Klasper and Foster climbed the ladder upward. Now they were standing in the foyer between the upper floor ladder and the crisscrossing hallways leading to the kitchen and living room. The sun shone lilac through the front door’s windows.
Foster saw his friend as he hadn’t before, below. Besides the sequins and blood, Klasper was outfitted with a disheveled tuxedo—replete with creases and smudges—and a choking, desiccated bow tie bandaged his neck. He wore black leather shoes, laces loose and aglets clacking. Foster was shocked. Klasper had never looked so put together.
“I’m surprised your folks weren’t home, Foster.”
“If they aren’t here, it means Terrance has errands to run and he got Mom to drive him.”
“No license?”
“No worries.”
“What kind of errands does someone like that run?”
“If I were to guess, he’s probably egging bookstores.”
“Isn’t your stepdad a writer? Do they not want to sell his books?”
“He’s an anti-writer; he’s egging them because they want to sell his books.”
“Hmm.”
Foster dragged his duffel bag to the door and turned about face to Klasper.
“What happened to all your urgency, Klasp?” he asked in an askance tone.
“Being around you always mellows me, Foster.”
Foster accepted this, and Klasper had indeed regained a modicum of his composure.
They piloted a course to the kitchen, traversing the fog of innocuous tableaus Terrance had inherited from a distant uncle who managed a Perkins. They were the kind of pictures made to look like ocean vistas and warm feelings, but really only made you hungry for home fries. The kitchen was small. The sink was piled with dirty dishes. Klasper walked to the fridge. With the ushering of a Freon breeze, his face broke out in a toothsome grin.
“Hot grits, your stepdad bought more Brews.”
Terrance Homily, semi-pater, had few passions: his wife, the obliteration of words and Brews. An enigmatic beer, which Klasper and Foster had only seen in the confines of the Homily fridge, Brews came in 30-packs of 13-ounce cans. There was nothing suggesting character or identity—no brewery location, no marketing description, no nutrition label—nothing but the word BREWS embossed on the hellish cherry red cans and boxes.
There were two unopened boxes, which were gleefully piled by the door.
They also raided the pantry, removing jars of kimchee and garlic pickles, as well as Foster’s mother’s discount wine. It was a red table wine whose label bore a facsimile of a Florentine fresco, overflowing with strange rabbit-like creatures.
For the rest of the house, Klasper and Foster had to work out a kind of buddy system, wherein one climbed the upward ladder while the other waited at the bottom for loot. Foster could not think of anything useful or desirable on the upper floor, so he took the latter position.
Kasper bustled on the upper floor, and by the end had amassed a neat stockpile at the edge of the denuded stairspace. Among the pile of bags and boxes, Foster noticed that Klasper had stolen a few of his semi-pater’s tweed jackets, which he never wore, because they bespoke of academic acumen. Terrance hoarded them so no one else could take advantage of that acumen.
When the house was exhausted of interest, Klasper and Foster carried their spoils to Klasper’s car, which looked like the equivalent of a mutt, a misspent machine born out of wedlock between a station wagon and a Volkswagen bug. Its wood paneling was fake and the engine was in the rear and the rest of it was a gauzy lemon-yellow.
As Foster placed the Brews boxes in the back, on the floor, he noticed among the effects of Klasper’s machine (dubbed ‘Lycidas’) a shipping box poked with holes. He did not think much of it. Instead, he thought of the house, and thought of the trip he was about to take. He had no real inkling of what was to follow.
Want to know what happens to Foster next? What the hell is in that box with oxygen holes? Read part 3 of “Awake, arise, or be forever fallen,” Feb. 25.
