Fart Loophole

The thing about my brother Marcus is that he has no survival instinct. None. Zero. The boy will walk into a room where four guys are eating gas station chili and just stand there, mouth breathing, like a deer that heard the truck but decided to keep grazing.

That Friday night, we were in the basement. Me, Dev, Trey, and Marcus's favorite target, my little brother Andre. Fourteen years old, skinny as a rake handle, with these big wet eyes that make him look like he's about to cry even when he's laughing. He was on the couch playing 2K, and we were behind him, and the chili had been six hours ago.

Dev got him first. Just leaned over the back of the couch, casual as a guy checking his phone, and let it rip. Andre's character missed a free throw. He didn't even turn around. He just hunched his shoulders up around his ears like a turtle.

"Y'all are disgusting," he said.

Trey got him next. Trey's farts don't have a sound. That's what makes them evil. It's just suddenly air that smells like a dumpster behind a seafood place, and you're sitting in it, and you don't know when it started or when it'll end. Andre gagged. Actually gagged, hand over his mouth, controller clattering to the floor.

I was laughing so hard I had to hold the pool table. And then Marcus, my brother, my own flesh and blood, walked down the stairs carrying a plate of nachos. He's seventeen, same as me, but he's got this way of walking into a room like he's doing everybody a favor. Andre looked up at him. I swear the kid's face went pale.

"Marcus, don't," Andre said.

"Don't what?" Marcus set the nachos on the pool table and cracked his knuckles. He does that before he farts. It's a tell. Everybody knows it's a tell, including Andre, and Andre still didn't move.

"Marcus. I'm serious."

"You're always serious." Marcus grabbed the back of Andre's head. Not rough, just firm, the way you'd hold a basketball before a free throw. Andre squirmed. Dev was wheezing into his hoodie. Trey had his phone out, recording, because Trey records everything and posts nothing, which is its own kind of weird.

And then Marcus let it go.

I've smelled a lot of farts in my life. I've smelled Dev's chili farts, which are bad. I've smelled Trey's silent seafood specials. But this one was different. This one had a texture to it. It was thick. It was warm. It was like someone opened a Tupperware of hard boiled eggs that had been sitting in a hot car since Tuesday.

Andre dry heaved. Once. Twice. His whole body convulsed, and he scrambled off the couch, knocking over a Gatorade that had been sitting there since last weekend, and he ran for the stairs with his hand clamped over his mouth.

We heard him in the bathroom. The real sounds. The kind you don't fake.

Dev was on the floor by then, tears running down his face, saying "oh my God, oh my God" over and over. Trey was rewatching the video on his phone with the sound off, nodding like a coach reviewing film. Marcus just stood there, eating nachos.

Twenty minutes later, Andre came back down. His face was red and splotchy. He walked straight to Marcus, and he didn't look scared anymore. He looked like a kid who'd made a decision.

"You have to promise me something," Andre said.

Marcus kept chewing. "What."

"You and your friends. No farting in my face. Not for the rest of the weekend."

"That's a big ask."

"I'm not asking." Andre's voice cracked on the last word, and he had to swallow and start over. "I'm telling you. You owe me. I almost threw up in my own mouth."

Marcus looked at him for a long time. Long enough that I thought he was going to say no, and then we'd have to watch Andre cry, which is a thing none of us actually want to see. But Marcus put down the nachos and wiped his hands on his jeans and said, "Alright."

Dev sat up. "What?"

"Alright," Marcus said again. "Me and the guys. No farting in your face. Rest of the weekend."

Andre stared at him like he'd just announced he was moving to Canada. "Really?"

"Really."

"Swear it."

"I swear it."

Andre looked at the rest of us. Dev, who was already shaking his head. Trey, who had put his phone away and was frowning. Me, who hadn't said anything and wasn't about to start.

"All of you," Andre said. "You all have to swear."

"Fine," Dev said, but he said it ugly. "Whatever."

"Fine," Trey said.

I nodded. Andre looked at me the longest. He knows I'm the one who actually keeps promises, which is a sad commentary on the rest of them.

"Say it," Andre said.

"No farting in your face for the rest of the weekend," I said. And I meant it.

Andre went back to the couch. He picked up the controller and started a new game, and he didn't look at any of us, and he was still shaking a little, and I felt bad. I actually felt bad. Fourteen is young. Nobody deserves the hard boiled egg special.

Marcus waited until Andre had his headphones on. Then he walked over to us, slow, and he had that smirk on his face. The one that means he's already thought three steps ahead and you're about to find out how dumb you are.

"Saturday," Marcus said, quiet, so Andre couldn't hear. "We keep our word. No farting in his face. All day Saturday. Not once."

Dev's face fell. "That's what I just said."

"That's what you just said." Marcus nodded. "But Sunday? Sunday we keep our word too." He let it sit for a second. "We don't fart in his face on Sunday either. We don't fart in his face at all on Sunday."

Trey got it first. His eyes went wide, and then he started grinning, this slow ugly grin, and he said, "Oh. Oh, that's evil."

Dev still didn't get it. "What? What's evil?"

Marcus put his arm around Dev's shoulders, the way you'd calm a nervous horse. "Saturday, we hold it in. Every fart. All day. We keep our word, and we don't let a single one go near his face. We save them. Every last one."

Dev's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

"By Sunday morning," Marcus said, "we're gonna be so backed up that a single one of us could clear a whole room. And Sunday? Sunday we keep our word. We don't fart in his face. Not once. Not even close." He looked at the couch, where Andre was playing 2K with his headphones on, oblivious, safe, thinking he'd won. "But we're gonna spend all of Sunday in this basement. All of us. Right here. And we're not gonna fart in his face."

He let go of Dev and picked up his nachos.

"We're gonna fart everywhere else."

Dev finally got it. He started laughing, that high wheezy laugh that sounds like a dying vacuum cleaner, and he had to press his face into the couch cushion to keep quiet. Trey was already on his phone, typing something, probably planning a menu. And I stood there by the pool table, watching my little brother play video games, and I thought about how he'd made me swear, and how I'd meant it, and how I was going to keep my word.

Every word of it.

I just wasn't going to tell him which words mattered.