The army trucks, with their ration packages and bottles of water, stop coming.
The sky is a curdled yellow color. It seems like most of our neighbors have gone on vacation, or died or disappeared or moved away, or something.
We seem to be losing.
The silence is deafening.
In December Eliott and Pat break into some houses at night, looking for food. An army patrol brings them back. If they do something like this again, they will be taken away for good.
“Taken away where?” I say. No one will tell me.
My father has a dark look all the time now, as if a black mildew is growing and spreading on him.
“Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, to get out of this shithole,” says Pat. But he and Eliott stay in at night.
There is nothing to eat. My mother has scoured the house. She tries making us a salad of grass and things. It makes me throw up.
I find a bottle of Flintstones chewable vitamins in the back of my drawer. I don’t want to share. I eat a whole handful and it gives me a horrible stomachache.
My legs are nice and thin now. And my bones stick out of my face in a nice way. I look like the models in the magazines. I know this because I spend a lot of time in my room now, looking in the mirror. I don’t want to be with my parents, or Pat or Eliott, so I sit with the mirror to keep me company. The mirror behaves. We have conversations. Sometimes if I squint really hard into the mirror, I can see Marjorie there, in the mirror room, smiling at me.
I’ve been writing things down in my diary, month after month. I’m beginning to lose track of the days. They all run together. I remember when every day was different: Monday was music day at school; Wednesday I had piano lessons; Friday I went to Marjorie’s house. Now they are all the same.
Sometimes I look in my closet and it surprises me to see all the clothes hanging there. Now I always wear the same shirt, and some pants all bunched up with a belt. There’s no reason to change. I remember my mother used to yell at me to put on clean underpants every day. Now they are all dirty and she is too tired to yell.
Every day I go downstairs and sit on the porch. Prince is still curled up there, shivering in the cold. My dad won’t let him in the house. And Prince won’t leave, even though we can’t feed him anymore.
He loves me. I can see this in his soft brown eyes.
I scratch him and sing to him. His fur is loose and baggy on him. I tell him secrets. Sometimes I pretend he is Rick Dees and we are on a fashionable date in his fancy car. Prince plays along, though he doesn’t really understand. Rick Dees and I have a romantic dinner at a fancy restaurant.
My mother stays in bed most of the time now. She asks that we not disturb her. Maybe she is imagining that she is somewhere else, someone else. But who else would she want to be? She’s my mother, she can’t be anything else.
My brothers stay in the basement. They are making plans down there, I think. They are stroking the magazine pictures, trying to pretend they are real. I know that by now the magazine pages must be all withered from their pawing. Looking at the fleshy naked women all day must make them hungrier.
Only my dad still goes out, every day, with his gun. He walks unsteadily, hanging on to things, but still he goes. He still seems to think there is something out there, something to put in the pot.
There’s nothing left. There hasn’t been for months. But he refuses to believe it.
Then suddenly it gets colder. Is it because of the war, because of a bomb? I wonder. Or is it just a very cold December? My mother comes downstairs, my brothers come upstairs, and we all settle in the living room. The bedrooms and the basement are too cold. It is warmer with all of us together, and the living room is better insulated. We hardly speak to one another. My brothers seem to speak by looks: They snicker suddenly, together, at nothing. And my parents speak with stares and shrugs. Me, I don’t look at anybody; I stay in my corner with my winter coat and my blanket. Two of my teeth are loose. They shouldn’t be.
I still spend a few hours a day with Prince on the porch. Most of the time he stays curled up against the side of the house, trying to steal some of the warmth. Once in a while he crawls around the yard, trying to warm himself up.
I’m too tired these days to sing. Just opening my mouth gives me a headache.
Prince understands. He is the only one who understands me.
Then one day I come in from the porch. It’s starting to get dark so early, now that it’s winter. I go into the living room and it’s all in shadow. I can’t see anyone’s face clearly; all I see are their teeth shining.
It is so quiet. Then I hear their breathing, each one of them separately, like singers not in harmony. They are all waiting for something.
“I wish I had a steak,” says Eliott, his voice strained and high.
A pause.
“In Africa they eat grubs and things. Maybe there are worms in the backyard,” says Pat.
“You can eat dandelion greens. I’ve heard of a dandelion salad,” says Eliott.
Pat says, “I heard in Korea people eat dogs.”
No one says anything. I can see the room get darker.
Then my dad stands up.
“What are you doing?” my mother says. He doesn’t answer.
“Where are you going? Howard—don’t—don’t—”
My dad is reaching for his gun. My brothers stand up.
“What are you doing? How can you even think of—”
They are walking slowly to the door.
“He’s a man, Howard! A man! You can’t—” my mother screams.
“He’s a dog,” says my dad. “He’s an animal.”
And then I see the door swing open, see Prince lift his head expectantly. I see my dad lift the gun and aim. I’m trying to get over there; I can’t get there fast enough—the air is too thick. They’re framed in the doorway, my dad and my brothers, and beyond them I see Prince pause, showing the whites of his eyes, wind ruffling the fur on his head. Then he’s running, galloping on all fours across the yard, his tongue hanging out like a pink streamer. A shot rings out, echoing in the silence, but it misses him. He keeps running, and then he’s up, up on his hind legs, lurching away two-footedly, front legs pawing the air, and then another shot rings out, shaking the world, and he’s down, down, splayed out on our front lawn, nose in the dirt, tail in the air, wind whipping his fur around, his legs quivering, then still.
I try to go to him, but it’s too late. My dad and Eliott and Pat beat me to him.
They run across the lawn, the pack of them, and fall upon him snarling.
