Post by kamiiya on Oct 11, 2011 20:37:27 GMT -5
Meryl folded the fresh linen sheets that lay across the bed her mother died in only two days before. With a few quick pats; she flattened them neatly and fell back on it with a hard, tired plop. She stared at the colorless ceiling and the fan that spun rapidly in the middle. As a child, she often tried to keep up with the blades as they turned, keeping one distinct from the others, but of course, she always failed. The room was hot and full of an odor she knew so well. The stale smell of age struck her from everywhere. It was in the sheets and the curtains and the carpet, crawling up her nose in such a defiling way. And for some even greater oddity, age smelled dry and scentless. It was a smell she’d grown to know for years that led up to this day, and it was still there, to remind her, that one day, it would conquer her too.
“Meryl!” Joan yelled from the foot of the steps. She could see her now standing there with one foot propped up, a damp towel dangling from one fist at her hip, a vexed expression upon her often stolid face. “You done making up that bed?” she asked hinting that she would scream if she hadn’t. Joan was the middle child of their mother’s three girls. Meryl was the youngest and Marla, the oldest. “Yah,” replied Meryl in a long exasperated tone. She closed her eyes hoping everything would disappear; that every sound would suddenly mute, and blackness would fall upon her. “Alright, when you get a chance could you come throw these curtains in the washer? I think I may give them to Aunt Aileen.” She was silent for a moment and then she sat up, and took again another long breath, her back hanging over her knees, where her head fell loosely between. “Meryl?” She still said nothing and heard Joan’s footsteps as she walked away, muttering something beneath her breath.
Meryl walked over to the mirror set above a large wooden dresser. After years of use, it was now, chipped and cracked. Perhaps it grew old as her mother did, but it would never vanish, as her mother did; they could repair it, with a fresh coat of paint, and it would be new, once again. It intrigued her to consider the longevity of this inanimate thing and how it made her mother’s life seem so much shorter, that it had outlived generations of people and it would, indeed, outlive her.
It was at this dresser and this mirror; she watched her mother get dressed for days, up until she was a teenager. She’d grab an armful of dresses and lay them across the bed. Then she’d stand over them with a patient, indecisive look upon her heart-shaped face, her hair pinned in fine curls, and neck chocked with pearls, pinching her chin as if she had a short beard. After she found “the one” she walked over to the closet, crowded with hangers, empty and useful, some with freshly ironed skirts, the plastic still over them, and others loosely thrown onto them, falling and limbering over the bar. At the bottom of this chaos were rows of neatly lined shoes, from bright or soft-colored heels to short comfortable flats, from which she decided would match her outfit best. Once she was done, she turned toward the mirror, Meryl sitting atop the bed, big-eyed and grinning innocently, and said “How do I look?” and Meryl would throw her hands up saying, “You look beautiful Mommy!” in her full-of-life kiddy tone.
Now she looked into this mirror and couldn’t find an ounce of her mother’s blood. She looked beaten and tired; her eyes shot with red and her hair matted upon her egg-shaped head, partly brown and partly grey. Her mottled face wore no makeup and her teeth, once full and white, were now mossy and fractured. She walked away from the mirror, trying hard not to be affected by the person she saw in it, and went over to her purse to fetch a cigarette.
She had a ragged brown purse that she borrowed from Marla a couple years ago and just never gave it back. Now one of the straps was missing and pieces of stitching unraveled along the side. She searched through the bag without any ounce of patience, though it was her own fault she lagged around a bag of clutter. She turned it upside down and a mountain of stuff poured onto the sheets; scraps of paper with phone numbers she never memorized with names that were more or less important, tons and tons of lottery tickets, and the dimes and pennies she used to scrape them, a few key chains without keys, old faded photos of her and friends, some black and white and others an antique-looking sepia, lighters, always at least three of them, and a host of other miscellaneous things. Finally she grasped a pack of Newports, with only two left in the pack. She went downstairs, leaving the things scattered across the bed.
“I’m going to have a smoke,” she told Joan starting toward the back door.
“Did you put the curtains in the washer?” she took her eyes off the dishes in the sink below her, drowning in an overflow of white bubbles.
“I’ll do it goddammit! The world doesn’t move at your command.”
“I just asked a question,” she put her head back down. It wasn’t hard to put Joan back in her place. She was weak.
“Well, just leave me alone.” Meryl stalked out of the room with a loud slam of the screen door, taking a seat on the patio that overlooked a large round swimming pool surrounded by green grass. A small garage tucked in a corner of the yard, next to a wooden swing, hanging from a tree. All of this enclosed by a tall wired gate, that seemed to convey to her as a kid, “Children live here, no evil allowed.” In fact, stepping out into that yard was like taking a step back into childhood, where she and Marla picked dandelions for fun or chased each other in circles until they fell dizzy. Joan was always off in the house reading a book or getting in grown folks’ business. She couldn’t possibly feel what Meryl felt when she walked out into that yard.
The day was calm. She leaned back in the chair, overwhelmed by the soft cushion and warm sun. The neighbor next door was barbecuing something tasty on the grill and she thought about going over to ask for a plate but decided not to, for the old man didn’t know how to keep a conversation short. He always succeeded at “talking her dang ear off.” She got up and leaned against the wooden rail that offset the pool, the cigarette settled between her fingers, one foot crossed in front of the other, smoke streaming from her blackened lips, in the softest and shortest of breaths.
She’d been in a dungeon for a week with no money and no means of getting anywhere. And with each day passing after her mother’s death, the need to get high became more urgent and more sickening. At night she began to feel her stomach burn, as if she wanted to vomit, but there was nothing to turn up except beer and a bad cough; a nasty cough, full of bronchitis, and the awful stench of cigarette-breath. But, it was all she had, to keep her mind off the high, the high she hadn’t been able to have. She didn’t even have enough change to catch a bus to the West side of town to meet Greg. He was a short, wide-eyed, buck-toothed bum who hid his late night pleasures well, for he worked a steady job as a security guard at a local grocery store, so he always had money. Despite how many times he showed up to work late or high out of his mind or cursed out a customer, they never let him go. She guessed they’d rather pay a crack head who asked for just a little bit of nothing to support his habit than an upright costly whoever else that walked in their wanting a job. But maybe they felt sorry for him. He had a way of crafting some heartfelt sob story to get out of trouble, for his grandmother died every other month. However, she had no care for his personal troubles. All she cared was that he had money, which mean he had rocks, and for just a little bit of pussy, he’d give it all up, or at least half of it. And as he entered her on those cold sweaty nights, asking, “Do you love me?” she’d say in a harsh, heavy voice, “Just get it over with.”
She chucked the cigarette over the side of the gate into a pile of rocks beside the pool and walked back into the house.
Joan was now peeling sweet potatoes at the counter. She had a pudgy figure that Meryl despised aloud whenever they fought, with short curly hair that she died blonde and a buttery face splashed with freckles. Meryl smacked her lips as she walked pass, “I told you I would make the sweet potatoes.” Meryl and Marla were always the cooks of the house when their mother fell ill. Joan never took any interest in cooking growing up, but Meryl felt now that she did out of guilt, for all times she told mother she had no use for cooking and that she’d be more in life than some old man’s housemaid. However it was her idea that they should get together to clean out this smelly old house and sit down to talk about where they would go from here, over dinner. But, Joan didn’t say anything about her being the one to cook it, for anyone would have immediately objected. “You also said you would wash the curtains,” Joan snapped.
Meryl went over to the living area and slouched down on the couch. Joan stared at her with snarling eyes, before starting back at the potatoes, chopping them more viciously and anxiously than before. They were all large and oddly shaped and hardly feasible. She started by taking one of the smaller pieces, for they seemed friendlier, and sat it straight up, just as she saw her mother and Marla do, and peeled from the top-down. The skin of the potato looked dirt brown, rough and old-looking, that made her think of a sack race. For some reason, she could not get one good peel, one good slicing, and it was embarrassing. Meryl look at her with a sort of evil sardonic grin and said, “Sure look like you could use some help to me,” but Joan said nothing. The knife kept slipping through the skin, never quite catching on, and the counter looked like someone had shredded a brown paper bag.
“Let me borrow a few dollars, I’m about to run and get a pack of cigarettes,” Meryl said with bold audacity rising from the couch. She stretched her back and arms and opened her mouth wide letting out a loud annoying yawn. “I don’t have any money,” Joan said curtly.
“What,” Meryl looked at her, her eyes glaring, and mouth, wry.
“I said I don’t have any money.”
“You a goddamn lie Joan,” she started toward her, “I know Mama left you a heck of a lot of money. You a dang fool if you think I ain’t going to see a dime of it.”
“So you can smoke it up,” Joan muttered, “over my dead body.” She grabbed the broom and dustpan from the closet and began sweeping the tiled floor.
“You know what your problem is,” here we go, Joan thought, “You think somebody supposed to bow down to you! Just because you went to school. So fucking what! I was here with mama while you were out earning all your dang degrees, taking care of her, cooking and cleaning. All the poop you trying to do now, but it’s far too late. heck, you just the same as everyone else, don’t care about anybody but yourself. But you’ll see,” she started up the staircase, “soon enough.”
Nothing Meryl said phased her anymore. Joan decided to get used to it long ago when Meryl made it clear that she wasn’t going to rehab. All this started back while Joan was still going to school at the University of Illinois. She was starting her second year and had just found out what it was she really wanted to do. Her mother called her hysterical saying that Meryl was out of control and she didn’t know what to do. Marla took time to interfere a few times, but she had her own hands full with her three boys. First, she started stealing, little things, like a few dollars out of Marla’s purse, but then little things turned into big things, like jewelry or Mama’s furs or her credit card. At sixty-five, her mother was too old to chase Meryl around or stay up late at night, just to make sure everything stayed in its proper place. Thus, she called Joan. She took a weekend to come home and help her straighten things out.
When she arrived, her mother opened the door, holding her bathrobe at the waist, her hair stood up in pink bulky rollers. She gave Joan a wet kiss and hugged her tightly before telling her to come in and take a seat on the couch. “Let me make you some tea, sugar,” she said, “go sit over there on that couch. I want you to tell me all about college.” Joan smiled, “I have so much to say, I really love it.” She wished she could share with her mother everything she’d experienced. All the classes she had taken the professors she met, and friends. But there was always this awkward distance between them, which perhaps, she created, fearing that her mother wouldn’t possibly be able to relate. As she warmed up a cup of water, her mother ran on and on about how proud she was of her for going to school and how she was the first in the family to go to a university and how she never ceased bragging to her friends at church. All of her hopes rested on Joan, the middle child, and her ability to do well in life.
Joan took a seat on the couch, which her mother never took the plastic off of, and thus it made a plasticy sound when you sat on it, and if you were shorts on a hot day, it stuck to your behind as you got up. In front of her was a coffee table, ornamented with several figurines; one with a little black boy and girl tussling in a garden, her pigtails flying in the air, along with the violet ribbons that clung to them, the boy grasping her hands just before she hit a rose-covered ground. Another was of an old woman rocking in a chair, slicing an apple, a bushel of others sitting next to her, as if she was preparing to make some scrumptious apple pie or fry of pan of sweet ones, the juice dripping from them next to a serving of pork chops on a hot plate. As a child, she thought of it as a small town, and she gave these inhabitants names and places to go, and told herself stories about them that stirred her imagination. Yes, yes, the figurines were her mother’s celebration of everyday living and Joan’s way of playing doll house. Tons and tons of photographs crowded the mantelpiece. A black and white picture of her great-grandfather looking sharp in a brown suit and hat, his long face, poised and dignified, stood out among them all. Many people said they looked alike for he was also quite fair with a reddish freckled face. Her mother came in, still fumbling with her robe, placing two mugs onto the table, heat rising from their rims, and took a seat across from Joan, a hearty smile across her face.
“So what’s been going on around here Ma,” she began, “Marla tells me you’ve been having some trouble and you sounded worried the last time we talked.”
“Honey, your sister has really surprised me.”
“I hear,” she waited for an explanation, “Marla told me she’s been acting up. Going through her rebellious phase, I suppose.”
“This ain’t just no phase.”
“What do you mean?”
“Joan, your sister’s a junkie.”
“A junkie,” her mouth fell open and she laughed, somewhat mockingly, “Ma, I hardly think that’s the case. What makes you think so?”
“I wasn’t born yesterday Joan. The girl practically steals everything in sight. I can’t even leave one second without questioning whether she will take something or not. And you should see this new crowd she been running round’ here with. A pack of dusty, filthy looking gals, walking around here with their hair a mess, wearing the same clothes, always looking high. Then I asked one of them where their parents where and you know what this here child told me?” she looked almost angry, “that she doesn’t need parents and it wasn’t none of my business.”
“Well, I don’t know if that means she’s on drugs,” Joan was the hardest person to convince, “you sure she’s not just stealing money to buy some fast-looking clothes or sneaking out to see some boy.”
“You don’t believe me. Well, you can believe what you want. I’m just saying don’t leave your purse lying around because you might not find everything in it that you did last time.”
“And where do you think she’s staying when she’s out all night?”
“Out with those druggie friends of hers. I doubt they even have houses to live in. For all I know she could be sleeping on the streets. She come in here the other day sometime after midnight, and I asked where she’d been and she say ‘don’t worry about it,’ and trot right up the stairs like I ain’t got no business asking her questions, and this my house!” She tightened her robe again and looked off to the side, rocking a little in her seat. After a few seconds of silence she said, “I ain’t got much time left on this earth baby, and I need you to know that. I’ve done all I could to try to help your sister and I’m afraid I can’t do anymore. I’m putting it all in God’s hands from here on out.”
“Don’t worry Ma. I will help you. Meryl will be fine. She just needs a good talking to. You need not get worked up about it. You know the doctor warned you about your blood pressure. All this stress will just make it worse,” but her mother didn’t say anything, yet steady looked off to the side, as if she’d just said her peace, and that was that.
Meryl walked back down the stairs in silence, avoiding eye contact with Joan, slipping quickly out the back door. Something about this felt strange, normally she would expect a rude comment, a smack of the lips, maybe even another attempt to get money, but now Joan sensed she was up to something. She stood in the middle of the kitchen for a while looking pensive and baffled, as if irked by an insolvable puzzle. A pot of water boiled on the stove, steam rushing toward the ceiling. “Christ!” she ran up the stairs in panic realizing that she’d left her purse upstairs in their old bedroom. The bag was still there, but that didn’t mean much. She searched through it frantically but her wallet and keys were gone.
She ran senselessly downstairs to catch her, knowing she’d already drove off. She wondered how she could have slipped like that and gave her thighs a hard slap before entering back into the house and swinging the door hard behind her. In the middle of the kitchen again, she found herself standing there, staring at the pot of steaming water, but not seeing that it was there. Tears welled up in her eyes and she went over to the couch to sit, burying her face in her palms, beaten up with grief.
2
Marla emerged from the attic with a crate full of things she’d been gathering for the past two days, things that their mother had meant to pass on to them years ago, but never found time to sift through. She sat them on the dining room table, declaring, “Child, you should see all the old stuff I found packed away upstairs in that old dusty attic; cases and cases of things. I was just sitting up there crying my eyes out, especially at these here pictures.”
Marla dealt with death a lot differently than Joan, it was just her. As she handed Joan a photo album from their childhood, Joan held out her hand hesitantly, part of her wanting to grieve with Marla, and the other part of her wanting to run away. She took the book and looked through it speedily, noting a photograph of the four of them at Disney Land, around the time Meryl was two. “Well would you look at that,” she said holding back a bucket of tears that stung her eyes. “Ain’t that something,” replied Marla, “you were so little, and Mama looked fabulous as usual,” and then after a short silence, “I’m going to have put this up and frame it.” Joan flipped through the rest of the pages and sat the book down on the table, as if anymore would just be unbearable. “I’ll look at the rest later, I need to finish cooking.”
“You’re not doing too bad in there,” Marla said charmly, finding a comfortable spot on the couch where Meryl insulted Joan earlier, “smells good.”
“Well, thank you,” she always admired Marla’s kind energy. She was a bright spice of life, always reminiscing on the good times, and laughing at the bad. She had peanut butter skin and a soft, plain smile with eyes shaped like almonds and long thick lashes that seemed to flap when she blinked. Unlike Joan, she had a petite frame that would never suggest she’d popped out three boys in her short lifetime. She was their mother’s favorite up until she got pregnant with her first son, Daniel, when she was barely eighteen. It was quite unexpected; for her mother knew she’d been dating a young man from school, but didn’t take it too seriously. After she found out about the pregnancy, Marla packed up her things and moved in with Daniel’s father. They married shortly after and she had two more children, William and James. However, by the time she turned twenty-five, both Marla and her husband, realized, suddenly, that everything happened too early and too fast. He struggled to support the five of them, working two, sometimes three jobs, and she felt lonelier than ever. They divorced around the time Daniel turned seven, she kept the house and car, and he moved across town. Their mother didn’t approve of Marla’s decisions, even after she married and could be called an “honest woman.” But Mama said that it was only a “cover-up for her sin” and she was only leading herself down to a disaster. However, Marla had given her three grandchildren, and she accepted them with all the love in heart she had to give.
Marla taught Joan almost everything: how to read and sew and dress and flirt with boys, pretty much all except cook. She knew how to make everyone laugh and people noticed her whenever she walked into a room. She was simply…beautiful. Even sitting there on that ancient-looking couch, still covered with plastic, it seemed a special glow around her. She wore a floral patterned sundress that draped just past her knees and moved when she walked, and a pair of modest wedge heels, a handbag that looked expensive lying by her side, but Joan was sure she got it at a thrift store downtown. She prided herself on taking old things and making them look “new” or taking something poor and making it “rich.” The very air of her voice was rich; rich in laughter and love, and sitting there in all her beauty, she reminded her more and more of their mother.
She got up and walked over the window, opening the long sheer curtains. Something about these curtains always appeared grand as they were growing up and the idea of thrusting them open brought a peculiar joy to their innocent hearts. A faint light poured into the room and spilled over the cherry wood floors. “Where’s your car honey? I don’t see it out front.”
“Take a wild guess.”
“No,” she looked at Joan sideways with puckered lips.
“Yes,” Marla shook her head at this, “I left my purse on the bed upstairs. It’s my fault.”
“We really have to get that girl some help. It’s a shame she can’t even act right on a day like this.”
“She needs to want help first. You can’t help anybody that doesn’t want to be helped.”
“She does. You don’t know Meryl like I do”
“I don’t?” she sounded perplexed, but her expression was flat, as she mixed a bowl of dressing with her bare hands.
“She’s going through something that we can’t understand, and haven’t really tried to either.”
“Well, why don’t you take her for a few weeks,” she finally smiled, “and see how you feel afterwards. She said this to break the tension, but was more than serious, and then, “What do you mean I don’t know her like you do?”
“She was always closer to me growing up,” she walked into the kitchen, brushing down her dress, “she thought you looked down on her, thought everyone did, except me. This was before the drugs.”
“Looked down on her,” she stopped mixing the dressing, and looked at Marla as if she was telling a joke, “Meryl’s full of it. She’s always done what she wanted to do. It didn’t matter what I thought.”
“Oh come on Joan!” she said throwing one hand up and setting it back at her waist, “All mama did was brag about you all the time. About how pretty you were, your grades, and how you went to college. Meryl hardly got any attention less’ I was around. So, naturally, she rebelled. Everything you did, she didn’t. And then she got lots of attention.”
“And you think that how it started,”
At the beginning, yes. Over time, I think she began to like the high, and couldn’t be the same without it.”
“So what do you think we should do,” she walked over to the sink to wash her hands, “since that’s what it comes down to.”
“We wait for her to come around,” she said dissatisfied with her own answer, “and pray, I suppose, that she will soon.”
Joan shook the water from her hands and dried them with the apron tied around her, not looking at Marla. Even if what Marla was saying had been true, it still did not validate Meryl’s actions. They were merely excuses, but part of her began to feel a sense of guilt, guilt for having no compassion and guilt for having no love. The bottom of her ribs began to shiver and her stomach seemed to turn. A black cloud stationed over her and for a moment, she felt she was no better than Meryl, possibly even worse. She couldn’t tell what Marla thought, as they stood there in silence, each reflecting on their own faults.
“I see you planning to make some sweet potatoes over there,” Marla said abruptly.
“If I could ever get them in the pot,” she laughed at herself.
“You never were the cook of the house,” Marla laughed, “but I like your effort. Mind if I help?”
“Go right ahead. I’d like to see you slice those things myself.”
She took the peeler from atop the microwave, where Joan had left it, and gripped the potato confidently, stood it on its bottom, and skinned that thing like it was second nature. The peelings fell perfectly and revealed a smooth bright orange. “Yes, that’s how it’s supposed to look, that’s how I remember it,” Joan smiled and then, “Okay, let me give it another try.” Marla handed over the knife. Joan stood one her failed ones from earlier on the buttocks and this time; put a little extra umph in her peel. But the same thing happened, brown paper shreds. “You’ll get it,” said Marla lightly patting her on the shoulder, and then, “someday.” They both looked at each other and laughed.
Greg took a sip of his drink before setting it back down on the floor. His apartment smelled like sour sheets and a foul odor rang from the kitchen, swelled with dirty dishes submerged in greasy brown water alongside piles and piles of garbage and a mossy mop bucket. The fridge was empty except for a carton of milk, likely spoiled, and a couple packs of lunch meat. The floor was blotchy and cracked, with muddy footprints starting from the back doors, evidence of drunken nights, when Greg came stumbling in. In the living area, where they sat, were two couches and a TV set atop a chair. “Come on, let me get some, stop playing,” said Meryl. “What you going to do for me?” he said slouching back in his seat. His eyes were glassy and red and his bottom lip hung loose as he talked. “What you want me to do,” she said annoyed, knowing where this was going. “You know the routine,” he said, peering at her through lewd eyes. She didn’t say anything, and he took this to mean she agreed and with this agreeance, he got up and led her to the bedroom. In his bedroom, filthy drawers and shirts laid all over the carpet, which was stained and gray. The bed sheets hung off the bed, exposing a pissed mattress. Across from the bed was a dresser, on which sat a few lighters, a stack of miscellaneous papers, a pipe, and one lonely lamp without a lampshade. Across the room was a small window, with a thick sheet of plastic over it. He shut the door behind them and began to loosen his belt buckle.
His heavy breath crept down her neck as he brushed his body against hers from behind, suddenly, she trembled. “I need to go to the bathroom,” she said.
He crashed down on the bed, “Don’t be long.”
She sat on the edge of the tub, her head drooping in the same fashion it had earlier. It occurred to her, as she entered Greg’s bedroom, that her mother could be watching, not from heaven, or some distant place, but there, in the bedroom, and was watching her now, as she sat alone. She walked over to the sink and looked into the mirror that hung above it. It was her face looking back at her but it did not feel like it. It was as if she saw herself looking into the mirror from some distant part of the room. And she looked at herself with utter disgust. She fell back onto the toilet seat, wrapping her arms around her waist, and rocking back and forth, her eyes about to burst with tears. The tortuous pain of withdrawal cramped her stomach and the eyes of her mother scowled her from a place she could not see. She grasped the sides of the tub and an immense weight fell upon her shoulders, and as the warm tears trickled down her face, it became urgent to get out of that room, out of that house. The walls became compressed and she found her breath harder to catch. Hugging her stomach, she slid down to the floor, the pain striking her like a sharp blade, and sobbed. She hoisted herself up on both hands, crawling toward the sink again, to turn on the water. The sound of running water crashed down on her ears, she cupped her hands underneath the faucet and splashed her face. “You alright in there baby?” Greg called from outside the door. She wiped her face with a corner of her shirt, “I’m fine. Be out in a sec.” She looked at her reflection once again, seeing a long apologetic face, that seemed to grant her no mercy, no love. She opened the door.
Greg stood before her half-dressed, his paunchy belly exposed and a dark hairy chest that made her cringe. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him without clothes, but this time felt different. The smell of urine brushed her nose again as she sat down on the bed. He walked from her briefly to turn off the lamp and then stood at the foot of the bed, dropping his pants and drawers. The darkness struck her like a driver driving with no headlights in a pitch black sky. She couldn’t see and she wanted to, she needed to, and her head began to waver and swerve, with ideas of how to break free of this dark tunnel, she now found herself driving through. He started toward her, his heavy shadow slowly crawling up from the foot of the bed and his breathing became more intense, more terrifying, like a large bear. For a moment, she had a peculiar thought that she was trapped in a vast forest, suffocating and surrounded by nothing but tall trees, trees as tall as the blank blue sky above her, and the only way to get out was to climb one of them, and only then would she be able to breath. He was now at her legs, not seeming to care that she hadn’t moved since she sat down. She jolted back, so violently, that her back hit the headboard and her foot kicked his shoulder. “What the heck is wrong with you, woman!” he shouted. She got up, stumbling toward the door, “I got to go, I can’t do this,” she said helplessly. She placed her hand on the knob and was suddenly thrust back onto the bed. She could feel the springs bounce up and down, and the squeaky noise it made, as she struggled to get up. But Greg pushed her back down and slapped her across the face. She began to scream, but his large sweaty palm covered her mouth while he unfastened her pants with the other. A rush of anger came over her and she bit his hand, tearing he teeth into his flesh, like a wild animal that’d just caught her prey. He howled as he held his wounded hand with the other and fell lamely on the side of her. She darted for the door again, tripping over her pants, and other things that she could not see. Her face flared with pain and she felt the skin begin to web. The room became hotter and more dense, the door began to move backward and shadows beneath and above her, crowded the door way. He scooted on his back toward the edge of the bed and kicked her in the behind. She fell instantly onto her stomach, moaning and crying, yet still conscious. She turned over to see his enormous figure, that was once gaunt and weak, standing over her frail, pitiful body.
The next moments were simply unbearable. He ripped off her pants, pinning her hands above her head, to assure that she wouldn’t be able to resist any longer. And he entered her, pounding his sex against her, grunting and sweating, like a giant dog. Was mother watching this too? She thought. The fight was over, and she surrendered, defeated, paying the cost of her ill ways. She heard about when women were raped, how they had an outer body experience, how they would drift over themselves and their predator, watching. But she was still there, in her own skin, and felt everything. He began to slow down, his body wet and cold, and she sighed after a long period of holding her breath. Why hadn’t she screamed? What difference did it make if she had screamed? Who was going to help her? A crackhead in a crackhouse, being raped by another crackhead, a case no one could have cared to investigate. And with a long bestial exhale of air, he finished. He laid there for a few moments, breathless and heavy, before pushing himself from her and standing to his feet. He gathered his clothing in silence, slipping on a gray tee shirt and a pair of dingy denims, with no drawers underneath.
Meryl finally rose from the floor, fluid dripping from her nose, and her eyes damp, a blank look upon her face. She hurried to put on her bottoms before he switched on the lamp, for the light, would degrade her in greater ways than Greg had already. She grasped her purse off the bed, which she would have left, had she escaped earlier. Greg leaned on the dresser and lit a cigarette; a small flame appeared and disappeared, its remnants lying at the edge of his lips, as he inhaled. A deadly silence filled between them. He was the ugliest black bastard she’d ever seen. “I still got some rocks, if you want. If not, then you can leave,” he finally said. She said nothing, her head downwardly fixed, and she did not move. “Well since you ain’t moving,” he burned out his cigarette in a tray that sat on the windowsill, “I’ll take that as a yes,” and he turned on the lamp and walked out of the room. The light burned her eyes and she looked around the room once again, but now the stink was stinkier and the air thicker. The same clothes still lay about the rough carpet. A sting came from her elbow and she looked down to see her skin broken, a pink-red layer showing beneath her dark skin, a rug burn. At this she touched the side of her face, which still felt hot and tender. Why hadn’t she left? He returned to the room with a bag of white rocks and fetched the pipe and lighter atop the dresser, before sitting down next to her on the bed. He filled the pipe and placed it to his mouth, and then lit it, closing his eyes, as he inhaled. At this, she looked at him, and her jaws began to loosen. The burn in her stomach grew stronger and her muscles began to tense. She couldn’t leave now. He took another deep drag and smiled at her slyly from the corner of his eye. “Give it to me, you stupid fool!” she said with a sudden giggly tone, snatching the glass from his hand, taking her own pull. He watched her, a placid look in his eyes, and casual smirk upon his thick lips and then said, “You satisfied now?” She handed him the pipe, not knowing how to answer, and fell back onto the bed, laughing boisterously.
Marla hummed something soulful as she set the table, plates and silverware clacking occasionally. The house was quiet and a dim light burned at the ceiling above the dining room table. Joan washed the last few dishes in the sink. “So why didn’t you bring the boys?” she asked Marla. “I thought about it,” she paused, hoping that they were okay at the babysitter’s, “but I figured it would be better for us to be alone. It’s hard to talk and relax with the boys around.”
“I know what you mean,” said Joan empathetically, but had little experience with children to really know. Anyhow, she missed her nephews and wanted to see them, which was why she raised the question.
“You think Meryl’s coming back?” Marla asked suddenly. She finished with the table and walked over to the kitchen to bring pots of food over; Mac and Cheese, dressing, sweet potatoes, and turkey. The aroma hit her nostrils delightfully and she smiled while walking back toward the table. “I sure do hope so, I do need to get back home,” said Joan.
“Oh God, I keep forgetting she took your car. I’m sorry for bringing it up.” Joan was silent. “I can take you home,” Marla suggested.
“It’s alright. I’d rather not leave until she gets back. I’ll spend the night if necessary.”
They heard fumbling at the door. Meryl walked into the house, closing the door quietly behind her, and wiping her shoes off on the mat. “Meryl, is that you?” Marla called from the kitchen. Who else would it be, Joan thought, but was relieved. Joan walked into the room and Marla followed. “May I have my keys please?” she asked coldly, already extending one of her long and narrow hands. A wry smile came over Meryl’s face as she reached into her pocket, the keys rattling at the bottom. Something about this sound made Joan anxious, made her want to slap Meryl across the face, (but it looked like she already had been) and kick her out of the house for good. But, the cloud of guilt rained over her again and she stood there, staring at her wretched sister, looking beaten and stupid, but too high to care, taking in all her pity. She sat the keys on the table, deliberately ignoring Joan’s hand, and started toward the staircase. “What happened to your face?” Marla asked.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Well, aren’t you going to have dinner with us?” Marla pressed. And this irritated Joan, who’d already, retreated to her seat, fixing her napkin on her lap, preparing to take a scoop of dressing.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Well, we still need to talk,” she said, and then genuinely, “I’m sure our mother would like that.”
Now Meryl stopped, almost half-way up the stairs, feeling conscious of her mother’s eyes again, those reddened, painful eyes, sickened with grief. She turned toward Marla, “What we got to talk about?”
“The house. The funeral. Everything.”
They were silent for a moment. Meryl stared at the wooden banister railing that guided the steps. When she was eight, Marla tried to teach her how to slide down it with her hands in the air. She started off well but fell down toward the middle and tumbled to the bottom of the staircase, causing a loud thump that alarmed her mother to coming running out of the kitchen. She wasn’t hurt very bad, only a small pain in her arm, but Marla got a whooping that day. She walked down to the table.
“Okay, so let’s get to talking. I’m not trying to be up all night.”
The audacity of this comment made Joan snap. “What’s your problem Meryl? You’re the one who stole my car and come barging in her five hours later. And you have the nerve to have an attitude. You, of all people.”
“I don’t give a flip about your car Joan! I’d do it again. heck, you weren’t going anywhere. So what’s the big fucking deal!”
“Alright both of you just calm down” interrupted Marla.
“No you calm down. This ain’t none of your fucking business. Don’t tell me what the heck to do,” “You know what, she can leave,” said Joan staring at both of them, but more directly to Marla, whose face was buried in her palms.
“I think I will leave,” and she walked heavily back up the stairs, cursing at the air, and waving her hands as she talked.
An awkward silence fell over the house. Outside, the wind whistled softly and rustled through the trees, which beat lightly against the window pane. Marla glared at Joan, who now shoved a fork of dressing into her flat mouth, her appetite instantly lost. Why did she have to say anything? She wanted to leave; her boys were waiting for her. A bitter taste pricked her tongue and she felt herself swallow it; the poison of anger floating through her blood, the same that triggered Meryl’s addiction. She looked toward Joan again, now staring at nothing with that same stolid face she so often held, and she said, “I wish you wouldn’t have said anything.” Joan went back to her plate, scooping up a pile of potatoes, saying “she’ll never change.”
“Meryl!” Joan yelled from the foot of the steps. She could see her now standing there with one foot propped up, a damp towel dangling from one fist at her hip, a vexed expression upon her often stolid face. “You done making up that bed?” she asked hinting that she would scream if she hadn’t. Joan was the middle child of their mother’s three girls. Meryl was the youngest and Marla, the oldest. “Yah,” replied Meryl in a long exasperated tone. She closed her eyes hoping everything would disappear; that every sound would suddenly mute, and blackness would fall upon her. “Alright, when you get a chance could you come throw these curtains in the washer? I think I may give them to Aunt Aileen.” She was silent for a moment and then she sat up, and took again another long breath, her back hanging over her knees, where her head fell loosely between. “Meryl?” She still said nothing and heard Joan’s footsteps as she walked away, muttering something beneath her breath.
Meryl walked over to the mirror set above a large wooden dresser. After years of use, it was now, chipped and cracked. Perhaps it grew old as her mother did, but it would never vanish, as her mother did; they could repair it, with a fresh coat of paint, and it would be new, once again. It intrigued her to consider the longevity of this inanimate thing and how it made her mother’s life seem so much shorter, that it had outlived generations of people and it would, indeed, outlive her.
It was at this dresser and this mirror; she watched her mother get dressed for days, up until she was a teenager. She’d grab an armful of dresses and lay them across the bed. Then she’d stand over them with a patient, indecisive look upon her heart-shaped face, her hair pinned in fine curls, and neck chocked with pearls, pinching her chin as if she had a short beard. After she found “the one” she walked over to the closet, crowded with hangers, empty and useful, some with freshly ironed skirts, the plastic still over them, and others loosely thrown onto them, falling and limbering over the bar. At the bottom of this chaos were rows of neatly lined shoes, from bright or soft-colored heels to short comfortable flats, from which she decided would match her outfit best. Once she was done, she turned toward the mirror, Meryl sitting atop the bed, big-eyed and grinning innocently, and said “How do I look?” and Meryl would throw her hands up saying, “You look beautiful Mommy!” in her full-of-life kiddy tone.
Now she looked into this mirror and couldn’t find an ounce of her mother’s blood. She looked beaten and tired; her eyes shot with red and her hair matted upon her egg-shaped head, partly brown and partly grey. Her mottled face wore no makeup and her teeth, once full and white, were now mossy and fractured. She walked away from the mirror, trying hard not to be affected by the person she saw in it, and went over to her purse to fetch a cigarette.
She had a ragged brown purse that she borrowed from Marla a couple years ago and just never gave it back. Now one of the straps was missing and pieces of stitching unraveled along the side. She searched through the bag without any ounce of patience, though it was her own fault she lagged around a bag of clutter. She turned it upside down and a mountain of stuff poured onto the sheets; scraps of paper with phone numbers she never memorized with names that were more or less important, tons and tons of lottery tickets, and the dimes and pennies she used to scrape them, a few key chains without keys, old faded photos of her and friends, some black and white and others an antique-looking sepia, lighters, always at least three of them, and a host of other miscellaneous things. Finally she grasped a pack of Newports, with only two left in the pack. She went downstairs, leaving the things scattered across the bed.
“I’m going to have a smoke,” she told Joan starting toward the back door.
“Did you put the curtains in the washer?” she took her eyes off the dishes in the sink below her, drowning in an overflow of white bubbles.
“I’ll do it goddammit! The world doesn’t move at your command.”
“I just asked a question,” she put her head back down. It wasn’t hard to put Joan back in her place. She was weak.
“Well, just leave me alone.” Meryl stalked out of the room with a loud slam of the screen door, taking a seat on the patio that overlooked a large round swimming pool surrounded by green grass. A small garage tucked in a corner of the yard, next to a wooden swing, hanging from a tree. All of this enclosed by a tall wired gate, that seemed to convey to her as a kid, “Children live here, no evil allowed.” In fact, stepping out into that yard was like taking a step back into childhood, where she and Marla picked dandelions for fun or chased each other in circles until they fell dizzy. Joan was always off in the house reading a book or getting in grown folks’ business. She couldn’t possibly feel what Meryl felt when she walked out into that yard.
The day was calm. She leaned back in the chair, overwhelmed by the soft cushion and warm sun. The neighbor next door was barbecuing something tasty on the grill and she thought about going over to ask for a plate but decided not to, for the old man didn’t know how to keep a conversation short. He always succeeded at “talking her dang ear off.” She got up and leaned against the wooden rail that offset the pool, the cigarette settled between her fingers, one foot crossed in front of the other, smoke streaming from her blackened lips, in the softest and shortest of breaths.
She’d been in a dungeon for a week with no money and no means of getting anywhere. And with each day passing after her mother’s death, the need to get high became more urgent and more sickening. At night she began to feel her stomach burn, as if she wanted to vomit, but there was nothing to turn up except beer and a bad cough; a nasty cough, full of bronchitis, and the awful stench of cigarette-breath. But, it was all she had, to keep her mind off the high, the high she hadn’t been able to have. She didn’t even have enough change to catch a bus to the West side of town to meet Greg. He was a short, wide-eyed, buck-toothed bum who hid his late night pleasures well, for he worked a steady job as a security guard at a local grocery store, so he always had money. Despite how many times he showed up to work late or high out of his mind or cursed out a customer, they never let him go. She guessed they’d rather pay a crack head who asked for just a little bit of nothing to support his habit than an upright costly whoever else that walked in their wanting a job. But maybe they felt sorry for him. He had a way of crafting some heartfelt sob story to get out of trouble, for his grandmother died every other month. However, she had no care for his personal troubles. All she cared was that he had money, which mean he had rocks, and for just a little bit of pussy, he’d give it all up, or at least half of it. And as he entered her on those cold sweaty nights, asking, “Do you love me?” she’d say in a harsh, heavy voice, “Just get it over with.”
She chucked the cigarette over the side of the gate into a pile of rocks beside the pool and walked back into the house.
Joan was now peeling sweet potatoes at the counter. She had a pudgy figure that Meryl despised aloud whenever they fought, with short curly hair that she died blonde and a buttery face splashed with freckles. Meryl smacked her lips as she walked pass, “I told you I would make the sweet potatoes.” Meryl and Marla were always the cooks of the house when their mother fell ill. Joan never took any interest in cooking growing up, but Meryl felt now that she did out of guilt, for all times she told mother she had no use for cooking and that she’d be more in life than some old man’s housemaid. However it was her idea that they should get together to clean out this smelly old house and sit down to talk about where they would go from here, over dinner. But, Joan didn’t say anything about her being the one to cook it, for anyone would have immediately objected. “You also said you would wash the curtains,” Joan snapped.
Meryl went over to the living area and slouched down on the couch. Joan stared at her with snarling eyes, before starting back at the potatoes, chopping them more viciously and anxiously than before. They were all large and oddly shaped and hardly feasible. She started by taking one of the smaller pieces, for they seemed friendlier, and sat it straight up, just as she saw her mother and Marla do, and peeled from the top-down. The skin of the potato looked dirt brown, rough and old-looking, that made her think of a sack race. For some reason, she could not get one good peel, one good slicing, and it was embarrassing. Meryl look at her with a sort of evil sardonic grin and said, “Sure look like you could use some help to me,” but Joan said nothing. The knife kept slipping through the skin, never quite catching on, and the counter looked like someone had shredded a brown paper bag.
“Let me borrow a few dollars, I’m about to run and get a pack of cigarettes,” Meryl said with bold audacity rising from the couch. She stretched her back and arms and opened her mouth wide letting out a loud annoying yawn. “I don’t have any money,” Joan said curtly.
“What,” Meryl looked at her, her eyes glaring, and mouth, wry.
“I said I don’t have any money.”
“You a goddamn lie Joan,” she started toward her, “I know Mama left you a heck of a lot of money. You a dang fool if you think I ain’t going to see a dime of it.”
“So you can smoke it up,” Joan muttered, “over my dead body.” She grabbed the broom and dustpan from the closet and began sweeping the tiled floor.
“You know what your problem is,” here we go, Joan thought, “You think somebody supposed to bow down to you! Just because you went to school. So fucking what! I was here with mama while you were out earning all your dang degrees, taking care of her, cooking and cleaning. All the poop you trying to do now, but it’s far too late. heck, you just the same as everyone else, don’t care about anybody but yourself. But you’ll see,” she started up the staircase, “soon enough.”
Nothing Meryl said phased her anymore. Joan decided to get used to it long ago when Meryl made it clear that she wasn’t going to rehab. All this started back while Joan was still going to school at the University of Illinois. She was starting her second year and had just found out what it was she really wanted to do. Her mother called her hysterical saying that Meryl was out of control and she didn’t know what to do. Marla took time to interfere a few times, but she had her own hands full with her three boys. First, she started stealing, little things, like a few dollars out of Marla’s purse, but then little things turned into big things, like jewelry or Mama’s furs or her credit card. At sixty-five, her mother was too old to chase Meryl around or stay up late at night, just to make sure everything stayed in its proper place. Thus, she called Joan. She took a weekend to come home and help her straighten things out.
When she arrived, her mother opened the door, holding her bathrobe at the waist, her hair stood up in pink bulky rollers. She gave Joan a wet kiss and hugged her tightly before telling her to come in and take a seat on the couch. “Let me make you some tea, sugar,” she said, “go sit over there on that couch. I want you to tell me all about college.” Joan smiled, “I have so much to say, I really love it.” She wished she could share with her mother everything she’d experienced. All the classes she had taken the professors she met, and friends. But there was always this awkward distance between them, which perhaps, she created, fearing that her mother wouldn’t possibly be able to relate. As she warmed up a cup of water, her mother ran on and on about how proud she was of her for going to school and how she was the first in the family to go to a university and how she never ceased bragging to her friends at church. All of her hopes rested on Joan, the middle child, and her ability to do well in life.
Joan took a seat on the couch, which her mother never took the plastic off of, and thus it made a plasticy sound when you sat on it, and if you were shorts on a hot day, it stuck to your behind as you got up. In front of her was a coffee table, ornamented with several figurines; one with a little black boy and girl tussling in a garden, her pigtails flying in the air, along with the violet ribbons that clung to them, the boy grasping her hands just before she hit a rose-covered ground. Another was of an old woman rocking in a chair, slicing an apple, a bushel of others sitting next to her, as if she was preparing to make some scrumptious apple pie or fry of pan of sweet ones, the juice dripping from them next to a serving of pork chops on a hot plate. As a child, she thought of it as a small town, and she gave these inhabitants names and places to go, and told herself stories about them that stirred her imagination. Yes, yes, the figurines were her mother’s celebration of everyday living and Joan’s way of playing doll house. Tons and tons of photographs crowded the mantelpiece. A black and white picture of her great-grandfather looking sharp in a brown suit and hat, his long face, poised and dignified, stood out among them all. Many people said they looked alike for he was also quite fair with a reddish freckled face. Her mother came in, still fumbling with her robe, placing two mugs onto the table, heat rising from their rims, and took a seat across from Joan, a hearty smile across her face.
“So what’s been going on around here Ma,” she began, “Marla tells me you’ve been having some trouble and you sounded worried the last time we talked.”
“Honey, your sister has really surprised me.”
“I hear,” she waited for an explanation, “Marla told me she’s been acting up. Going through her rebellious phase, I suppose.”
“This ain’t just no phase.”
“What do you mean?”
“Joan, your sister’s a junkie.”
“A junkie,” her mouth fell open and she laughed, somewhat mockingly, “Ma, I hardly think that’s the case. What makes you think so?”
“I wasn’t born yesterday Joan. The girl practically steals everything in sight. I can’t even leave one second without questioning whether she will take something or not. And you should see this new crowd she been running round’ here with. A pack of dusty, filthy looking gals, walking around here with their hair a mess, wearing the same clothes, always looking high. Then I asked one of them where their parents where and you know what this here child told me?” she looked almost angry, “that she doesn’t need parents and it wasn’t none of my business.”
“Well, I don’t know if that means she’s on drugs,” Joan was the hardest person to convince, “you sure she’s not just stealing money to buy some fast-looking clothes or sneaking out to see some boy.”
“You don’t believe me. Well, you can believe what you want. I’m just saying don’t leave your purse lying around because you might not find everything in it that you did last time.”
“And where do you think she’s staying when she’s out all night?”
“Out with those druggie friends of hers. I doubt they even have houses to live in. For all I know she could be sleeping on the streets. She come in here the other day sometime after midnight, and I asked where she’d been and she say ‘don’t worry about it,’ and trot right up the stairs like I ain’t got no business asking her questions, and this my house!” She tightened her robe again and looked off to the side, rocking a little in her seat. After a few seconds of silence she said, “I ain’t got much time left on this earth baby, and I need you to know that. I’ve done all I could to try to help your sister and I’m afraid I can’t do anymore. I’m putting it all in God’s hands from here on out.”
“Don’t worry Ma. I will help you. Meryl will be fine. She just needs a good talking to. You need not get worked up about it. You know the doctor warned you about your blood pressure. All this stress will just make it worse,” but her mother didn’t say anything, yet steady looked off to the side, as if she’d just said her peace, and that was that.
Meryl walked back down the stairs in silence, avoiding eye contact with Joan, slipping quickly out the back door. Something about this felt strange, normally she would expect a rude comment, a smack of the lips, maybe even another attempt to get money, but now Joan sensed she was up to something. She stood in the middle of the kitchen for a while looking pensive and baffled, as if irked by an insolvable puzzle. A pot of water boiled on the stove, steam rushing toward the ceiling. “Christ!” she ran up the stairs in panic realizing that she’d left her purse upstairs in their old bedroom. The bag was still there, but that didn’t mean much. She searched through it frantically but her wallet and keys were gone.
She ran senselessly downstairs to catch her, knowing she’d already drove off. She wondered how she could have slipped like that and gave her thighs a hard slap before entering back into the house and swinging the door hard behind her. In the middle of the kitchen again, she found herself standing there, staring at the pot of steaming water, but not seeing that it was there. Tears welled up in her eyes and she went over to the couch to sit, burying her face in her palms, beaten up with grief.
2
Marla emerged from the attic with a crate full of things she’d been gathering for the past two days, things that their mother had meant to pass on to them years ago, but never found time to sift through. She sat them on the dining room table, declaring, “Child, you should see all the old stuff I found packed away upstairs in that old dusty attic; cases and cases of things. I was just sitting up there crying my eyes out, especially at these here pictures.”
Marla dealt with death a lot differently than Joan, it was just her. As she handed Joan a photo album from their childhood, Joan held out her hand hesitantly, part of her wanting to grieve with Marla, and the other part of her wanting to run away. She took the book and looked through it speedily, noting a photograph of the four of them at Disney Land, around the time Meryl was two. “Well would you look at that,” she said holding back a bucket of tears that stung her eyes. “Ain’t that something,” replied Marla, “you were so little, and Mama looked fabulous as usual,” and then after a short silence, “I’m going to have put this up and frame it.” Joan flipped through the rest of the pages and sat the book down on the table, as if anymore would just be unbearable. “I’ll look at the rest later, I need to finish cooking.”
“You’re not doing too bad in there,” Marla said charmly, finding a comfortable spot on the couch where Meryl insulted Joan earlier, “smells good.”
“Well, thank you,” she always admired Marla’s kind energy. She was a bright spice of life, always reminiscing on the good times, and laughing at the bad. She had peanut butter skin and a soft, plain smile with eyes shaped like almonds and long thick lashes that seemed to flap when she blinked. Unlike Joan, she had a petite frame that would never suggest she’d popped out three boys in her short lifetime. She was their mother’s favorite up until she got pregnant with her first son, Daniel, when she was barely eighteen. It was quite unexpected; for her mother knew she’d been dating a young man from school, but didn’t take it too seriously. After she found out about the pregnancy, Marla packed up her things and moved in with Daniel’s father. They married shortly after and she had two more children, William and James. However, by the time she turned twenty-five, both Marla and her husband, realized, suddenly, that everything happened too early and too fast. He struggled to support the five of them, working two, sometimes three jobs, and she felt lonelier than ever. They divorced around the time Daniel turned seven, she kept the house and car, and he moved across town. Their mother didn’t approve of Marla’s decisions, even after she married and could be called an “honest woman.” But Mama said that it was only a “cover-up for her sin” and she was only leading herself down to a disaster. However, Marla had given her three grandchildren, and she accepted them with all the love in heart she had to give.
Marla taught Joan almost everything: how to read and sew and dress and flirt with boys, pretty much all except cook. She knew how to make everyone laugh and people noticed her whenever she walked into a room. She was simply…beautiful. Even sitting there on that ancient-looking couch, still covered with plastic, it seemed a special glow around her. She wore a floral patterned sundress that draped just past her knees and moved when she walked, and a pair of modest wedge heels, a handbag that looked expensive lying by her side, but Joan was sure she got it at a thrift store downtown. She prided herself on taking old things and making them look “new” or taking something poor and making it “rich.” The very air of her voice was rich; rich in laughter and love, and sitting there in all her beauty, she reminded her more and more of their mother.
She got up and walked over the window, opening the long sheer curtains. Something about these curtains always appeared grand as they were growing up and the idea of thrusting them open brought a peculiar joy to their innocent hearts. A faint light poured into the room and spilled over the cherry wood floors. “Where’s your car honey? I don’t see it out front.”
“Take a wild guess.”
“No,” she looked at Joan sideways with puckered lips.
“Yes,” Marla shook her head at this, “I left my purse on the bed upstairs. It’s my fault.”
“We really have to get that girl some help. It’s a shame she can’t even act right on a day like this.”
“She needs to want help first. You can’t help anybody that doesn’t want to be helped.”
“She does. You don’t know Meryl like I do”
“I don’t?” she sounded perplexed, but her expression was flat, as she mixed a bowl of dressing with her bare hands.
“She’s going through something that we can’t understand, and haven’t really tried to either.”
“Well, why don’t you take her for a few weeks,” she finally smiled, “and see how you feel afterwards. She said this to break the tension, but was more than serious, and then, “What do you mean I don’t know her like you do?”
“She was always closer to me growing up,” she walked into the kitchen, brushing down her dress, “she thought you looked down on her, thought everyone did, except me. This was before the drugs.”
“Looked down on her,” she stopped mixing the dressing, and looked at Marla as if she was telling a joke, “Meryl’s full of it. She’s always done what she wanted to do. It didn’t matter what I thought.”
“Oh come on Joan!” she said throwing one hand up and setting it back at her waist, “All mama did was brag about you all the time. About how pretty you were, your grades, and how you went to college. Meryl hardly got any attention less’ I was around. So, naturally, she rebelled. Everything you did, she didn’t. And then she got lots of attention.”
“And you think that how it started,”
At the beginning, yes. Over time, I think she began to like the high, and couldn’t be the same without it.”
“So what do you think we should do,” she walked over to the sink to wash her hands, “since that’s what it comes down to.”
“We wait for her to come around,” she said dissatisfied with her own answer, “and pray, I suppose, that she will soon.”
Joan shook the water from her hands and dried them with the apron tied around her, not looking at Marla. Even if what Marla was saying had been true, it still did not validate Meryl’s actions. They were merely excuses, but part of her began to feel a sense of guilt, guilt for having no compassion and guilt for having no love. The bottom of her ribs began to shiver and her stomach seemed to turn. A black cloud stationed over her and for a moment, she felt she was no better than Meryl, possibly even worse. She couldn’t tell what Marla thought, as they stood there in silence, each reflecting on their own faults.
“I see you planning to make some sweet potatoes over there,” Marla said abruptly.
“If I could ever get them in the pot,” she laughed at herself.
“You never were the cook of the house,” Marla laughed, “but I like your effort. Mind if I help?”
“Go right ahead. I’d like to see you slice those things myself.”
She took the peeler from atop the microwave, where Joan had left it, and gripped the potato confidently, stood it on its bottom, and skinned that thing like it was second nature. The peelings fell perfectly and revealed a smooth bright orange. “Yes, that’s how it’s supposed to look, that’s how I remember it,” Joan smiled and then, “Okay, let me give it another try.” Marla handed over the knife. Joan stood one her failed ones from earlier on the buttocks and this time; put a little extra umph in her peel. But the same thing happened, brown paper shreds. “You’ll get it,” said Marla lightly patting her on the shoulder, and then, “someday.” They both looked at each other and laughed.
Greg took a sip of his drink before setting it back down on the floor. His apartment smelled like sour sheets and a foul odor rang from the kitchen, swelled with dirty dishes submerged in greasy brown water alongside piles and piles of garbage and a mossy mop bucket. The fridge was empty except for a carton of milk, likely spoiled, and a couple packs of lunch meat. The floor was blotchy and cracked, with muddy footprints starting from the back doors, evidence of drunken nights, when Greg came stumbling in. In the living area, where they sat, were two couches and a TV set atop a chair. “Come on, let me get some, stop playing,” said Meryl. “What you going to do for me?” he said slouching back in his seat. His eyes were glassy and red and his bottom lip hung loose as he talked. “What you want me to do,” she said annoyed, knowing where this was going. “You know the routine,” he said, peering at her through lewd eyes. She didn’t say anything, and he took this to mean she agreed and with this agreeance, he got up and led her to the bedroom. In his bedroom, filthy drawers and shirts laid all over the carpet, which was stained and gray. The bed sheets hung off the bed, exposing a pissed mattress. Across from the bed was a dresser, on which sat a few lighters, a stack of miscellaneous papers, a pipe, and one lonely lamp without a lampshade. Across the room was a small window, with a thick sheet of plastic over it. He shut the door behind them and began to loosen his belt buckle.
His heavy breath crept down her neck as he brushed his body against hers from behind, suddenly, she trembled. “I need to go to the bathroom,” she said.
He crashed down on the bed, “Don’t be long.”
She sat on the edge of the tub, her head drooping in the same fashion it had earlier. It occurred to her, as she entered Greg’s bedroom, that her mother could be watching, not from heaven, or some distant place, but there, in the bedroom, and was watching her now, as she sat alone. She walked over to the sink and looked into the mirror that hung above it. It was her face looking back at her but it did not feel like it. It was as if she saw herself looking into the mirror from some distant part of the room. And she looked at herself with utter disgust. She fell back onto the toilet seat, wrapping her arms around her waist, and rocking back and forth, her eyes about to burst with tears. The tortuous pain of withdrawal cramped her stomach and the eyes of her mother scowled her from a place she could not see. She grasped the sides of the tub and an immense weight fell upon her shoulders, and as the warm tears trickled down her face, it became urgent to get out of that room, out of that house. The walls became compressed and she found her breath harder to catch. Hugging her stomach, she slid down to the floor, the pain striking her like a sharp blade, and sobbed. She hoisted herself up on both hands, crawling toward the sink again, to turn on the water. The sound of running water crashed down on her ears, she cupped her hands underneath the faucet and splashed her face. “You alright in there baby?” Greg called from outside the door. She wiped her face with a corner of her shirt, “I’m fine. Be out in a sec.” She looked at her reflection once again, seeing a long apologetic face, that seemed to grant her no mercy, no love. She opened the door.
Greg stood before her half-dressed, his paunchy belly exposed and a dark hairy chest that made her cringe. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him without clothes, but this time felt different. The smell of urine brushed her nose again as she sat down on the bed. He walked from her briefly to turn off the lamp and then stood at the foot of the bed, dropping his pants and drawers. The darkness struck her like a driver driving with no headlights in a pitch black sky. She couldn’t see and she wanted to, she needed to, and her head began to waver and swerve, with ideas of how to break free of this dark tunnel, she now found herself driving through. He started toward her, his heavy shadow slowly crawling up from the foot of the bed and his breathing became more intense, more terrifying, like a large bear. For a moment, she had a peculiar thought that she was trapped in a vast forest, suffocating and surrounded by nothing but tall trees, trees as tall as the blank blue sky above her, and the only way to get out was to climb one of them, and only then would she be able to breath. He was now at her legs, not seeming to care that she hadn’t moved since she sat down. She jolted back, so violently, that her back hit the headboard and her foot kicked his shoulder. “What the heck is wrong with you, woman!” he shouted. She got up, stumbling toward the door, “I got to go, I can’t do this,” she said helplessly. She placed her hand on the knob and was suddenly thrust back onto the bed. She could feel the springs bounce up and down, and the squeaky noise it made, as she struggled to get up. But Greg pushed her back down and slapped her across the face. She began to scream, but his large sweaty palm covered her mouth while he unfastened her pants with the other. A rush of anger came over her and she bit his hand, tearing he teeth into his flesh, like a wild animal that’d just caught her prey. He howled as he held his wounded hand with the other and fell lamely on the side of her. She darted for the door again, tripping over her pants, and other things that she could not see. Her face flared with pain and she felt the skin begin to web. The room became hotter and more dense, the door began to move backward and shadows beneath and above her, crowded the door way. He scooted on his back toward the edge of the bed and kicked her in the behind. She fell instantly onto her stomach, moaning and crying, yet still conscious. She turned over to see his enormous figure, that was once gaunt and weak, standing over her frail, pitiful body.
The next moments were simply unbearable. He ripped off her pants, pinning her hands above her head, to assure that she wouldn’t be able to resist any longer. And he entered her, pounding his sex against her, grunting and sweating, like a giant dog. Was mother watching this too? She thought. The fight was over, and she surrendered, defeated, paying the cost of her ill ways. She heard about when women were raped, how they had an outer body experience, how they would drift over themselves and their predator, watching. But she was still there, in her own skin, and felt everything. He began to slow down, his body wet and cold, and she sighed after a long period of holding her breath. Why hadn’t she screamed? What difference did it make if she had screamed? Who was going to help her? A crackhead in a crackhouse, being raped by another crackhead, a case no one could have cared to investigate. And with a long bestial exhale of air, he finished. He laid there for a few moments, breathless and heavy, before pushing himself from her and standing to his feet. He gathered his clothing in silence, slipping on a gray tee shirt and a pair of dingy denims, with no drawers underneath.
Meryl finally rose from the floor, fluid dripping from her nose, and her eyes damp, a blank look upon her face. She hurried to put on her bottoms before he switched on the lamp, for the light, would degrade her in greater ways than Greg had already. She grasped her purse off the bed, which she would have left, had she escaped earlier. Greg leaned on the dresser and lit a cigarette; a small flame appeared and disappeared, its remnants lying at the edge of his lips, as he inhaled. A deadly silence filled between them. He was the ugliest black bastard she’d ever seen. “I still got some rocks, if you want. If not, then you can leave,” he finally said. She said nothing, her head downwardly fixed, and she did not move. “Well since you ain’t moving,” he burned out his cigarette in a tray that sat on the windowsill, “I’ll take that as a yes,” and he turned on the lamp and walked out of the room. The light burned her eyes and she looked around the room once again, but now the stink was stinkier and the air thicker. The same clothes still lay about the rough carpet. A sting came from her elbow and she looked down to see her skin broken, a pink-red layer showing beneath her dark skin, a rug burn. At this she touched the side of her face, which still felt hot and tender. Why hadn’t she left? He returned to the room with a bag of white rocks and fetched the pipe and lighter atop the dresser, before sitting down next to her on the bed. He filled the pipe and placed it to his mouth, and then lit it, closing his eyes, as he inhaled. At this, she looked at him, and her jaws began to loosen. The burn in her stomach grew stronger and her muscles began to tense. She couldn’t leave now. He took another deep drag and smiled at her slyly from the corner of his eye. “Give it to me, you stupid fool!” she said with a sudden giggly tone, snatching the glass from his hand, taking her own pull. He watched her, a placid look in his eyes, and casual smirk upon his thick lips and then said, “You satisfied now?” She handed him the pipe, not knowing how to answer, and fell back onto the bed, laughing boisterously.
Marla hummed something soulful as she set the table, plates and silverware clacking occasionally. The house was quiet and a dim light burned at the ceiling above the dining room table. Joan washed the last few dishes in the sink. “So why didn’t you bring the boys?” she asked Marla. “I thought about it,” she paused, hoping that they were okay at the babysitter’s, “but I figured it would be better for us to be alone. It’s hard to talk and relax with the boys around.”
“I know what you mean,” said Joan empathetically, but had little experience with children to really know. Anyhow, she missed her nephews and wanted to see them, which was why she raised the question.
“You think Meryl’s coming back?” Marla asked suddenly. She finished with the table and walked over to the kitchen to bring pots of food over; Mac and Cheese, dressing, sweet potatoes, and turkey. The aroma hit her nostrils delightfully and she smiled while walking back toward the table. “I sure do hope so, I do need to get back home,” said Joan.
“Oh God, I keep forgetting she took your car. I’m sorry for bringing it up.” Joan was silent. “I can take you home,” Marla suggested.
“It’s alright. I’d rather not leave until she gets back. I’ll spend the night if necessary.”
They heard fumbling at the door. Meryl walked into the house, closing the door quietly behind her, and wiping her shoes off on the mat. “Meryl, is that you?” Marla called from the kitchen. Who else would it be, Joan thought, but was relieved. Joan walked into the room and Marla followed. “May I have my keys please?” she asked coldly, already extending one of her long and narrow hands. A wry smile came over Meryl’s face as she reached into her pocket, the keys rattling at the bottom. Something about this sound made Joan anxious, made her want to slap Meryl across the face, (but it looked like she already had been) and kick her out of the house for good. But, the cloud of guilt rained over her again and she stood there, staring at her wretched sister, looking beaten and stupid, but too high to care, taking in all her pity. She sat the keys on the table, deliberately ignoring Joan’s hand, and started toward the staircase. “What happened to your face?” Marla asked.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Well, aren’t you going to have dinner with us?” Marla pressed. And this irritated Joan, who’d already, retreated to her seat, fixing her napkin on her lap, preparing to take a scoop of dressing.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Well, we still need to talk,” she said, and then genuinely, “I’m sure our mother would like that.”
Now Meryl stopped, almost half-way up the stairs, feeling conscious of her mother’s eyes again, those reddened, painful eyes, sickened with grief. She turned toward Marla, “What we got to talk about?”
“The house. The funeral. Everything.”
They were silent for a moment. Meryl stared at the wooden banister railing that guided the steps. When she was eight, Marla tried to teach her how to slide down it with her hands in the air. She started off well but fell down toward the middle and tumbled to the bottom of the staircase, causing a loud thump that alarmed her mother to coming running out of the kitchen. She wasn’t hurt very bad, only a small pain in her arm, but Marla got a whooping that day. She walked down to the table.
“Okay, so let’s get to talking. I’m not trying to be up all night.”
The audacity of this comment made Joan snap. “What’s your problem Meryl? You’re the one who stole my car and come barging in her five hours later. And you have the nerve to have an attitude. You, of all people.”
“I don’t give a flip about your car Joan! I’d do it again. heck, you weren’t going anywhere. So what’s the big fucking deal!”
“Alright both of you just calm down” interrupted Marla.
“No you calm down. This ain’t none of your fucking business. Don’t tell me what the heck to do,” “You know what, she can leave,” said Joan staring at both of them, but more directly to Marla, whose face was buried in her palms.
“I think I will leave,” and she walked heavily back up the stairs, cursing at the air, and waving her hands as she talked.
An awkward silence fell over the house. Outside, the wind whistled softly and rustled through the trees, which beat lightly against the window pane. Marla glared at Joan, who now shoved a fork of dressing into her flat mouth, her appetite instantly lost. Why did she have to say anything? She wanted to leave; her boys were waiting for her. A bitter taste pricked her tongue and she felt herself swallow it; the poison of anger floating through her blood, the same that triggered Meryl’s addiction. She looked toward Joan again, now staring at nothing with that same stolid face she so often held, and she said, “I wish you wouldn’t have said anything.” Joan went back to her plate, scooping up a pile of potatoes, saying “she’ll never change.”