could be a nail in my coffin and I don't need another one
For a few moments after I get out of the car, bag of groceries in my arms, I just stand there. The sight of the porch brings back the memory of Misty standing there, gun in hand, with terrifying clarity. She said she was trying to shoot turkeys. She looked ready to shoot me.
I start shivering. It's just the rain. There's a chill in the air and water rolling down my neck, of course I'm shivering. But first thing I'm going to do when I get in is hide my gun.
Outside the door, I shake off the water like Elvis does before he comes inside on days like this. I don't bother to wipe my boots. It's my fucking house. I have to push Elvis out of the way when he comes over, going nuts trying to get at the groceries Uncle Mike gave me, before I head towards the living room. There's something intensely satisfying about the sight of those perfect boot treads formed in mud on the floor as I tromp inside, my own kind of artwork, modern art or something like that. Aunt Jan would have nightmares. And my mom, well, she gave up the right to give a fuck what I do to her house when it became mine, when she left me behind and in charge of the girls. Like anyone could be in charge of them.
It's the sound of the TV that leads me to them. Typical. Even with only four channels, I can't tear them away from it. They're all on the floor, sitting in the heap of pillows that took the place of the couch I burned, surrounded by dinosaurs, wearing nightshirts and ponytails, cotton balls between their toes and bowls of rainbow sprinkle-coated ice cream in their laps. In near perfect unison, they look up at me with calm, curious faces.
Through Jody's chatter about the slumber party they're having, the games they've played and her day at the Lick n' Putt with Mr. Mercer and Esme, Amber glowers at me. I'm an intruder in my own damn house, not to be trusted, and she knows it.
Misty doesn't say a word, her gaze tearing from the TV only briefly. The screen is reflected in her blank black eyes and the glint of the cheap plastic gems around her wrist. She's untroubled by my presence. I wish I could say the same for her. Instead there's nothing but trouble, a hurricane rush of love and loathing all at the same time. In that moment, I want nothing more than to burn everything she owns, every shirt, every sheet, every scrap of jewelry. I want to erase every trace of her life here. I want to erase every trace of her, all my memories, any small sign she ever existed. I want to cleanse her from my life utterly, absolutely, with no hesitation or remorse.
I want to pull her to me, hug her tight and never let go. I want to give her all the hugs she should have been getting from Mom, all the counseling she needs, all the understanding I'm not sure I possess. I want to apologize for having been blind to any trouble there might have been or believing now that something happened that didn't. I want to sit and talk with her, ask her why she tried to kill Mom. If she's okay, the impassive huntress who fucked up the most important shot of her life. No one loved Dad like Misty did.
I don't want to know what that means. For her, for him, for any of us. I don't want to know.
I don't want to hear anything more about the man who gets to go home to Callie every night either or listen to Amber's cryptic accusations.
I wind up in the kitchen, putting away the groceries: a box of elbow macaroni, three cans of soup, a can of green beans, a loaf of bread. Mom's Bible. I'm not even thinking until my hands start to shake so bad I drop the mayonnaise and it rolls away into the sink.
I can't be in this house with Misty. She doesn't scare me, it's the thoughts about what she did and the possible reasons why that eat at me. I don't need another reason to start losing my mind. If I can get away from her, maybe I can leave the thoughts here with her.
When my hands stop enough, I get back to unpacking before settling at the table with the Bible, a can of Red Dog and a Little Debbie Fudge Round. I pick up the Bible by its spine and shake it until a folded piece of yellowed paper falls out, relief sweeping over me. Opening it up, smoothing it flat to reveal the map Mom drew as a little girl, it's like coming home. It's an escape to a time when the girls were practically nonexistent and the universe made sense. My dad did what he had to and my mom was there to tell me stories later and no one was saving money to leave, no one killed anyone. Not in the house, anyway. I wasn't what other people might call safe but life had order. I knew how it worked.
Tracing my finger over the line that made up Mom's map, there's a futile thought, a desperate fleeting thought that it might take me home, too, or else let me fade into the same nothingness at the end of the road. Mom always believed her life would end in nothing, and she thinks that's what prison is, but I was wrong when I thought she ACCEPTED her sentence. She didn't, she just FLED to a safe haven, away from the TRUTH and away from us. I understand why she ran, but I don't care. I have the bloody shirt, I have Jody, and I can bring her back. Misty can't get charged as an adult, they'll just give her the help she needs, and Mom can come back to us whether she likes it or not.
With the map tucked back inside, I'm ready to take it downstairs, but first something makes me open it to the front page. On the inside flap of the Bible, Mom's written her maiden name and then, later, in much neater grown-up handwriting, our names and birthdays. I stare at my own, but it takes a while before the significance gets through. I grab Jody's school lunch menu off the refrigerator and count the days back, then double-check it with the Bible.
Twenty years old.
It's been a while since I became a man in more ways than one, but my first impulse is to run and tell Amber, let her know I'm not a fucking teenager anymore. And for eight long months, I'll be FOUR years older than her, not three. I don't act on it, though. If I tell them, Jody will want to throw a party and I'm not in the mood. I just down part of my beer and toss Elvis half of the fudgie. That's celebration enough and I've got more important things to do. Bible in hand, I go downstairs and leave it in my dresser.
I grab the gun.
There are only so many places I can hide it, and with the girls in the living room, there's no chance of going out front. Misty already knows I keep it down in the basement with me. I need it out of the house. Heading out the back door, the mud sucks at my boots as I shuffle across the yard, rain pelting down on my hat. It's a rough one tonight. The best place I can think of is the shed, back behind the two-by-fours and sled, all the old tools.
I step into the dark shed, leaving it open a crack for light. It smells of gas and rotting wood and leaves, and then it doesn't. It smells instead of paper and laundry detergent, and I nearly stumble over a coil of rope, turning back toward the barely open door. It's a hell of a lot further away than I remember it being.
The shed, for that matter, is bigger than it's supposed to be. Cleaner, too. Making my way cautiously across it, Ruger still in hand, I creep to the end and feel around by the door until I hit a light-switch that shouldn't be there. The lights flicker on, showing an over-sized supply closet of some kind. There's the electric rumble of generators nearby. I think I might be sick right here on the floor of someone's magic cupboard, because there's no way in hell I should be here, dripping water and tracking mud. I peer through the doorway, careful not to open it any further. There's a row of washers and driers and a couple people going about their business like there's nothing out of the ordinary.
I try to will it to stop. I tell myself it's just one of those things, a vivid hallucination. I get those sometimes and they're always disturbing, but they usually involve people I know, not some kind of freak teleportation to a laundromat full of strangers. I bite hard on my lip, hoping the pain might jolt me out of it, but either the TRUTH about Misty has finally pushed me over the edge or something's happening to me, because usually when this shit happens, I don't know that's what it is until it's over. This can't be real, but I don't know what it is either, and until I do, there's no way in hell I'm going out there. It occurs to me too late that someone might have seen the light go on, but I can't turn it back off, in case that just draws more attention. Instead I slowly back way.
And knock into a wooden sawhorse. It goes clattering to the floor and I flinch, wanting to hide and knowing there's nowhere for me to do so. Someone will follow that sound, and I don't want to know what happens when they find me here.
[Please see this post in Slated before tagging. ST/LT welcome until otherwise noted. Bring me your delicious tags.]
I start shivering. It's just the rain. There's a chill in the air and water rolling down my neck, of course I'm shivering. But first thing I'm going to do when I get in is hide my gun.
Outside the door, I shake off the water like Elvis does before he comes inside on days like this. I don't bother to wipe my boots. It's my fucking house. I have to push Elvis out of the way when he comes over, going nuts trying to get at the groceries Uncle Mike gave me, before I head towards the living room. There's something intensely satisfying about the sight of those perfect boot treads formed in mud on the floor as I tromp inside, my own kind of artwork, modern art or something like that. Aunt Jan would have nightmares. And my mom, well, she gave up the right to give a fuck what I do to her house when it became mine, when she left me behind and in charge of the girls. Like anyone could be in charge of them.
It's the sound of the TV that leads me to them. Typical. Even with only four channels, I can't tear them away from it. They're all on the floor, sitting in the heap of pillows that took the place of the couch I burned, surrounded by dinosaurs, wearing nightshirts and ponytails, cotton balls between their toes and bowls of rainbow sprinkle-coated ice cream in their laps. In near perfect unison, they look up at me with calm, curious faces.
Through Jody's chatter about the slumber party they're having, the games they've played and her day at the Lick n' Putt with Mr. Mercer and Esme, Amber glowers at me. I'm an intruder in my own damn house, not to be trusted, and she knows it.
Misty doesn't say a word, her gaze tearing from the TV only briefly. The screen is reflected in her blank black eyes and the glint of the cheap plastic gems around her wrist. She's untroubled by my presence. I wish I could say the same for her. Instead there's nothing but trouble, a hurricane rush of love and loathing all at the same time. In that moment, I want nothing more than to burn everything she owns, every shirt, every sheet, every scrap of jewelry. I want to erase every trace of her life here. I want to erase every trace of her, all my memories, any small sign she ever existed. I want to cleanse her from my life utterly, absolutely, with no hesitation or remorse.
I want to pull her to me, hug her tight and never let go. I want to give her all the hugs she should have been getting from Mom, all the counseling she needs, all the understanding I'm not sure I possess. I want to apologize for having been blind to any trouble there might have been or believing now that something happened that didn't. I want to sit and talk with her, ask her why she tried to kill Mom. If she's okay, the impassive huntress who fucked up the most important shot of her life. No one loved Dad like Misty did.
I don't want to know what that means. For her, for him, for any of us. I don't want to know.
I don't want to hear anything more about the man who gets to go home to Callie every night either or listen to Amber's cryptic accusations.
I wind up in the kitchen, putting away the groceries: a box of elbow macaroni, three cans of soup, a can of green beans, a loaf of bread. Mom's Bible. I'm not even thinking until my hands start to shake so bad I drop the mayonnaise and it rolls away into the sink.
I can't be in this house with Misty. She doesn't scare me, it's the thoughts about what she did and the possible reasons why that eat at me. I don't need another reason to start losing my mind. If I can get away from her, maybe I can leave the thoughts here with her.
When my hands stop enough, I get back to unpacking before settling at the table with the Bible, a can of Red Dog and a Little Debbie Fudge Round. I pick up the Bible by its spine and shake it until a folded piece of yellowed paper falls out, relief sweeping over me. Opening it up, smoothing it flat to reveal the map Mom drew as a little girl, it's like coming home. It's an escape to a time when the girls were practically nonexistent and the universe made sense. My dad did what he had to and my mom was there to tell me stories later and no one was saving money to leave, no one killed anyone. Not in the house, anyway. I wasn't what other people might call safe but life had order. I knew how it worked.
Tracing my finger over the line that made up Mom's map, there's a futile thought, a desperate fleeting thought that it might take me home, too, or else let me fade into the same nothingness at the end of the road. Mom always believed her life would end in nothing, and she thinks that's what prison is, but I was wrong when I thought she ACCEPTED her sentence. She didn't, she just FLED to a safe haven, away from the TRUTH and away from us. I understand why she ran, but I don't care. I have the bloody shirt, I have Jody, and I can bring her back. Misty can't get charged as an adult, they'll just give her the help she needs, and Mom can come back to us whether she likes it or not.
With the map tucked back inside, I'm ready to take it downstairs, but first something makes me open it to the front page. On the inside flap of the Bible, Mom's written her maiden name and then, later, in much neater grown-up handwriting, our names and birthdays. I stare at my own, but it takes a while before the significance gets through. I grab Jody's school lunch menu off the refrigerator and count the days back, then double-check it with the Bible.
Twenty years old.
It's been a while since I became a man in more ways than one, but my first impulse is to run and tell Amber, let her know I'm not a fucking teenager anymore. And for eight long months, I'll be FOUR years older than her, not three. I don't act on it, though. If I tell them, Jody will want to throw a party and I'm not in the mood. I just down part of my beer and toss Elvis half of the fudgie. That's celebration enough and I've got more important things to do. Bible in hand, I go downstairs and leave it in my dresser.
I grab the gun.
There are only so many places I can hide it, and with the girls in the living room, there's no chance of going out front. Misty already knows I keep it down in the basement with me. I need it out of the house. Heading out the back door, the mud sucks at my boots as I shuffle across the yard, rain pelting down on my hat. It's a rough one tonight. The best place I can think of is the shed, back behind the two-by-fours and sled, all the old tools.
I step into the dark shed, leaving it open a crack for light. It smells of gas and rotting wood and leaves, and then it doesn't. It smells instead of paper and laundry detergent, and I nearly stumble over a coil of rope, turning back toward the barely open door. It's a hell of a lot further away than I remember it being.
The shed, for that matter, is bigger than it's supposed to be. Cleaner, too. Making my way cautiously across it, Ruger still in hand, I creep to the end and feel around by the door until I hit a light-switch that shouldn't be there. The lights flicker on, showing an over-sized supply closet of some kind. There's the electric rumble of generators nearby. I think I might be sick right here on the floor of someone's magic cupboard, because there's no way in hell I should be here, dripping water and tracking mud. I peer through the doorway, careful not to open it any further. There's a row of washers and driers and a couple people going about their business like there's nothing out of the ordinary.
I try to will it to stop. I tell myself it's just one of those things, a vivid hallucination. I get those sometimes and they're always disturbing, but they usually involve people I know, not some kind of freak teleportation to a laundromat full of strangers. I bite hard on my lip, hoping the pain might jolt me out of it, but either the TRUTH about Misty has finally pushed me over the edge or something's happening to me, because usually when this shit happens, I don't know that's what it is until it's over. This can't be real, but I don't know what it is either, and until I do, there's no way in hell I'm going out there. It occurs to me too late that someone might have seen the light go on, but I can't turn it back off, in case that just draws more attention. Instead I slowly back way.
And knock into a wooden sawhorse. It goes clattering to the floor and I flinch, wanting to hide and knowing there's nowhere for me to do so. Someone will follow that sound, and I don't want to know what happens when they find me here.
[Please see this post in Slated before tagging. ST/LT welcome until otherwise noted. Bring me your delicious tags.]