My Brother, His Mummy, and Me

My brother starts high school in the fall. He’d gone to church camp at the Dunes for the summer, which is how it happened. No one noticed on the ride back to Indy because he’d rolled it up in his tent. He claims he exhumed it himself, found it buried underneath the Dunes. We thought it was a Halloween decoration until we noticed the smell. Mom used to love Halloween. That’s the dog’s birthday, and it was also Dad’s birthday.

Our couch is plaid and uncomfortable. Mom keeps a nasty white blanket on it, which used to be for the dog hair. The dog is comfy on the carpet now that the couch is taken. In the mornings Mom changes the sheets and throws the dirties in the wash, but nothing gets embalming fluid out. While she lays the creature gingerly back on the cushions and feeds the dog breakfast I take one hit of weed in the shower since the steam hides the smell.

It’s easy to smoke in my bedroom too. I burn incense and pretend I’m meditating. Mom hardly notices now that she’s so busy. It’s probably the best thing about not sharing a room with my brother anymore. Last month they took down his bunk and moved it to Dad’s old office.

Sometimes at night I turn over and wish I could kick at his mattress and ask what he’s thinking about. We used to talk about things.

The mummy looks fresh out the sarcophagus. It doesn’t eat or talk or move, but I see it readjust itself on the couch sometimes, or twitch when Mom moves it to change the sheets. Sometimes it makes a noise. I’ve thought about posting about it online but my brother says we should keep it to ourselves. Mom agrees.

I only spilled the beans once. It was the second to last day of tenth grade, about a month ago now. The guy thought I’d hit on his girlfriend so he pulled me to the ground and kicked me in the neck and called me a fag. I told him my mummy would suck the fucken life out of him and he laughed and kicked me again. He thought I was joking.

Last night Thoth, the Lord of Wisdom, came to me in a dream. He arose on a horizon of reeds, a great godly form with the head of an ibis. Green locks spilled down his shoulders, and in his hands he held a long scarlet rod. When I beheld him I shrank with fear.

He led me through the desert to a throne hewn from a single black stone. On the throne was seated a man with the head of a jackal and the body of my Dad. Bulbous copper beer belly swollen with frogs, flies, locusts. Eyes that ripped through my skull like a great river. He raised his hand and the air filled with rot. He opened his mouth to speak but at the first croak of his voice I woke up covered in sweat. I did hit on that guy’s girlfriend, to be fair.

This evening Mom’s working late and we can’t find the cat.

Mummies don’t like cats, my brother says. That’s why it ran away.

We should look for it. I gesture at the keys to Dad’s truck.

It’ll just run off again.

Mom loves that cat.

Since when the fuck do you care about Mom? 

His tone is nasty and desperate. It’s like he thinks I’ve betrayed him by always being older. He doesn’t know what it’s like going through life like I do, always high and afraid. Not like him. He’s the bravest thirteen-year-old in the world. Brave enough for high school. Brave enough to use the word fuck. Brave enough to resurrect our dead father. Brave enough to kick my ass.

I glance at the couch. That greasy brown pressed-in monster. When Dad died it was because of a heart attack brought on by heatstroke. I storm off to the bathroom and take a hit from the bowl in the trashcan under the sink. Then I stomp out past the mummy and my brother toward the garage.

Well don’t go alone, he says.

I don’t want to.

We’re brothers.

Yeah.

We drive for a while. Sunset sits heavy on the fields. Lightning bugs dust off their bulbs between cornstalks. We don’t find the cat anywhere. Later, we tell Mom it must have been sick, must have took itself somewhere to die because it loved her and didn’t want her to witness its end. I tell Mom something I read about Bastet, the Egyptian god of cats and good health.

Mom goes to her room. I go to my room. My brother goes to his room.

Before breakfast Mom moves the creature to the carpet, cleans mummy juice and cicada shells off the couch, and changes the sheets while the dog watches.

August comes. My brother starts high school. Slowly he learns what they say about me, what they do to me. I hear about things that they say about him too. We’re both on the swim team. Sometimes after practice we talk about things. Apparently Dad once told him if he died he wanted to be buried in the Dunes, right by Lake Michigan, so he could keep fishing.

There’s a tornado watch. The living room strobes with skylightning, splattering the mummy’s shadow across the walls. I watch the slime ooze from its desiccated legs, staining the plaid of the couch. I don’t know why it’s here or what it wants, but I think it’ll help us, Mom and my brother and me. It’ll suck the life out of anyone who’d hurt us. I sit by its side, next to the couch with the dog, and talk to my brother. I don’t know if we will be okay. I don’t know if anyone ever really will be okay, but I tell him I’ve heard that death is only the beginning.