Flesh and Bone Page 11

“I’ll let it pass this time.”

  “Good,” I say. “I don’t want to fight that fight.”

  “Me either,” he says.

  Supper with the Widow

  GRANDMA STIRS THE stew and watches the rice simmer. Steam rises from pots and fogs the window over the sink. The kitchen smells of browned meat. String beans wait in the skillet with the garlic and slivered almonds to be sautéed. Rolls bake in the oven.

  “Do you miss him?” I ask.

  She stops for a second and stares at the wall, but then she starts the beans and the sound of butter melting rises into the room.

  “Mornings,” she says. “I wake and he’s not there.”

  She takes the spatula to the beans. Soon we’ll sit down together and eat, just the two of us. Mom’s working and after work she’s going out with Bobby. Bobby’s taking up more and more of her life.

  “He hated beans,” she said. “Any kind of bean.”

  She doesn’t blink. Her voice is even, quiet. The diamond on her finger catches the light and turns blue. She’s worn that thing for over forty years. It’s only been a few months since Grandpa died. I never saw her cry. I never saw her grieve.

  “I’m glad he went first,” she says. “I wouldn’t want him to go through this.”

  These Thoughts

  SUNRISE IS NEARLY an hour off. Jays and robins scream in the trees, calling up the day. A raccoon ambles through the yard on its way to the woods, its nest and rest. The only light is my cigarette’s fire burning black and red.

  Thoughts of suicide invade me. I see it happening, like watching a bad b-grade movie in my head. I see the blood and the red muscle sliced through. My wrists imagine the pain, but it’s not real pain. It’s simply my mind giving me a taste of what it would feel like.

  I am alone here and everywhere. Even when there are people with me, I am alone. No one understands the quiet madness filling me with fear, making my stomach ache, my head spin with white noise and vertigo. I have no one to talk to, no way of emptying out the shit that’s piled up inside of me.

  A truck rattles past on the road, headlights bright in the darkness, cutting through the shadows like a sliver of glass cutting into flesh. Someone is going to work, or maybe coming home. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.

  I stare down at the yard and tell myself that today I will mow the grass, but I won’t. I won’t have the energy or the desire to do anything other than lie in bed, or sit on the couch watching television.

  Mom’ll try to get me to talk. She’s been trying to get me to talk for months now. I have nothing to say. If she knew what I’m thinking, she’d have me put away. I cannot stand the thought of being locked up.

  My cigarette’s done now. I grind the fire out on the step and toss the butt into the can by the door. Inside, I go to the kitchen and make coffee. It’ll be hours before anyone wakes. I’ll be alone for a while yet. I’ll have my thoughts to keep me company; I want to go back to bed. I can’t though. There’s no room for sleep right now. There’s only room for bloody thoughts and coffee, cigarettes and the cool morning air. There’s only room for sadness and fear.

  Me and Mom Talking About Bobby

  BEER SIGNS AND posters of men with rifles decorate the truck stop’s walls. Truckers sit at the tables. Families come in sometimes and eat, but mostly it’s men who run from state to state with freight and produce, with cattle and cars. They drive for a living and eat fried food and smoke too many cigarettes.

  The bar in the back screams country music and the waitresses are all women with kids who’ve been tending tables for years. Plates and pans, pots and glasses clash in the kitchen. Mom leans against the table on her break.

  “You hungry?” she asks.

  “Not really,” I say.

  “A milkshake?” she asks.

  “I could do with a milkshake.”

  She crosses to the counter and goes about making a milkshake for me. She uses real ice cream and pours in the raspberries extra thick. She grinds everything up and brings it to me at the table.

  “What do you think of Bobby?” she asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I like him,” she says.

  “Good.”

  “He’s kind and he doesn’t want too much from me,” she says.

  “Are you getting married?” I ask. “Thinking about it.”

  I shake my head. Confusing thoughts swirl through me. People eat and talk and smoke and drink. Waitresses haul food and drinks. They wipe tables and bus boys clear away dirty dishes and take them to the kitchen for the dishwasher who is only a year older than me.

  “He says he loves me,” she says.

  “Dad loves you.”

  “Loved me,” she says. “He used to love me. But now he doesn’t. Not anymore.”

  “Bobby could stop loving you too.”

  “I don’t think so,” she says. “I think this time it’ll last.”

  “Why?”

  “The feel of the thing,” she says. “Bobby wants nothing from me. He wants to do all the things he can to make me happy. Your dad never tried to make me happy.”

  “We’ll have to move,” I say.

  “We’d finally have our own place.”

  “Where?”

  “In town, maybe,” she says.

  “Do you love him?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “But he takes good care of me.”

  “Is that enough?”

  “Maybe,” she says. “I don’t know.”

  Across the room, a baby begins to squall. The sound of it racks along my spine. The young mother taps the baby’s lips making a strange yodeling sound. It’s time for me to go. I need to get away from here. There are things to think about and my mind won’t work with the noise here or the people wandering around the room. I need to lie down somewhere and line my thoughts up in some kind of order.

  “You going home?” Mom asks.

  “I’ll wait up for you.”

  “No need.”

  “Bobby?” I ask.

  “He’s taking me to his place.”

  “Be careful,” I say.

  “Don’t worry,” she says.

  But I will. I’ll worry and fret, but it’ll do me no good. Mom’s going to do what she’s going to do. The best I can hope for is a quiet, amicable break up. Not that I don’t like Bobby. I don’t know him well enough to like or dislike him. What I dislike is the thought of my mom doing something stupid because she thinks she needs a man in her life. The both of us could do with some time alone. We could both stand to learn what it’s like to stand on our own.

  A Date Gone Wrong

  STEAM RISES FROM the car’s hood. We’re on the side of the road near the edge of town and the sky is too tall to be seen. Ed looks at the radiator, the billowing cloud drifting in the wind running through the valley.

  “Shit,” she says.

  Her car is old and the parts are simple, but there is nothing near that’ll help us. I light a cigarette and lean against the fender.

  “What now?” I ask.

  We were going to town to see a movie, but now we’re stuck here with no phone, no car, no help.

  “Now,” she says, “we walk.”

  Soon the sun will go down and the wind will turn a little cold. It’s been hot today, so all I have is a t-shirt. Ed wears a sweater, but I’ll be damned if I’ll ask her to share.

  She leaves the emergency lights on and slams the hood down on the steam and we walk. There is no shoulder on the road. A ditch runs dry between it and the woods. We could try the winery on the hill or we could walk to Scottie’s and call someone. Either way, we won’t be going to the movie.

  An old man, forty, maybe fifty years old, stops.

  “You need a ride?” he asks.

  “Just to Scottie’s,” Ed says.

  “I can do that.”

  I let Ed have the front seat. There are blankets and garbage in the back. I dig my feet through it to the floor.

  “Car tro
uble?” the old man asks.

  “Busted radiator,” Ed says.

  “This is a bad road to walk on.”

  “We need to get to a phone.”

  He drives and the trees pass by and the mountains in the west get dark. The sky begins to bleed.

  “Where were you headed?” the old man asks.

  “The movies,” Ed says.

  “A date?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “Our first.”

  “That sucks.”

  Town emerges from the woods. Houses and fences and yards replace the shadowed trees and brambles. Some of the windows are lit already. Traffic picks up, but is still thin enough to let us through without a problem.

  “You two in love?” the old man asks.

  “We don’t know yet,” Ed says. “It’s too soon to tell.”

  “I remember falling in love,” he says. “I remember our first date.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I was in the Army and she was going to college. We met at a dance out at the grange.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “On the hill,” he says. “Buried next to our son. He died in Afghanistan. She died a year later. Cancer.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I wouldn’t give it up for nothing,” he says.

  “We’ll see where it takes us,” Ed says.

  Scottie’s comes up and the old man lets us out.

  “Have fun,” he says.

  “We’ll do our best.”

  Standing in the parking lot, waiting for Mom to come get us, I light a cigarette and Ed watches the road.

  “Do you think we’re in love?” she asks.

  “I’m not sure what love is.”

  “Maybe we should talk about it,” she says.

  “What’s there to talk about?”

  “I never thought I’d be in love.”

  “I’m not sure it exists.”

  “Doesn’t that bother you?” she asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I want to be in love.”

  “We can work on that,” I say.

  “Really?”

  “Let’s just see what happens.”

  “Sure,” she says. “Okay.”

  She turns to the road and waits. The light from the streetlamp makes her pale and serious. If I touch her now, her skin might break. If I move too fast, I might ruin the whole thing.

  Details of Group Love

  SMOKING DOPE AND drinking moonshine in Zephyr’s living room. His parents are at the beach for the weekend. It’s their anniversary or something important like that.

  Richie and Ed lie on the floor. Not touching, but close, enjoying the loose euphoria of heroin and pure alcohol. Tammy and Renee share the other end of the couch, leaning into each other like stones rolled to the bottom of a hill. Zephyr plays with the stereo. Twisted Sister screams defiance. I am loose and easy.

  “Come dance with me,” Zephyr says.

  “This ain’t dancing music,” I say.

  He pulls me up to my feet. He puts his hands on my shoulders and shakes me. My eyes rattle. His hands shift to my face. Is it going to happen? Is he going to kiss me? Right here? In front of everyone? I can’t imagine what my friends would say. I can’t be sure they’d even notice. They’re wasted and I’m wasted and maybe they’d think it was the heroin, the alcohol that made us do it.

  The thought of outing myself flashes through me. No one’d speak to me again. There’d be fights. I’d be alone again. There’d be me and Zephyr and no one else.

  “You’re so pretty,” Zephyr says.

  I’ve never been pretty. I have a plain, long face. I have a rounded belly. My chest is narrow and flat. Ribs stick out. My shoulders are thin and knobby.

  “This is what it’s all about,” he says.

  “What?”

  “Music,” he says. “Booze and smoke.”

  I don’t know what he’s talking about. I want to go back to sitting on the couch, watching the world happen around me, but he won’t let me. He holds onto me and I can’t break free.

  “I need to get laid,” he says. “I haven’t been laid in months.”

  There are too many people around. I have to live with these guys. I have to see them every day. They’d never forgive me. Maybe Mom’d hear. She’d scream and maybe even hit. I don’t know. Still, it’s there: the want, the thought of just giving in and doing it.

  Zephyr laughs and turns away.

  “Small towns!” he shouts.

  No one moves. No one shouts back. Zephyr whips his head around and stomps his feet. I collapse on the couch. Ed comes and puts her head in my lap. Tammy watches me through her eyelashes.

  “I can’t believe how wasted I am,” she says.

  The night is wasted. I can’t bring myself to move. I light a cigarette and stare at the smoke rising like the long bodies of lovers wrapped around each other.

  “I know your secret,” Zephyr says.

  He comes and kisses my ear.

  “You need to be brave,” he whispers.

  Courage is for the strong. I’m not strong. I’m scared and lonely. Even now, with all these people, I’m alone.

  Shift’s End

  MOM COMES HOME from work early in the morning. She comes through the door with a cigarette burning, carrying a bag of donuts and paper cups of coffee. She goes to the dining room and sets her things down. I should be sleeping, but it’s hard to sleep when the nightmares ride me into the bed and leave me there sweaty and shaken. Mom doesn’t usually come home in the morning. She goes to Bobby’s place and sleeps for a few hours. They spend the day together and Mom comes home in the evening to shower and change into clean clothes. But this morning she comes home and brings food. Bobby comes in after her, a few steps behind.

  I sit on the couch and watch them without the lights. They do not see me. They walk past me into the dining room. Mom laughs at something and goes to the kitchen for more coffee. Bobby sits at the table and eats a donut. I get up and stand against the wall, not in, but not out of the dining room.

  “You can’t do this,” I say.

  Bobby jumps and spills coffee on himself, the table. A dark stain spreads on the wood, drips to the floor. Mom brings a towel.

  “You should be sleeping,” she says.

  “Nightmares.”

  “Jesus,” she says.

  “Sorry.”

  I light a cigarette and the smoke makes my eyes small and narrow.

  “Are you going to sleep here?” I ask.

  “Is that a problem?” Bobby asks.

  “In the same bed?”

  “I thought it would be nice,” he says.

  “There’s nothing going on,” Mom says.

  “You’re going to have sex,” I say.

  “What do you know about it?” Mom asks.

  I go to the kitchen and pour myself some coffee. I can’t help but see my mom fucking Bobby. I can’t help but hear her gasping. I shudder and it makes me think of Mom shuddering under Bobby’s busy hands.

  “Are you in love?” I ask.

  “Does it matter?” Mom asks.

  “I am,” Bobby says.

  “I know about love,” I say. “Be careful.”

  “Who are you talking to?” Mom asks.

  “Both of you.”

  I go back to the living room and the couch and I sit there in the dark, the light from the dining room not reaching me. Mom and Bobby talk, but their voices are small voices, whispers that seep into the room with me, unintelligent, but focused. Mom comes and stands over me.

  “Who do you think you are?” she asks. Her anger is bright in the dark room. Even the shadows can’t hide her face’s furrowed surface.

  “I’m what came of the last time you were in love,” I say.

  “Oh,” she says. She stands there a second longer before going back to the dining room and the light waiting for her there. Some lessons are too hard to learn. Some lessons stop making sense early in the morning, after too much beer, too many
cigarettes.

  Me and Zephyr

  LEAVES TURN AND flip in the wind. Water runs over stones. Trees dance and the sky fills with ash colored clouds. Zephyr stops and lights a cigarette.

  “What’re we doing?” he asks.

  “Walking.”

  “But where?”

  “Anywhere.”

  I watch a murder of crows huddle around the roots of the oaks and shiver. Neither Zephyr nor I are dressed for the weather. Rain comes with a few drops, then a few more, finally a real shower. My shoulders are instantly wet, instantly cold. Zephyr wears shorts and a black t-shirt. He looks pissed, but doesn’t say anything. He smokes and stands in the rain like I’d planted him there and only I could move him.

  “Come on,” I say. “The trees’ll hide us.”

  Under the trees, the water falls in thick drops, the immediate rain caught and consolidated. I lean in and kiss Zephyr.

  “You brought me out here for a kiss?”

  “I brought you out here to ask you not to say anything.”

  “They’re my friends too.”

  “Not if they know,” I say. “And I’ve been fucking Harold.”

  “John John’s uncle?”

  “He showed me the way.”

  “That’s just evil.”

  “He’ll be dead soon.”

  “No more,” Zephyr says. “It’s all us or it’s none of us.”

  “Just don’t tell anyone.”

  “Whatever.”

  We walk back to the house, wet and cold, holding hands like none of it matters.

  All Night

  THE OLD MAN walks his pit bull in the park. The animal pulls at its leash, stopping here and there to smell the trees and piss in the grass. Knee length shorts hang from the old man’s narrow hips. A too large, black hoodie covers his shoulders and broad belly.

  A woman runs along the path snaking through the playground structures, sweating in the early morning air. Somewhere a siren howls and dogs sing in sympathy. A cat slinks through the hydrangeas hunting mice and sparrows.

  I haven’t been home all night and I’m a little worried what Mom’s going to say. She’s not keen on all-nighters, but I needed to walk. I walked all the way to town and wandered into the park before the sun rose. Now I sit on a bench, wet with morning dew and smoke. I don’t know what I’m going to say. It doesn’t matter. Mom won’t want to hear it.