Family Jewels
By Emery C. Walters
Published by Queerteen Press
Visit queerteen-press.com for more information.
Copyright 2014 Emery C. Walters
ISBN 9781611526721
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America. Queerteen Press is an imprint of JMS Books LLC.
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Family Jewels
By Emery C. Walters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 1
Two more days until Father’s Day, well, one and a few minutes. Around this house it’s always Father’s day. We need a day when it isn’t his. He’s not physically abusive, don’t think I’m saying that, he just is, is—has to be—everything. You can’t have an idea unless he tells you to have it. You can’t want to go somewhere unless he’s already been there and then he’ll tell you it’s not worth it. And he has to be right. It’s—it’s deadening. And it’s all I have.
Mom gave up a long time ago. I barely even remember her. Her name was Ruby, after her grandmother. She didn’t like having such an old-fashioned name. She was thin and pretty and smelled good, except when she’d light up one of her ‘funny cigarettes’ as she called them. Took me years to figure out she was smoking dope. I dunno, I was only ten when she left and I’m seventeen now, well, tomorrow. Only one more year and then I am out of this stinking hellhole. Wow, I didn’t see all that coming. I mean I know I’m full of resentment and poison, but I thought I had it locked up and hidden. I have to. If Dad knew how I felt, he’d ‘retrain me’.
Like I said, he doesn’t beat us. There’s me, Nick, and my sister Crystal, who is fifteen. She doesn’t like her name either and goes by Chris. She’s is the only reason I haven’t left—run away—moved out—before. And I’m going to feel like a rat when I do go. If I make it till then, whenever it is. If I go now, Dad will call the police and report me as a runaway—again. The last time he did that I’d fallen asleep at a friend’s house and nobody let him know. It was an honest mistake, but I knew better than to let it happen again. Anyhow I couldn’t, at least not for the three months he grounded me.
I didn’t mean for this to be such a downer. I hope Chris understands. But I have to get out of here when the time comes.
No, he doesn’t beat us. It’s not like that. He’s a bit inappropriate and I always feel like he’s going to come into my room some night, but he hasn’t yet. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a guy or if he’s just not into ‘that’, thank God.
I’ve even asked Chris if he’s done anything to her, but she said no. I have no reason not to believe her. I know she’d tell me, I mean, I think she would, wouldn’t she? I’d tell if he did anything to me. Though a couple of years ago when he punished me by locking me in the basement overnight, I told our principal the next day, he called the police and I told them, then they called Dad in and he told them ‘his side’ and then everyone just stood around looking at me with pity. Not because of what had happened, but because of my ‘overactive imagination’ and, well, crap. They didn’t believe me; they believed him. Remembering that is making me cry. I guess I wouldn’t tell anyone if he did anything to me after that fiasco. That was so humiliating.
Sometimes I wonder if Mom isn’t still here, like, buried under her prize rose bushes or something. What kind of mother just wanders off and leaves her two half-grown children like that? Well yeah she smoked dope but I would too if I had to live with Dad—oh wait, I do. But I can’t afford dope and anyhow dope is for dopes. Besides, I tried it once and had a sinus headache that I swear lasted for two weeks. So don’t give me credit.
Well it’s officially the day before Father’s Day as it just turned 12:02 AM. Happy birthday, self. Don’t expect much. I think I’ll get to bed, maybe listen to some music. I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. I keep having nightmares that I get up and go downstairs and Dad has turned into one of the those teenage horror movie monsters. And I know I shouldn’t open the kitchen door but it swings open anyhow, creaking, and the audience is screaming at me to not go in there, but I do anyhow.
Eww. Now I’ve scared myself. It’s bad enough we live in an old house that has too many rooms and creaky old floorboards. I’m always hearing ‘house noises’ and I’m too afraid to go check on them. Some nights I even shove my desk over to keep my door closed. Then I have nightmares about something pushing at the door and the desk starts to slide out of the way. Then I think back to when Chris and I shared a room and wish we could do that again. Except, you know, I’m a boy and she’s a girl. Although she says maybe she’s not. I think she means she’s transgendered but she won’t say for sure. The one time she brought it up years ago, Dad put her down so bad she has never mentioned it again.
Dad is the king of cutting remarks. Hah, cutting, I’ve only quit doing that. I’d just play with a razor blade when I was bored, well, when I was so angry and hurt I couldn’t do anything at all—I mean, anything useful. I’d just cut the inside of my left arm where nobody could see unless I rolled up my sleeve. I think some people knew, but nobody ever asked about it. The last time I did it, it looked like a tattoo, like a kanji for ‘pain’ or something, and it almost made me laugh at myself. After that I just didn’t do it anymore. I finally figured out it wasn’t helping me at all. I just hope Chris isn’t hurting herself. I’ve told her to tell me if she is, but I don’t know if she will.
Then there are the obvious things Dad does, like, I wanted to go to college but he said I’m not smart enough. And Chris wanted to go to modeling school and he drove her up there but he cursed the whole way and drove like a maniac. I went with her and she was in tears by the time we got there. He made a scene in the waiting room and while she did get to have her tryout and interview, they turned her down. I felt so bad for her that when we got home I went to go into her room and give her a little present I’d gotten her, just a string of pearls from a used stuff store, but her door was locked and I could hear her crying. She was in her closet and didn’t come out until the next day, when we had to get to school on our own, cos we missed the bus and Dad wouldn’t drive us. I dunno why, I even remember that part, but I think it was just Dad’s way of getting revenge or making a point or something, you know?
I gave her the gift anyway, but she didn’t seem to care and later I found out she’d given it to one of the special ed kids at school and said it was from me. That seemed kind of mean, but I could see where it came from, how much pain she had inside that she just had to vent some of it. I had to eat lunch with the girl for the next two weeks so as not to hurt her feelings. Everyone made fun of me but that just made me more determined to treat the girl nicely. I’m glad I did, which you’ll understand when I get to it. Her name is Julie. The kids call her ‘Jewelry’ or sometimes worse things. I told her the
y called her that because she is a gem. So I guess when I saw the pearls on her, it really made her day. It’s really neat when something good comes out of something that was intended to be mean, isn’t it? It’s like the cavalry coming in the nick of time, or seeing the jerk that just cut you off get a ticket. Of course, sometimes you have to make the good happen yourself. I wasn’t sure what to think, but I’ll always feel good about doing the right thing with her.
This is probably getting boring or else you’re waiting for the axe to fall, but I dunno, it’s not all black and white. A lot of our home life was just dull, sometimes gray and stormy. If we said anything back to him, or called him on some of his shit, Dad would just back up and say, ‘What? It’s true isn’t it?’ or ‘The truth hurts, doesn’t it?’ or something blistering, or sometimes he’d just raise his eyebrows and half-smile. You just never knew what was coming.
Then one day he caught me in his bedroom. I’d been missing Mom so much, I was looking through her drawers, just trying to be close to her, you know? I mean if I found some clue to where she’d gone that would be terrific, but I really wasn’t expecting to. I found her scent—she loved lilacs and roses—in her lingerie drawer, and was holding a nightie up to my face, just thinking of her and how she had smelled to me, when she was hugging me or came to soothe me after a nightmare, and the door opened and Dad came in.
When I looked up over the nightie at him, my eyes were full of tears. My heart started to jerk and then pound and I wondered if he’d kill me or just laugh, or maybe tell me how shitty I’d look wearing that. Instead he just grew still, and cold emanated off him like waves. I could feel the temperature in the room drop. ‘Get-out of here,’ he said, so low and growly my blood turned to ice. I rose, let the nightie drop, and left abruptly. I felt anger rising beneath my fear, or behind it, I dunno, whatever those new age people say when they say you’re masking your true feelings. I was angry. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I hadn’t found anything wrong. Why did he have to make me feel as though I was wrong, as though I was a mistake through and through? For the first time in a long time I went to the basement and hid behind the old couch down there, like I used to do when I was little and didn’t want Dad to find me. He never had, and so I felt like it was my safe place. (You’d think he’d have figured it out, with the amount of dust I’d get in my hair, which is dark like Chris’s and Mom’s. Maybe the curls I hated so much hid the dust.)
I have to admit I cried a little, but at least I didn’t suck my thumb. Okay, I stuck it in my mouth to see why I used to like it so much. This, since I’m gay, not that anyone knows yet, made me laugh. I laughed until I fell over. Then I calmed down. As I did, noticing the dust particles above me and the rips on the back of the couch from our old cat Purrl, whom Dad had nick-named She Devil, I began to notice something else. First there was a tiny scratching noise, and then a smell. Something was off. Maybe I’d left a bit of a cookie or sandwich under the couch? I wasn’t about to reach under and see. I just lay there listening. Did we have mice? It seemed to be coming from behind the wall, but there wasn’t anything back there but crawl space, was there?
Too spooky! I was scaring myself now. I knew it had been a bad idea to write my English essay on Edgar Allen Poe. Then I wondered why Dad still had Mom’s things—did he know something we didn’t? That made me feel even more spooked. Maybe he just really, really missed her, like Chris and I did. Enough. I was getting hungry, so I crawled out, dusted myself off, and went back upstairs to hide in my room until dinner.
Dinner was a disaster. Dad was still snotty, but at least he kept quiet, and didn’t criticize or comment on us at all. He just plopped a big bowl of spaghetti down in the middle of the table and took some. Chris did too, but I could see she wasn’t really in the mood. I reached for some and couldn’t do it; I felt like I was going to throw up. Maybe it had been the smell downstairs, I don’t know. I sipped some water and tried again. I couldn’t do it. Dad would kill me if I didn’t eat what he cooked, I knew it. This was ridiculous, what was wrong with me? I felt like my stomach was tied in a huge knot. Only it was a knot that was unravelling in a very bad way. I started to say something but it was ‘run or puke’ right there, so I shoved my chair back and ran for the bathroom. After I was done in there I took a shower and went into my room. I just lay down on my bed and tried not to throw up any more, not that there was anything left. Chris opened the door and asked if I was okay and I said I would be, but I didn’t really believe it. “Call if you need me,” she said, but I knew I wouldn’t.
A while later Dad opened my door. “That was disgusting,” he said. “I don’t appreciate that sort of attention-whoring crap. Just make sure you don’t pull that act tomorrow night when the mayor is here.” He shut the door firmly and left. The chill, and I think hatred, remained behind.
Dad worked in the county government. I think he was the county attorney or something. I’d never really paid attention. Mom had been a special education teacher. I think she did a lot more important, or at least valuable, work, for a lot less money. I missed her so much. When Dad went downstairs and I heard his office door shut, I got out of bed, wiped my face, and stalked, if you can do that soundlessly, back into Dad’s room. I left the lights off and opened Mom’s drawer again. I lifted out the nightie that still had her scent and stuffed it in my pajama top. Then I took a quick look through her other drawers. In the bottom one, under an old swim suit, I found a small photo album and took that too. Then I opened her jewelry box and found it was almost empty. Where had all her nice things gone? Dad wouldn’t have sold them; he made enough money and we sure weren’t hurting financially. In the bottom of the cabinet I found an old ring and some letters; I took all those too. Then I shut everything back up and left the room the way I’d found it, I hoped.
Back in my room I stuffed everything in a pair of old shoes in the bottom of my very messy closet, and went to bed. Before I went to sleep, I thought: Fuck You. Then I cried as silently as I could. I hated weekends.
I woke up to the sun shining and the birds singing and my sister sitting on the side of my bed, which wasn’t too cool considering what usually happened to me first thing in the morning, but she was grinning. “Happy Father’s Day! Shall we get it over early or run away and hide?” Her smile dissolved into tears.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“I hate him. I hate him and I miss Mommy and we haven’t had a reason to celebrate Mother’s Day in years. I asked him why she left once and he said because she hated us, you and me. That didn’t make any sense but I cried and cried. Remember when I was out of school the last week of seventh grade? That’s when it happened and I was so sick and so angry, and—Nick, I just want to know where she is? I want to know if she’s all right and if she’s happy?” With this my normally calm, unemotional sister threw herself on top of me and wept. My arms went around her without my even thinking about it. Someone you care about is crying, you hold them.
And Dad opened my door. He whipped it open like it was too hot to touch. “Get your hands off her, she’s your sister!” he bellowed, striding over towards us and wrenching my arm, which I had wrapped around her, holding her close, trying to soothe her. I didn’t even know she could cry, let alone this hard. She must have been holding all this in for years, and now Dad thinks I did something to her?
“You fucking pervert! Well at least you’re not a goddamn fag after all!” He gently lifted my sister up. “Chris, honey, go back to your room, maybe take a shower, then you and I will go out for breakfast, all right?” Chris was trying so hard not to cry anymore that her whole body was shuddering. If nothing else I knew now that she was getting boobs, not that I cared.
As she left, still in a daze, I said calmly (belying my insides which were threatening to volcano in at least two different directions—with cramps), “You’re so wrong, Dad, it’s not what you…”
He slapped me so hard my head turned sideways.
“Get this house cleaned up before the company co
mes. Mayor Morrison will be here at three with his niece and nephew, and by God if I see you even look twice at that girl you will rue the day you were born.” I thought I heard him add, “As do I.”
My brain slipped into some gear I’d not known I had and I wanted to giggle and continue to tell him how very wrong he was, but my mouth hurt and my whole stomach had turned into a giant rock; I could neither talk nor smirk; shitting and going blind were options, however, and I needed the bathroom badly. Good thing we had several. I could use several. This would be a bad day to clog up the toilet, if we only had just one.
I can’t imagine Chris wanting to go out to breakfast with Dear Old Dad but it was, of course, a command performance. I hoped she was up to it. After I got done being sick, I took a shower and started cleaning the house. I’d make someone a good little wife someday. When making Dad’s bed I poked around some more and found some stuff in his drawers that I’d never seen before, mostly because I’d been too fearful to ever look there. Right now I did not give a shit, absolutely having no more to give, haha. Fuck him. An hour ago I was frozen with fear; now—empty—I was operating as if by remote control, my entire brain gone away, probably hiding behind the couch in the basement, without me. Stupid brain.
Interesting. I managed to pull his bottom drawer too far out and it fell on my foot. Terrific. However; on the floor underneath the dresser, was a stack of magazines. I pulled one out—the cover showed a naked woman, tied and gagged. I looked at the title and it did not say “True Detective.” I won’t tell you what it said. The others were all the same sort of thing. Bondage, whips, chains. UGH. Next to the magazines was a box. Of course I opened it. Inside it were handcuffs. I took the key and slid it into my pocket. You know what I said, right? Then there was a pile of letters. They were all from Mom’s parents. They had all been ripped to pieces. I sat so still I wasn’t even able to breathe. Dad had told us that with Mom gone, her parents had no interest in us anymore. Look, there were even birthday cards addressed to Chris and me. I didn’t count how many there were. Finally, when the shock of this betrayal faded, I not only began to breathe, I hyperventilated and thought I would faint. I didn’t, but my insides were clenched in that squeeze you feel just before you cry or hit someone. Dad had cheated Chris and me—and Mom’s parents—out of all these years of knowing each other, of being together, of gifts and love and visits. I would never forgive him for this, ever.
Family Jewels Page 1