Grime

by K. H. Leigh

  Nothing. Gwen says nothing. I glance over at her. She’s looking out the window, hiding her face from me. Shit. “Gwen, I’m sorry. Don’t cry.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “I’m sorry. I just -”

  “Yeah. Whatever. You’re tired. We’re getting married, by the way.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Fuck you. Keep your congratulations. Shove it up your ass.”

  Goddamnit. I never say things like that to people. I think them, sure, but I always manage to keep the worst thoughts to myself. For some reason I can’t seem to do that around my sisters. It’s like they’ve torn the door off that cage where I usually lock those things away. I don’t know how they do it. I don’t know how they manage to push my buttons so easily when I haven’t seen any of them in so long.

  I pull over to the side of the road and put it in park. Gwen keeps staring out the window. She wipes under her eye with her knuckle. “I’m sorry,” I say again, with all the sincerity I can muster.

  “What did we ever do to you, Mitch? Why do you hate us so much?”

  “I don’t hate you. It’s just -”

  “Just what?” She shoots daggers at me from the corner of her eyes. “What exactly is it that makes it so fucking unbearable for you to be around us? That made you want to abandon us?”

  I roll my eyes. “Jesus, Gwen. Dial back the drama a bit, will you? Abandon you? I was sixteen. I moved out. I was a miserable kid and I wanted to live my own life.”

  “And you didn’t want us to have any part in it anymore.”

  “Gwen, it’s not like we were the fucking Brady Bunch. We’ve all gone our own ways. None of us were all that close. And I’m here now. I came to this thing, didn’t I? I came to help. I showed up. Don’t I get any credit for that?”

  She tilts her head at stares at me for a minute with her brow furrowed. The look on her face is like she’s probing me, looking for weaknesses. “You know, you’re the only reason any of us are here.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means Val and Jamie wanted to hire a cleaning service, and I talked them out of it. I told them I had this idea, that maybe if I told you we were doing it ourselves you’d come out, and then we could all see you. They both said I was nuts, and that it wasn’t even worth trying, that there was no way you would ever come back here. But I was confident. I told them, if anybody can talk him into it, I can. I was always Mitch’s favorite. We all know that. He always liked me best. I can win him over. And then I texted you. And you didn’t even have my number in your fucking phone.”

  I watch a pair of headlights approaching. “Why would I? It’s not like we ever talk.”

  “I had yours.”

  “Congratulations, Gwen. You win. You’re a less shitty person than I am.”

  She shakes her head. “You are exactly like him. Do you know that? You are exactly the same. Twenty years and two thousand miles and you still turned into Dad.”

  “I may have turned into someone just like him, but at least I don’t keep marrying guys just like him.”

  She’s out of the car so fast I don’t even register it until the door slams shut. I take a deep breath and count to ten before killing the engine and getting out myself. She’s already a fair ways down the sidewalk. Damn, she walks fast.

  I don’t say anything, but she must hear me jogging up behind her because she starts growling back at me as I approach. “How fucking dare you. You don’t even know him.”

  “You’re right. I don’t know him. So tell me about him, Gwen. Tell me, does he hit you like the last husband? Or does he hit you more like the one before that?”

  She stops abruptly and wheels around to face me. “Ethan has never laid a hand on me.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s what you said about the first asshole you married, the last time I saw you. Those exact words. Only you said them under a layer of makeup three inches thick to hide the bruise he’d left on your face that morning.”

  “What do you even care?” she asks, her voice like a blade of ice. “What am I to you, exactly? Who do you even see when you look at me?” A car blows past, whipping her hair into her eyes, but she doesn’t move to brush it away. She doesn’t even flinch.

  This is it. This is when the flash of memory comes. This is the exact same face she had when I was getting in the backseat of the cab to the airport all those years ago. Her mascara was even running down her face in the same way.

  She always wears so much mascara.

  We just stare at each other for… I don’t know. Seconds? Hours? Then she turns and walks one way and I turn and walk the other.

  I’m done. I am finished with this shit. I get back in the car and pull out without looking, almost side-swiping a little blue Geo who lays on their pitiful horn that sounds like a squeezed pigeon in retaliation. I don’t care. I overtake them and speed off to my hotel.

  As soon as I’m inside my room I strip off all my clothes. God, I’m filthy. In the mirrored cabinet door I can see the demarcation of dirt around my neck and arms, sharp lines where edges of my shirt hid my skin, the dust sticking to my sweat like a feculent farmer’s tan. I get in the tiny shower and watch the water swirl around my feet, little spirals of black fading to grey then fading to nothing as the hot water runs and runs over me.

  Hotel soap never makes you feel clean.

  There’s a little market and liquor store across the street from my hotel. When I’m done showering I dress and head out the door. The sun’s gone down. The parking lot is practically empty. Just a couple of cars parked close to the entrance.

  I jaywalk to the market. It's lit with those vaguely green fluorescents that every dingy liquor store and only dingy liquor stores seem to have. I buy some chips and a candy bar and a small bottle of Maker's from the bored cashier and go back to the hotel.

  Halfway across the parking lot I get swept by a pair of headlights attached to an engine with a strange whiny rumble. I squint over my shoulder and see a little old red sports car pulling into the lot.

  Shit.

  Do I run? Do I run upstairs and lock myself in my room? Am I that big a coward?

  "Hey Mitchell," Ethan calls as he gets out of the car. I stand my ground in the parking lot, halfway between the street and the hotel entrance.

  "Don't fucking call me that."

  He puts his hands up in an apologetic way but continues walking toward me at a steady pace. "Sorry, sorry. Mitch. We gotta talk, buddy."

  "I have nothing to say to you."

  "No, maybe not, but I think you have something to say to Gwen." He stops a few yards away. The orange streetlamps are casting harsh shadows across his face. I can't see his eyes, hooded by his Cro-Magnon brow. They're just black, like he's wearing one of those supervillain masks. "You left her crying on the side of the road."

  "In a suburb, a half mile from the house. With her cell phone. It's not like I dropped her in some barren desert."

  "That's not really the point, man." He puts his hands in his pockets. Was he always this much taller than me?

  "Is she okay?"

  "Yeah, she's okay."

  "Well then, leave me the fuck alone." I turn and start walking toward the hotel, but Ethan calls after me.

  "You know, I used to be like you."

  I stop and look back. "What's that supposed to be, a cautionary tale?"

  "Sure, if that's what you wanna call it." He nods his head and smiles a bit. "Yeah, that's good. A cautionary tale. You have a way with words, Mitch. Anybody ever tell you that?"

  He speaks slowly. Steadily. Like he’s wrapped in a stoner’s calm. In this dark empty parking lot on this long terrible day, my little sister's redneck ex-con boyfriend is practically a zen master. I just can’t get a handle on this guy.

  "I used to be angry," he explained. "So fucking angry. Got me in trouble. Your sister, she set me straight. Your family is good people. They don’t deserve what you’re giving them."

  "You don't know anything about
me and my family."

  "I know one thing. Maybe just the one, but I know it."

  "What's that?"

  "You're pissed off at the wrong person for the wrong reasons, man."

  A pickup truck with a noisy diesel engine approaches and comes to a stop just short of where we're standing. Jamie stays behind the wheel, but Gwen climbs down out of the passenger seat. She's cleaned up her face a bit, but she still looks a mess. She walks around the front bumper and stands silhouetted by the headlights.

  "Gwen, I'm sorry," I say, and I mean it. "That was a dick move, and I'm sorry."

  Ethan looks over at her with concern. "Baby, you okay?"

  She doesn't answer him. I can't really see her face in the glare, but I can tell she's looking at me. "You left your phone at the house."

  I automatically feel for the edge of the case in my pocket, but it isn't there. Gwen holds it up, showing me. I reach out for it but she pulls it back.

  "It kept buzzing. All the way over here. Just bzzzz, bzzzz, bzzzz. Text messages. And because I was curious, and really pissed at you, I started reading them. And then I kept on reading."

  My gut feels like I've swallowed a cannonball. "Gwen, give me my phone." I take a step toward her, but she backs away.

  "You know what the most interesting part of all these texts is? The name at the top of the screen. You know why? Because it isn't Ben."

  I lunge forward to grab the phone, but she throws it on the ground and swings her fist at me. It hits me in the collarbone, then she punches again and hits me in the chest.

  "How dare you! How fucking dare you!" I put my arms up to cover my face as my sister keeps swinging at me. Ethan grabs her in a bear hug, pinning her arms down. She fights against his hold and keeps yelling at me. "How dare you say that kind of shit to me? How dare you act all superior to Jamie when she opened up to you? How dare you pass judgment on any of us, when you're just a fucking cheat!"

  Ethan is holding her tight and muttering in her ear, just loud enough that I can hear. "It's alright, baby. It's alright. Calm down. It's alright."

  I bend down and pick up the phone. The headlights show a fine crack like a bolt of lightning across the screen.

  Gwen stops struggling and he loosens his grip, but keeps one arm around her waist, ready to stop her if she comes toward me again. She clenches at his sleeve and breathes heavily.

  "You know what the real shit of it is?" she says, her voice trembling. "All that time, all those years I spent, we all spent, thinking that we wanted a fuckwad like you in our lives. Thinking that we were the ones missing out. Wasting so much time thinking you mattered. Thinking that you were this great empty hole in our family. Always wondering, what did we do? How can we fix this? What do we need to change to make him want to be a part of us again? To make him give a shit? To make our brother give a single shit? Well, fuck you. Our family is just fine without you. So go back to California, Mitch. Go back to your sad little life. Break up with Ben, or don't. Keep fucking this other guy behind his back, or don't. I don't care. I just... I can't care."

  She turns and walks to Ethan's car, tangling herself up in his arms for a moment. He looks back at me, offering me a sympathetic smile.

  The truck shifts and the engine rumbles as Jamie backs up. I watch her tail lights, then I watch Ethan's tail lights, then I watch the tail lights of about a dozen other cars that drive past, then I go back to my room and watch the bottle of Maker's for a while.

  A little after one o'clock I'm in my rental car, cruising down silent, empty streets. I don't have to use the GPS this time.

  When I get to the house Val's car is still parked at the curb in front. The trailer, half full of junk, sits in the drive. Light streams through the gaps in the curtains and the slightly ajar front door, cutting sharp glowing blades across the yard.

  I can hear the generator going in the garage. The door is mostly shut, so the sound is muffled, but I hope it isn't disturbing the neighbors. The power cords snake out of it, across the overgrown bushes, over the porch, and through the front door.

  There’s a cat on the porch. Just sitting, watching me. It looks mean, and not particularly healthy. I wonder if it was his, if it’s the owner of the disgusting litter box. God, was that this morning? Have I only been here a day? The cat doesn’t meow, doesn’t even flinch as I walk past it, just stares up at me with yellow eyes.

  The living room is completely empty. Nothing left on the walls, nothing left on the floor. No boxes, no trash. Just a bundle of pumpkin orange extension cords draped across that sloth fur carpet. One branches off to the kitchen, which is also empty except for one of the work lights hanging on a six-foot stand by its hook, radiating so much heat I can feel it from across the room.

  The rest of the cords trail down the hallway. The bathroom, the closet, my old room, the girls' old room, the den. All cleared out, except for a couple of lights.

  Everything's gone.

  The last lamp is in my father's bedroom. It's still half full of stuff. Sitting on the mattress, staring straight at me, is a cardboard box with my name scrawled across it in black marker.

  Val's emptying dresser drawers, sorting clothes. She sees me, then looks pointedly at the box.

  "Left that for you."

  “What is it?”

  “He had one for each of us. In the closet. I thought you might want to see it.”

  "How'd you know I'd come back?"

  "Didn't." She straightens up, pressing her hands into the small of her back. "Hoped you would, though."

  I sit on the mattress and peel open the lid. Val goes right back to work.

  There's not much inside. Not nearly enough to fill the empty space. Maybe he always thought he’d have more to put in it someday. Or maybe he just didn't have a smaller box. Who the fuck knows.

  Xerox copies of old report cards. A couple of school photos. A third-grade geography workbook. At the bottom, a padded manila envelope. I bend the tabs back and pull out the contents. Letters, dozens of them, addressed in my mother's handwriting to my father and his DOC number, with my name on the return in a child's careful pen.

  I open a few. They're all the same. "Dear Daddy, how are you? I am fine. I miss you. Come home soon. Love Mitch". Stick figure drawings, little animals and monsters and flowers and cars. I check the dates on the postmarks. Even after the divorce was finalized my mom still had me write him every week. I'd forgotten about that.

  "Anything good?” Val asks.

  “You didn’t look?”

  “Doesn’t have my name on it.”

  I put the letters back in their envelopes, then the bundle back in the manila pouch, then the whole thing back in the box. "Nothing that changes anything."

  She doesn’t say anything, just shoos me off the bed. "Come on. Help me get the mattress out."

  It takes us about two hours to finish. We don't talk, really, except the occasional "hand me that, will you?" But then the last room is empty, and we’re standing in the yard in the middle of the night, looking at the mound of trash in the trailer. With Jamie’s truck gone it just sits there, immobile, unable to go anywhere. Stuck.

  I don’t see the cat anywhere.

  I turn and look at Val, really look at her. "How did you do it?"

  "Do what?"

  "How did you turn out so normal?"

  She smiles and pulls her Newports from her pocket. Taking one for herself, she offers me the last in the pack. I take it, and accept the light she holds out. "What the fuck is normal?" she asks after a long drag.

  God I've missed this. I suck the smoke into my mouth and hold it there for a while, tonguing it. Val looks appraisingly at the overflowing trailer. "Dump will be open in a few hours," I say when I finally exhale.

  "I don't really feel like waiting. Do you?"

  We only have to drive half an hour to find a suitable place. The field is empty, the sign advertising it as for sale and ideal for retail or residential development is faded and torn. God bless Middle America.

>   I've always found the smell of gasoline enticing. I wait until Val has unhitched her little dented Hyundai and moved it out of the way before I start pouring it over the junk in the trailer. We didn't bother to unload.

  She'd picked up another pack when we stopped for the gas, and as Val walks back toward me she's lighting two in her mouth at the same time.

  One she hands to me. The other she flicks on the pile.

  It doesn't catch right away. As I inhale I watch a blue curl of flame follow a steak of gasoline, ripping one of the plastic trash bags apart like a zipper, until it finds a stack of old newspapers.

  Then whoosh.

  I hand the cigarette back to Val and she sucks it in deeply. Neither of us speak for a while. We just stand side by side in the dark and watch the flames crawl around all the shit that should have stayed buried and forgotten.

  I don't know how long it's been.

  I've gotten lost in my own head.

  “Twice a year,” Val says out of nowhere. “I send you an email twice a year. And a card every Christmas. I’ve been doing this for thirteen years. That’s twenty-six emails, thirteen cards. Do you know how many responses you sent?”

  I have no idea. “No.”

  “Four.”

  “No, it’s got to be more than four.”

  She shakes her head. “No. It isn’t.”

  The flames crackle.

  I reach over and grab Val, put my arms around her shoulders, tuck her in close. She leans her cheek against my chest and circles her arms around my waist. We watch as the fire grows.

  "There goes Jamie's deposit," Val says.

  “I’ll pay her back.” I owe her that much.

  "Ethan really is a good guy, by the way," she says. "Rough around the edges, but a good guy. Not like the others. My kids absolutely loved him when they came down for Christmas last year, and they don’t warm up to new people easily.”

  "Gwen spent Christmas with you?"

  "Usually does. Jamie, too, when she can." Her shoulders rise and fall as she takes a deep breath. “You know, you have an open invitation. Not just Christmas, but whenever. Just call first, because only dicks drop in unannounced.”

  “Trust me, you’ll have advanced warning. Nobody goes to fucking Oklahoma on a whim.” She laughs, this great throaty contagious laugh I had no idea she possessed. The trailer keeps burning. “Are you sad that Dad’s gone?” I ask.