‘Maybe you should answer it?’ the scarred woman questioned.
‘She needs only the bonds of the mission. Anything else may create a weakness within her. There is quite a long test in front of her.’
He turns with quick speed and a predator nature you would expect on first appearance seeing him and he grabs the woman by the throat. Then slowly he leans into her face close enough were she could smell the hint of cinnamon on his lips.
The phone continued to ring and the shouts from the balcony below got louder as he pushed her back into their room from where they had been standing.
‘You have tests ahead of you also my dear.’
Joanna closes her phone and tosses it back onto her bed. Well, actually she more or less did a under hand throw up into the ceiling of her bedroom causing her phone and some plaster to fall not so gently onto her bed.
She sits back down at her desk, clicks off the messenger program, closes Media Player, and opens up a word document with a file titled: DANCE-STEP ONE.
CHAPTER 21
Jeff sat across from Karen in the restaurant booth as the waitress was getting their drink orders and Karen was soaked head to toe dripping all over her seat and the floor.
Whenever Karen called Jeff and mentioned pizza it was code between them that said, “Need help, need to do the talking.” When Jeff needs to talk with her about any problems he’s having he calls and says, “I need to see some boobs.”
That’s subtle man code for you.
Rather male stereotypical also for a young man full of contradictions.
‘In Sci-Fi Club Chris Sweet said saying Sci-Fi was like saying nigger.’ Jeff
Karen’s attention is snapped into a facial expression of WHAT?
‘One. Hello, Sci-Fi Club? Two. Did you slap him in the fucking mouth or do I need to mark that into my calendar?’
‘Yeah, put it between lunch and bitch slapping former friends.’
‘There has to be something else we can talk about here?’
‘We can but we are going to talk about it also.’
‘…’
‘You waited for her didn’t you?’ he asked his friend who was currently resembling a wet beaten street rat sitting in the restaurant.
‘Yep,’ she timidly answered and plumped her forehead on the table.
‘Any deadly marker action?’
‘That’s fiction.’
That was subtext of best friend speak.
‘Any more punches thrown?’
‘Only the emotional kind.’
‘What happen?’ Jeff asked fishing to get deeper and just get her talking.
‘She moved back here because her mom died. She came back to bury her mother Jeff…and I…’
Jeff tapped her on the top of the head with a spoon, ‘And you kicked the shit out of her?’
Karen looked up, ‘Match point.’
‘Feeling like shit?’
‘Like talons on a bunny.’ Karen’s head went back to the table with a good thud this time
‘Afraid of who you feel you are right now?’
‘Drifting in the feeling, wallowing like an emo kitten,’ she looked up and meets eyes with him again, ‘Not my best day today.’
‘You also got expelled on the first day of your senior year of high school. That is some day for the brain to process?’
Karen dropped her head back with another thud to the table.
The waitress returned with their drinks.
‘Ready to order?’ she asked.
Jeff sarcastically but sympathetically patted Karen on the top of her head but Karen had the feeling he was patting harder every other touch.
‘I think this is a three topping night.’ Jeff told the waitress.
‘And those would be?’
‘Mushrooms, pepperoni, and…’
Jeff flipped the top of Karen’s head with his index finger in the form of a question.
‘pineapples.’ Karen said as she slid under the table like a dead 4 year old.
‘Pineapples?’ The waitress asked.
Karen raises her head from under the table to show tears flowing down her face.
‘pineapples accommodate my feelings.’
As the waitress left shaking her head thinking she has a meth head at her table tonight, again, Karen slid back under the table.
Jeff started doodling on a napkin as if nothing unusual was happening.
‘I brought some CD’s you left at my place for the ride home.’
‘What did you bring?’ Karen questioned from her location under the table.
‘The Pretenders.’
‘Nom, Chrissie Hynde.’
‘Joana Jett.’
‘Joan Jett.’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘Ok, forget it, I only listen to her while working out.’
‘How about Fanny?’
‘Must have for historical measure. One time listen though.’
‘People who sit under tables don’t get full opinions.’
‘I am not listening to any Tori tonight Jeff.’
‘How about Bonnie Raitt?’
‘See live and rush to the nearest alone corner of the world to catch your breath. Not for driving though, too dangerous.’
‘The Pussycat Dolls?’
‘That shit ant mine, must be Gail’s’
‘Actually…’
Karen raises herself out from under the table to sit up in the chair.
‘Jeff, I’m so disappointed.’
Good friends, best friends have all sorts of ways of distracting or bringing their friends out from feelings that have them down to the knees of the world. But a really good friends will not let the person they care about hide in the least from what is facing them also.
Karen took such a deep breath it hurt her lungs, ‘I feel a clown in an insane asylum.’
‘Karen in the gym for the win.’
‘I’m dedicated to being stupid sometimes.’
‘You know the difference between us. I rage but your rage is different. It’s never stupid. I spit out things to make my anger flow into that of others. Say things to stir the pot. Spit white noise for the sake of shouting obscene things in the face of virginities. You rage to the focal points of things that matter to you. I admire that about you. What happen in the gym wasn’t you.’
‘As you said. Karen in the gym for the win.’
CHAPTER 22
Fox slammed on her brakes, punched the stirring wheel with a rush of adrenaline, and twisted the wheel with one hand whipping her truck into the driveway of her house taking out a small gated area beside the house which her father once built to hold recycling containers.
Fox rolled down the trucks driver’s side window and looked at the house where she lived much of her early life. She wanted to spit but all she could do was scream at the top of her lungs, ‘Corn shelled mother stroking creature tits!’
This day has been the start of the ultimate reorientation into a new chapter of her life.
The family home which now belongs solely to her didn’t have any sort of answer back to her screaming. It was silent in it emotions and opinions. For a while she sat in her truck angry about not getting any sort of answer from the ghosts within her head and she was sitting head lowered playing the bowling game on her cell phone before she looked up at the old house again remembering happier times she had here before everything about life was turned inside out.
Then she screamed again, ‘Dog pit shit haven interrupted bull crap!’ and thrashed about a bit in her truck.
A little manipulation of her anger does not hurt.
No interoperation needed.
Having only been in town for two weeks still has her mind spinning with memories and the neighbors looking at the crazy young girl who dresses like a funeral march who has moved into the old house and tends to scream random things directed at no one at all.
She is not adjusting well to being back and it seems neither are others to her bein
g back (Karen) and I ant talking about her neighbors either (Karen.) I’m talking about a certain mini driving, combustion orb, who loves pineapples on her pizza sometimes. (Ka…ok, you got the point.)
Her mother was put into the ground only a week ago and no matter how she has felt about the relationship between herself and her mother over time, her mother died. Her mother is dead.
Now the course of her family line was in her hands. In these instances she has a house, a truck, and money in the bank. And also there is this focus to somehow put her past away for good. Well, maybe not a focus, more like a panic ready to explode from a disillusionment of “Things could be ok or at least better than they have been.”
Maybe that is way unrealistic but pain tends to do that to you.
CHAPTER 23
Britney was glade the day was over. Nothing had went right today and all she wanted to do was sit on the steps in the shallow end of her families pool, lean back, close her eyes, and listen to music cranked up to the highest volume level her little waterproof mp3 player could hit.
The first meeting of the cheerleaders so far was nothing but everyone talking about what happen at their old school.
Her “Big” Guidance Counselor jig went tits down on day one.
Her class schedule is nothing like it’s suppose to be and if she doesn’t get it straight she will not get to graduate early.
She just found out her father lost his secondary job at the prison.
Her concentration on blanking out with her music is interrupted her hearing the footsteps of her mother walking across the wet surface of the pool area.
But then she remembered her mom had to work tonight and opened her eyes to look up to see Joanna Osip standing over her.
‘Wha..’ but before she can finish even one word in surprise Joanna stomps down a foot onto Britney’s face. The sharp heel of the boot barely missed taking out an eye, but instead went right into Britney’s ear canal. The flat of the boot busted her nose.
Britney staggered up the pool steps onto the poolside area crawling on her hands and knees, scrapping knees adding more blood to the scene mixing with water all over the scene.
The pain was overwhelming as she held her ear with both hands and somehow her attacker had been washed out of her attention by the degree of pain attacking each and every sense and feeling her body could produce.
Joanna reintroduced herself into Britney’s attention with swift kick to her back. Britney fell forward gasping trying to find the air to scream but losing that battle. Her eyes were blinking out with spots filling her vision.
Joanna grabs her by the hair and pushes her face into the concrete surface, ‘If I followed my instincts I would rub your face into this concrete until you passed out but for my plans to work I need the school to have the best image possible and you add to that image for now Britney. It seems like you thought the only threat I offer is one of power pulls by my father and school politics.’
She releases Britney who crawls onto a sun chair feeling fear like she’s never felt. She’s was in tears as she watched Joanna walk away toward the pools outside exit, the way she had entered.
Joanna turns around before exiting, ‘Oh, in case you are as thick as some say you are. That feeling you have right now mixed with fear and pain were you know a call to the police would be worthless. That’s control.’
Joanna was gone and Britney was being overwhelmed by the pain. She tried to stand but stumbled from dizziness and crashed into her father’s double sized grill. She fell hard to her knees and began to black out as she lay down in front of the grill. Her last thought before losing consciousness was a hope that someone would find her soon. She believed was going to die.
She was wrong.
She would live.
She would say someone broke in and she never saw who the person was.
The school would have a few conversations within the different groups when they find out what happen to Britney.
Britney would recover with new eyes to what the world could offer up in front of her and she would also only have hearing in one ear now.
But she also would know what a lesson was and how it felt to learn one.
CHAPTER 24
Janet Busiek knocked on her youngest daughter’s bedroom door, just noticing at this moment and not previous that Gail had changed her door poster from an A-LIST promotional poster to a MAN-BEAR-PIG one she must have found on the internet somewhere.
Janet has always respected her daughter’s privacies but she misses when they had to include her in all the details of their lives. She misses the times when they went through their C.S. Lewis obsessions, were Girl Scouts, decorated Easter Eggs.
After what she thought could have been a, “Come in.” she opened the door and peeked her head into the darkness of the room. The only light in the room was coming from a screensaver on Gail’s old never used desktop computer which was a slide show of Doctor Who book covers.
‘Karen hasn’t come home yet, do you know where she is?’
A dazed, groggy, half asleep voice spoke from the darkened bedroom, ‘She’s probably with Jeff…or her alien overlords.’
‘Do you know what happen in the gym?’
‘No more than you.’
‘Ok, go back to sleep.’
A head returned to the pillow and the door was closed.
Joining Janet outside her daughter’s bedroom door was the father, Neil Busiek, ‘Anything?’
‘No.’
‘Then let’s go to bed.’
‘It’s 4a.m. and she’s not…’
‘She’s with Jeff. I trust him more than Karen.’
‘Neil.’ Questioning her husband’s comment about their daughter.
‘Karen’s a hothead, especially with all of this coming back into her life. Jeff will keep her safe.’
The parents walk the upstairs hallway towards the houses master bedroom.
‘This mess is bubbling up again.’ Janet.
‘This mess never really left.’
4:30 a.m. finds Karen and Jeff in an all night café now. They moved on from eating pizza to downing caffeine in large doses.
The café was simply decorated in 1950’s décor. Actually decorated in 1950’s style would not be true, more to the fact the owners just never redecorated in all the years after the Beatles put on suits and dropped the black leather jackets.
Jeff sits down at their booth which had a small jukebox playing something by Buddy Holly with drinks for both of them as Karen was putting her phone back into her school bag.
‘I got a text from Gail.’ Janet
‘The parents are checking up.’
‘I guess you have to face the music at some point.’
‘Way to state the “I know that much” Chim-Chim,’ Karen paused and closed her eyes, ‘Just about the only thing I know at the moment though.’
‘Yeah, what you need right now is a large Expresso.’
‘Espresso, Espresso, There’s No “X” in it.’
‘See. Caffeine. Bad idea.’
CHAPTER 25
When she was younger she never thought her family lived in a large house but at 5:30a.m. while trying to sleep off a night of beans in her old bedroom she can feel every empty inch of the place. If she closed her eyes she could swear she would fall into a giant hole of darkness.
That extra bathroom inbetween the upstairs bedrooms feels like a vast tomb right now as she sits in the heat pissing in the dark. If she wasn’t still a little high the whole thought of “pissing in the dark” might click to her as that was something her mom use to say to describe their life.
The past moves within the whole house, the living room, the den, the kitchen cabinets, the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms, and the two other bedrooms which are empty except for a pair of rats’ nests.
She has not slept a wink and the old faded and tattered B.S.B. poster on the inside of her bedroom door is haunting in so many ways.
The day before school she picked
up some supplies at the local 7-11 and at this late hour several boxes of Slim Jims were calling her name sitting on the kitchen table where she left them.
All of her years living in this house and she never learned how to get the air conditioning going and her normal sleeping habits of wearing a skull patched pajama set was a no go. The heat and history was suffocating. It was a naked trip down to the kitchen after pissing for our heroine. Each step was creaky to the barefoot plants upon the old oak wood that runs throughout the Boggs family home.
The rest of her high is ripped away as she is attacked by a memory. When she was three she was making her way down these steps when she tumbled down to the bottom ending up with a banged up ankle, a broken arm, and a busted lip. She remembers how much the busted lip hurt more than the broken arm and how odd that made everyone think she was when she told them.
After a trip to the hospital three year old Fox was terrified in a cast, terrified for the first time in her life. A cast to a young mind can do that. That broken veil of innocence that a lot of us never had was ripped from her. But not by the fall but the events that followed.
The next day her mother, who worked as a nurse, went back to work, but her father stayed home with her. That day was the first time he raped his daughter. I say raped because that is what it was. Not sexually abuse. Not incest. Don’t say a thing to make it different from what it is. Its rape, it was rape, and it began a string of moments followed by her father always saying, “If you tell anyone I will stop loving you.”
He decorated her life with gifts and favor and many would come to say things such as, “He loved that child and would never…” “She was a no-expense-spared of any life to him, why would he…” It is a counterfeit casket of behavior for the family, friends, and community and their words were in themselves add on to what her father did to her.
The shadows of her father seemed to linger all around the house. What some people might call crazy is that in no way does she want to live anywhere else. She wants to reclaim this houses spirit for her family…for her mom.
But that might be a little crazy.
The tones of her father’s voice seemed to seep from the walls. His ghosts stunk up the joint, as they say where I’m from, and the bastard was not even dead yet.
As far as she knew.
Fox stopped in the den for a moment to shake a few memories out of her head. She wishes she could do that whole Harry Potter thing of pulling them out with a wand but all she had handy was pocket knife and that would be messy.
Tin Universe Monthly #6 Page 7