by Jenn Cooksey
Ha! Fuck you, guilty conscience, that one was true.
“You sure?”
“Absolutely sure. Nothing’s changed, I promise.”
Oooh. Watch out for those promise things. I hear they can fuck your shit up pretty good. Wouldn’t you agree? I mean after last night and all…
Pleased with my lies and one small granule of truth, I pull her face to mine and right before slapping a loud and somewhat obnoxious sounding kiss on her forehead, I mutter, “You’re my girl, beautiful, but you’re still unworthy of the supreme awesomeness that is Eddie.”
She laughs and shoves me so that I fall on my butt on the bed again, which is cool with me because I still have to finish getting dressed and that’s where I’d tossed my Eddie t-shirt in the first place. Erica goes into the bathroom and returns with my toothbrush while I quickly pull my shirt over my head. Then taking the toothbrush and sticking it my mouth, I lean forward as far I can and reach for my jeans.
“Oh my God! Is that my blood?” she gasps loudly, her suddenly ashamed eyes locked onto the rust colored stain on my sheets, “I didn’t think I bled that much.”
I take a gander over my shoulder and shrug. “It wasn’t a lot. I used that towel there during cleanup and look, there’s hardly any blood on it. Plus, I’m pretty sure I’m the one who made it worse with what I was doing.”
Hearing something like a whine, I glance up at her through my lashes as I shove my feet into my work boots. She isn't letting herself off the hook. And I appreciate her concern for my sheets and all, but hey…it happens. I’m over it.
“Eh. It’s just a little blood on a sheet.”
“Yeah, but—”
“But what? Did you think I’d be mad about it, or did you really think you wouldn’t bleed as a result of what happened?” I chuckle at her. I know she’s had a rough week, but come on… Nine times out of ten, I bet, a person’s going to get cut to hell and bleed when they land on shards of glass with only sheer nylons protecting their skin. “I mean I hate to be the one to tell you, but that does tend to happen sometimes, you know.”
“Yes, I realize that. But still…I’m so embarrassed. And, your sheets…”
“Erica, this is so not a big deal, and it’s really nothing to be embarrassed by, alright? I’ll just hit it with some Spray and Wash.”
And then you’ll squirt lighter fluid all over the whole fucking bed, flick your Bic, and torch it all ’til there’s nothing but ash.
Oh, look. Tyler Durden is back. Fuck off.
“Alright, whatever you say. You know what, though? It didn’t even hurt,” she tells me, bending and stretching her knee that she’d banged up but good, “And I’m not even sore. I mean you’d think I’d be a little bit sore this morning, but I’m not.”
“Well, that’s good, I’m glad. Now quit stressing and don’t go out and buy me new sheets or anything. After a wash cycle or two, no one will ever know that Erica Mildred Taylor’s blood was ever there.”
Enlisting the help of her middle name to do the heavy lifting results in exactly what I want it to. She rolls her eyes in utter exasperation and spits out a huff. Then she smacks me. I stand up to zip and button my jeans and grin at her.
“You know, I’ve never been all that fond of guys calling girls sugar and beautiful like you do. I mean at least you’ve never dared to call me hun, which is the absolute worst, but I think I’d prefer even that because I really hate it when you use my middle name.”
Cue big toothy grin. “I know.”
She smacks my shoulder again and steps aside when I try tossing the toothbrush into the sink from where I'm standing. Then, like an absentminded professor or something, I start checking my pockets for my phone, wallet and keys, none of which are anywhere in my clothes because I keep stuff like that either on my desk or in a bowl in the kitchen next to the coffee pot.
“You ready?” I grab my phone and wallet off the desk and watch Erica turn around to give my room a once-over before I stride through the door, into the kitchen, and come to a sudden halt.
Luke, I am your father…
There he is, Daddy Darth, leaning against the counter with a cup of coffee in his hand and an expression I’m all too familiar with on his face. The one that combines disappointment and disapproval over something I’ve done. Like being born. Or, you know, throwing a party in his house while he was gone.
“Did I leave my purse out here? These shorts don’t have any pock—Oomph!” Erica exclaims, walking headlong into my back.
“Good morning, Sir.”
Mmhm. I call him Sir. Somehow, Dad just never seems to drip off my tongue without leaving an aftertaste similar to battery acid. Plus, it seems to placate him enough to keep his pissy moods at bay when I cow-tow to his exaggerated sense of total domination by recognizing his authority that way. Honestly though, the only reason I even recognized him at all was for Erica’s benefit. She hadn’t seen him and would appreciate the heads up.
I feel her peek around my shoulder and I make sure I keep absolutely stock-still, maintaining eye contact with my dad when she murmurs, “G’morning, Mr. Hastings.”
Erica may easily blush and appear naïve or sheltered at times, but slow on the uptake and incapable of deceit she is not. This is evidenced while as she greets him ever-so politely, she’s also using me like privacy glass to covertly shove into my back pocket what I’m guessing is a pair of black panties. The ones that had presumably still been balled up in her hand because her purse is somewhere here in the kitchen and the shorts she’s wearing are pocket-less.
Just fucking great.
Yay! A souvenir!
“Erica,” my dad replies, giving her a short, cursory nod. His soured expression, however, remains plastered in place. Not that I expected him to actually crack a smile or break into song, but for Christ’s sake, she attended a funeral yesterday that he skipped out on to go to his cabin in Lake Arrowhead and catch trout. You’d think he might utter a condolence or two. Something. Not just, “Erica,” like he’s deigning to speak at all.
Yes, because digital penetration and oral sex say I’m sorry for your loss so much more eloquently. You should look into job openings at Hallmark.
Oh for fuck’s sake…
Disgusted, with both my dad and, myself I think, I grab my keys from the bowl beside him, and no shit, he turns and bends his tyrannical head towards me, like he's being the bigger person here, and actually whispers, “We’re gonna talk about last night. You hear me?”
I swallow my sigh and fight to keep my eyes from rolling back as far as they can go in my skull. “Yes, Sir. Later, though, alright? I’m running late for work.”
With that and his Death Star glare burning between my shoulders, I stalk out of the kitchen, snagging Erica’s purse for her off the table as well as the Hefty bag of party trash that had ratted me out to my dad by still being in the living room because I'd forgotten to take it out last night. I hand the patent-leather bag to her as we silently leave the house. Widening my eyes with enough sarcasm to effectively demonstrate what an enormous tool I know my dad is, she bites her lip and raises her eyebrows before giggling a little when I close the door behind us.
After cramming the trash bag into the overflowing garbage bin, I walk over to where Erica is opening the door of her grandma’s Grenada and notice Gladys Kravitz, my busy-body neighbor is out watering her rose bushes and eyeing us from behind her bifocals. Really her name is Mrs. Barbara Laskin; however, she treats being the eyes and ears of our block like a job. One that God personally ordained her to do. Her roses and front yard are exceptionally well manicured as a result. I wave to Gladys and then looking up and down the street to see many of my neighbors out enjoying the day, doing summer morning things like mowing their yards, I inhale through my nose a deep breath of the clean, fresh air that summers and new days are known for.
Erica tosses her purse into the car and we stand here, just hugging each other. Not awkwardly at all, actually; our firmly sealed pact has washed away
all of that and anything that might be akin to it.
“Alright, I hate to jet outta here, but I really can't stand being late,” I tell her and catch little Lonny Faulkner across the street making all kinds of obnoxious kissy faces at us. I wait for his mom’s attention to turn to her fourteen-year-old daughter wearing a skimpy bikini to wash their minivan in before smirking and sticking my tongue out at Lonny. The pest of course ups my ante by flipping me off. Inwardly chuckling at the eleven-year-old, I pull back from our hug and kiss Erica’s cheek. “I’ll check in on you later if you want. Maybe we can grab a burger or get together sometime this week, ‘cause you’re not keeping that shirt.”
“Okay, yeah. I’d really like that. Especially the food part.” I chuckle and nod, relaying my stomach’s gurgling agreement when she sighs and says, “God, a burger sounds good.”
In my car I smooth my fingertips over the key in the ignition before grasping it. Then I crank and sit back, reveling in the rumble of the Impala thundering to life. I pump the gas pedal, making the muffler growl and purr, and give it a minute to warm up before throwing it in gear, and as Erica’s brake lights flash as she pulls off the curb, she hollers, “Call me, okay? I’m gonna hold Social D hostage until you do!”
I nod and give her the okay with my fingers followed by a thumbs up, and just like that, we venture out into a brand new day, Erica turning one way and I the other.
7
“Dragula”
—Cole—
Working with my hands all on my lonesome. The echoing crack of pounding nails into wood. My muscles flexing, bunching, and stretching; their concentration strictly on putting in a day’s worth of good, solid manual labor. Being out under the beating sun, my pores glistening, soaking up every last ray of sunshine and locking them in until my skin glows bronze, the richness of color staying with me long after the fire in the sky is doused and then rises to burn bright again day after day. And not being trapped in the dull lifelessness of what’s known as indoors.
That prescription of non-medicinal therapy is just what the doctor ordered for today. Even if it is a Monday. And okay, so I installed windows on the inside of the apartment I built on the top of the Mason’s garage. Before they were up though, a nice breeze was blowing through the openings and the door, and I did work up a sweat, so I’m just saying. Let’s not split hairs. The day hasn’t been too terrible, as Mondays typically suck as a general rule.
For a day or two after Holden died, everything was sort of up in the air. His parents had apologized for not personally telling most of us what happened, which led to the local news breaking it to everyone not so gently. It was understandable though. They were in shock the moment they heard. We all were. We were also all in this awkward holding pattern of almost mourning, but not yet. No one was really sure when his funeral would be because of the autopsy and stuff, but I’d been in front of the eight ball by planning ahead and getting my shifts at my other jobs covered until this Wednesday. I didn’t have to be anywhere after I finished the windows, and let’s be real, joyously rushing home for my appointment with a stern lecture wasn’t on my priority list. So, I decided to stick around and do all the rest of the finish work. Base boards, crown molding, window trim and flower boxes…all of it. Done. I might’ve been late to the job, but I finished it two days ahead of schedule.
Not bad if I do say so myself.
I check my watch and see I still have a few minutes before Mr. Mason gets home from work, and thus, pays me. I love paydays. I get paid under the table for these jobs too. It’s like bonus points. I get a fat wad of cash and I get to stick it to the man.
A spring in my step, I skip down the stairs and pop the trunk of my car to pull out a cold one from the cooler I keep back there. It’s bottled water, of course. I’m not old enough to buy alcohol on my own yet and drive around with a Coleman cooler filled with it like the Winchester brothers do in Supernatural. Leaning against the back fender of my car, I sip the water as if it’s a beer and survey my work from the outside…reflecting back on what it took to get here, just like Dean and Sam do after almost every case they were working on has been put to bed. Demons, ghosts, witches, wendigos, clinically insane rednecks; all bad guys, vanquished. The world saved. Again.
A wellspring of pride courses through my veins.
I’ve been working these little construction jobs for a while, but outside of the permits needed, this is the first one that is 100% all my accomplishment. I came up with the design, I sketched out the blueprints, I bought the supplies, I hammered every nail, and even the color of paint on both the exterior and interior walls is what I chose for them. Of course I talked to the Masons before I went ahead with anything, but they basically told me they liked what they heard and to go to town with it. So I did.
Mr. Mason gets home and we walk around the inside of my finished product, him nodding approval and making comments like, “Nice,” and, “Really like the detail on these trim pieces.” He shakes my hand, compliments my workmanship again by saying he would’ve never guessed the flower boxes weren’t store bought if he hadn’t seen me personally handcraft them with his own two eyes. He pays me and walks out the door, leaving me to collect the rest of my tools and sweep up a bit just as his teenage daughter, Maddie, comes tripping into the apartment with Destiny in tow. They make a show of wandering around, opening cupboards and testing light switches. Like they’re judges in a home improvement reality show. Destiny glides towards me; a chillier than usual air about her. I prepare for the camel’s expectorated sign of affection anyway by diverting my attention from her forward progress to the act of turning my back to her, yanking my wallet from my back pocket, and putting my hard-earned cash in it.
It works. Behind me I hear an indignant huff as a result of my unvoiced dismissal, but that’s it.
I gather and put my tools away and sweep up undisrupted while the girls mumble and whisper to each other. I don’t give a shit what they’re talking about; be it their dislike of the moss green and dark cherry wood I used in the bathroom or the wainscoting I put in the bedroom, I have no interest in them aside from exiting their presence. Something I do in short order only to find my arm in Destiny’s clutches as I open my car door and go to get in.
“You dropped something,” she whisper-hisses, shoving a handful of black material into my chest and giving me no choice but to take it, “Just so you know, those were meant for Holden’s eyes, not yours.”
The shock resulting from what is the verbal equivalent of being slapped in the face wears off while I stare unseeing at Destiny’s back. She gets in Maddie’s Cabriolet with her and speeds away; the few moments it takes for the convertible’s taillights to fade and disappear around the corner, plenty of time to replace my momentary confusion with irritation and everything that goes with fast becoming pissed off. I decide to not chase them down. Engaging with them feeling like I do wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do. Or the safest. A high speed pursuit more often than not encompasses reckless driving and I for one don’t fancy wrapping my car around a tree. Especially not over a slighted teenage chick driving around with a warped point of view that fits in with her jealousy.
My hackles rise even further with a pit-stop I make for gas at the Circle K a few blocks from home. While I’m fueling up, I go into the convenience store to grab a soda and a pack of smokes, and just as the overly dour clerk with a massive case of acne hands me my change, I hear, “Nice stunt you pulled yesterday, Hastings, always knew you were a douche.”
“Excuse me?” My head swings around in utter disbelief over the words my ears are still ringing with.
“You heard me, you fuck. First you’re a no-show to his funeral and then you throw a kegger where you announce to a room full of people that you’re gonna nail his girlfriend the very same night. What kind of pond scum does that shit?” A guy I seriously don’t think I’ve ever seen before says bare inches from my face.
White-hot adrenaline screams through my body at breakneck speed. Both of my
hands clench into outraged fists while my teeth grind together and bite out, “I don’t know who the fuck you are, but you might wanna back the fuck up and check your facts, asshole.”
“Yeah?” he taunts, getting so close to my face, I can see myself clearly in the black of his dilated pupils.
I shove him out of my personal space. “Yeah.”
He comes right back at me with his fist aimed at my head. It connects. Mostly because I stand here and just take the hit, as if I’m looking forward to it. Ignoring the starbursts and blistering heat radiating from my cheekbone, I swing back. Blood is coming from his nose, where I’d released most of a week’s worth of my pent up hostility, and from my own face it’s ironically dripping down onto the silkscreened image of Eddie’s bloodied ax on my shirt. The clerk and two other customers separate us and by the time I’m in my car again, crossing paths with a tree isn’t sounding so bad.
Driving home with the accelerator practically slammed through the floorboards the whole way, I screech into the driveway. I’m beyond incensed. And, I’ve of course forgotten all about what’s waiting for me here. I throw the front door open so hard it hits the wall and becomes one with the house, the drywall welcoming the inside doorknob like a bosom buddy. Not sparing a single glance for my father sitting at the kitchen table, I head straight for the refrigerator and the beer I’m desperately praying is still inside it.
“Just what are you planning on doing with that beer, Boy?” My father questions as I pull out a can of PBR, “‘Cause I know you’re not about to drink alcohol right in front of me.”
I pop the top, the sound of defiance echoing through the kitchen. “Yes, Sir, I sure as shit am.”
“No, you are not!” He yanks the can from my lips and slams it down on the counter; excited, sudsy foam bubbling up and out the opening.
“What is your fucking problem?!” I shout in his face, my temper flaring even higher than I ever thought possible. I mean I’m old enough to legally commit murder in the name of freedom while fighting for our country, but I can’t have a fucking beer after an inherently shitty day and being in a goddamned fight?! The fuck is that bullshit, you know?!