Becoming the Gateway

by Justin Roberts

  She was frustrated as all hell right now, she figured she might as well keep getting ready for the weekend and that she would try one last time to reach the ranch house before going to bed. Then she laughed cynically at her own ridiculousness for thinking that there was any chance in hell she would be able to sleep without said confirmation beforehand. For all she knew, Charlie put Bradley up to it. Told him to act really scared and call Mommy to play a trick on her, he would do that just because he knew how important this weekend was to her and that was just the kind of douche bag he was.

  Her phone started ringing.

  She looked at the caller ID on her screen, it said Dennis H. It was her former brother in law, he must have heard her message on Charlotte's answering machine and, being the nice, caring man he was, decided to call her back to put her mind at ease. Thank God there's still good, decent people in the world, she thought as she hit the "answer" button on her touch screen.

  "Hello?"

  "Charlene, hi it's Dennis. How are you doing?"

  "Hi, Dennis. I'm okay, I take it you heard the message I left?"

  "I sure did, and I wanted to call you back as soon as possible, I hope you're not worried sick?" Charlene noticed the genuinely concerned tone in Dennis' voice, it warmed her heart a bit to know that Alyssa and Bradley's Uncle Dennis was such a good man, they were in good hands.

  "Yeah," she said with sigh, "Bradley left me a voice mail and he sounded really upset..."

  "Charlene," Dennis interrupted, "Now, I don't want you to be worried. Everyone is okay here, but something did happen."

  "Oh no," She said as her stomach tightened in fear, "What happened?"

  "Well, it's Charlie."

  "Of course it is, what did he do this time?"

  "Well," she heard Dennis let out a sigh as he paused for a second, "He's been drinking pretty heavily since he got here and...well, he got pretty belligerent this time."

  "Shit, was he yelling at the kids or something? Is that why Bradley sounded so dramatic on the phone?"

  "Well...there was some yelling and screaming for sure. Matter of fact Charlie's still doing a lot yelling and screaming, you know how my bother gets sometimes."

  "Don't we all?"

  "Yeah, I guess we do. But, and again I don't want to worry you too badly, but.."

  "What is it, Dennis? What did he do?" She could tell he was dancing around an issue, he was always a timid sort of person when it came to doing anything that might cause a few waves.

  "You see, Charlene, the kids were being a bit rambunctious and it sort of got on Charlie's nerves a bit. So he started shouting at Alyssa, and then she started shouting back a bit. Then, and it really kills me to have to tell you this, Charlene..."

  "Tell me what!" She didn't mean to yell but it just came out that way.

  "Well, he hit Alyssa."

  "HE WHAT?!" This time she meant to shout. She felt her face flush red with anger, a rage flowed through her consumed her like a forest fire. She could not form words at this moment, just hard, short breathes that verged on becoming growls. In a few more seconds she was able to get out, "What do you mean he hit her? That fucking son of a bitch! Is she okay?"

  "Yes, yes she is okay and she's safe with her Grandma and good old Uncle Clarence. She's got a red cheek and some seriously hurt feelings but other than that she just fine. He gave her a good slap in the face, nothing that will cause any real damage but definitely enough to shake things up a bit here."

  "Oh, Jesus," she paused for second to catch her bearings before finishing with, "So the kids are both safe?" Her voice cracked a bit as she fought back tears.

  "Yes, the kids are all safe now. But the thing is, Charlie just kind of took off. He yelled a bunch of cuss words at all of us and just got in his car and left."

  "He just left the kids? Well he's coming back right?"

  "He said he's not coming back and that they should call you. Only he used much more colorful language."

  "You're kidding me, I cannot believe him! Actually, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, this is just like him."

  "Now, Charlene, I want you to know that we have no problem watching over your kids for the weekend, they can even ride back Monday with Paula and me. But, and I honestly feel really bad saying this knowing it's your vacation and all, but they could really use their mom right now. I know it's late and you're far away, but both of them are just so upset and..."

  "Of course," she said, "I'll come get them."

  As soon as she spoke she heard the sound of crows beating cawing and beating their wings outside of her window again. This time she was much too concerned with real life to stop and ponder oddities of nature and what they may or may not mean.

  Dennis's voice was a bit harder to hear with the cacophony of bird cries outside her bedroom window when he said, "Now Charlene, you really shouldn't drop everything you're doing. Like I said, Paula and I will take care of them."

  "No, no it's all right. I should at least check on them. Can I talk to one of the kids?"

  "Well, I wanted to put Alyssa or Bradley on the phone with you but they both refused to talk, too upset I think. Alyssa is down at Clarence's having hot cocoa with Elizabeth, and Bradley ran upstairs in the ranch house and won't come out of his room. They just both keep crying for you to come out here.

  "But jeez, Charlene, I just feel terrible putting this all on you this late when I know you had plans this weekend. Plus, I'd just hate for the kids to miss out on this weekend because my brother's such a jerk."

  "Don't even worry about it, Dennis. I'm just glad you called, and besides, I can just come out to check on them, Captain Douche-Face forgot to pack all their stuff for the weekend anyway. So what I can do is bring them their stuff and make sure that they'll be okay, and since the concert is at the Gorge, which is way closer to you guys than it is to me, so maybe I can just crash there tonight and head out towards the Gorge in the morning. I'll just have to rearrange some driving plans but I can make it work."

  "Well if you can swing it that way, I know both your children would be happy to snuggle up with Mom tonight, even if it is past midnight when you get here, that should at least raise their spirits a bit and, like I said, they can ride back with us and Grandma on Monday"

  "I just hope that fucking asshole doesn't show back up when I'm there."

  "If he does, I'll take care of it. I know he's got a loud mouth by he's still my little brother."

  "You're so sweet Dennis, thank you so much for calling."

  "Hey, no problem. You know we all still consider you family here."

  After they said their goodbyes and Charlene hung up the phone she took her hair out of the towel it was wrapped in, letting it cascade down her shoulders, still damp but not quite soaked.

  She rolled over on the bed and buried her face in a pillow, then screamed at the top of her lungs with all the ferocity she could muster. She gave the pillow three more muffled screams before getting up and furiously yanking the kids clothes out of the drawers with such anger that socks and underwear were flying out of the drawers and landing on the bedroom floor every time she pulled away.

  She grabbed tooth brushes and a couple books for Alyssa and two of Charlie's favorite GI Joe action figures so they'd have some home comforts to hopefully lighten up an unpleasant situation.

  This was a new low for Charlie.

  Charlene was surprised there even could be a new low for him considering all the shit he had pulled over the years. But she had never seen him act out this way towards the children. Sure, he would use foul language and snap at them over menial things but it was always for the most part harmless and even though he would act like an asshole he never really crossed the line to being abusive.

  Usually, if he was bitching at the kids or calling them names it came off more like he was just another child whining at his friends, not like a grown up dad verbally abusing them. She knew that a slap on the face was something most parents might not consider to be the most horrib
le thing in the world, she herself would catch a smack whenever she got snippy with her mom when she was a kid and truth be told, she was all the better for it.

  She had never slapped her children though, even at the heights of their most obnoxious episodes she never got physical with her discipline beyond a light swat on the butt in the most extreme cases, like if the two of them were engaged in an altercation that was bound to leave them hurt much worse than her soft little spanking would do. But she had never slapped them, not even when Alyssa got snotty or Bradley told her to shut up. She was able to handle things with simple stern look and revocation of certain rights, like TV or video games.

  Charlie never even bothered to discipline the children, he could care less about their manners and whatnot so for him to slap Alyssa across the face was crossing a huge line for him, and she could only imagine what a shock it had been to her little girl.

  After she got the kids’ stuff together she decided that she'd better call Abby and give her the shitty news. Luckily, Abby was already well aware of Charlie's reputation for unreliability and was probably already mentally prepared for any such snags in the weekend plans.

  "Hey, Charlene," Abby told her on the phone as she walked out to the car, her bag in one hand and both the kid's stuff in the other, the cell phone pressed against her shoulder with ear, "Don't let that prick get you down, we knew something like this might happen. Just go crash with the rug rats tonight and if they're still traumatized tomorrow just bring them along for the trip!"

  "I can't do that..."

  "Sure you can, it’s just Dave Mathews, it’s not like taking them to a rave or something. Lots of folks bring kids to the Gorge. We’ll have to park your car down the road from the venue though so we don't have to pay for two camping spots since we're going to have two cars now."

  "That makes sense, but I'm not bringing them! We have had this whole thing planned for way too long to..." Charlene trailed off when she turned the corner around the side of the town house and saw her car. The dark blue Toyota Camry was now almost completely white, like some vandals had rode by and tossed buckets of paint all over the vehicle.

  "Hello?" Abby’s voice called from the cell phone.

  "Um...I’m going to call you back, Abby."

  "Okay, well just drive safe and whatever happens we will be seeing each other tomorrow, buh-bye!"

  "Bye."

  Charlene set the bags down and stuffed the cell phone into her tote. She sat staring at the car, now almost covered in white. She stepped closer and the obvious became apparent.

  It was bird shit. Those crows had shit all over her car.

  She circled the car, her jaw hanging agape, thinking, what...the...fuck!

  The really off putting part was that it looked as if they had shit only on her car. The driveway and everything else around the car was clean as a whistle. It was as if they had all circled right over her Camry and let loose a blitzkrieg of bird droppings.

  "God damn, they really covered the fucking car." She said as she reached for the latch on the driver’s side door. She opened it using as little of her finger possible, and swung it open.

  "Eeewww! So disgusting!"

  She piled all the bags into the back seat and got in. Her windshield was completely lathered in white streaks, with little black globules here and there, to the point where visibility was pretty much nil. She turned on the windshield sprayer and watched as the wipers just kind of smeared it all around, making it even harder to see. She cranked back on the handle to really let the spray soak in until she could see the wet fecal streaks begin to run down the windshield as the cleaner soaked through and the wipers began to clear the mess away.

  Once she could see well enough she pulled out of the driveway with the immediate intention of heading straight for the Brown Bear car wash a half mile down Bothell Way. She would have preferred a drive through car wash but since it was already about 10:30pm it might be hard to find one open.

  A few minutes later she was at the car wash using the big spray nozzle to blast away the thick coating of bird crap. She wasn't going to bother with soap, all she wanted was to get as much off the car as possible, and it didn't have to shine.

  As she stood there spraying she thought about the crows again. How they had started tapping her window and cawing like mad as soon as she thought about heading out to the ranch. Then again when Dennis brought it up, or was it her? As soon as they had started talking about her going out to see the kids the crows had started acting up again. She recalled how it was so loud that she could barely hear Dennis speaking on the phone. She figured that must have been when they decided to give her Camry a paint job.

  She knew crows were intelligent and would sometimes single people or animals out for harassment. She remembered reading about a study they did at the University of Washington a few years ago where researchers wore masks and went out and agitated certain crows on campus, then a year or two later the researchers walked through there with the same masks on only to be dive bombed and cawed at by the very same crows from previous years.

  But this was different; first off, she had not been out bothering any of the local wildlife so they had no reason to retaliate. But more than that, she felt something from them. Like a warning, and this was not the type of thing she would normally believe in, but there was just something off about her experience tonight so far. Could they be trying to tell me something? Maybe they're telling me that the kids need my help and I have to go them.

  Bradley's scared voice rang through her head again, "come and save us". You're being crazy! She thought to herself, you are all worked up and seeing signs where there aren't any. Just a stupid bunch of birds shitting on your car. After this day, why be surprised?! She put the hose back in its holster on the concrete wall of the washing stall and returned to her now, almost, poop free Camry. Good enough for right now, funny how they call a group of crows a murder, I would murder them if they ever shit on my car again!

  She was almost able to regain some semblance of a peaceful mood when it rang through her head again, making her grimace with a cold, shadowy wave of dread, "come and save us".

  Chapter two

  From her starting point in the north Seattle area it was about a two hour or so drive over the mountains to Yakima. From there she would follow Highway 12 for about thirteen more miles until her exit, and from there she would follow the dusty back roads for probably another twenty miles or so until she made the turn off onto the old dirt road that lead another eight miles up to the entrance of Bear Creek Ranch. Putting her there sometime after 1:00am, much later than she obviously wanted to be showing up. She was sure that despite the rough night, the children would be fast asleep way before then, but she was going to be there when they woke, up so it was all worth the trip.

  As she drove into the blackness of the night toward the Cascade Mountains she found herself pondering, as she typically did most days, how in the hell she ever ended up with Charlie. These days, she could not honestly think of one single redeeming quality he could bring to a relationship. Not only did she date the bastard for way too long, she actually married the asshole and had two kids with him. The children were the one and only good thing to come from their time together. She met him at age twenty and they dated off and on again for a few years before Charlene got pregnant with Alyssa. Her daughter was born two months after she turned twenty-four, and Charlie and she were married shortly thereafter. Then a couple years later, her beautiful baby boy, Bradley came into the world.

  Charlene could still remember the feeling she had when each of her children were born. Before, her life was mostly just about hanging out and partying, Charlie and she would spend nearly every weekend drinking bottle after bottle of Whiskey while snorting line after line of cocaine and staying up all night raging and screwing until they either ran out of coke of they just crashed in each other’s sweaty arms.

  She didn't regret those days one bit, she was young and had a fucking blast.

  Wh
en Alyssa came, however, she felt like she had a real purpose beyond just having a good time. She had a human life to care for and she was damn well going to do the best she could. Not that she didn't still party once in a while if Grandma Carla agreed to baby sit, which she always did. She still had her fun with her husband and their friends when she could but she made being a mom priority number one.

  Then, when Bradley was born, she doubled down and made focusing on providing for her children the one and only priority. She was a little older by then and she knew that Charlie was not to be counted on to keep the house in order. It was still a few years before the relationship completely imploded but Charlene could see what was on the horizon.

  Then as predicted, they ended up separating when Bradley was a few years old only to get back together a year later. But the reunion was short lived, they finalized their divorce when Bradley was six, three years ago give or take a few months.

  It sickened her to think that she spent twelve whole years of her life going back and forth with Charlie, she didn't know whether to chock it up to immaturity or wishful thinking. But if the end result of twelve years wasted on some cocky ass-hat was two of the most wonderful human beings on Earth as her children then she guessed it was all worth it. Her babies were the one and only thing that truly mattered to Charlene in this whole chaotic world. Every single struggle of raising them more or less alone, every venomous verbal sling she took from Charlie, every single late night working extra hours until she just wanted to break down and cry, it was all worth it. Just to be able to look into those two little angels’ pure, innocent eyes and feel them in her arms made everything worth it. Even this long, stupid drive over the Cascade Mountains at nearly midnight was worth it.

  She smiled as she took Interstate 90 up over Snoqualmie Pass thinking how, in spite of all Charlie's bullshit, she was truly lucky in the end because no matter hard it was living on the same planet as him, at least she had Alyssa and Bradley.