The Sun My Destiny

by Logan Ryan Smith

  “I pulled my brother… my own brother from…. I ripped my son out of Momma and put him in the trash… condemned him to Hell… because… that’s what… what I thought she would have wanted.”

  Down the path, Joyce turns back toward me. “We’re going,” she says.

  “I killed Grace,” I say.

  “What?”

  “I mean… I thought I killed Grace. I thought it was me that cut off her head and peeled the flesh from her bones…”

  “What?”

  “But… it wasn’t me…. It was… this… this place. It was The Kingdom. It wasn’t me that killed Grace. It was me. Wait. No. Stupid. Stupid! It wasn’t me. Only, when I was young, I watched my father eat another man’s face off… by the… by the… well? No. Stupid. Stupid! That’s stupid. What are you even saying? My memory, Joyce… I… god it’s…. The monsters. Are we all… monsters? Are we?”

  “I… don’t want to hear any more of this. We’re going, Clyde. We’re going and you’re not going to stop us.”

  “Do any of us… deserve… to live?” I ask her.

  “I’m getting Sam, and we’re going. Now,” she tells me, but she’s still hasn’t turned away and started walking.

  “Why isn’t my skin orange? Joyce, can I… dig my own grave? Can I bury myself next to Momma?”

  Joyce rocks the baby and stares at me, breathless. “Clyde, you need to—”

  “If I threw my own… brother…. If I threw him into Hades…. If I placed my son in trash, what’s the difference? Joyce, is there a difference?”

  Joyce says nothing. The baby sleeps, held firmly to her breast.

  “Why was I even born? How could Momma have done this… to me?”

  “I’m sorry, Clyde. You’ve snapped. Something’s terribly wrong with you. I can’t have my son near you.”

  “I… know,” I tell her. I lift a limp, shaky arm and point at the baby. “But… you really… should… just twist his head around… right now… before he gets too strong for it.”

  “We’re going, Clyde,” she says, finally turning. Blood trickles down her left ankle into the grey dirt.

  “By the toe… who will fling me… by the toe?” I whisper.

  I drop to my knees and a surprising laughter fills my lungs and mouth.

  “Who will grab me by the toe?” I shout, choking on the laughter.

  37

  I follow Joyce back to Monster Island, slow, dragging my left foot. She easily keeps a good twenty feet ahead of me, that little Prince peering over her shoulder through scrunched-up eyes, barely registering my presence.

  There, in that moment, under the blue sky and heat of the massive sun, my skin finally turns orange. It itches. I’m ripe with a bouquet of weeping sores. I suddenly pitch forward as my spine curves and cracks. I fall sideways into the slope of a garbage mountain. When I push myself out of it, I’m hunchbacked with shallow breath. I understand what’s happening, but also sense that this transformation somehow took place many years ago. And so I know better than to lick at these dry lips because I know I simply have no lips lick. My tongue would only drag across pointed teeth and bleed. These are afflictions I’ve had since birth.

  Like a loyal pooch, Sam sits waiting outside our shanty when we arrive back at Monster Island. I’m still keeping my distance, though, knowing the sight of me would send them into a frenzy. So, I stand at the foot of the nearest trash mountain. Joyce walks to Sam now and motions for him to get up. I hear Sam complain about his bones but Joyce is in no mood and her face is fierce while she cradles the baby to her shoulder. Sam lets out a few cries of pain as he lumbers upward. I can hear the creaks and cracks of his joints from here. Once up and towering over Joyce and the baby like a giant boulder about to tumble and crush them both, he gently reaches out and pats the tiny child’s soft skull with just his forefinger, saying, “Hello, new baby,” in that slow, low voice of his.

  All of them ignore me. Or perhaps they just don’t see me because I blend in with the trash.

  Joyce ducks into our little shanty but reappears soon after with a swath of cloth. She fashions that like a sash over her shoulder and across her front, then places the baby in it, snug as a Protein Bean in an Altoids can. Then she retrieves a cracked suitcase and walks back to Sam, a limp in her gate. Her energy, her fervor seems to be draining from her like acid rain through a hotrod roof. I hear her tell Sam I threw the baby into the trash and left him there to die. I want to shout out, to defend myself and let Sam know that it isn’t true—I took the child and placed him directly into the hands of my brother, Dylan, the monster. I want to clarify for Sam that it is Dylan, the monster, that I once held by the toe and tossed into Hades, because I am King and kings sometimes must take the actions of God into their own hands. God, I want to tell him, is too often full of hesitation.

  But I did not throw my son away. I’m about to rebut Joyce’s wicked accusation, but Sam’s finally looking at me, acknowledging my presence. It’s not fright at my monstrous appearance that darkens his features, however. It’s a look stirred up with betrayal, sadness, and mortification. He actually believes I threw the child in the trash—a child he was already calling his baby brother months ago.

  I didn’t throw the child in the trash!

  Did I?

  I put my hands together and pray to God: Though the sun has not yet set, please let it rise again in the morning. Then I whisper to myself, “Ashes to ashes, trash to trash…. We are born to trash, we die in trash. Have I suffered from tetanus all along? Did I press salmonella into my eyes in my sleep? Dear God, who will grab me by the toe?” Then: “So is the fate my fortune won when Momma and Papa had me born. Amen.”

  Sam can no longer hold gaze with me. He turns it toward Joyce, the baby, The Kingdom Wall and the smallish hole there that let all the monsters in since the beginning of time. Tall weeds bend and wave across that hole. And beyond the weeds, nothing but shattered land.

  Sam and Joyce make their way to the wall and to the breech there—the opening of the funnel that spirals directly into God’s Open Mouth. Neither turn to look over their shoulder to give me one last farewell—one last acknowledgment that I was not just a monster, but their King, a husband, a brother, and a father. Only the baby’s eyes, closed tight against My Kingdom, look my way. But he’s still blind with new breath and the painful separation from his mother.

  At the wall, Sam puts his arm out, preventing Joyce from getting low and crawling through the hole. He ducks down and peeks through the hole, then steps in front of Joyce and proceeds to bash it with his massive fists, widening the hole enough so that he can comfortably fit through it, himself. The breach is suddenly an avenue. He made the bashing look easy enough but I could hear the distinctive sound of bones cracking beneath the cacophony of the wall crumbling. I also heard his muffled cries.

  Poor Sam.

  Again, I wait for them to turn back, take one last look at The Kingdom, and ask me without asking to stop them. To keep them here. But if the thought even crosses their minds, their bodies show no sign of hesitation. Sam ducks down and passes through, a hand gently placed at Joyce’s back, helping usher the new Momma into The Great Beyond.

  “Who will grab me by the toe?” I ask.

  As I pull my trusty slingshot from my back pocket, load and aim a cat’s eye marble at Joyce’s head, she turns to face me a final time, and her face is ashen. Terrified.

  “Run!” she screams, scrambling back into The Kingdom, cradling the baby with Sam stumbling behind her, falling to a knee with a groan, then easily catching up with Joyce in a few strides.

  I only have a second to ponder why, upon finally noticing my monstrous transformation on this momentous day, she’d scream at me to run and then proceed to run right at me—right toward the monster.

  “Run!” she screams again before brushing right past me, running as fast as she can while clutching to the child who now complains with harsh squeals. I watch her blow past me, bewildered. I watch as Sam passes me, too, and s
crambles up the trash mountain after Joyce. He scoops her up swiftly, but carefully, and holds her cupped in his right arm. Joyce has a firm hold on the baby. Sam, with god-like grace, crests that mountain and descends its other side, disappearing from my sight.

  I’m left with three seconds of silence under blue skies and a light breeze. A perfect three seconds of calm.

  After three seconds, I turn back to the wall and its big hole. The hole is on fire. A giant, billowing ball of flame inflates through it in a flash and deflates just as quickly. Then the first comes through it. A monster. A real and true monster. A fire-breathing monster.

  My legs turn to jelly at the sight.

  This is real, I tell myself. This is real. They’ve finally come for you.

  Two more monsters quickly scramble through the hole after the first and with swift but jerky motions they sniff at the air, twitching and twittering and chirping. They spot me right away and though my legs are rubber I manage my way up the trash mountain, following the cascade of garbage sliding toward me that Sam had created a moment ago.

  The monsters squeal and the squeal trembles my jellied bones.

  It’s a sound I’d never heard before. Except that I heard it just moments ago. From my son.

  They’re here for my son, because I am a Monster Maker. Just like my folks, who were proud Monster Makers before me.

  And Dylan must have warned them. Dylan must have let his brethren know that I only sire their kind. And that I could make more of them. That I am their savior.

  Will they grab me by the toe?

  No, they’ll eat my fucking face off and lead me through The Great Beyond on a leash, feeding me enough water to keep me alive while they eat away at me slowly, bit by bit. They’ll eat all my toes so that God will have nothing to grab me by.

  Despite my liquefied bones and that cascade of trash trying to trip me up, I make my way to the peak of the mountain and spot Sam and Joyce about one hundred yards away. Joyce is no longer in Sam’s careful clutches. She’s running just beside him, holding the infant Prince against her shoulder with both hands, her sheet-gown flapping in the wind. Sam’s lumbering away, running slowly so as not to leave Joyce and the baby behind. They’re making their way through a snaking path between rubbish ranges massive enough to dwarf even Sam’s mammoth stature. Between those mountains, you’d think Sam a normal human and Joyce only a pygmy.

  “Wait!” I scream, ready to cry even though when I woke this morning I was still a man. “Please wait!”

  Skittering down the mountain as quickly as I can, my foot catches between a large waffle iron and a busted-up toaster oven. I tumble and skid down the rest of the way, banging my soft bones on microwaves, popcorn machines, and coffee makers—all completely useless now except to give definition to the landscape and nearly kill me from time to time. Or threaten me with tetanus and a dickless future.

  On my feet, I’m catching up to Sam, Joyce, and the Prince because Joyce is unable to run too fast, of course, and Sam’s no longer carrying her. I don’t know why he wouldn’t just keep carrying her. For him, carrying her, even with the baby, is like carrying a half-full canteen of boiled water.

  Hazarding a look over my shoulder, here comes the first invading monster over the peak of the trash mountain, followed by the second and third. A geyser of flame shoots from them. Then another. And another, but the flames die too quickly to threaten me.

  There’s only three monsters. I don’t know why I expected an Army. It always comes in threes. The Holy Trinity.

  The Father. The Son. And the Holy Momma.

  “Just wait!” I scream again, sprinting as fast as I can through the winding path after my broken family. “Please wait!”

  I keep screaming for them to wait for me, but it seems my words only propel them further ahead of me, despite the pain Joyce must be in.

  Then, two loud pops followed by Sam’s excruciating yelp. It was as if someone took a guillotine to Sam’s knees while he ran. His legs simply went out from under him entirely and his knees dug a furrow into the grey dirt, then his entire body slammed into the ground.

  The monsters close in behind me as I’m finally closing in on Sam, Joyce, and the monster child. Joyce had kept running after Sam’s collapse and even hesitated more than a moment before hastily returning to where he lay in the torn-up dirt like a crashed meteorite.

  Kneeling, Joyce puts a hand on Sam’s heaving shoulder. He’s crying. He’s bawling, in fact. He’s sobbing so loud I can hardly hear the wail of the monsters behind me, or the wailing of the baby in Joyce’s grasp ahead of me.

  The scuttle of the trio behind me grows even closer, flames shooting from them every dozen steps or so. They’re close enough I can smell the effluent dripping from the ulcers stippling their skins.

  When I arrive at Joyce kneeling beside Sam, I slow only for a half-second to grab her under the arm and yank her to her feet. She’s instantly running alongside me, holding the wailing monster child in her arms.

  “They want the child!” I yell.

  Joyce either doesn’t hear or pretends not to.

  I’m sure she’s thinking of poor Sam.

  Poor Sam.

  Poor Sam who collapsed under shattered shins. I saw his legs as I sprinted past him. They were mangled and twisted below the knees. Nearly unrecognizable. My legs had nearly liquidized with my initial terror at the monsters’ invasion. Sam’s legs appear to have literally liquidized. And unlike that poor horse I once read about, Eight Belles, who collapsed under shattered ankles shortly after crossing the finish line, finishing only in second, poor Sam didn’t even sniff the finish line. And who would pull him off the track? And who would put him out of his misery? And no one would grab Sam by the toe, would they? Where do good horses go when they die?

  Poor Sam!

  Snatching Joyce’s wrist, I quickly lurch southward and up the garbage mountain there. It’s all ripped plastic bags full of soft, rotten materials, and it slows us down but I’m determined and I pull Joyce’s tired, weakened frame up after me, the child in her arms suddenly quiet now that it has its eyes open and on our monstrous pursuers loping after us, their long fingers scraping at the dirt.

  Joyce and Sam were going the wrong way all along. If I hadn’t have come after them, none of them would have a chance.

  “We have to go back for Sam,” Joyce whispers through clattering teeth.

  “Monster food,” I tell her. “Fuel for The Rising.”

  “We have to—”

  “There’s nothing we could have done, Momma.”

  “Stop fucking calling me that,” she orders in the darkness.

  There’s silence for the next several moments, interrupted only by the baby’s little squawks and bleats.

  “You’re right…. The baby,” she finally concedes. “Oh, god… Sam.” Her quiet voice shakes.

  We’re on our backs, nestled four feet down into the damp earth in an embryo of total darkness. We’re at The Cellar Door, of course. My favorite infallible hiding place.

  Joyce breathes hard, desperate to slow it down and calm herself. “I think I’m going to… puke,” she says.

  I reach over in the dark and pet her fevered forehead. “Shh… it’s going to be… OK. Everything happens for a reason.”

  “What? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” she asks. “Clyde, we have to get out of—”

  “Quiet!” I order in a hushed voice. “Listen.”

  The clatter of trash being kicked. The thump-thump-thump of swift, heavy footfalls. The chitter, chirps, and clicking jaws of monstrous mouths.

  “Muzzle it,” I say, meaning the child. “Shut it up.”

  Thump. Thump.

  Something walked on top of The Cellar Door.

  “Quiet, now,” I whisper. “Just keep… quiet… and… they’ll… go… away.”

  THUMP. THUMP.

  Another one’s above us. Momma’s breathing so heavily I think she might blow the door right off The Cellar Door. Either that, or give
us away.

  Then the chirps and chitters and clacking of sharp teeth morph into wails. Ear-piercing wails. I instinctively cover my ears and imagine Joyce does the same, though I can see nothing but pitch black.

  A new wail overtakes the others, squealing a hole in space and time itself with its eardrum-shattering racket.

  It’s the child. It’s the goddamned child!

  “Shut it up!” I whisper, though I doubt Momma can hear me over the monster child’s shriek. A shriek in such perfect cacophonous harmony with the monsters now bouncing up and down atop The Cellar Door.

  Thump-thump. THUMP-thump. THUMP-THUMP.

  Then more wails, shrieks, squawks, clicks, chirps, screeches, and yips.

  “They’re talking to each other!” I say, still keeping my voice hushed, though I don’t think it makes any difference now. We’re dead. Or, Joyce is, anyway. They’re going to eat her fucking face off, break my arms and legs, snatch the monster child, and drag the two of us off into The Great Beyond where my motherless son will grow to be King of the Monster Army they force me to sire.

  “Shut him up!” I hiss at Joyce, but I think she’s reserved to our fates. I think that her instinct to fight, to protect her child with her last fighting breath, has drained out of her.

  Or perhaps she’s playing possum (another wonderful turn of phrase Momma invented).

  The heavy door above us shimmies. They’re trying to push the door aside. And the baby won’t stop wailing.

  “Grab the goddamned belt,” I say, meaning the belt I had fashioned to the underside of the door as a handle. I put it there to keep the door from getting sucked away by God’s Breath, never knowing it might be monsters that one day try to pry the door off my sacred hiding place.

  Joyce takes hold of the belt and we’re both gripping it so tight our fingernails are digging crescent moons into our palms.

  “They can’t get the baby, Clyde,” Joyce says. “They can’t take him. They can’t—”

  “Shh… shh…” I say. “No one’s taking anyone. We’re safe. Safe as houses—Momma made up that phrase. We’re safe as houses. Playing House. We’re just Playing House. Just hold on.”