of fascinating stuff was hoisted from dark recesses of the garage and tossed into the truck. Mukey wanted to help, or do something dramatic to get his dad’s attention, but the sight of the garage being stripped of his Dad’s stuff was oddly paralyzing.
“I thought… you could show me how to use this some time,” Mukey said, picking up the hacksaw by its blade. “Oww!” he yelped under his breath, and dropped it back on the bench.
“Careful, son.” Mukey’s dad put the hacksaw into the truck, and other things Mukey didn’t know the names of.
“Here,” his dad said. “You should have this.” He held out a rusty metal box.
Mukey took the box and opened the lid. It was filled with intriguing gizmos and shiny, intricate insect-like objects. He looked up at his dad and beamed with gratitude, feeling as if after weeks of rain the sun had come out.
“It’s a tackle box. I have two. This one belonged to Grampa. See—lures, flies, weights, hooks. Some single barbed, some double barbed. They catch different fish.”
“Thanks!” Mukey said, examining its contents. There was a shiny orange minnow that he found appealing. But his favorite lure was an iridescent dragonfly with sapphire-blue wings and a needle-sharp hook. He wished his dad would show him how to attach a lure but this wasn’t the right time to ask. His dad was already pushing a dingy rolled up carpet deeper into the truck so he could shut the tailgate.
He swatted it shut. Mukey ran to his dad and found himself clinging to him as if to a life preserver out at sea.
“So long, son.” His dad hugged him, and then pried him off gently.
Mukey turned away, embarrassed, not wanting his dad to see his tears.
It wasn’t until his dad drove away that Mukey saw blood gushing down his hand. He was surprised and a little hurt that his dad hadn’t noticed. He went inside, washed his hand, and placed the tackle box on his bedroom dresser. That night he woke up and the moon was shining through the window on it.
