pt 3
Pt 3.
Uncle David was not a good influence on myself or my father. David couldn’t keep a job to save his life and spent most of his time and efforts on the marijuana plants he was growing in the basement. He ran moonshine from the stills in the mountains down into town, then cigarettes over state lines, weapons and coke. Dad took to the drugs and stopped working the long hours, the extra hours, or even keeping up his shifts altogether. For a while they were able to keep up with the bills. But then they fell behind. The notices came in all colors until the bank notified us they were going to foreclose and take the house.
It was David’s idea to burn it down. One part revenge, one part insurance fraud, David was convinced they would collect on the money and buy a smaller house closer to the city, now without the mortgage hanging over their heads. He even had the gall to promise me an Ivy-league education. David never figured the arson would be investigated and the insurance claim tangled into legal perpetuity.
After the fire and without money or a good credit rating, Dad, David and I moved into the Grizzly Peak trailer park. Surrounded by the hillfolk white trash of Oregon, the loss of my mother, my home and my future dealt a fatal blow to my psyche. I tried to kill myself by taking a bunch of David’s pills, but one of his girlfriends found me and took me to the hospital. Suicide-survivors are treated with contempt by healthcare professionals, and my case worker skimmed through his checklist and told me to see a doctor about getting on some form of medication. I got into a terrible shouting match with my father when they discharged me and he hit me for the first time in my life out of anger. I never did stop to think about how everything was affecting him. I can’t say that I cared.
When school started that year, I was the end-all scandal. My friends wouldn’t hang out with me anymore because I was a “bad influence”. And I refused to hang out with the kids from the trailer park. In the end, it was this ostracized existence that dropped me onto the lowest wrung of the social ladder and into a world I would never escape.
I wound up sitting at the loner table at lunch with the misfits; Zach, the big biker kid who didn’t like to talk, the foreign-exchange student with the thick eastern accent we called ‘Eddie’ for lack of being able to pronounce his real name, the minister’s daughter Jessie, who had suffered her own fall in status after her father was implicated in a child pornography ring, and the freaky Faust boy who had moved to town last fall and remained on the periphery ever since. I won’t say we were friends, but I learned the value of sticking together before I learned their names.
The school had received a bomb threat one morning and all the students were shuffled out into the parking lot while the administration called the authorities and tried to organize the milling student body without sending them home. It was rainy and cold and most of the teachers weren’t interested in corralling whoever strayed to their cars for shelter.
Jessie and I were trying to share her poncho to varying degrees of success. She was telling me a story about her trip to Vancouver when our poncho was ripped away. Two senior boys began taunting us, flapping the wet tarp at us in a mean-spirited game of keep-away. At some point they noticed Jessie’s t-shirt had soaked through and the chill had swollen her nipples. She blushed and covered herself to their jibes and I snarled and acted much bigger than I was. They got grabby, things got scary and if it weren’t for Zach and Eddie showing up, I’m much too certain about what would have happened.
As it was, things rapidly deteriorated into a tussle. Jessie and I stayed clear while the boys wrestled and rumbled. Eventually some measure of authority showed up and demanded they stop and marched them over to where the principal was holding court in one of the school buses. All the other kids were let go for the day and neither Zach nor Eddie were at school the next day. But the two seniors, Boyd and Jacob, were.
School became as much a matter of survival as my home life had. Jessie and I stuck close when we could stay in groups. But she and I had different classes and couldn’t coordinate fast enough. I didn’t see her after her gym class and only learned through the grapevine that she had been taken to the nurse and sent home. She didn’t come back the next day and I stuck to Faust like glue. No one liked Aliester Faust and the creep factor kept us from getting too much attention. He more or less tolerated my presence, even hanging back until Boyd and Jacob left with their friends after school.
About the time Jessie finally came back was when Zach and Eddie finished up their suspension. She sat with the cheerleaders and wore her hair long and flashy, and didn’t talk to any of us. They welcomed her, which was the strangest part. Not that I really cared. I had enough problems at home with the cops coming around every week and my father’s recent bout of unemployment.
I was changing in the locker room after gym class when Jessie and a trio of cheerleaders cornered me. I remember trying to act strong, big, disinterested, but I reeked of fear as soon as she noticed me. Girls fight different than boys. But the results are the same. I lost a few fistfuls of hair, gained a shiner and had my hand closed in a locker by the time the coach blew in and broke it up. Suspensions were handed out to all of us, since I had busted a few knuckles fighting back.
Dad went ballistic. He couldn’t really punish me, since grounding meant I was underfoot and in the way when David’s girls came around. He threw away a bunch of my clothes and books and broke my radio. I didn’t have anywhere to be during the day, so I hitched back to the property that the bank had taken from us. The house had been knocked down but the barn was still standing, rotting grey in the bleaching sun. I hid there for the next week until I could go back to school.
Now it was Faust who was gone. In the few times he spoke to me, Zach told me Aliester hadn’t been back since my fight with the cheerleaders. I didn’t think much of it and tried to focus on getting my English Lit homework down without having a book to read. I kept my distance from Jessie and her new crew, and begged off gym class. But they caught up with me while I was walking back to the old Lusk property. I thought they were going to try to run me over with their car, but instead they offered me a ride. I said no, tried to run, but there wasn’t much I could do against the four of them. They took me out towards the old mill and held me while the senior boys tied me down. Screaming meant nothing this far out, but I did anyway.
I wasn’t expecting them to draw a chalk circle, bust out the robes and the candles and start chanting around me. Without anything to lose, I taunted them and disrupted their incantations. It got me a sock in the jaw, but it was worth it to see them all pissed off. The moon was high and full in the sky when they drew back their hoods and showed me their monster faces and long red claws. I made fun of their acne. I prayed for a quick death.
Shotgun caught one of the cheerleaders and sent her down in a mess of blood. Something rang out like clear bell and Jacob’s head toppled off his shoulders. And then this electric voice called down fire and their robes burst into flames. Next thing I saw was Zach coming through the smoke, blasting away with a double-barrel and making hamburger of anyone he finds. That ringing sound tolled again and the ropes holding me fell away. I toppled over but it was Eddie who caught me, all done up like ghetto ninja with this sword covered in blood and bits. I was well into shock when he took me back to where Faust stood, book in hand and eyes all dark as midnight, finger pointed at the circle and the bodies while Zach stomped on anything still moving. He cleared the area and the whole circle turned white and burned a crater into the ground.
I shook in the cab of Zach’s truck for about twenty minutes, tucked in the corner and not letting anybody touch me. I rolled down the window when I got my wits about me and they all piled in, Eddie in the bed looking happy as a clam. Zach asked where he could take me. But I didn’t have anywhere to go. So when Faust got out he took me with him. I remember waving at Eddie as the truck sped away.
My first night in the Faust House wasn’t all that great. Aliester’s mom came down long enough to learn my name and point out the guest room, and then she went back to her study and locked the door. Aliester made me a mug of tea that tasted like ass, but I drank it down anyway. He explained that Jessie and the other cheerleaders and seniors had been infected by demons. They were probably planning to sacrifice me in a ritual for either more power or perhaps to awaken a dormant demonic power in the mountain. I think I asked him what fat twist of crack he was smoking. He wasn’t too happy about that, considering he and the others had saved my life. We had our first of many, many arguments that night before I passed out from exhaustion.
Uncle David was not a good influence on myself or my father. David couldn’t keep a job to save his life and spent most of his time and efforts on the marijuana plants he was growing in the basement. He ran moonshine from the stills in the mountains down into town, then cigarettes over state lines, weapons and coke. Dad took to the drugs and stopped working the long hours, the extra hours, or even keeping up his shifts altogether. For a while they were able to keep up with the bills. But then they fell behind. The notices came in all colors until the bank notified us they were going to foreclose and take the house.
It was David’s idea to burn it down. One part revenge, one part insurance fraud, David was convinced they would collect on the money and buy a smaller house closer to the city, now without the mortgage hanging over their heads. He even had the gall to promise me an Ivy-league education. David never figured the arson would be investigated and the insurance claim tangled into legal perpetuity.
After the fire and without money or a good credit rating, Dad, David and I moved into the Grizzly Peak trailer park. Surrounded by the hillfolk white trash of Oregon, the loss of my mother, my home and my future dealt a fatal blow to my psyche. I tried to kill myself by taking a bunch of David’s pills, but one of his girlfriends found me and took me to the hospital. Suicide-survivors are treated with contempt by healthcare professionals, and my case worker skimmed through his checklist and told me to see a doctor about getting on some form of medication. I got into a terrible shouting match with my father when they discharged me and he hit me for the first time in my life out of anger. I never did stop to think about how everything was affecting him. I can’t say that I cared.
When school started that year, I was the end-all scandal. My friends wouldn’t hang out with me anymore because I was a “bad influence”. And I refused to hang out with the kids from the trailer park. In the end, it was this ostracized existence that dropped me onto the lowest wrung of the social ladder and into a world I would never escape.
I wound up sitting at the loner table at lunch with the misfits; Zach, the big biker kid who didn’t like to talk, the foreign-exchange student with the thick eastern accent we called ‘Eddie’ for lack of being able to pronounce his real name, the minister’s daughter Jessie, who had suffered her own fall in status after her father was implicated in a child pornography ring, and the freaky Faust boy who had moved to town last fall and remained on the periphery ever since. I won’t say we were friends, but I learned the value of sticking together before I learned their names.
The school had received a bomb threat one morning and all the students were shuffled out into the parking lot while the administration called the authorities and tried to organize the milling student body without sending them home. It was rainy and cold and most of the teachers weren’t interested in corralling whoever strayed to their cars for shelter.
Jessie and I were trying to share her poncho to varying degrees of success. She was telling me a story about her trip to Vancouver when our poncho was ripped away. Two senior boys began taunting us, flapping the wet tarp at us in a mean-spirited game of keep-away. At some point they noticed Jessie’s t-shirt had soaked through and the chill had swollen her nipples. She blushed and covered herself to their jibes and I snarled and acted much bigger than I was. They got grabby, things got scary and if it weren’t for Zach and Eddie showing up, I’m much too certain about what would have happened.
As it was, things rapidly deteriorated into a tussle. Jessie and I stayed clear while the boys wrestled and rumbled. Eventually some measure of authority showed up and demanded they stop and marched them over to where the principal was holding court in one of the school buses. All the other kids were let go for the day and neither Zach nor Eddie were at school the next day. But the two seniors, Boyd and Jacob, were.
School became as much a matter of survival as my home life had. Jessie and I stuck close when we could stay in groups. But she and I had different classes and couldn’t coordinate fast enough. I didn’t see her after her gym class and only learned through the grapevine that she had been taken to the nurse and sent home. She didn’t come back the next day and I stuck to Faust like glue. No one liked Aliester Faust and the creep factor kept us from getting too much attention. He more or less tolerated my presence, even hanging back until Boyd and Jacob left with their friends after school.
About the time Jessie finally came back was when Zach and Eddie finished up their suspension. She sat with the cheerleaders and wore her hair long and flashy, and didn’t talk to any of us. They welcomed her, which was the strangest part. Not that I really cared. I had enough problems at home with the cops coming around every week and my father’s recent bout of unemployment.
I was changing in the locker room after gym class when Jessie and a trio of cheerleaders cornered me. I remember trying to act strong, big, disinterested, but I reeked of fear as soon as she noticed me. Girls fight different than boys. But the results are the same. I lost a few fistfuls of hair, gained a shiner and had my hand closed in a locker by the time the coach blew in and broke it up. Suspensions were handed out to all of us, since I had busted a few knuckles fighting back.
Dad went ballistic. He couldn’t really punish me, since grounding meant I was underfoot and in the way when David’s girls came around. He threw away a bunch of my clothes and books and broke my radio. I didn’t have anywhere to be during the day, so I hitched back to the property that the bank had taken from us. The house had been knocked down but the barn was still standing, rotting grey in the bleaching sun. I hid there for the next week until I could go back to school.
Now it was Faust who was gone. In the few times he spoke to me, Zach told me Aliester hadn’t been back since my fight with the cheerleaders. I didn’t think much of it and tried to focus on getting my English Lit homework down without having a book to read. I kept my distance from Jessie and her new crew, and begged off gym class. But they caught up with me while I was walking back to the old Lusk property. I thought they were going to try to run me over with their car, but instead they offered me a ride. I said no, tried to run, but there wasn’t much I could do against the four of them. They took me out towards the old mill and held me while the senior boys tied me down. Screaming meant nothing this far out, but I did anyway.
I wasn’t expecting them to draw a chalk circle, bust out the robes and the candles and start chanting around me. Without anything to lose, I taunted them and disrupted their incantations. It got me a sock in the jaw, but it was worth it to see them all pissed off. The moon was high and full in the sky when they drew back their hoods and showed me their monster faces and long red claws. I made fun of their acne. I prayed for a quick death.
Shotgun caught one of the cheerleaders and sent her down in a mess of blood. Something rang out like clear bell and Jacob’s head toppled off his shoulders. And then this electric voice called down fire and their robes burst into flames. Next thing I saw was Zach coming through the smoke, blasting away with a double-barrel and making hamburger of anyone he finds. That ringing sound tolled again and the ropes holding me fell away. I toppled over but it was Eddie who caught me, all done up like ghetto ninja with this sword covered in blood and bits. I was well into shock when he took me back to where Faust stood, book in hand and eyes all dark as midnight, finger pointed at the circle and the bodies while Zach stomped on anything still moving. He cleared the area and the whole circle turned white and burned a crater into the ground.
I shook in the cab of Zach’s truck for about twenty minutes, tucked in the corner and not letting anybody touch me. I rolled down the window when I got my wits about me and they all piled in, Eddie in the bed looking happy as a clam. Zach asked where he could take me. But I didn’t have anywhere to go. So when Faust got out he took me with him. I remember waving at Eddie as the truck sped away.
My first night in the Faust House wasn’t all that great. Aliester’s mom came down long enough to learn my name and point out the guest room, and then she went back to her study and locked the door. Aliester made me a mug of tea that tasted like ass, but I drank it down anyway. He explained that Jessie and the other cheerleaders and seniors had been infected by demons. They were probably planning to sacrifice me in a ritual for either more power or perhaps to awaken a dormant demonic power in the mountain. I think I asked him what fat twist of crack he was smoking. He wasn’t too happy about that, considering he and the others had saved my life. We had our first of many, many arguments that night before I passed out from exhaustion.