Katelyn and I then said our goodbyes to Savannah, and we headed back down river towards my house. We had stuck close to the river’s banks edging along the very cusp of the forest until we had come up to a road bridge that spanned the river. Not wanting to be seen by anyone that might have driven down the road, we elected to walk underneath the bridge hugging close along its substructure before hopping up onto a small, cement walkway that worked its way under the belly of the roadway.
Swimming against the river’s current I could see small brook trout that jetted back and forth past us in the clear water like a bunch of eight-inch torpedoes. And above our heads, we heard the telltale sounds of traffic rumbling across the bridge, the vehicles wake echoing throughout the cavernous space under the bridge like a freight train. To our backs on the bridge’s underside wall was a message written in a watermelon-colored shade of green spray paint that read, Lovienthal and Chuckles was here, along with giant erect penis done up in red and white paint that spouted its payload into the air like a fountain.
“What the hell is a Lovienthal?” Katelyn had asked me.
I had no clue, so I just shrugged and said, “Beats the hell out of me. Probably just some fat slob with nothing better to do than vandalize public property.” We then moved on from the bridge continuing to head in my homes direction.
A little further down river we had to climb back up the bank and escarpment as we made our way through uncut field grasses and prickly nettles because the slabs of bedrock that we had hiked on had abruptly ended. As we ascended back up the slopes and approached the outskirts of the pines that made their home in the lower part of the forest. We took notice once again of the crows circling high above us, as if they were seemingly following us, and I wondered just what they were tracking this time.
The sun was starting to move off from its high point in the sky and the air was beginning to cool and start moving again as the breeze—which was much-needed, and a welcomed surprise as I felt the beginning onset of a hangover creeping in—began picking up.
As we hung close to the leading edge of the pines I could hear the sounds of sun-dried and baked pine needles crunching under our feet. It wasn’t much further from that point that began to smell the faint whiffs of something rotting wafting up into the air. It was weak at first, but then grew robust as we pressed on through the colonnade of trees. A moment later the stench hit us like a punch to the face. And, I was about to ask Katelyn, “What the hell is that?” when I saw what it was lying before us on the forest floor. It was one of the rabbits that I had seen inhabit this part of the pines a few weeks earlier. It had been half eaten, the rest of it left to rot in the still warm September sun. Most of its hind legs were already picked clean to the bone, and its gray fur was left scattered about the area of the assault like discarded fast-food wrappers. One of its eyes had also been plucked clean out of its skull, but not eaten. It rested forlornly about four feet away from the rest of the carrion looking back on its body as if it had watched whatever liberated it like a camera lens. Thick maggots worked their way through the left over muscle and sinew gorging themselves on the spoiled flesh. Their white bodies wiggling to-and-fro through the putrefied black meat of the rabbit reminding me of static on a television.
“Uh, what-the-fuck…” I said in a fading whisper as we leered over it.
“It must have been one of those crows Savannah had said she’d seen stalking the rabbits earlier.” Katelyn said as she squatted down near the carcass. “Look, he was almost home too, the poor thing.” She then nodded her head towards a hole in the ground about three feet away. “Another half second and he would have made it.”
How could a bunch of crows do this? I thought. Aren’t crows scavengers? I’ve never seen a crow attack another animal.
The winds then quickly picked up giving us another shot of Eau-de-la roadkill, and I then suggested that we should keep on moving. Katelyn had agreed but not before saying some more of her mumbo-jumbo while waving her hands around idiotically before finally having touched the slain rabbit on its head.
After seeing her place her hand on it, I told her, “Come on, you’re gonna catch a disease.” and she then finally left the dead animal alone electing to catch back up with me after I had started to walk away.
We hadn’t made it though about no more than two look-sees away from where we’d found the dead rabbit before we came across the carcass of another one, and then another. Soon we had found a bunch of them, torn up and bloody, each in different states of decay.
I found myself looking around at the carnage in abhorrent amazement—it was a massacre. And, I was about to say something to Katelyn when I heard her gasp and say, “Oh, no…” I then turned towards her and saw that her face was now sullen, so I asked, “What?” and she said to me pointing with an outstretched index finger, “It’s Popsicle.”
There on the bedrock that anchored the river embankment was Popsicle. She lay there just like she had when we last saw her sunning herself. Only this time with her belly flayed open wider than a pig at a barbecue. Her guts and entrails spewed out across the bedrock like jam on toast, and she appeared to have had parts of her viscera stolen.
“Son-of-a-bitch!” I spat out, speaking more to myself than to Katelyn. “Those miserable mother fuckers could have at least eaten the rabbits they’d killed since they had to kill all of them. But, NO! These mother fuckers had to kill everythin’ in the goddamn forest and just take a little bite out of each, like they were at a fuckin’ smorgasbord!” I screamed, and before I even knew it, I had found myself all wrought up and fixing to unleash hell.
“Come on… She’ll be alright.” Katelyn then said to me as she tried taking me by my arm to pull me away from Popsicle. Like out of sight, out of mind was going to ease my anger somehow.
I was plenty pissed off though, and I felt myself fixing to pop. So, I yanked my arm away from her yelling back at her scornfully, “What do you mean, she’ll be alright? Look at her. What are you fuckin’ blind? She’ll be alright? She’s fuckin’ dead! She’s ripped open from asshole to appetite and her guts are now splattered all over this goddamn rock.”
“Okay, calm down, Cera. I’m sorry.” Katelyn said, motioning to me with a downward hand gesture. “What I meant to say was it will be alright.”
I knew that she was trying to tiptoe her words around me softly. Her benign demeanor suggesting she wasn’t in the mood for another heated exchange with me for the second time today.
“Come on. Let’s just get back to your house and check in on Casper. And on my way home I’ll take a shovel with me and bury Popsicle. I’ll even say a few nice words for her too.” Katelyn then suggested, but I was no longer listening.
I knew that it wasn’t her that I was pissed off at, or even that we had just found Popsicle, a stray that I had just met several hours earlier, lying dead on the rocks next to the river. I really knew that, deep down, it was something else. It was all the bullshit and stress I’d been bottling up inside of me for the past six weeks. I missed my friends. I missed Saraland where there was nobody out to get me except maybe Ray Boone’s hands on my ass. I missed my old school where people actually liked me and I didn’t have to deal with three snotty, little Yankee cunts trying to make my life a living Hell on a daily basis. And I’d been tired of watching my mama be hurt by the things people had said to and about her. And completely tired of family’s secrets. And I was tired of…
“FUCK!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. “THIS IS FUCKIN’ HORSESHIT!”
“Whoa… Take it easy, Cera.” Katelyn said, stepping back away from me.
“No! I won’t take it easy. I’m sick of this shit. You hear me? I’m sick-of-all-this-SHIT!” I said screaming at the sky and the mountain, and the forest, and God, and as I spun around, the winds began picking up pushing my hair across my face.
“Cera, you really need to calm down.” I thought I heard Katelyn say, but at the time I had paid her no mind as I was doing a damn good job at blocking everyt
hing out in my fit of rage.
“Fuck You, Keri. And Fuck You, Laurie. And Fuck You, Hallie. And Fuck You, Meatheads.” I yelled out as I waved double middle fingers up towards the sky as if they could see and hear my gesture from wherever they were. Soon, I felt myself become dizzy and light-headed as I swirled around-and-around putting myself into an almost hyperventilating, delirious state. My vision weakened and my sight started becoming dark around the edges as a chill cut through me that sent waves of goose-flesh over my skin.
“CERA… You really need to cut this shit out, now!” I distinctly recall hearing Katelyn say at the time, her voice having stepped up an octave or two, but I wasn’t finished yet.
I fell to my knees with a sense of euphoria coursing through my veins, making my muscles spasm and twitch. I could feel the air pushing on me as if it were working its way underneath me and I was about to take flight. “And, FUCK YOU, ABELLONA… DON’T THINK I FORGOT ABOUT YOUR BITCH ASS!!!” I shouted until my lungs were empty.
And, with that, there was a boom, and the skies opened up on us. Torrents of rain and wind began pelting me and Katelyn like we were dinghies lost in a hurricane.
Another round of lightning struck a pine nearby, and I saw its flash’s intensity emphasized on the darkening background that was now the sky. Fire erupted from the mountainside as the tree that’d been struck burst into flames. Casting from it a warm, inviting glow that I just wanted to consume and have inside me, providing me with more fuel for my hatred.
I began to laugh as my breath started to come back to me, and Katelyn asked, “Are you happy now?”
“W-W-What?” I stammered out as I began to wind down and I then began wiping the rainwater from my eyes, making it possible for me to see the outline of her again.
“Are you happy now?” she asked me again, this time sounding dour. “You did this.” She then said while looking up at the sky and shrugging her shoulders at me.
“What-the-hell are you talking about?” I asked her while I sucked in air from my crouched down position on my knees. But there was a part of me that understood what she was talking about. I did feel like I did do it. Then, at that moment I thought of being out on my balcony last week when that terrible storm had hit. The one that had broken all the windows on the back side of my house. But I quickly let the thought drift away saying, “Weather changes rapidly all the time on mountains.” Katelyn just stared back at me and then replied, “I don’t think the mountain had anything to do with this, Cera. Your emotions did, though.”
I then watched as Katelyn wrung her hair through her hands taking out the excess water before griping at me again, “Ugh, I’m soaking wet now because of you—thanks to your little tantrum.” She had looked completely soured and miserable, so I couldn’t help myself but begin to laugh at her, at the sight of her so uptight with her eye shadow running down her cheeks. She looked so abject, like a puppy who had just figured out that he was about to get neutered.
The clouds had shut off the tap just as quickly as they had opened them, and the sunshine began pouring through fleeting haze causing a rainbow to appear over the forest canopy.
Katelyn and I then went to work on wringing out the excess water from our clothes before basking in the much welcomed sun’s warmth. That was when I got to feeling a little silly or even a bit embarrassed over my outburst. But seeing Katelyn drenched like that, her normally super-cool demeanor humbled, had made it all worth it. That is, of course, given the fact that I had anything to do with the sudden shower in the first place like she believed I did, but who knows what’s what.
A little further down we had crossed via the narrow footbridge that spans the river in an arc. We had chosen to use the bridge over the downed oak because the recent downpour had raised the water level of the river up to a point where we just didn’t think it would be safe—if at all possible—to cross any longer.
After making it home. We snuck into the backyard and had entered through the kitchen. Once inside we saw that my Step Daddy Cade was at the kitchen table nursing a beer while reading a Swap Sheet. He took one look at the two of us and said, “Y’all ain’t got no school today or somethin’ or, did y’all take swim class with your clothes on?”
“No, we had school today.” I said trying to slip past him without making any eye contact. “We just got caught out in the storm on our way home is all.”
“Storm, eh… I didn’t see no storm. Now you girls take yourselves upstairs and get dried off. Your mama is gonna be madder than a wet hen if she comes home and sees you’ve been drippin’ all over the carpets.”
Katelyn and I did as my step daddy had asked and went upstairs to my room. While I headed straight to my bathroom to get changed into something dry I told Katelyn to pick out something from my closet for her to wear, and I would throw her clothes in the dryer in the meantime.
As I was busy getting changed, Katelyn said to me, “So, that Savannah, she’s kind of a weird one, isn’t she?” and I replied back to her through the cracked bathroom door. “Kinda weird like dressing Goth and tellin’ people that you’re a witch weird, or…”
“Alright, alright… I get it.” Katelyn protested having suddenly realized how she sounded, and then she tried changing the subject by saying, “Hurry up in there. We’ve got to check in on our kitten.”
When I had stepped out of the bathroom Katelyn was already dressed in some of my clothes and the sight of her caught me off guard because she was wearing one of my white cotton T-shirts and a pair of blue jeans. “Whoa, look at you.” I said completely astonished. “Lookin’ good with a little color,” I teased.
“Shut up,” she whined at me as I could tell she was a little embarrassed and trying to nip-in-the-bud any more comments out of me. “You didn’t have anything in my style, so I had to settle for the country-bumpkin look.”
“Well, I like it. Now all you’ll have to do is work it a little and you’ll have Jim Bob and Billy Joe all horned up into a frenzy and workin’ themselves like a dog with two peters.”
“That’s gross.” is all Katelyn said in response and then we headed back downstairs.
I hit the button on the wall that engaged the motor that brought up the large garage door which then allowed a generous amount of daylight to come flooding into the garage. And in doing so I could hear Casper begin to meow softly from inside his box.
“Close the door.” I then snipped gruffly at Katelyn who still stood at the garage’s side door that entered into the kitchen. I didn’t want any of the sounds that the little kitten was making to waft up into the kitchen where my Step Daddy Cade could hear him.
Katelyn did as I had asked and then said in a low voice, “He’s going to find out about Casper sometime. It’s not like you’re going to keep owning a cat secret from him.”
“I know, I know.” I grumbled to her frivolously as I bent down picking up the kitten from the box and I then began stroking his white fur while holding him tight to my chest. “I just don’t know what’s the best way to tell him yet is.”
“Best way to tell him what? That y’all been skippin’ school, stealin’ my beers, and hiddin’ cats in the garage?” My Step Daddy Cade then said, his voice seeming to boom out from behind us as he popped into the garage through the side door. “Don’t act like I don’t know whatcha y’all been doin’.” He then added while lighting up a cigarette—cupping his hands to make sure that the flame wouldn’t blow out as he spoke.
“I… I…” I stammered.
“I… I thought I’d get away with it, right?” he said, exhaling a bluish gray smoke that rose quickly up to the roof of the garage. “Missy, don’t try to bullshit a bullshitter.”
I became flabbergasted and didn’t know what to say. Normally my step daddy’s so absent-minded that he could throw himself on the ground and miss, but he had me dead-to-rights. I looked at Katelyn for help, and she spoke up right away by saying, “It’s my fault, sir. I had asked Cera to skip school with me today because I was upset about something an
d I didn’t want to go. And, it was also me who took the beers from the refrigerator. She didn’t know until after I did it.”
My step daddy then looked over Katelyn while pursing his lips as though he was given thought to what she had just said. “Now, you’re an even worse liar than she is.” He responded. “Don’t you think I know my step daughter’s behavior well-enough by now? I’m well-aware of all the shit she pulls. I’m the one who wrote the book on most of the crap she does.”
Now it was Katelyn’s turn being speechless and she glanced over at me for help, but I still hadn’t thought of anything to say yet, and thank goodness I hadn’t, because I didn’t have to. Because, right then, my step daddy turned back to me saying, “Well, given the fact that it’s nice to see Cera here having made a new friend. I guess I could let this shit slide just this once. It’s been a tough go so far for her and her mama since we got here. And I don’t think ditchin’ a day of school to have a couple of beers down by the river is such a big deal anyways. I used to do a helluva lot worse when I was your age. I mean, what the hell does anybody expect to learn from a goddamn Yankee School anyways, how to stick your head so far up your own ass that you don’t notice the smell anymore?”
And with that, along with a little smirk that curled up from the sides of my step daddy’s mouth I knew my mama wasn’t going to find out about my day off. But out of curiosity though, I couldn’t help myself but ask, “How did you find out about us not being at school today?”
At that point I had figured that the school’s attendance office may have called my step daddy’s cell phone if my mama had given them his number in case of emergencies. But, he just looked at me screw-faced and said, “Well, for starters, you left a kitten meowin’ in the garage that wasn’t there before. That kinda tipped me off right away. Then, I saw the two of you when y’all should’ve been in school, down by the river as I drove over the bridge on Colmack Road. You two were down by the water’s edge practically diddlin’ each other.”
In the Forest of Light and Dark Page 21