Lam Pham was born in Midland, Texas and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2008. His fiction has or is set to appear in JMWW, apt, Fractured West, The Good Men Project Magazine, NAP Magazine, the Foundling Review and more. He volunteers as a reader for PANK Magazine and can be found at lampham.posterous.com .

Blood Brothers (September 20, 2011. Issue 31.)

I took a blood oath with my nine year old godson. We were inside the treehouse his father and I built out of spare 2x4's. The high noon sun was a floodlight shining ecru and I watched a Tiger Beetle round the turn of his ankle as he ran my lighter across the length of his Swiss Army knife, Sterilizing it, he said. His skin parted like saran wrap. Swear to me, he said. Swear Pappy. His breath was shallow, his lips slicked with spit. I couldn't look in his eyes.

The blade was still warm when I pressed it against my palm. He winced as our hands touched. I wanted to tell him he should've been mine, like his mother. I pulled him close and told him he couldn't call me Pappy anymore. We would christen each other with new names, I said, secret names no one else could know. I named him Kinch. He dubbed me Chief Small Hands. They weren't much bigger than his own. We're blood brothers now, he said.

When his parents pulled into the driveway, we were on the front porch waiting for them. The cut stung as his father shook my hand. We always shook hands. It was one of the many things I hated about Paul. Josephine swung her son into her open jacket and he hung in her arms like something dead. Thank you for watching him, she said. I asked her how the counseling session went. Paul answered for them both, Well.

Kinch ran away a few months later. I found him at MacArthur Park, reenacting D-Day with plastic army figurines and superhero action figures. His Normandy coast stretched across a thin ravine a few yards behind the jungle gym. The German Atlantic Wall was marked with toothpicks and he'd fashioned bunkers out of dirt mounds. The bruises on his arms shone like enamel. I recognized them, belt licks. Everyone's worried about you, I said. You're worried about me, he corrected. I watched his figurines surround a German artillery battery with Superman leading the attack. There were casualties. First rule of war, Kinch told me. People die.

Josephine used to call my apartment The Garret. It overlooked the Brazos River, a winding glass ribbon that spooled from the west and emptied out into the Gulf of Mexico. The bathroom still smelled like her somehow. When we got home, I told Kinch to take off his shirt and gave him a haircut to tame the wildness shunting out of his scalp. I drew him a bath. He drew tic-tac-toe charts on the tiles with bar soap. Chief, can I live with you? He asked.

I ordered pizzas and called his mother. Her voice held no air and arrived at the end of the receiver in halting gasps. I almost called the police, she sighed. He bruises easily, she explained. What did he tell you? She asked. I could hear Kinch sloshing in the tub, water licking the sides. Laughter. He's staying with me, I told her. I felt the fresh scab on my hand break and grow wet, the cellphone in my hand strangled. Don't make this about me, she whispered. It was never about you, I said.

Halfway through the movie, a fist pounded and the door shivered. Josephine called out names we didn't answer to. Kinch dropped his pizza and buried his head in my armpit. I don't want to go home, he whispered. Outside, their voices mounted. Paul's baritone seemed to rise from the floorboards like varnish fumes, threatening Kinch. Threatening me. This is your home, I lied.

They left before dusk. Kinch had fallen asleep in my arms while the ending credits rolled on my screen, his pocket knife clutched in his hand. Little cave boy, I whispered, uncurling his fingers. This was a war neither of us could hope to win, as strong as our blood was in the drums of our hearts. I carried him to bed and dialed 911. When the operator asked who I was, I told her the truth. His blood brother.