The Art of Knotting and Splicing

39 ERIN KASDIN THE ART OF KNOTTING AND SPLICING T hey’re looking for my sister. Right now, as we speak. As Richie runs his dirty finger over my spine. That tickles, I say. Stop. I’m not laughing. I don’t like Richie; that’s not why I’m here. He’s large and smells foul and breathes so loudly I think he’s about to have a heart attack. Maybe he is. Why don’t you go home then, he says. Maybe I will. I lie there on his sagging mattress with the sheet pulled off the corner, exposing a dusty pink material with some kind of urinous stain peeking out. I count his cds and arrange them into little stacks. They’re scattered on a bookshelf, and I stop counting at forty-eight. I put one in the cd player. You like that one, he says. I shrug. I don’t really care what it sounds like; I just want something to fill the space in my head. I wait for it to start and try to find a beat, but it doesn’t seem to have one. It’s all this heavy metal garbage, I say. This is why you’re a fuckup. Which isn’t completely true. Richie’s mom is a fuckup, so he didn’t really have a choice. Her name is Deb, but I call her Bertha because she’s so big and fat. She has a boyfriend who lives up in unincorporated. A welder, I think. I try hard not to picture it, but these things enter your mind, and I keep seeing Bertha: short curly hair all a-sweat, belly jouncing, astride some poor skinny bastard in Dickies. I’m not a fuckup, Richie says. He speaks softly, always. Even when he’s angry with me. He’s sitting on the edge of his bed, playing with his ropes. Tying and retying knots. He does it because he likes to have something to do with his hands. He says it’s like a puzzle. Has a book on it. The Art of Knotting and Splicing, it’s called. For years I didn’t even know he could read, God’s honest. Right now he’s working on a clover knot. Lemme try, I say. He pulls away, crouching further over his rope. I’ve hurt his colorado review 40 feelings. Fine, I say. Fine. I take a piece of twine from his shelf and wrap one end around his waist. I wrap the other around mine and tie them with a grief knot. A grief is like a granny, but the ends come out on different sides, so it comes undone real fast and looks like magic. He glances at my work. I give a quick tug, and the knot falls open. Ta-da! I say. But he doesn’t smile. I sit up and stretch, then open the two liter of Sprite and tip the opening toward his lips, as recompense. He frowns and turns his head away. Aren’t you worried about your sister, he says. I take a sip of the Sprite. It’s gone flat. Of course I am, I say. Don’t be a jerk. The rain sounds like pebbles on the plastic roof. I wait for one to drop right through onto the bed. I imagine it’s acid rain and will sear a hole in his sheets. Why aren’t you out looking for her, he says. Why aren’t you? I say. I look at the freckles on his pale skin. I take my fingernail and drag it slowly down the back of his arm, connecting each tiny dot. He slouches further. What if something happened to her, he says. Don’t be a baby, I say. I hit him with my palm on the back of his head and rummage for my underwear and jeans. Where are you going, he says. Home. I don’t need a search party out for me, right? He grabs my thigh and squeezes tightly. I can feel each fingertip crushing capillaries beneath the skin, but I don’t pull away. He’s watching my face...