'Samurai Sticks' By Zack Quaintance

The dust-covered action figures lined the sill inside the bedroom window, their dead eyes looking down at an industrial-sized dumpster.

On the sidewalk, a 9-year-old boy looked up at the figures.

Someday Jeremy’s gonna want those, he thought.

The boy opened the wooden gate on the side of the house, the rain-soaked privacy fence dwarfing him. He slipped into the back yard, the grass higher than his knees. A few months earlier it had been summer. He and Jeremy had pretended fallen tree branches were samurai swords. They’d dodged the droppings of Jeremy’s three Labrador retrievers, warning each other to watch out for land mines.

Today was overcast. It was mid-October in the Midwest. The boy climbed the wooden stairs of the home’s backyard deck. He wore a heavy, forest green coat. It covered from his neck to his knees. On the deck he found flattened beer boxes, stacks of newspapers and a barbecue grill, all damp and cold. The boy peered through the sliding glass door. He pulled, and it opened.

He tried a switch in the kitchen. No power. It was still the after-school hours, and some gray light filled the home. He smelt dog urine, cigarettes and rotten milk.

The TV was missing from the sub basement, where the boy played Nintendo most afternoons. Sometimes Jeremy’s older brothers bullied them. So they took board games out of the hall closet, swapping nickels and acorns for lost checkers.

Mounted fish still hung on the walls. In the summer Jeremy spent weeks in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes. The boy never fished, and his mom wouldn’t let him take trips with Jeremy’s dad.

Every drawer in Jeremy’s room was open. Two twin beds sat bare. Professional wrestling magazines covered a lop-sided desk.

The six-inch figures fit in his heavy coat’s pockets. Their muscled physiques packed together, tiny hands clutching black, plastic rifles and machine guns. He closed the backdoor behind him, and he ran. Down the stairs, through the grass, and out the gate. He passed the dumpster and basketball hoop with a rusty rim and missing net. The boy ran three houses down the street.

Where did you get those?, his mother asked, sitting at the kitchen table with her brother’s wife. She was dropping off family reunion photos.

They’re Jeremy’s. He buried them in his yard and he wants me to send them to him.

Stay out of Jeremy’s house. He doesn’t live there anymore. You could go to jail for going in there. Do you want to go to jail?

The boy sat on the couch, wearing his heavy coat. He pulled his hands inside the sleeves and the collar over his ears, neck and mouth.

Jeremy’s not coming back, his mother said.

Can we go to Minnesota?

Maybe next summer.

The boy went to his room. He reached under his bed and pulled out four thin sticks. Jeremy told him to keep these. They were emergency samurai swords to fight dads. They found them the day after Jeremy’s dad came home late, walking like he usually did at night. He saw Jeremy and the boy playing in the driveway, and he grabbed Jeremy’s shirt and spanked him. Jeremy cried and screamed.

The boy also remembered when Jeremy rang his doorbell one night. He said his family was moving. The boy’s mom gave Jeremy a piece of fried chicken and a hug. She made the boy hug him too. He never saw Jeremy again.

The boy put the action figures and the sticks together, sliding them under his bed.

Someday Jeremy would need those.