“Do what with it?” ask one of the twins.
I get in the twin’s face playfully. “Well, why don’t ya pick a color and find out, silly pants?”
The twins giggle. Then one of them points and says, “Purple.”
I nod. “Perfect choice. That happens to be my favorite. Hey, Erwin. Tear the paper off this crayon for me, will you? Jessie, you pick a color too. Everyone, pick a color and tear off the paper.”
The children go to work at once. Red-orange is plucked. Ochre. Green. Silver. Maroon. Cerulean. Like flowers from a garden, each kid carefully and thoughtfully chooses a color, then tears off the wrapping, some of them giggling as they work, others acting with the acute concentration of a scientist.
The purple crayon reaches my hand. “Now this part is something that I have to do. This is dangerous, you understand? Only I can do this. Now, watch.”
I lift the crayon near the side of the vase, then flick on the lighter like Prometheus bringing fire down from the gods. Slowly, the end of the crayon begins to melt, dripping purple down the side of the vase.
“It’s melting!” shouts a girl excitedly.
“Duh, that’s what it’s supposed to do,” mumbles someone else.
“I know, dummy.”
After a few steady streams of the purple runs, decorating the side of the once-boring vase, I set down the little grape-like nub that’s left and glance at the others. “Who’s next?”
Soon, it rains green. Then it’s raining drops of bright yellow and drops of orange and drops of cerulean, glowing over the contrast of the lighter colors. In a matter of crayons, one side of the vase is covered in long, quivering strands of bumpy wax. The result is both grotesque and beautiful, and the attention of the kids is grasped utterly.
“You can find art anywhere,” I whisper to them as we melt the red and it drips like monster blood, or liquid fire trucks, or ketchup. “Life can be sort of mean to us, sure. People you know will try to silence you, but there is always room for art. Even when you have nothing. Even with no voice. You can find it in your heart, always.”
“Do the silver next! The silver!”
The next one draws a long metallic stream down the side, tiny spots and drops reaching the table and looking like little coins. I let it run as some of the kids pore over the crayon box, searching for their next color, the inspiration like a fire of its own in their crazed eyes.
“And when I was left with nothing,” I hear myself say, quieter, “I’d remind myself that I’ve made do with less.” The tiny flame from the lighter flickers in the children’s eyes as some watch with wonder and some still grip their colors, waiting, excited. “Every color is a wish. Look at all your colorful wishes running down the side of that vase. Aren’t your wishes pretty?”
BRANT
So, there’s a used condom on the kitchen counter.
“Eric.”
There’s a fucking used condom on the fucking kitchen counter.
“ERIC!”
The door to Clayton’s old room bursts open and a flush-faced Eric pops his head out, his tiny eyes wide and unblinking. “What?”
“Condom,” I say tersely, pointing a scandalized finger at the vile, offending object. “On the counter.”
Eric’s forehead wrinkles up as he leans out from the doorway. “No. Sorry, bro, but no. It was you who had the wild time the other night with that chick from the bowling alley, not me.”
“My wild night ended early, actually,” I correct him, “and it most definitely did not have any climactic opportunities in my kitchen.”
“Dude, if any of us were to be guilty of that, it would be you.”
“Listen, fuck-face, I did not—Oh, thank you for that compliment, by the way,” I cut in genuinely, flashing him a smile. “Anyway, I did not do the nasty with anyone in our kitchen. It smells like pickle juice ever since you had your little cooking accident last month and there is no humanly way to get a boner with everything smelling like pickles!”
“Well, it wasn’t me.”
“The hell it wasn’t. Pick up your jizz sack before I—”
“What the hell?” whines Dmitri, emerging from his room. “Can you two keep it down? I’m trying to sleep.”
“It’s almost noon,” I throw back.
“Exactly!” he retorts, shutting himself back into his room.
I sigh, collapsing onto a stool by the bar and the foul evidence. “Eric, do you need me to pretend like this is my merry mishap so that you’ll finally clean it up?”
His eyes narrow. “Yes.”
“Great. It was mine. I had the sexy-sexy on our counter, the same counter off of which we share pizza, consume Chinese takeout, and do our algebra homework. Now will you throw away this damn rubber containing a million of your unborn children before I throw up?”