Brody's friend, Jerbo Featherbow, worked at a pot shop – and as it happened, so did Beelza. The very same one, in fact. Brody had asked Bedishi for a $45 loan, so he could take his license exam to sell marijuana. She refused, saying she lacked the funds. Then she drove Beelza to the interview instead, and brought her back with a fast-food lunch, a pack of danishes, and a brand-new purse. It was clear which child's success she was more invested in, despite the greater cost. Beelza got the job, and Brody remained unemployed. She was told not to smoke before work, but gassed up the apartment regardless, which made Brody's head spin. She would come home each day with a freshly rolled joint, and a midnight snack. While Brody tried to sleep, she would sit on the balcony, which was built on the other side of Brody's thin, oversized window, and she would hack and cough and wheeze until one in the morning. It was incessant, it was inconsiderate, and when he asked her to stop, it was suddenly all-important. She had suffered a sexual assault, and marijuana was all that kept her from reliving it – or so she said. As far as Brody knew, she had given herself to a drug dealer instead of her boyfriend, who had simply given her a drug she didn't expect. Of course it was wrong, and of course it was rape. But Brody failed to see where she had tried to prevent it. Regardless, her coughing was so loud that Brody's therapist down the street knew her by its very sound. Brody decided to record each instance of her violating the terms of her employment, which was becoming a very long list. He threatened to tell his friend, if only to make her slow down her consumption. She did not. Instead, she got irate, shouted up a storm, and spent the next year unsecretly driving a wedge between Brody and his friend, to secure her position at work. Jerbo must have taken her side, as he often gravitated to those who appeared disadvantaged – like the ethnic minorities, the queer, and the politically divergent. A mixed native, like Brody himself, but of much steeper brew, he believed that the land belonged to the meek – perhaps his version of Christ might wear feathers and red paint. It was this kindness to the trodden that Beelza knew she could pry, for nobody was ever more tread-upon than her – or so she complained. Brody wrote them off, and laughed to himself that they should do laundry together. Jerbo could play Brody's stunt double, and help her out of the dryer. Brody never understood why his friends were so enamored with Beelza, and why they saw her in a higher light than Brody himself. It was likely because they knew what she had between her legs. For as much as Brody wanted to believe in others, he failed to find much of a reason, for they were rarely of any greater mind than a barnyard pig. Of course, Jerbo already had a girlfriend – one who looked much like Beelza herself, but was nicer by far. Brody had never gotten on with Falima, which was her name, but he considered her to be a clearer perspective than his friend, and was grateful they had one another. Brody's other friend, Chaun, was the gaming type – a temporary reprieve was found in his company, but never for long. He, unlike the others, cared little for Beelza, which made his presence feel safe. His building had a pool table, which they'd used only once. Brody had other friends, too, like Danica, who'd transitioned nonbinary, then male, and then switched back when she got pregnant, in order to fit in with her family again. She needed support, but still preferred to be called Dan. Brody asked Dan for help with his abusive family, if she knew of any escape, but was quick to learn that her situation was worse – and that Dan was looking for a babysitter, rather than a friend. And possibly, a husband. Brody, rather selfishly, did not want to date anyone who'd already had a child, for he had not yet lost his virginity – and did not want to do so amidst the smell of diapers, feces, and spoiled milk. So he gave her distance, and could not bring himself to speak to her again. Brody had taken care of children before, and it had been a disaster. He, watching his younger cousins (whom he called his nieces and nephews) of elementary age, was shocked to see them abusing one another – not just violently, but somewhat sexually, as well. And their relatives, a circle of trust, applauded them for doing so. Cheered them on like horses in the ring. Brody found them intentionally provocative, and far beneath innocent – their eTablets had taught them too well, or maybe not well enough. They would even, at only such their age, moan from the other room at one another and coo intimately, and then giggle when Brody came back to tell them to stop. They looked at him like he was the stupidest person in the world. And in that moment, that was exactly how he felt. The last straw was when the older boy put his face into Brody's ass, at the small of his back; through clothes, of course, but in front of everyone. Including an uncle who didn't take too kindly to the idea, and was oblivious to the stance the rest of his family had taken. The boy had intended for this to be awkward, and to place Brody under suspicion. This was his revenge, for being told by Brody:
"I'm too old for you, kid. I'm in high-school, you're not even nine." Brody was, in fact, seventeen.
The boy saw not age, but opportunity. He was treating his cousin like an option for romance, which he'd paid for by being born – no permission required. Another lionistic Wumpovski trait which made of them a flock of griffins, but which far-too-closely resembled that orange-painted great uncle of theirs, in office. They even had the same blond curls, which swept upwards and around. And it was this knowledge that made Brody terrified to see his great uncle elected, not just once, but twice. He knew full-well what a Wumpovski or Wumpet could do, behind closed doors. When Brody was confronted about the boy by his mother Brincosa, the blame was placed squarely on Brody's round shoulders. She scolded Brody for being 'cold', though he was certain that what she meeant by 'warm' was sleeping sexually with her own young. And that she was looking for an idiot to bring to court, when they turned eighteen. Brody was not that idiot. Brincosa had let it slip in subtext what she'd done, during a drive.
"My son and I share a bed all the time," she said, with a flush about her face and a moan in her voice. As if remembering a night of passion.
Brody, however, had done the same – he'd let the topic slip, during a session with his therapist. No, he had not slept with the young. Brody refused to become a stereotype of debauchery, at the cost of his ability to trust himself with the young. It was when he was finally able to voice his thoughts, feelings, and fears... it took him an hour to pour out about everything that had happened. But when he was done, he realized his mistake. The therapist wanted to know what was going on, so she could call social services. If that happened, and if she ever found out who told, Brody would be out on the streets. He could never return. If he went back even once, then those four spoiled brats of Brincosa's would be loosed into the foster system, without her leopard mothering to guide them. Just as Aurson Wumpet, the 47th president of the United States of America, had been loosed upon pageants and partygoers of the red carpet, so many years ago. Mother Wumpet incumbent, and drunk on her sorrows. Just as Bedishi often was, so drunk and stoned that she once spent three hours sexting her long-distance manfriend (a staunch supporter of Don Wumpet), and sweat-shat her bedsheets brown. He'd spent the last year or so, convincing her to vote conservative – and she let him do so, while impressing him that she was a relative of his, and promised emptily that one day, they might visit, should the man ever cross the gap. And he never did. What happened instead was that Brody, when his grandmother left for work, changed her bedsheets. She'd been called back rather unexpectedly, and Brody knew from the smell wafting around what she had essentially done. It mixed poorly with the stank of marijuana, which had a way of dulling the senses and forcing a person to smell more than was necessary to know what something was. It was like being stained by the putrid air itself. But Brody knew that, despite her sound mind, she was struck these days with dementia. So while she was out, he braved the stench, mouth masked with a leftover from the COVID pandemic, and stripped the sheets from her bed. He stuck them in the wash with whitener and detergent, as she'd instructed him to do for his own, and turned the machine on. She was as surprised to see them clean, when she returned, as he was disgusted to have had to handle them. He told himself that he was acting as a live-in caregiver, for a time, and that when he was gone, Beelza would learn the responsibility out of necessity. She would have to care for her mother, or Bedishi would be gone. But Brody knew what he really was: too nice to let her lie in the bed she'd made. And that Beelza was a parasite, whose only strategy when Bedishi was gone, would be to move to her next host.