Lit

by C. B. Wiant

  “GOD DAMN MOTHER FUCKER SON OF A BITCH!” The man spews the words like the consonants assaulted him. He stretches and tries to stand. He’s over five feet and has to remain hunched over in the box. His saggy ass turns away from me. His belly and chest hair protrudes.

  “FUCKING WHORE, WHAT THE FUCK?” The man hits the walls and ceiling of his Plexiglas cage. I marvel at the differences in how we react to being contained. It could be my experience with abduction. Maybe it’s the wiring and pathways of our brain workings, he’s more left-sided or vice versa.

  “How long has it been since you’ve seen each other?” Onyx asks me. He takes a seat in the chair I vacated. Onyx and I are facing the door—through the clear box that sits fixed between us and the door. The man’s shoulders are bent and uncomfortable. His gut bumps into the Plexiglas wall. “LISTEN HERE YOU COCKSUCKER MOTHER FUCKER! WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?” The man is yelling at both Onyx and I. I’ve sucked cock but never fucked a mother. Onyx may have performed both acts. Either way, sucking cock and fucking mothers doesn’t sound like a condemning experience. But the acts through this man’s mouth is dissipated living

  Over my shoulder, Onyx’s lips slither into a smile. His eyes have been on me.

  “Are you listening Cocksucker Mother Fucker?” I whisper to him.

  “I’m listening to Mr. Williams.”

  “GET ME THE. FUCK. OUT. OF. HERE!”

  “Sir, I am not the one in charge.” Onyx stands and withdraws a concealed gun from his lower back. The revolver swings from his index finger. The pendulum of the swing arcs higher before doing a full revolution.

  “Take it.”

  I shake my head no.

  The revolver slings off Onyx’s finger up, up, into the air.

  I watch the revolver’s decent and wonder if guns can discharge from the impact of falling. Before the revolver hits the ground, I catch it.

  On my knees, gun secured in my hand, Onyx says, “Say hello to your daughter, Mr. Williams.”

  “GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!”

  Onyx shakes his head like a scorned parent and ambles to the door of the shipping container. He steps out, and I follow. This is the first time that I’ve seen outside the shipping container. There’s a small step down to the solid ground. We’re in an empty warehouse room with three doors. One red, one white, and the last door is dark gray. A valve is shin height between the red and white doors. The wheel has splotches of harsh red and orange rust from age or blood.

  Onyx attaches the free end of the hose leading from the box to the spigot.

  CREEEEEeeeaak-ah

  My feet follow the swelling hose back inside to the shipping container.

  Screams. Blood-curdling screaming of COCKSUCKER MOTHER FUCKERS and WATER FILLING THIS GOD DAMN FUCKING FUCK WHAT THE FUCKING WATER… Ruthless words and spit fly off my dad’s tongue. My Dad.

  Water instantly covers his feet that splash and stomp in a tantrum.

  The revolver in my hand taps against the Plexiglas. I’m holding it, but I don’t feel it in my hand. The tap focuses the three of us and has us zeroing in on the gun. Right, the gun, my gun.

  “How long has it been since you’ve seen each other?” Onyx asks.

  We watch my dad like he’s an exhibit. “He didn’t see me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The revolver taps again on the Plexiglas. My dad doesn’t look at me or my gun. A part of me is sad, like a child at the zoo or a pet store, regardless of the signs that request us to please not fuck with the animals, I want their undivided attention. Maybe if I tap harder.

  “I snuck inside the house. No one should have been there, but my dad came home distracted on a phone call. He was late to see my mom. How’s my mom?” My eyes cut through the multiple panes of Plexiglas to Onyx. How’s my mom?

  The only sound is water rushing in from the engorged hose. My dad stands between us in his underwear, not speaking. Why isn’t he speaking?

  Onyx breaks first. “Answer her, Albert.”

  Water jostles around my dad’s ankles. “She’s in an institution.”

  “She didn’t ask where. She asked how.”

  “Turn the fucking water off.” Seethes out between clenched teeth. The water has reached my dad’s knees. His wet leg hair floats like cilia on a bacterium.

  Onyx looks at me and whatever is on my face has him pulling out his trusty black brick radio. His fingers compress on a button. “Guardian turn the water off.”

  Seconds pass, crackle, Beep. “G is occupied. Go for Alexander. Over.” The water turns off.

  Onyx turns away from us, the radio close to his lips. His eyes are to the wall. “Is he ok?”

  Beep.“Fine. Over.”

  Onyx releases his breath, grips the back of his neck for a moment, and engages back in the shipping container conversation. “Tell your daughter about the last time you saw her.”

  The revolver tap-taps on the glass.

  “THAT’S NOT MY FUCKING DAUGHTER!”

  I cock the revolver by lowering the hammer. A single click.

  Onyx’s fingers compress twice in quick succession. Beep, Beep.

  Water whoooshes into the tank like a herd of galloping stallions. Obscenities dive-bomb off my dad’s tongue and belly-flops in the rippling water.

  Water is up to my dad’s ass. “THAT’S NOT MY FUCKING DAUGHTER!” He bellows. His white underwear is translucent. I can now see his dick and balls. A daughter should never see their dad’s dick and balls.

  “THAT BITCH IS NOT MY FUCKING DAUGHTER!” My dad wades in his tank to me. Water is over his hips. His fist pounds against the Plexiglas between us. “YOU WERE CREATED FOR THE ARENA. I DIDN’T EVEN FUCK YOUR MOTHER. YOU’RE NOT MY DAUGHTER. MY DAUGHTER IS DEAD.”

  My dad’s face presses close to the glass. His nostrils flare wide like a bull about to charge. “YOU WERE MY CONTESTANT. YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE A PHOENIX. YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO RISE YOU COCKSUCKING BITCH.”

  Water reaches his belly button. The torrential downpour of hateful words continues while he sloshes around the tank accusing Onyx and yelling at me.

  The water churns like a turbulent sea, rising until the water level has my dad struggling to breathe.

  “LILY!” He, despite the delay, acknowledges me—instead of directing his words about me, or at me, he yells for me.

  “Hi, Dad.” I watch him bob like an apple.

  “Let me out of here baby girl.” His nose skids against the ceiling. The noise is inorganic, like synthetic rubber. I much prefer the crisp notes of a gun.

  “I’m sorry. I just wanted you to be a champion.” He disappears. His body struggles to buoy. “I want you to win.” He drops, resurfaces, gasps and coughs, “Please baby girl.”

  His lips are tight against the ceiling. “Baby girl?”

  “Please.”

  Water smothers out residual oxygen from the tank. Air bubbles pop. My dad sinks. His hands press against the Plexiglas in front of me. Bubbles of hoarded breath leak out of his mouth. His eyes plead, baby girl? Please!

  I lift the revolver, take three steps back, and shoot the tank, bang. I empty the cylinder, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

  Water jets out of a cluster of six holes at the bottom left of the tank. Water pours out of the tank like it’s the Bellagio Fountains.

  I turn from the spectacle to see Onyx questioning the aquatic accomplishment. “What?” It’s as if he’s expecting the choreographed light show and song accompaniment. The tank’s performance is underwhelming. Perhaps there wasn’t enough pressure.

  “Why did you fucking do that?” Onyx complains. His fingers compress twice in quick succession. Beep, Beep. The hose ceases gurgitation.

  My dad coughs and gasps. He vomits a stream of water that pours into the vacating tank. Mucus floats sticky to the bullet hole-ridden Plexiglas wall. My dad greedily pulls oxygen into his lungs and attempts to breathe on top of each breath.

  Onyx’s face falls in disappointment. “He was your gift.” Onyx u
nscrews the Plexiglas lid and shoves it off the tank. It crashes heavy and hostile. “Baby girl,” he says with bite.

  Onyx jumps over the tank’s side clearly upset that his gift remains alive. Water waves aggressively around his knees. Onyx grabs my dad by the back of the neck like a misbehaved pet. “Tell her everything.”

  And that’s when, in between coughs and gasps for air, I learn my father fucked the help and artificially inseminated my mother like a mare. My parents were an arranged marriage. I was an arranged child. My dad sold me in genetically engineered human trafficking.

  One tear slips and falls down my cheek.

  Onyx sees its trail. “Now look what you’ve done.”

  “I’m sorry.” My dad declares between a set of his tears, “You were supposed to rise like a Phoenix.”

  “What the fuck?” I whisper watching his tears. I wonder if they’re crocodile tears.

  Onyx withdrawals and opens a pocketknife. “That’s where you’re wrong old man, she did rise.” Onyx slits my dad’s throat with the sharp edge.

  16

  Why

  “Why?” Onyx wipes my dad’s blood off on his black pants. We’re wearing the same outfit. Everyone is always wearing the same outfit or nothing at all. Well, in my dad’s case, his skivvies.

  The blade of the pocketknife folds back into its frame with a decisive click.

  The revolver drops from my grip. Smoke spills in wisps from the barrel. Its chambers are hollow. The revolver falls heavy with dead weight. Even empty—the drop is hard and LOUD. The sound is my voice since mine catches in my throat. The thud is my yell and scream and my WHAT THE FUCK?

  I need to slow my heartbeat… myheartrate.

  My blood pressure is pressured. My vision distorts; the edges shrink. A weight. A fucking heavy weight presses against my chest.

  My chest isn’t expanding. Why isn’t my chest expanding?

  “Why?” Why, why, why, why…… I run and trip out of the shipping container. The small change of ground level has me on my knees soaking water up my pants.

  Three doors and a stranger line up outside the shipping container. The stranger guards the spigot still connected to a deflated hose—must be Alexander.

  Alexander lunges at me.

  “Stop.” Onyx’s voice breeches the airways. “Leave,” he commands.

  I go to move but Alexander takes off behind the shipping container in strict, robotic ninety-degree angles. Is he even real?

  “Why didn’t you let him die? He sold you to the House. I saved him for you to kill.”

  He sold you. The words smear the air like peanut butter on a dry tongue. Smacky, gritty, his words reinforce my reality. My reality is modern-day slavery. He sold you.

  I rise to my feet. I wipe and dry my hands off on my pants.

  Onyx stands behind me, his shoulder leans against the shipping container. His nonchalance speaks volumes.

  I walk towards the first door, good ole’ red.

  My hand grips the handle. I stay in the moment, trying to adjust to adjusting.

  I take a deep breath, my palm presses down on the handle.

  I don’t push forward, but wait, holding a nondescript handle to an unlocked door. The handle is not warm or cold. It could be a handle to a janitor’s closet.

  “Wait,” Onyx says.

  I push.

  The red door opens to reveal a library of doors. It’s as if I’m inside Nicolas Grospierre’s Never Ending Wall of Books lightbox. Though instead of book spines, each colorful rectangle is a door.

  Onyx walks up beside me and slams the door shut.

  With his palm flat against the red paint, “Don’t go through there.”

  The white and dark gray doors are the other options.

  My dad’s blood swirls and soaks into my slippers. The water around our feet is a lightly saturated pink. My dad is bleeding out in the tank. His DNA wets the toes of our slippers.

  Shock thaws my bones. Shaking, shivering, I take a step backward. Courage isn’t something I can gather.

  There’s just pressure. So much fucking pressure on my chest, crushing my ribs, choking my lungs.

  Onyx grasps my upper arm. He looks especially worn-out. Lines I never noticed before are deeper, sinking claws in the crow’s feet around his eyes.

  He leans into me. “I don’t want to be here either.” He whispers as if he doesn’t want my dead dad to hear. I’d hold his secrets like water, doesn’t he know this?

  “Then leave.” I wrench my arm from his grasp.

  Onyx’s hand reaches behind his neck and squeezes. “Your father was a member of the House. He was a part of orchestrating the Arena. Can’t you see that I’m helping you?”

  I shrug and shake my head. I can’t breathe, how can he expect me to see.

  “White or gray door Phoenix?” He asks.

  “Don’t call me that.” I wish his words stopped at his teeth.

  “Just admit that you need me. This is my playground.”

  I slop through bloody water to the dark gray door. The handle is ice cold. My hand sticks and freezes on the knob. The turn is stiff like a sealed jam jar. My fingers feel arthritic in my grip as I open the door.

  The room is dark but full of energy. I don’t feel the electrical buzz that I do with Ruby and Onyx, but rather a magnetic pull.

  My stomach is in my throat. My eyes are as wide as saucers––I strain attempting to see in the dark. I can’t see any clearer. My eyes just become drier.

  Shuffling of cloth, a rolling and tossing body thumps around in the black confines of the freezing room.

  “I’d rather you not wake who is in there.” Onyx softly shuts the door and ushers me to the white door.

  My heart is coming out of my throat. Why didn’t Onyx lead me to the white door instead of offering the red and dark gray doors as options? He lets me wander on a long leash. But I end up where he wants me.

  He turns my hand so that my palm is face up. Two small round white pills fall into the crease of my lifeline.

  “Let me help you.”

  The help sticks to my skin. The pills are common, they could be tramadol, oxycodone, acetaminophen, hydromorphone…

  I pop the pills in my mouth. They go down like a bomb.

  I demonstrate towards the white door with my now clean hand.

  Onyx opens the white door. I follow him into a room that is no larger than a modest walk-in closet. The walls, ceiling, and floors are frameless mirrors. We’re in a mirror cube.

  I spin in a circle in awe. I haven’t seen my face in I’m not sure how long. I look different. An infinite number of me looks different. I’m bolder. I’m seated deep in my skin and I’m giving all that I’ve got—I’m giving all that I am. This is me.

  Onyx passes me and continues walking straight through a mirror.

  17

  White Door

  When I step through the mirror behind Onyx, it’s like I’m stepping through a waterfall. My vision blurs momentarily in the transition.

  I walk onto black fine sand. A full moon spotlights a motionless sea. A kaleidoscope of colors swirls on the surface as if there’s a sheen of oil on the water. The colors are trippy, entrancing and pretty. I take my sodden slippers off and sink my toes in the warm sand.

  “You aren’t going back to the Arena.” Onyx’s hand squeezes the back of his neck forcing more words up his tracheal cartilage rungs and out his larynx. “And with the House changing, we need a new season—a rebirth.”

  “Where am I going?” Whatever Onyx gave me is helping me bend and not snap. A hot bath soaks my brain before washing down my spine.

  My pineal gland decalcifies. A fresh breeze rushes through my forehead and third eye. I have an open third eye.

  His voice is a biting wind through my mind. “I’m giving you what you want, Phoenix.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Alright, Lily.” That’s not any better.

  He amends himself, “I’m only trying to help you.”

&nbs
p; I open my hand in the universal signal to give me more.

  I want to un-see Onyx offering me my dad to kill as a gift.

  I want to fast-forward through the blood escaping from my dad’s throat. The pocketknife was a zipper—the handle was the slider body; the blade was the pull tab. I expected blood to spurt out in pulses like a sprinkler. It didn’t. My dad’s blood slipped down his neck, shyly at first, then in torrents.

  My palm remains empty for too long. Drugs are the only acceptable form of help for the time being. I’ve killed. I have a murder count and I haven’t been keeping proper track.

  I walk towards the water.

  My big toe taps the liquid. And like cooking oil in a grease fire, the water explodes in flame.

  “Here,” Onyx says between his teeth. Crunch. He hands me half a white pill and swallows the other half.

  I consume my end and lose my thought in the flames.

  I sit and watch the incandescence. Fuels burn at different temperatures. I dig my toes into the warm sand.

  Certain fertilizers and laundry detergents sprinkled on a wood fire produce rainbow flames. I’ve done it before as a science experiment, and also to mystify Genevieve while on shrooms.

  But metals salts should melt in water. Colored flames shouldn’t be dancing. A lot should be happening.

  Onyx sluggishly lowers himself down beside me. “Being in love is tiresome," he says. He sifts black sand between his fingers. “You want to see Hudson?”

  I nod.

  “Alright.” He leans back.

  “When is this all going down?” I hedge.

  “In a bit. Your stunt in the Arena had me scurrying. I just want to hide away. Play dead. Play dead with me.”

  I lie back next to Onyx and play dead. The water flames lengthen and touch the sky. The colors mix into the night and dance like Northern lights.

  I whisper, “Are you tripping? Are you with me?”

  “I’m with you Nix.” He doesn’t elaborate but I hear his smile.

  I sneer at the endearment. Nix—nothing, apart from that, a part.