Exodus and breaks

We sat for some undefined time while he told me about his experience. How glorious it had been and the mission he had received to pass on to me.  It was all about how evil women were and why men were dominant. I knew my dad had some tendencies toward chauvinism but whatever he was on amplified and defined the edges to his ideology.

The center of his argument was around his girlfriend Catherine. From what I could gather and what common sense told me, she put some distance between herself and him. This was no doubt due to his drug use but then again I didn’t know how long it had been going on. When he did try to speak to her, she denied him. Apparently this sent him into some paranoid delusion about her turning on him. Betrayal was a big theme for my father.

After telling me what I could only imagine was his version of the gospel, he swore me to secrecy. “This is God’s plan for us. It is not to be shared with the uninitiated.” I didn’t and couldn’t understand the need for swearing me to silence. I was petrified at this point, like a child I sat and listened, nodding fearfully to each phrase that fell from his tongue. All the fear I had once held for my father gripped me and threatened to suffocate.

We sat in silence for some time after. He watched the ceiling, thinking. I tried to figure out how to take control of the situation, how to escape it. This segment stretched as long as the one where he had preached. Only this one was scarier because I couldn’t see the wheels turning or where they would go.

If God had truly given my father a plan, I begged him now to give me safe passage from this place. I’m not religious in any sense, nor am I spiritual. In this instance though I needed some form of omnipotent power to guide me the fuck out of this house.

My father laughed, the corners of his mouth climbing his face and squeezing his glazed almond eyes. A tremor ran through me. “You know what we’re going to do.” I kept silent in case it wasn’t a question, “Whenever Cathy is around I’m going to say it’s templar time.” The squinted eyes climbed down from the roof to look at me, “And we’re going to have fun.” The final words were said with a wicked vagueness.

A shrill sound cut through the silent words he had left unsaid with that grin he now wore. My phone had answered my dire prayer. “Hello?” The phone had practically materialized at my ear. That psychotic smile reappeared across my father’s face as he let his head fall back and his eyes turn skyward. I wondered if he was speaking to God.

“What? Hi.” Rebecca was on the phone. Whatever dread I would have felt at this was vastly and immeasurably outweighed by my current condition.

“Hey hon.”

My father’s eyebrow arched while he continued his communion with whatever was in his blood or beyond the roof.

“Can we talk?”

“You need to talk? Yeah I’m just at my dad’s house.” My nerves were revving my voice into an unflattering pitch. I quickly worked to control it.

“Are you alright?”

“I’ll be over in a second, let me just say goodbye.”

“Sid?”

I hung up the phone. Apologies and explanations would come far easier than terrified fleeing.

“You got to go.” He almost sounded disappointed in me. His eyes still turned skyward.

“Yeah.”

I rose from my seat. A hand clutched the back of the chair to steady my weak legs. With full concentration I strode slowly to the door.

“What are we?” The whisper came from behind me, I dared not turn around.

“Knights.” I took a step forward.

“What are we?” More urgently this time.

“Knights.” My knees shook, threatening to plunge me to the floor.

The bellow came once more, it threatened to drop me to my knees and rend my mind leaving me weeping on the cloudy grey tile. “What are we?”

“Knights.” I barely made my body obey.

As I shut the door I took one last look back and saw him staring at me. His mouth curled, “Good.”

* * * * *

I didn’t stop to collect myself until I was in the parking lot for Rebecca’s complex. When I cut the engine’s power my hand lost its composure and shook relentlessly. My stomach drew into itself and tried to regurgitate what little I had eaten that day. There was water in my eyes and it stung. I wanted to lie on my side and cry softly into my knees. Everything felt wrong and dirty. The world was suddenly a lot more oppressive and intimidating than it had been in the last few months.

I opened the door and stepped out of the car. My footsteps were uncertain and my body felt like it had forgotten how to act. It moved in ways that looked like a caricature of me. I tried to put my father’s degenerating state out of my head but it kept making its way back in. What drugs was he doing, how long and why now? Mostly I wanted to forget how he made me feel. I’d learned to be firm around him and it all went to hell the moment I caught sight of those eyes.

As I grew closer to Rebecca’s apartment I began to understand that I was losing my father to something sinister. His past, his faults and all the years of abuse from his father had taken root and were beginning to bloom, a violet germanium of despair.

I knocked on the door and pushed the event with my father from my mind. Rebecca had sounded serious over the phone. That and she had given me the signal for troublesome talks. Like a puppet suddenly yanked up by his strings my body lifted. I didn’t want to be here right now and especially for this. There was no way I’d do it like a beaten pup.

When Rebecca answered the door she was solemn. Upon seeing me something in her flickered for a moment: sympathy, concern and affection. Each disappeared the moment after they had appeared, behind the blink of her eyes. “What happened?” was my consolation prize. My heart and face hardened into stone.

“Nothing.” I stepped into the apartment looked around expecting the witch to come soaring in on her broom. Agatha didn’t show.

She closed the door behind me and sat down on the couch. “Sit.” Though I heard it as a command, she was trying to hold herself together from something too. The soft contours to her body beckoned me to sit near her. I wanted to stubbornly pull up a chair and set the mood properly. I chose the lesser of the two and seated myself beside her.

No jokes sprung to my mind, nothing to ease what was going to be a tense situation. I’d already dealt with a great shock. Whatever relationship turmoil we were about to trudge through would be a cake walk by comparison.. “All on the same day too.” I said aloud.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.”

Her lips moved and twitched as though the words fought from behind her luscious lips to be freed. Another day and I would have imagined the hundreds of combinations she would utter. My pessimistic imagination would draft thousands of replies to each of her statements. Today I sat and waited while she worked up her nerve. “We need to take a break.” Her body quivered with the completion of the sentence.

Some part of me laughed. The rest of me shook its head like a disappointed parent discovering a household treasure smashed. Their child blathering excuses as the adult is beyond belief that their day of labor and toil would end with on this note.

 “That’s all?” I asked.

Her eyebrows furrowed out of confusion. “What?” I supposed she had expected a different reaction. I just wasn’t feeling like myself today.

I got up and began walking to the door.

“What is wrong with you?” The words were accusatory and a bit fearful. “What happened to you today?” Her words were losing the formality she had built up. She was coming down from her pedestal.

“Nothing.”

As I grabbed the knob she was at my side and grabbed my shoulder. “Talk to me.”

I wanted to scream hateful things. To yell, threaten and pour my frustration and anger out into a smoldering pile of putrid waste. Leave her sobbing to herself and affirm her need to be away from me. Assure her that I was a monster and villain.

I wanted to fall to the floor and lose control. Cry large sobbing tears into my arms. Have her wrap her arms around me and hold me until the trembling stopped and I found my voice once more. Tell her about what happened, try to explain and understand it all.

I wanted to fight to keep her. Tell her that we were stronger than all of this. We were worth so much more than anything I had and anything I would ever own. Tell her that I loved her.

“No.”

I opened the door and walked away.

Hopes and weakness

The house was messier than I remembered it being. The lights were dimmer than I remembered and the tile floor was clouded. Small streams of light beamed through slits in the blinds like cracks in a wall. It was as though he were reworking the place to resemble a modern cave.

On the living room table were scraps of metal spread around and containing some form of order, like a beast dissected and observed. Paper had been laid beneath each pile and tools sat nearby prepared to work. My father moved around touching this and that as though he were tidying up but only coming across as though he suffered from a compulsive disorder.

The shirt he wore hung baggy on him. I’d always pictured him being more fit. It dawned on me that perhaps I’d taken his age for granted. Something about it all didn’t feel like dementia and something began to scratch at the back of my mind.

“Sorry I’ve had nothing to do lately so I’ve worked on,” He continued to touch and move things. He was striving for some optimal global orientation, “projects.”

I looked around and folded my arms, “So what’s the problem.”

“Catherine…” The word was a hiss. It took me a few moments to recall that this was the name for his girlfriend, the mediator and polite socialite. His eyes turned back on me and the hairs on my neck began to rise. “You didn’t bring the girl with you.”

“Didn’t figure she needed to be here.” While mostly true, I hadn’t wanted to ask Rebecca along fearing that I might worsen our already tenuous relationship.

“Good.” He mumbled, “I’ve had a realization. One of those epiphanies.” This was the most talkative he’d been with me in years. Something inside me smiled at the thought of us conversing while the itching in my brain continued to nag at me. My arms unfolded and I sat on one of the chairs while he organized his thoughts. “Nothing matters.” He finally said.

While the idea was a little broad I began to think that perhaps he’d had a change of heart. Maybe something happened to change his mind about the whole thing.

“No one matters.”

This could be the beginning to repairing our relationship. I was skipping ahead of the whole process a bit quickly but a moment required seizing while ripe.

“It’s down to you and me.”

He was doing it. Realizing the true value he held in his son.

“Really you’re all that I have left.”

My heart swelled and the infernal grating in my brain screamed alarm.

His eyes turned up to me and everything I’d built up in the last few moments came crashing down.

The eyes were filled with madness. They glared wide, encased in a glassy layer, straight through me. All of my bravado and courage that I had collected in the car turned to ash. I felt the same as I had in the bird woman’s house. I was ten again and in terrible fear of the man before me.

“Catherine is wicked Sidney. She tricks and manipulates me into being someone I’m not.” I couldn’t understand that statement. He’d been the same person the whole relationship. “We are knights, Sidney. In service to God. For our works we will be rewarded with all that we please.” He paused to watch me. I was frozen and helpless. “What are we son?” he whispered.

My throat was dry but I managed a squeaking voice, “Knights.”

“What are we?” He asked again.

I had to swallow before speaking again, “Knights.”

“What are we?” He yelled.

A tremble worked its way into my body, “Knights.”

He began to bellow again but the voice that came out made my blood go cold. “What are we?”

“Knights.” I wanted to cry as I had when I was young but afraid that he would grow angry.

“That’s right.” An insane smile taking his face, “You can have anything you want as long as we are together working against it all.” He stopped for a moment to think of a way to convince me. “You like that girl you’re with?”

I made a tiny sound.

He clapped his hands and sent my heart racing. “You can have all the black, brown or blue girls you want.”

What small scrap of me that was left screamed from within my skull, “What the fuck is going on?” That small piece started working on an escape plan while trying to understand what drove him to this.

“Son, you know that Moses spoke to a burning bush to speak to God.”

I made a tiny sound.

“Cannabis.”

My inner self perked up at this and thought to remember everyone who’d gotten high near me. None had acted this delusional or fanatical.

“Science has given us many new ways to speak to him.”

Instead of a sound, I gathered a little strength to ask him a question, “How long?”

He looked at me sideways like an animal would when studying something strange and intriguing. “Only recently.”

I wondered if he meant since I’d last seen him or in relation to how long he’d been on this planet. All I knew was that I had to get out.

“I’ve spent the last few days toying with Catherine, trying to get her to break. She’s crafty and wicked.” He laughed loudly and suddenly. “You should see how she reacts, as though I’m the crazy one.” His face went dark as quickly and violently as the laugh had come, “Just like my father.” He snapped from it and looked dead at me, “But we will fight it because we are…”

“Knights.” I squeaked.

“What are we?”

“Knights.” My voice wavered.

He bellowed once more, “What are we?”

“Knights.” I’d never felt so weak and alone.

“That’s right.”

Dinner and Family

I pulled up to my father’s house and began preparing myself. Slow breaths, flexing the fingers and spinning my wrists. Each and every joint needed to be loose for this and my mind would have to be prepared to flow. I did the best impression of quick meditation that I could think of. Pulling from movies, books and a relaxation tape Rebecca’s mother had gifted her.

The last time I had come down and visited it had been with Rebecca. An introduction was long overdue and she was anxious to meet my father. I had spent years telling stories from my youth to either prepare or discourage her from the trip but we had made it. I remember her smiling and kissing me then springing from the car and looking back to see if I was coming along.

Maybe it was revenge for meeting her parents a year before and dodging the reciprocal visit. Maybe she was genuinely happy to meet one of the being who had sired me. Maybe she was just easing my obvious and overwhelming dread.

She held my hand on the way to the door. I knocked loudly and made peace with God. She squeezed my hand and smiled at me, her eye lashes swishing softly, and whispered that everything would be okay. I smiled and turned my attention back to the door but I held the image of her face in my mind.

The visit went over like spoiled milk. It had seemed pleasant enough at first glance, words and compliments exchanged with little depth or motive. Then things turned sour. Nothing visible but you could smell it in the air.

My father’s girlfriend attended the evening and spoke whenever the room would fall silent. Rebecca sat next to me and held my hand. She spoke softly and respectfully, most of the questions were handled with concise statements that didn’t lead to anything. My father and I sat silent. I sat mutely following the spacing between the tiles and he watched the conversation between his woman and mine as though it were a polite tennis match.

By the end of the peace talks and everyone had run out of polite statements and small talk questions we descended into eating. With food there is a loosening of boundries with my family so it took three forkfuls to draw the first question from my father.

“So what do your parents do?”

Dishes clattered with the impact of knives and forks. Dull thuds rumbled through the table with the removal and replacement of cups. There was no long silence between his question and the answer but each of us felt the passage of time.

Rebecca wiped her mouth and replaced her napkin in her lap. Residual manners from her mother but they did not go unnoticed. Each pair of eyes followed the fold of paper from lap to lip and back to lap.

“My mother is in mortgages and my father’s an English teacher.”

A sliver of meat hung from my father’s fork and he grunted, “Uh huh, and where did they meet?” He placed the chunk between his teeth and chewed slowly savoring and waiting to swallow.

“I think the story goes that they met through a mutual friend, dated and married.”

“Still married?” He spoke while still chewing.

“No.”

We ate for a few minutes without another word. Rebecca was concentrating on her food. I pushed against her leg with my foot and threw her a smile. At that my father piped back in.

“Are both your parents brown skinned or is one of them…” He let the phrase hang. Each bone in my body had locked in place.

Rebecca responded to this question the same way she had when asked what her major was in school, “My father is black and my mother white.”

My teeth clenched and I waited.

“You must take a lot after your mother, your skin is so light.” My father’s girlfriend swung in trying to suffocate the embers that had begun to glow around the table.

I had not been raised to harbor ill thoughts about color or religion, nor had Rebecca. When we met I had thought her a beautiful creature, her tan brown skin and dark obsidian hair. Never before had a girl of color caught my eyes but she had taken my breath with them. I knew that my family would have its issues, most were polite and said nothing. My happiness was enough to quell their misgivings. My father raised me to be open minded but quietly I imagine he tried to instill a reluctance to date openly.

So there we sat at the table, my father, his woman and I plus my token mulatto girlfriend.

“I didn’t know my son liked dark skinned girls.” My father said.

It took a great deal of force to keep my tone steady and to drop the knife in my hand. “I didn’t know we were discussing my tastes.”

He regarded me for a moment and didn’t speak further. The volatility of the discussion subsided and dinner ended soon after with some tension left unresolved.

My father and I ended up in a room talking very sternly to one another while the women sat in the living room awkwardly waiting for the groans of a distant argument to subside.

When we left I had never felt angrier. Rebecca grabbed my thigh as I drove. She had been strong throughout the whole evening and been respectful. I couldn’t ask for a better person to have come home with me. At a red light I kissed her and apologized. She pulled me back and kissed me again. She whispered that it was over now. My response was to smile back weakly but I couldn’t get to where she was. The disapproval from people on the streets was one thing but I hadn’t expected so much from my family.

Since then I hadn’t spoken much with my old man. He’d been too stubborn and I had been too upset over the whole thing.

Now I sat in his driveway about to see him and I didn’t know what to expect.

I walked up to the door and knocked. The face of Rebecca smiling floated into my mind.

He answered the door in his reading glasses. Something about the width of his eyes seemed wild. His hair had thinned more and he’d cut it recently. It hung in mass at his temples and behind his head but allowed a hazy view of his scalp from above. His skin was also a little baggier than I had last seen and more yellow. He did not look well.

“Sidney, come in.” 

Friends and thoughts

I took a few minutes to lock away the scene that had just played out, something in my chest jumped at the fleeting memory of it. Taking a few deep breaths and grinning to the bored and unhappy bouncer I reentered the club.

A side of me hoped to see her again inside. Some passing glances to share or perhaps just to view her dancing, the way she would sway. There was a tinge of disgust in myself for wanting to see her as part of the writing mass but I found that I could quickly come to peace with that. Sadly my vigilant hunt yielded no game. Only the simple prey scampering and hiding here and there were found.

The evening ended with Hank texting my phone, the vibrations being the first thing I felt in that latter half of the evening aside from the pounding on my eardrums. “Outside now” it read. The crowd was thinning and didn’t offer me much resistance as I weaved my way out. Hank was pulled up on the side of the road, the passenger door facing me and his smirk filling the window.

“Have fun?” he asked as I climbed in.

Fastening my seatbelt and quickly looking up to let him catch the glint that I was trying to show in my eye. “Indeed.”

His smirk faded quickly. “You actually met someone.”

I was too happy to care how flat he said it or how concerned his face had shifted into.

“You met a girl you,” he searched the air for a word, “enjoyed?”

“Is that so hard to believe?” my smile could have been wider but that would be physiologically improbable.

“It's not that,” He was interrupted by a tap on the window. A meaty bouncer with a shaved head, how typical, was giving him the “get the fuck out of here” look. He shifted into gear and started off. “You met a girl you wanted to bang, talk shit with or laugh after sex with.”

“Surprising, I’d think you would’ve just called it fucked or fucking.” He was beginning to irritate me so I snapped back a little harder than I should have.

“First of all, shove it up your ass. Secondly, the definition of what you want is very important here.” The jovial look he typically had on his face would have been acceptable but that he was coming down on me the way my mother or father would was really burning my patience. On top of it all, the fact that he was doing so after I spent so long watching him please his hedonistic side night after night without my disapproval for his decisions.

“I met a girl and had a miserable time having my ears beaten to a shadow of their former selves.”

“You just don’t get it.”

“You just wanted to enjoy watching me fail night after night and go crawling back to Rebecca.”

“See you’re almost right. I just wanted you going back to her in the end cause she seems good for you. Or am I wrong?”

“You’re not but what does that have to do with meeting a girl.”

“Depends on if you want to fuck her or not.” He cussed with extra emphasis, splashing me with his spit on the hard k.

“Because I might cheat on Rebecca with this new girl?” Not that I hadn’t imagined it. I’m just too much of a coward to act on any of it.

“Almost, if it was just sex it could easily never have happened. If you were dumb enough to actually like her and deal with it the wrong way you’d be committing emotional adultery.”

 The orange street lights blinked past the car, each one bathing us in its glow for moments before shadows climbed over our faces escaping the following bulb’s light. Most of the night was gone and with it went the majority of motorists. We drove alone on the streets, our car’s lonely pilgrimage down roads that would be filled with anxious and desperate drivers within several hours.

The words clung to my mind. They were not foreign to me though that they streamed from Hank’s mouth was a bit of wonder. It had occurred to me that I would or did feel this way about the girl but no one know how anything is going to transpire.

               I sighed and admitted the single detail that would result in my defeat, “I never got a number.”

               Hank didn’t laugh. I would thank him for that if he hadn’t made me spoil what had been an interesting evening. “No name either?” The man was being thorough.

               “Not a real one.”

               The sound of the motor humming filled the air along with the gentle whoosh of each lamppost that we past. I traced the edge of the armrest and kept my sight on the road ahead of us. Had the radio been on this silence would be more bearable.

               “Sorry, it just needs to be this way.”

* * * * *

               Each day at work I found myself thinking of Rebecca and Seattle Blue alternatively. With each came a different rush of emotion.

Rebecca would fill me with a sense of peace and some aggression. The softness of her smile and the joy of her laugh made me miss her. But these thoughts always ended with scenes from dinner, from each of the glares that she’d given me and then that tearful and determined last image I had of her face. When I thought of her, I considered calling and checking in at least twice before deciding that not enough time had passed.

Seattle made me feel like I was in high school again. That floating feeling you get when someone you have a warm and sudden affection for provides you with a taste of their attention. The added bonus that she was funny and playful, not to mention sexy. At the thought of her being sexy a wave of guilt would rush over me, followed quickly by a rush of excitement for something new and forbidden. I will admit to being a man who has lived little.

So it went that I would spend each day at work thinking of these two girls. But with time passing the prospects of speaking to each again dimmed. Seattle more than Rebecca but each pulled away from me just the same.

By the first weekend after meeting Seattle I received a phone call that I eagerly snatched up in hopes that it would be an unknown number or possibly Rebecca.

Instead it was my father who I hadn’t spoken to since the last argument we’d had and left on bad terms. Rebecca had been there and for all the grief I give her over her family, each time something happens, mine surprises and makes me ashamed for ever pointing a finger.

“Hey dad.” I try to sound as detached as possible.

“Son.” He pauses for a moment and with a deep breath continues, “Things aren’t going well.”

Gyrating and wit

A week passed quietly by as I tried to live as comfortable as possible. At hank’s insistence, I spent several evenings in his company as we strolled through the lively strip of bars and clubs like a couple of lost pups. We stopped into a few but generally he behaved himself in the first week. He allowed me to get out of the house but didn’t force me into a position where I’d have to find my own way home while he slipped his tongue down some girl’s throat.

The second week was not as docile. Hank began returning to his hound dog ways and I stood by, a witness to debauchery and lewdness. What girls did come my way were sent away by my grim expression and tone, the social pariah that I was channeling allowing me spare room to sit in observation.

By the end of the second week Hank decided it was time to let me “roam on my own” and turned me loose at the entrance to a club where he’d found the most satisfying prey. That he “cut me loose” was humorous considering the whole week’s worth of women he left me behind to woo. Each time he returned to water his wall flower with a glass of dark liquor. I would nurse these gifts until his eventual return. With a swift grab the glass would disappear from my grasp and slip down his gullet. Every night ended with him laying face up in the back seat as I drove his car home.

               This night he dropped me off and vanished from sight. I paid the ten dollar cover charge and walked in. The music that sounded like tribal drumming from the outside turned out to be a thunderous roar of pop music that denied the other senses their turn. Sticking my finger in one ear and reducing the booming world to half a dull thud I regained the use of my other senses.

               The room smelled like a gym sock that had been urinated on mixed with a flare of spicy wing sauce. Each step of mine was peeled from the floor boards as the residue clung to me like a nagging child wailing and clutching as I escaped its feral need. My eyes watched lights dance off the walls, shimmering then casting themselves upon the bodies writhing on the floor. Each a dark silhouette against a colorful and psychedelic backdrop. Each person moved like an amorphous blob, their limbs struggling for a sense of balance and place. They moved against each other in attempts to merge blob forms and create a unified super blob but with little success. I watched for a few moments before concluding that I would not be joining the pulsating mass regardless how proximate the women needed to be to the men near them. I wondered if any of them were inside each other and not only in the sexual sense.

               I unplugged my ear and descended back into sensory deprivation. This would become a physical trial of sorts. The endurance of my body would be tested against the ethanol fueled youth that pervaded this establishment.

               Before ten minutes were up I found myself rushing out the back door of the place where the smokers retreated to draw deeply of other fumes before climbing back into the sonic womb. My ears physically hurt and drummed with blood rushing back to replace the space left by a deep and invasive bass line.

               I pinched my nose and tried to pop my ears. Sadly the pressure that had built up was completely sound related and so I stood looking like a boy about to beat his breath holding record.

               “How muffled do I sound?”

               The voice was feminine and contained withheld mirth. Turning I met its source. A lovely tall auburn haired woman with pretty eyes and a wide smile still holding back laughter.

               “There’s a slight ringing but I can hear you fine.”

               She smirked and tilted her head up inquisitively, “How long were you in there for?”

               “Oh I don’t know, five maybe ten minutes.”

               “Was it the oppressive altar to pop music or the orgy of chafing and mass dry humping?”

               A wicked smile snaked onto my face. “I was getting a stink eye from the gonorrhea and syphilis sitting in the corner booth.”

               “As long as some herpetic beast didn’t grind its blistered mass against you, which would be unfortunate.”

                “Did a phallus try to stiffly offer you some drinks?”

               “With the amount of alcohol in their veins I’d be surprised if their dicks didn’t catch fire when they beat off to the girls that didn’t come home.”

                I became conscious of my mouth hanging open for the first time and snapped it shut. “Sidney,” I began.

               “Seattle.” She stated before I could finish my greeting.

               Confused I paused for a moment and considered the oddness of the name. “I haven’t met someone so ruthless yet.”

               She smiled and laughed a bit, probably at something I didn’t know or understand. “Not normally but I haven’t really enjoyed the venue, plus you kept raising the bar.” She thought for a moment then stated, “Blue.”

               The strangeness of the manner which she ended the sentence intrigued a quirky side of me. “Green.” Then I continued, “Why are you here then?”

               Several moments passed then she raised an eyebrow and shook her head at me as though my sentence were incomplete. “Going to take your turn or are you passing?”

               “My turn at what?”

               She tilted back as though I had surprised her. Whatever turn I was taking or passing on was lost on me. “We’re not naming favorite things then?”

               “When did that start?”

               She squinted slightly, studying me. “When you said Sidney. Like a favorite city.”

               A laugh tore out of my mouth before I could prevent its escape. I worried that I had offended her but she stood in good humor.

               She began nodding to herself, “Sidney’s your name.” her teeth flashed in another smile.

I became aware of how pretty she was suddenly, the laugh breaking me from the trance of conversation. She wore a grey jacket over a strapless top the color of a swimming pool with a texture to match a small wake in the waters. The top of her moderate bust was revealed, sprinkled with a collection of freckles. She wore tight jeans that hugged her thighs snugly. She looked partially dressed for comfort and somewhat dressed for looks. That she wasn’t wearing a skirt or pants so tight that they showcased her claim to female anatomy garnered some respect.

               “Indeed it is.” I felt my cheeks heat at this. It had been some time since I’d blushed.

               “Thank you for the banter and awkward moment Sidney.” She smiled one more time and began walking inside.

               “Returning to the altar?”

               She turned and regarded me for a moment, something kept close in those eyes. “Leaving, I allow myself one embarrassing moment.”

               Something inside me told me to let her go away but I ignored it and persisted. “Only the one?”

               She laughed softly and shook her head as though I’d done something unbelievable and, I hoped, cute. “If I see you again.” She stood for a moment awaiting another question. I thought of many but settled on one more.

               “What’s your name then?”

               Mischievously she answered, “Seattle Blue.” Swinging her purse to and fro.

               I released the hold on her by waving and saying, “Goodnight Seattle Blue.”

               She took a deep breath and gazed at me from far behind those kind eyes and replied as softly as she had started it all, “Goodnight Sidney Green.” 

Friends and lagomorphs

“You called her a bitch? That was fucking dumb.”

Stranded at the Cheesecake parking lot I called Hank to pick me up. We now sat in the car, me weaving the tale and him critiquing it.

“It’s just been building up I guess.” I was pinching and massaging the bridge of my nose trying to undo the headache that was breaking ground in my skull.

Hank silently drove on.

“Just all this shit with her family and mine plus the money.” I trailed off.

Hank grinned knowingly and switched hands on the wheel.

“You can blow me.”

He looked over at me with his grin smeared from ear to ear. “Ten minutes you’ve been in the car and you haven’t made one dumb ass joke.”

I rolled my eyes and stared out the window, “I get serious when I get stressed.”

“No amigo, you get serious when you deal with people you don’t like. I’ve said this shit to you before so we’ll see if it sticks this time.”

I watched a family pull up in a burgundy van beside us. The father wore a bristly moustache and seemed ready to leap screaming from his car. The children sat in the back of the van flailing limbs and glowing under the glow of the headrest video set. Their mouths hung open and I could just imagine the sounds they produced.

“Are you going to call her?”

That man looked like he wanted nothing to do with the world he lived in.

“Eventually.”

“Is her mom staying with her?”

The light turned green and the van sped away, the father must be desperate to get home.

“I don’t think so. Rebecca’s place isn’t very comforting for Lady Agatha. Not to mention she’d probably kill her mom before the night is out.” I knew she wouldn’t though.

“So what do you want to do now?” Hank’s voice carried mischief.

“Nothing that doesn’t include me sleeping for work tomorrow.”

We drove for a while in silence. Hank’s mystery offer sounded enticing after a botched dinner but I wasn’t interested in watching him talk to girls. I was in no mood to play wallflower to his social slut.

He dropped me off at my car just outside of Rebecca’s place. Before he pulled away he rolled down the window and gave me a serious look and commanding finger wag. “Don’t do anything else dumb tonight.”

I looked at him and raised an eyebrow. My keys were already in my hands and jingling.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about Sid. Call me tomorrow after work, you could use company.”

“I’ve got Sam.”

“Yeah. Call me tomorrow.” With that he accelerated hard and disappeared around the corner the sound of his muffler echoed its loud hum for a minute more before also vanishing into the night.

I looked at my car and tossed the keys from hand to hand. My feet turned and took me instead to where I didn’t want to go.

Rebecca answered the door slowly. From the dim light of the hall I could see her eyes were bleary and red with the remainder of the evening written in them.

“What.” Her voice was like grating stones and her lips quivered. I must have just caught her in the middle of it.

“I wanted to apologize.”

Her strength slowly gathered. “Okay.” She stood there, her body remembering itself and straightening.

“I’m sorry.” This wasn’t what I had planned to say but it came out naturally.

“Me too.”

That response I had not expected. “Come again?”

Her jaw clenched and she said nothing.

“Anyways I wanted to see if you were alright.” My hands were alternating being inside my pockets and being against my hip. It felt like I was asking her out for the first time again.

“I’m fine.” I wondered why she had to be so strong and brutal with me and me alone but didn’t voice the question.

My feet rocked back and forth as my mind searched for something else to say or do. Kissing was out of the question, maybe a hug. Should I ask to come in, walk away. My hand wanted desperately to touch hers but kept its fidgety self at my side.

“Go home.” Her voice was so flat when she said it. The marks on her face from her tears were gone. She had willed them away. She wanted to will me away.

A moment passed where I just stood watching her, my hands and feet had stopped their anxious idling. She was a marvel to me and so frustrating. Words and phrases streamed before my eyes like a teleprompter but I didn’t find the voice to air them. I wanted to be a lot of things at that moment but all I could do was walk away.

The door clicked closed behind me and I didn’t break my retreat. Each step was surprisingly easier as though I’d walked away from what could have been a hard situation.

“A hard situation.” I muttered. Every hard situation I had faced before and yet each one that dealt with us I found myself either whimpering away with my tail between my legs or just throwing my hands up in defeat.

As I sat in my car, I allowed a moment of quiet to pass before starting the engine. The creaking of the night with its ambient noises was so peaceful. Cold air had taken refuge in the cab so I found myself shivering as I turned the key. My phone vibrated in my pocket and I considered not looking at it. Images of Rebecca sniffing while on the phone sent my hand into the pocket to retrieve the device.

“You’re a fucking idiot.” Was all that it said. The message was from Hank.

I banged my head once into the headrest and put the car into reverse. In the best Impersonation my car can do, I stormed out like I had seen Hank do minutes before.

* * * * *

I opened the door with a push, allowing it to swing slowly before tapping the wall. The air was warm inside and the noise of the bedroom fan tapping back and forth was audible from the front. Small thumps came from just inside. Sam was awake and looking for me.

Closing the door and doffing my shoes I walked over to Sam’s enclosure. She stood on her back legs and stared up at me. Her long ears hung down over her back like straight hair and her nose twitched furiously. Her white face watched me curious and expectantly.

There was a box nearby her cage where I hold all of her food and treats. I dug around for a piece of parsley and handed it to her. Tearing it from my grasp she hunched over and chewed furiously, devouring the long stem like a piece of spaghetti.

Sam is my Lop eared rabbit. I acquired her when I was in college while she was a kit, raised and trained her. The soft white and brown spotted fur that keeps her warm provides me with a place to rest my hand. Of course I do this at her insistence. She does love to be pet.

As she eats I open the door for the enclosure. Then I walk to the kitchen to get a glass of water before I collapse on my futon and think about the evening one more time before bed.

Sam finishes the parsley and sniffs the rim of the doorway. She hops our and shakes her body. Probably loosening up before scampering around my living room like a wild beast. The sight of her moving quickly along the rug conjures the scene at the restaurant.

With the glass of water in hand and the evening freshly restored to the fore of my mind I toss my body limply into the couch. The glass is cool so I press it to my temple. The headache that had begun surfacing before remained a constant, although dim, presence in my head.

Sam wheeled around the room before standing before the futon. Standing on her hind legs she gazed up at me. The gaze may be intended for my hand actually. With a pat to the cushion, she jumps up and sits beside me. My hand returns to my lap and my eyes close. If only I could will this headache away the way Rebecca probably could.

There’s a grunt as a head prods at my palm. Sam is attempting to draw some affection from me no doubt. Absently my hand strokes her slowly, grabbing the long ears on their way down her back. After several passes her body lowers.

I open my eyes to see her lying beside me, her head resting on the cushion, her back feet thrown out to the side. A smile curls from my lips.

Returning to my thoughts I go over the night in my head again. From the hostile meeting to the hide and go seek of the menus to the dinner itself. I try to hold the scenes of us three at the table in my mind’s eye. It’s difficult considering the overwhelming amount of distraction about to occur. I can hear Agatha’s words clear as day, the malice in them as she whispered loudly to Rebecca. With my keen sense of hindsight I can tell that she was goading me into a confrontation.

“It happens the same way each time.” I tell Sam, “She speaks through the serpents in her hair. She draws you, enrages you to look upon her. As your eyes meet hers you learn in that moment that she has you. And poof! Petrifaction.”

Sam’s ears tilt forward at poof.

“I just reacted too quickly this time, too harshly.”

Sam’s nose twitched slowly.

“Last time was about the same, minus bitch.” I took a deep breath before continuing to complain to my rabbit, “She pushed me into starting the fight then played victim and unleashed a flurry of verbal blows. Then Rebecca and I fought on the way home and saw each other the next day and apologized for rudeness and family.”

Sam began to lick the cushion sheet.

“Not this time. I may have crossed the line this time with that bitch thing. At least I think that’s what it was.” I thought about it for a moment, “But she’s called her mom a bitch before. In front of me once.” Another pensive second passed, “Maybe it’s because I did it? But that woman has eaten whole babies, sucking down the umbilical cord and slurping the placenta. It is the method she uses to stay so youthful looking. By absorbing their lack of age.”

I laughed at the visual of her consuming a child then noticed Sam beginning to chew the sheet. Pushing her bottom I made a hissing sound that sent her bouncing from the futon.

Of parents and pests

The car ride home was silent. We’d left the house as clean and sanitary as we could. An unspoken vow was made to never speak of it again. At least I made the vow.

Bowie was left with some food in his bowl though the cat seemed clever enough to manage foraging amongst the neighborhood bird community and neighbor’s indirect charity to his cause. Something in the way he looked at me with those mismatched eyes told me that I was working far harder to assist him than I should. I understood why Miss Almost-Aunt kept him around, he was far more likable company than the other inhabitants around the block, though I did find Bowie a little snooty.

 We found no air fresheners of any modern variety; instead we lit some incense located close to the air conditioning unit. The smell of lavender filled the air, hinted with a tickle of chemical wash. It would have to do. Considering the rank odor of decay and lingering death that we walked into, this dizzyingly fresh aroma would suffice.

Rebecca and I didn’t speak for a few days. After the trip there was reason for her to be angry with me. It was unfair that her family was the one laying down the minefield that I stumbled through. This was of course not on purpose but some days I’m left to wonder, paranoid delusions and all.

I also found myself growing an aversion to meats. This lasted several days. By the weekend I could not stand it any longer and purchased a crispy chicken burger at the closest drive through dive. I was not quite up to the hamburgers yet. Seeing meat in the grocery store conjured images of blood, red washed walls and that tiny potato leaned on the crisper drawer like a child’s forehead pressed on stained glass. Come to think of it, I didn’t purchase fries with the chicken, this may be the cause. Post traumatic stress must be something more acute than this. Therapy may be in store down the ways for me.

When we did talk again it was with reservations on both sides. Like dating at the beginning all over again we didn’t want to dredge up any stories the other might get upset over. I know that should she mention her ‘aunt’ I would sour and if I mentioned that refrigerator or Bowie her face would darken. So we talked about my job and career hunt, chatted about her school work. We had lunch quietly and spent the week apart.

Something in all of this didn’t sit well with me but this whole trip to her ‘aunt’s’ was the last in a series of unfortunate events. Granted some of it was drama on my side but we saw it all through together. For now we needed some time alone to process it.

After the week long contemplation I got a call on my way home from my menial job tending to the general populace’s every drugstore need. Rebecca was on the other end and sounded better than when I’d last seen her. Actually she sounded downright chirpy. The way she asked how I was doing and her obvious excessive smiling on the other side of the line. “What’s going on?” I asked her.

I thank God sometimes for Rebecca’s honesty in the face of certain direct questions. She didn’t squirm or miss a beat. “My mother’s coming for a visit.”

I can, within a marginal doubt, say that everyone has heard the song, The Devil Went Down to Georgia. Now having said that, this has little to do with Rebecca’s mother, for instance, there is no fiddling, and at the end of the day the devil collects. I have watched Rebecca fiddle hard against the woman but age and the bitterness that comes with it have hardened her mother to any young fiddle technique.

“Is your dad coming?” I ask, hoping for a silver lining. Her father is a lot like me. Though I guess psychologically that makes sense for Rebecca.

“Not this time.”

“Did she eat him?” I ask, a sheepish grin growing on my face.

“What?” I could hear her suppressing a laugh.

“You know, unhinged her jaw, clasped him with those clawed and colorful appendages and stuff him slowly down her gullet. Her body bending and expanding to compensate for his mass and her saliva slowly…”

She coughed and stopped me. “Will you come by?” She sounded better.

“Sure.”

 “Tomorrow night.”

“What?” The short notice was a little startling. “When did you hear she was coming to see you?”

The line went quiet. “A few days ago.”

“Shit hon, I need at least a few days to brush up on my Aramaic and dust off my King James Bible and crucifix.”

“Shut up. I haven’t had the best week.”

“Considering the few month’s we’ve had this has been the easiest week yet. Between my cousin and my dad, your family and their,” I paused to find a polite word, “crap.” couldn’t find one, “I would say that this week has been pretty relaxing.”

“Does everything have to be a joke?”  Her hackles were rising, but I, following the guidelines set by my father and his father before him and all men everywhere, was clueless.

“Sure takes the edge off of things.”

She began to huff and seethe. “Forget it, don’t come by. I’ll deal with it myself.”

“Deal with what? Your mom? There’s nothing to deal with just lay down, play dead and soil yourself, she’ll grow bored and move on.”

I’ve made her hang up on me before. Not proud of those days, like I’m not proud of this one. I hung up and drove a little faster than I usually do, home. 

I knew that I should call her back and apologize. Instead I did nothing but wait.

My family is far from perfect. In fact my family is as dysfunctional as Rebecca’s. I think the idea is that each has their own style but screw up their kids evenly. Depending on the kid we deal with it or don’t and move on or remain where we are.

Rebecca’s mom, Agatha, was one hell of a woman some time ago. Strong, bold and just the right mix of sexy and stern. I don’t say this from experience. This is all second hand from the look that Rebecca’s dad gets in his eyes when he looks at his ex-wife. That sort of love lost.

When she met Henry, he was a climbing writer, sharing his views about things in some editorial that’s become either modernized by the internet or has faded into oblivion. She on the other hand was some top notch mortgage broker and was on her way to some executive position. So when Rebecca and her older sister came along it was decided that Henry would stay home with the girls.

The abridged version of their life growing up was that the older girl grew close to her mother and Agatha loved having a protégé while Rebecca grew close to her father becoming her father’s closest thing to a son. Somehow Agatha resented Rebecca for choosing her lowlife father.

               Divorce came and went. The girls went with their mother and Rebecca learned to grow a thick skin and mature quickly. She moved out when she started college and met me. There’s a lot missing but those stories have their place.

               The following day I dressed at the end of my shift, put on a deep blue dress shirt. Touched up my hair with some moisture from the water fountain and made my way over to Rebecca’s place.

               I stood in front of her apartment door preparing myself. My frustration and opinions bottled away. Just before I knocked the locks began to unlatch. I stood frozen watching the doorknob turn just a few inches from my grasp. When the door swung open Rebecca’s face filled my view.

               She’d brushed her hair and put on that quick touch of makeup that lets her face come alive. I was speechless when I saw her. “What are you doing here?” her forehead creasing with concern, fear and anger.

               “Sidney.” Her mother cheered behind her, “I was just asking Becca about you. You’re coming to pay for dinner, right?” She laughed at her own joke, “Nonsense, it’s my treat.”

               Rebecca locked the door and stalked past me. Agatha placed her hand on my shoulder, her nails inches from my jugular. After slitting my throat, I wondered, would she bath in the fountain of my blood or drink from it like a garden hose? “So how’s finding a job with that degree of yours?”

               My mouth remained closed as she guided me along. I knew a one sided conversation when I heard one.

               “Tough times these are. Difficult for some of us to stay afloat.” She smiled at me, nearly perfect teeth like a brand new grand piano winking back at me with a glimmer of reflected light. “Shame, my daughter Cici had her job lined up the first day out.” Cici is Nancy, Rebecca’s older and flawless sister.

                I felt a thump of pulse on my forehead and sighed. Agatha talked me all the way to her car, where Rebecca stood, arms folded against the back door.

* * * * *

               We had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. I was forced into sitting next to Agatha while Rebecca sat alone on the opposing end of the table. I don’t know quite how I ended up on this end of the table, I’m sure that I was placed by a very persuasive hand. The woman was a marvel, she could control a person’s actions with applied pressure to the shoulder and the grace of her tongue, no matter what nonsense it spewed it was all about tone.

               Agatha spoke on about her last visit to the restaurant, the food she had tasted, company she kept. She told some humorous anecdote about embarrassing a waiter. I couldn’t tell when she segued into different topics, I was busy not existing behind my menu. Rebecca was burning tiny eye holes through hers trying to penetrate my shield listing the daily specials.

               When the waiter came and introduced himself, he took a moment to look back and forth at the three of us. He blinked harder than normal and droned on about the soup and fish of the day. Agatha asked him about the soup as I took a peek over the top of my menu to see if the stare down had taken a reprieve.

               Rebecca was watching her mother as the older woman rambled. Rebecca rolled her eyes and resigned herself back to the menu. When she noticed me watching, her eyes hardened and I quickly dove beneath the ramparts of the specials section. I waited out the siege while deciding that I would order a burger and not over complicate the evening.

               Appetizers came and went. Agatha had ordered popcorn shrimp and chuckled at how cute each crustacean looked battered and crisped golden. I remained quiet and smiled when spoken to. Agatha praised me on my securing of a job, albeit a simple one, and my success at living alone. All the while Rebecca just sat watching her mother lay brick after brick of praise, building a foundation on which to build walls of cooperation or a structure she could demolish should I prove less than useful in whatever scheme she schemed.

               When my burger came Agatha asked me to evaluate and present her with a review of the meaty sandwich should she ever deign to eat like the masses do. I grumbled an agreement.

Rebecca received her meal with a blank stare and a hollow thank you to the waiter. The way she sat with her shoulders slouched reminded me of our trip to Miss Almost-Aunt’s house. It reminded me of any time she spoke with her family, with an exception for her father. I extended my leg under the table and gently tapped her calf. I hoped that it would provide reassurance that I was still here and with her. She looked up at me and pulled her lips tight across her face in a rough attempt at a smile.

The waiter came by and asked if we were alright or in need of anything. Agatha smiled at him and graciously thanked and excused him. As he walked away she turned to her daughter and in a rare moment of decency spoke to her without hint of malice. “Dear, are you alright?”

Rebecca looked up in surprised. She began mouthing something but couldn’t find the words. Her voice had been replaced by awkward quiet noises.

Her mother smiled and continued, “Isn’t the waiter cute?”

I choked on a particularly luscious piece of bacon and medium-cooked beef.

Agatha ignored my sputtering noises and talked to her daughter in loud confidence, “He looks like he takes the time to work out.”

“Excuse,” I coughed the word and tried to clear my throat, “Me.” The words sounded weak to myself.

Rebecca’s brow furrowed, fear and confusion consumed her features.

Paying Rebecca and me no mind, Agatha went on, “Imagine the size of his penis.” The words hung in the air.

Finally choking down the food and clearing my throat I took a deep breath. “What is your problem?”

Agatha turned slowly to me, her surprise was almost genuine. “Excuse me?”

“Agreed.”

She huffed and smiled, “Just how do you think you can disrespect me?”

“What?” I could hardly believe what I was hearing.

Rebecca took a deep breath and closed her eyes. I imagine she was trying to push the whole situation aside with her mind. Had I not been so invested in the coming argument I may have noticed.

“What do you have that makes you believe that anything you say has weight or merit?” Agatha’s words cut into and infuriated me.

“What allows you to be a bitch towards…” my words were cut short as a woman a few tables over screamed as though her soul was being wrenched from her earthly body.

I turned to see what the commotion was about. The table had erupted into a flurry of napkins sprung from laps and utensils clattering to the floor. The napkins floated amongst the chaos like gliding doves as people screamed “Rat!” and “Roach!”

I turned back to our table to find myself eye to eye with Agatha. Our eyes locked for a moment when she struck me across the face. The blow shocked me and snapped my head hard to the side where I saw a large brown splotch dart around the floor, a blur of speed and fear.

“Mom!”

I barely heard Rebecca’s cry over the ringing sound from my ear being clapped. Likewise I heard little of the cacophony of noise playing through the restaurant as people wailed and others tried valiantly and clumsily to stomp out the brown splotch from the earth.

Agatha had lost the hint of a smile playing at the edge of her mouth, replacing it with a look of scorn. I imagine the social game she had planned for the evening didn’t go as planned. I believe she didn’t expect me to call her a bitch so quickly. Our previous arguments had seen me endure worse before cracking and fighting back. Never had I crossed the line of verbal abuse.

I turned back to the table with my sight unfocused and my hearing slowly returning. Rebecca was beginning to find herself amid the maelstrom and drew herself up. Agatha was brimming with retaliation.

Waiters began pouring into the dining area of the restaurant trying to triangulate the creature’s position with the guests while issuing apologies by the handfuls. The manager and his assistant ran public relations while the employees scattered and formed kill squads.

Agatha looked at Rebecca and with a hard word barely audible over the mass panic and persistent ringing, ordered her to the car.

Rebecca deflated and her eyes glossed over. Whatever spirit had risen there had fled.

They fought their way out of the restaurant and through the waiters posted at the door like sentries, silencing the guards’ protests with a look.

I was late in realizing what was happening. With my wits still uncollected I stumbled through the crowds as they turned from frightened mob to enraged patrons.

The manager and his faithful sidekick tried to argue down several tables but were out shouted. As I neared the door I heard the sound of shoes mounting a table as the manager shouted for order. I pushed through the guards while the manager began addressing the crowd amidst the claps of shoes stomping after the brown splotch and orders being passed between squads of cooks and staff.

As I exited I shouted for Rebecca’s attention, calling her name in an attempt to break the spell. She stopped and turned to look at me.

Agatha stopped and said something to her daughter with a scowl contorting her face. Rebecca ignored her and walked over to me. “Don’t.” She said. My heart stopped for a moment on seeing the look in her face.

“Let him find his own way home, the little,” her face twisted and she seemed to struggle against herself when she yelled, “prick.”

“Please don’t.” Was all I could hear. Rebecca turned and walked away. She didn’t look like the girl I had spent the last few years with. Instead she looked like the girl I met. In fact she looked and acted exactly as she did when she first introduced me to her mother. I felt like I had lost her again for the second time in these last few weeks.

Rebecca walked away as her mother whispered, “You can do much better than that…boy.” They began to walk to the car. Agatha took one long last look at me and chuckled.

Inside the restaurant there was a final slam and someone screamed, “Yeah!” 

The birds and heterochromia

It was really crappy for me to walk away from her while she buried herself in the filth and corpse that was that mess but I…

You have no reason not to be there. I told myself, You’re not supporting her by being out here.

My conscience and thoughts fought savagely in my head while I walked the narrow streets calling for Bowie just loud enough to ease my guilt but not loud enough that anyone would stare at me from their windows with a perplexed gaze. It didn’t matter that these were people I’d likely never see again, something small inside me only asked that I not embarrass myself to myself.

After five minutes and walking around the small block of condos I arrived back near almost-auntie’s corner. I stayed far from the door and windows to not catch the blood boiling leer that would be leveled at me. Best saved for the car ride home in my opinion, when my death will have consequences.

I briskly walked past the door and window then slowed as I approached the neighbor’s door. This one was kept in shape, it retained its murky black paint on the gate and the wood on the door looked to have been recently washed with a hose. Not a huge step up but a moderate one. A wind chime depicting birds hung from the ceiling of the porch and the door had a knocker with what I can only assume must be a robin carved out of wood.

The knocker looked to be fragile or at least that’s the reason I thought when I knocked instead. A woman of some advanced age and curled figure opened and peered up at me through curled purplish gray hair. The lines were etched softly on her face, the age suited her and she looked to have gracefully stepped into it.

“CAT!” she cried. An incriminating and gnarled finger rose to aim its leather self at my chest. Gracefully aged may have been generous. “Get that fucking cat out of my house.”

“Bowie?” My words came quietly and meek having suffered the ear pain and mental distress of having an old woman bark fuck at me.

“No, the cat.” The bony finger swung round and pointed into her home. “Get him now.”

Obeying the decrepit digit more than the threat of further verbal abuse I slipped past her and into the house. The door slammed shut behind me and gave me pause as I turned to see her eyes narrow and the finger still hovering angry and trembling at me.

I followed the trajectory made by her wrath and saw Bowie happily perched upon a shelf laden with wooden depictions of birds. His tail swished back and forth as he watched me with a grin on his face and mirth in his brown and blue eyes. “Just like Bowie.” I muttered as I shuffled slowly across the tile.

“Just like the devil himself!” The woman shrieked from behind me.

Bowie looked up at her with his eyes; clearly he was bothered by her boisterous rage. The cat visibly sighed and leaped off the shelf onto her television set leaving teetering figurines in his wake. A howl erupted as she sped past me with speed no one that old should have. Her leather hands enveloped the miniature birds and her eyes softened with concern. Immediately though she turned and bared her teeth at the cat. I resolved to end this quickly.

Bowie sat upright on the television and whipped his tail along its screen like an inverse windshield wiper. Stretching his leg, he looked at me with a resigned sigh and dropped to the floor. Curling around my leg he walked past with a slight limp to his back right leg and stood at the door. He looked back over his shoulder and seemed at a loss for how inept I was to leave the door shut. He sat and waited, the tail flicking this way and that on the tile.

Slowly I walked over to him, waiting for him to come to his senses and make a dash for a kitchen cabinet or laundry hamper. Instead Bowie sat there and watched me, his mismatched eyes rolling at my sluggish approach. A wide yawn escaped him and he licked his lips and allowed his eyes to go to half mast. The cat was becoming impatient with me.

I opened the door slowly; as the sunlight streamed in he pushed himself between the small opening and rushed from the house before I could completely open the door.

The old woman was at the shelf tidying up the spots where Bowie had stood. She whispered things to herself, probably things that cats would find offensive and considered slander. Looking over at me while I stared at the slit of light in the doorway she asked, “Do you know what that beast did?”

Shaken from my stupor I looked back at her. Suddenly the room came into focus and I felt a tinge of awkwardness from bearing witness to someone’s clear perversion and psychosis. The room was cluttered with avian things and devices. If something was not clearly bird related it bore images of birds through stickers, magnets or colorful and tasteless sheaths. I mention the last one because I was transfixed by the bluebird sheath she had around her remote control and the parrot cosie gently embracing her drink. I looked for a place to sit but was unable to because of the expression of a clearly perturbed toucan staring back at me on the face of a throw cushion. I imagine he was molested by many an ass seeking cushion on him. So instead I stood and answered her question which seemed odd considering what she did to her home. “Something about a canary.”

“Something about a canary.” She echoed back to me. I wondered if she was mocking me or losing her already slipping grasp on reality. “Just a canary?” Her head turned slowly with the question making me anxious. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and found it less comfortable than the first but remained there. I feared she would sense my apprehension.

“Yes ma’am.” I felt like I was back in kindergarten starring up glassy eyed at some domineering woman who demanded we call her ma’am. Somehow this old woman’s tone and ire were causing me to regress back.

“Let me tell you a story.”

I gingerly moved the toucan to the side of the chair and sat. Folding my hands and placing them between my knees. Eyeing the toucan I reconsidered and turned him so that he could lay his hate into the armrest, then refolded my hands. Yes definitely regressing.

               “That cat use to sit on the shared fence between my and Samantha’s backyard.” I wondered if the small patch of patio they had was considered a backyard. “He use to sit there and stare at my birds.”

“You had canaries?” My voice sounded childish in my ears. I wondered if my testicles had rescinded into my body. In the same thought I wondered if my voice would begin cracking again.

“I had many birds. Some you would not know about.” She said this with an incredulous voice that made me feel ashamed for not having been better prepared for this trip. “Among them all I had an African Grey named Sweetie.”

“So it wasn’t a canary.”

“No!”

My hands curled to my chest in reflex, balling up into fists. I took a deep breath and tried to remember that I could possibly out run her. Then I remembered her rushing to the shelf and quivered.

“That cat would stare at all my lovely birds and wave his bladed tail. Each day that I caught him I chased him from my fence with an old racket of mine.”

The thought occurred to me of a racket circumscribed with feathers to appear as a turkey if oriented correctly.

“One day though he struck the cages and tried to eat my loves. He tore at the cages with his claws and tried to take them from me. I heard the whole thing from inside.” She began visibly shaking and not the old person shake this was either angry shake or sad shake. “I rushed out and tried to get him away from them.”

               I imagined her with a kitchen knife rushing to her sliding door and out into the yard brandishing it against the cats.

               Her story was filled with very vivid emotions. I found myself frightened and worried that I may not be permitted to leave. The cat had teased her. Dancing around her yard as she tried to harry him away but he nimbly dodged her movements and continued his siege upon the cages, many of them clattering to the floor from their hanging or standing positions. The birds went wild with frenzy of fear and panic. The woman stepping around them, trying not to fall and to evict Bowie from her yard as they chirped and screeched their terror.

Bowie was enlivened by the sounds and became all the more ferocious. The woman must have envisioned him with several heads and cleft hooves, hissing fire between purrs of damnation. In any case he landed on the cage containing Sweetie and licked his nine fangs while his serpentine eyes drank the soulful final wails of the bird. With a flick of his paw he managed the cage door open. The bird cried loudly and Bowie sank his head through the cage frame.

At this moment the woman’s foot caught bowie by his backside and launched him into the fence. Injured from this blow, he collected his wits and scaled the fence, disappearing back into his yard. Sadly the madness and tension in the air took Sweetie’s life. The woman found him dead on his back in the toppled cage lying on the floor, abject fear in his wide grey eyes.

She told me that she held a tasteful ceremony for him with his brethren in attendance. The words she spoke were apparently beautiful and an albatross soared overhead while the birds sang a dirge at their companions passing.

From that day forward when Bowie did escape from his owners home and made his way onto the fence the woman hurled things at him. Screws, cups or whatever was at hand was lobbed at the feline with malicious intent. Suddenly the story of neighborhood cats beating on him took on a whole new meaning.

“Well thank you for ridding me of the cat. I called you over an hour ago but you did well removing him from the house.” She swept her hand around which I took as the cue to stand and prepare to depart. “I called you well over thirty minutes ago but I won’t complain.” Her face grew dark, “Though I will express my displeasure that you did not…” She let the words hang.

She showed me to the door and closed it behind me, her mad eyes and smile covered by the wood and robin knocker. I shook myself and walked back to almost-aunt’s house.

The door stood open and presented me with an aroma of bleach and lemon freshness. My woman was on the porch absently stroking Bowie’s back. “Found the cat.”

She did not mean me.

“Good.” Was all I could say as I sat beside her. My head dropped and I closed my eyes. The heavy cloud of Clorox hanging over the two of us, making me dizzy.

               Bowie purred softly, looking up at me with his mismatched eyes, half lidded, and showing me his indifference to my suffering.

               She did not say a word to me while we sat there waiting for the air to clear. The words were locked away inside her head, the anger suffused over her weariness. I would bear it soon enough. We sat there smelling like a public pool as the sun began to set.

I moved my hand to stroke Bowie’s back. He leered at me but allowed it, the warning having been issued. I caught hers midway and held it. After a few moments she squeezed mine. That her teeth were clenched as she did it didn’t bother me in the slightest. It was just nice to be normal for a moment.

Almost-Aunt and a crime scene

               My phone spasmed in my pocket sending a tingling sensation up my spine and alerting me to its urgency, of course this had to happen while I’m  driving home from work. Gingerly, while keeping my left hand affixed to the wheel I worked to withdraw the device from my left pocket. This is of course contradictory but I favor my right hand greatly, if asked directly I will say it is my favorite with my left hanging forlornly at my side. The phone was not difficult to extract. Pressing on the bottom portion of my pocket to draw it to the surface like you would a tenacious pimple or a willful roll of toothpaste. Eventually it slid from its nest and ceased demanding. Grumbling to myself, I flipped it open and squeezed the keys til a dial tone murmured through the ear piece.

               The excited and always encouraging voice of my woman caressed my ear, that tart way she can say hello that would discourage relatives from remaining long on the line. “Hello dear.” I respond as honey-dipped as I can muster while wrestling the contraption to form to my face.

               She softens, “Hi there.” A great weight rolling off her shoulders with a soundless crash to the floor. “I was just calling you.”

               “Seemed like you were expecting someone else?” It sounded like a statement but I toned it to fit either scenario.

               “My aunt,” Her voice quieting with a sigh, “she’s been calling all day about her place.”

               I concentrate and try to either read her mind or recall enough details about the aunt she may be speaking of to seem involved. Neither comes through. “Family aunt or one of the…” I trail off seeking the kindest way to place it, “one of those family friend, almost-aunts?”

Hope I did well enough. I think to myself.

“Almost-aunt.”

“What about her place?” The cars around me don’t understand my need for concentration, they veer and turn aggressively forcing my hand back to the wheel and my neck to contort in efforts to seize the phone.

“She left to go see her family and has some neighbor checking her place.”

I can feel the length of tale about to be spun and try to head it off. “So what does she need from you?” Grinning to myself for my maneuver.

“Well apparently she doesn’t trust the lady and there’s some bad blood over the neighbor’s bird being killed or lost and having to do with my aunt’s cat...”

“Almost-aunt.” Even with the correction my smile still faded.

“…Almost-aunt’s cat. So there’s no trust and it ends up that she wants me to go and check on the house and make sure that the canary woman isn’t duping her.”

“It was a canary?” My mind slowly returns to concentrating on the road. The question fires without my knowing.

“It doesn’t matter what it was or is. We have to go check the house.” Her anger begins to simmer.

My mind works out the logistics but my mouth replies dumbly, “Is? To imply that it’s not dead? What’s this about ‘we’?” I know that the questions are dumb but that doesn’t stop them from feeding the flames of her fury, they begin to leap and lash at me.

“Are you going to pick me up or am I meeting you at my aunt’s house?”

Her fury and the coming arguments are beyond my control now; my mouth decides to go for it. “Almost-aunt and I’m on my way to get you.” I can feel her trying to focus on not hanging up and throwing her phone. I mutter a quick goodbye before she growls her farewell.

The phone call ends and I nestle the phone between my thighs to prevent having to retrieve it again from my pocket.

I will say that I love this girl, what I will not say is how much her family bothers me. Right now though, I have to deal with her dealing with them dealing with their crap. So I guess from what I learned in math about transitive relationships, that whole a equals b and b equals c so whatever equals whatever, means that I’m dealing with her family’s crap.

* * * * *

The car ride from picking up Rebecca to her ‘almost-aunt’s’ ensues in silence. I know how mad she is at them and how mad she will be at me for it that I enjoy the passing tranquility. The quiet washes over me, cleaning me, marinating and preparing me to be presented as the feast for my woman’s scorn. If it wasn’t for the ambiance of traffic and radio static it would almost be Buddhist.

I look over to her from time to time, her shoulders droop each time her family calls and this time is no different. Her eyes stare blankly at the glove compartment and her hair is a mess, probably from grabbing at it in frustration. I do hope that the hair thing is over her family and not my aggravatingly cute nature or so it’s been called.

 My hand seeks hers like a blind pig digging for truffles. It roots around the edge of her seat then makes its way onto her thigh and searches high and low. Finally she grabs my hand and squeezes. I look over for a second to asses if the squeeze is bad or good. Her eyes look at me weakly and she fabricates a smile. I squeeze back and can only imagine the level of insanity that her family wrought this day.

After half an hour of driving I exclaim, “How fucking far does she live?”

Rebecca smiles and looks out the window at what I can only imagine must now be farmstead and cattle herds or possibly Canadian wilderness and overly friendly bears.

Because my sanity demands it and I’ve lost my zen nature with this particular ride I ask, “So who called first?”

In her reflection I see the smile vanish, the shoulders descending into her ribs. “My mom.”

“Of course.” I mutter to no one.

Her distance from me grows, our words are scripted by now, we’re just playing our parts. I try to change the subject to bring her back to me. “So what’s the story with Mistress Finch and the supposed homicide?”

“My aunt’s cat…” it pained me to sit by without cutting in, “use to free roam at night. Mix it up with the other cats I guess. Came home every morning before God and my grandmother woke just in time for her to wake herself and feed it.”

“Is it just the one cat? Typically crazy aunts travel in packs or prides I think they’re called, with many cats.”

“No just the one anyways…”

The drive continued for 10 minutes while I heard some story about a cat that killed and probably ate a bird was accosted by an old, angry and emotionally shaken woman with a broom. He was called oh so many names but was never charged with avicide. Eventually he was placed under house arrest on suspicion alone. The cat’s street reputation apparently never recovered and when he does escape he typically returns with an assortment of cuts and bites that require tending by an oh so lonely and out of touch, almost-aunt.

* * * * *

               Apparently this woman lives in a condo located in the middle of no way out and good luck finding me. When we arrived, couldn’t believe that we were checking in on the place.

               The windows were all but sealed shut and curtained from the inside. The door had seen better days and should probably stand besides a warning about splinters not to mention the iron gate which should also have a sign but instead that reads “Seek immediate medical attention if jaw begins to lock after opening.” Vines limply held onto similar iron bars protecting the kitchen window. I wondered if the almost-aunt lived like this or had left on vacation some decades prior.

                I let Rebecca out while I circled the lot looking for some faintly painted visitor spaces. Finding them and walking around the neighborhood back to the house I found the gate open but had to risk my gentle skin to pressing to wooden door open.

“Bowie.” Rebecca’s voice sounded pleading as she called for the cat to show itself.

“David Bowie?” I called in after her.

“Different colored eyes.” Then she continued, “Bowie.”

I walked through the house noting how squarely this woman fell into the spinster category. Although there was an aroma to the air that was not the musty smell of an attic long forgot. I followed it.

“Bowie.” Rebecca continued to call as I followed the smell that was becoming a stench.

It peaked in power and repulsion in the kitchen. My mind began to hum as it numbered the possibilities. Dead body, dead bodies, dead cat, possibly long dead bird. As my brain rounded on more logical ideas I shouted back, “Did your almost-aunt cut the power?”

“Bowie! Yeah she did. BOWIE!”

I stared at the refrigerator the same way I imagine Pandora must have stared at that box. That feeling curling tight inside me knowing that I should not  while the desire arrested me with the need to know what. Unlike Pandora I did not believe that once the evil within was let out that there would be hope left alive inside the refrigerator much less within me.

My fingers curled around the handle as Rebecca poked out from the stairwell. “I can’t find…” Her statement paused while she watched me ignore her and satiate my dark curiosity.

The door peeled open with a wet and sticky sound and burped a bubble of sick revolting gas into my face. My throat contracted to prevent the vile air from entering my lungs or stomach. That I could both taste and smell it set my stomach upon itself, attempting to implode and leave me with its contents.

The jars along the door were leaking and gelling with their various sauces and condiments. The milk stood resolute and stern daring anyone to try and stir it from its vigil. The contents of tupperware on tupperware had been claimed by a teal organism that I swore winked at me with its cheekiness at having stolen leftovers. But none of these were the culprits of the lurching my stomach was doing.

Along the sides of the refrigerator and down the edges of the door frame, hardened blood streaked down the walls. Crimson claws had raked down this interior and left this ruby remainder. Down it went into a pool upon the bottom shelf. It had been too much for the subtly depressed shelf to hold. It had slipped down into the crisper drawers where it lingered with the vegetables that I could only imagine had gained the ability to sing and fruits the skills to dance. In the blood soaked drawer a single potato watched me with one of its many eyes through the tinted plastic. Its demeanor begged for death.

Rebecca was slowly walking towards me, staring at the contents of the refrigerator and approaching slowly. She made little noise as to not startle me or the refrigerator but I think it was more the refrigerator.

My eyes traced the bloodied lines up to the freezer door. Having come this far and still holding my breath I reached for the handle. Rebecca mouthed quiet protest from behind me in vain. This door also came open with a slick and wet crackle.

The true nature of the odor was revealed to me like an epiphany. Enlightening and humbling. My fascination alone kept me from dropping to my knees in grotesque worship then doubling over and adding my own liquids and smells to the mix.

Within the freezer lay a chicken waiting its judgment. Several steaks and a pound of ground beef were beginning to collect and reform the shape of a cow. Sausages lounged in their intestinal casings conversing about the pleasant shift to a warmer climate. The water that must have once filled the ice trays had long since left, leaving flys to hop between trenches as their children crawled over each of the meats present at this corrupt council.

Tearing myself away from the sight and smell, I ran to the door. When I next occupied my head I found myself staring at the porch ceiling. My back was sweat soaked and pressed against the hot brick tile porch. Inside I could hear scrubbing. Not bathtub cleaning scrubbing, industrial machine maintenance and sanitization scrubbing.

I rolled up onto my feet and held steady against the wall as my body reoriented itself with, well, itself. Staggering in I found Rebecca elbow deep in the refrigerator with a cloth tied round her face like a bandit and thick yellow gloves on her hands. The gloves were already splotched with blood, it looked like I had walked in on the cleanup for a nasty homicide. The blood that once dripped down the walls was now smeared across the sides tinting them pink. Nearby a garbage can sat unhappily with contents that did not require my inspection.

“Sweetie,” My stomach felt as though it had already vomited even though I saw no evidence of where and threatened to do so again, “why don’t we just leave this and agree to tell no one.”

She ignored me and continued to grind at the walls with a towel wrapped around steel wool.

“Baby, we can drag this fridge out and set it on fire. No one will know.”

Still scrubbing.

“Beccy please just walk away from this.”

Her eyes darted up to mine then as quickly as they had risen they fell back to their work. In that moment I felt that she would have no problems cleaning up my murder if I persisted.

“I’m going to go look for the cat then?” I smiled in hopes of drawing some mirth out of this dismal situation.

She continued scrubbing.

I walked away before sighing and started looking for this almost-aunt’s acquitted bird murderer.