Toxic

by A. C. Bextor

  “’Mom’ is that what you call her, son? ‘cause I call her ‘whore’. She ruined me. She ruined us. We were a fuckin’ family until she couldn’t find the will to say ‘no’ to anything. She was always weak.”

  Clenching my fists at my sides, I respond with the same vehemence tone that he delivered to me. “No, you’ve ruined her. All by yourself, dad, you make her less of a person. Now where the fuck is she? I don’t have time for this.”

  “You are as blind as you are stupid, aren’t you?”

  He moves to the side and behind him I see her. She’s laying on the floor at his feet and blood is draining from her body. She’s so still and I can’t see if she’s breathing. I think back to how many times she didn’t fight back to avoid spurring more of his anger, but this is different – this feels wrong.

  I feel Hem at my back, walking closer to me and I hear him snap his holster to release the gun he’s carrying under his cut. My spine tingles and my body starts to ache.

  My dad finally killed my mom. “What have you done?”

  My dad doesn’t move his eyes from me as I take a step towards my mom. I see, even in his drunken state, how quickly he moves, but before I can gain my footing he’s got his own gun drawn and it’s pointed directly at me. Close range, less than three feet away. I’ve no way to escape.

  “Shame, step back, brother. I’ve got him.”

  I lift my hands in surrender knowing Hem’s behind me and Dad’s in front of me. I’m cemented between two weapons with no way out.

  “Neil, sit down.”

  Hands still in the air, I make my way to the table to sit before starting my plea. “Dad, just wait a second and think about what you’re doing.”

  Hem is motionless behind me, I’m trusting him enough to know not to just fire his gun while I’m so close to my dad’s.

  “Neil, fuckin’ sit the hell down. Let’s talk.”

  The gun shakes in his hand as his eyes dart from Hem and I, back and forth, as he blinks rapidly, trying to clear his eyes from moisture. My father rarely showed any emotion as I grew up, so the sadness I’m seeing on his face now doesn’t look familiar.

  “Dad, you wanna shoot me, then shoot me.”

  Hem shifts behind me, grunting angrily at my statement. I don’t know what my dad is thinking, his face showing no emotion other than the deep rooted sadness, but I hold no pity for him.

  “I did love you … once. Life got hard. Bills to pay, wife to make happy, and a son that needed things that other fathers could afford – I never could. I tried. I swear I tried.”

  Feeling my anger start to boil within, I take a deep breath and close my eyes. My own tears fall, but not for my mother or my father. I feel the loss of my childhood at the hands of this monster.

  Slamming my hands on the table in front of me, it sways from my force. “You used me! You fuckin’ beat me, starved me, and used me for your own pleasure. You let me suffer and did nothing to change it!” My voice bounces off the walls, as tension ascends on us all.

  Another brief look of remorse escapes him, but then my father’s face gets hard. This is the look I remember, right before he took his hands to me. Hem senses the room envelop with the hate and tragedy of my youth and cocks the weapon in his hand. My dad moves his aim to Hem and that’s when I jump up enough to reach behind me. No fuckin’ way is he taking Hem from me.

  Grabbing for my gun, I take aim and fire. My body slams to the back of the chair as I watch my dad fall to the ground instantly. One direct hit to his head and he’s gone, for good. He’s never coming back to hurt me again.

  Slowly I stand up and walk to my mom, kneeling down to feel her neck to check for a pulse. My hands touch her still warm skin and as I search for it, I know she’s already dead. My mom is dead. She’s lying beside the monster who killed her.

  Standing up from her, I don’t chance another look. I walk past Hem to the fresh air and wait for the police. Even as cold as it is outside, I don’t feel anything … but guilt. I stopped for a few drinks while she was being beaten to death. I could’ve saved her, I know I could have.

  “I should’ve gotten here sooner.” I don’t think anyone, but God, can hear me as I say this. “Mom, I’m sorry. I know you hate me, fuck I hate you too, but if you needed me tonight and that’s why dad came for me - I’m so sorry.”

  I hear Hem walking behind me, stopping at the open door. “This isn’t your fault, brother.”

  I hear his words, but they have no meaning. I am void of emotions to anything outside that motel room.

  This marks a life change for me. I’ve lived my whole life in fear. The fear of loving someone and risking the pain they can cause. The fear of someone I love being hurt and left to suffer in my absence.

  My mom wasn’t always fucked up. Right now, here on this sidewalk, as the sirens blare towards us, I swear to myself in almost silence. “No one will ever hurt what’s mine again.”

  And I mean that.

  ~~~~~

  After Hem and I dealt with the police and were given a pardon in what sure as fuck was labeled as self-defense, Doc was insistent that I wasn’t alright. For a few hours I thought he was going to lock me up, but he knew how my mind worked. I needed to feel comfort not restrain.

  Doc drove Hem and I to Lynda’s that night. She was waiting for us when we arrived and she had been crying. He had already told her everything.

  ~~~~~

  “Oh, Shame, honey I’m so sorry.” She rushes to me in her robe and slippers. It doesn’t take her long to wrap her body around mine before I even get to the entrance of the house.

  Warren is standing at his front door, arms crossed at his chest wearing a scowl that I’m sure is meant for all the men here. Doc, Hem, and I head towards that door and he moves, only because he knows if he doesn’t my towering frame will cut his suit frame to the death and I won’t blink.

  “The police said that it was self-defense, honey. There was nothing you could have done.” She’s wiping her own tears that are falling for me. I’ve yet to shed a single one.

  Not looking at anyone in the room, I put all the blame on myself. “No, I could’ve done something for her. I know I could’ve, but I didn’t.”

  Warren pipes in with a full on sarcastic and baiting remark that he thinks I’m going to respond to. “Probably. Maybe you ‘could’ve thought about that when you left her in Florida.”

  I don’t have to respond, though. I grab Lynda and hold her tight to my chest as Hem marches into Warren throwing his back against the wall. “Not another word, motherfucker. Not. One. More. Word.”

  Lynda sobs in my chest so I tighten my hold on her.

  Hem drops Warren at the sounds of his mother’s sadness, and before I can register what’s happened, Doc has come to Lynda turning her from me to him without hesitation. He’s cradling her entire body, swaying her back and forth like a husband would console his wife after she received devastating news.

  Warren picks up the scotch carafe off the kitchen bar and throws it against the fireplace in curses. Then storms out the front door, slamming it in his wake.

  All colors of fucked up live here, too.

  “Mama, ignore him. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make it worse on anyone.”

  Doc kisses Lynda’s hair and is talking so quiet in her ear that Hem and I can’t hear any of it, but we exchange puzzled glances.

  What the fuck?

  As I’m coming around, back to my own grief and anger that I feel inside, I am jerked back by my belt loop and I’m met with two sets of eyes. One set green, the other set dark brown.

  I actually smile because I’ve just had a flashback of our first meeting. Jesus, its monster one and monster two all over again to stir up my aggravation during an uncertain time.

  Immediately, Sadey flocks to Hem in question of what’s happened and why Lynda is crying in Doc’s arms. He’s staring down at her waiting for her to talk, but she takes in the room, including the shattered glass and stained smell of liquor, and says noth
ing. She just pauses next to him - searching for his comfort.

  Mace is straining her neck to look up to me. Her eyes are full of tears, but she doesn’t stop staring with sadness fastened on her face. “I heard.”

  I bend to her, looking into those glossy eyes. “What did you hear, sweetheart?”

  “I heard what happened.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.” She hesitates, waiting for my reaction, but I really don’t have one so she mutters. “I’m sorry.”

  My sweetest friend is ten years old, calm and collected, and she’s sorry. My mind flashes back to that hotel room and my gut turns. The words I muttered to God are replaying in my head on repeat as they echo throughout my body.

  That promise is renewed. I stand from Mace and look around this room to all these people I love - one by one. As I do this, all eyes, even Lynda, who has removed her face from Doc’s chest, look back at me in concern.

  I make the promise to myself again, stating it softly for nobody, but me, to hear. “No one will ever hurt what’s mine again.”

  Just as I’m about to turn around and walk out the front door, I hear a small voice behind me say loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. “I know.”

  Mace.

  ~~~~~

  That little girl believed me. She believed I could keep her safe forever just by making some outlandish verbal promise. Since I’ve been in her life, I’ve done nothing but add danger and heartache to it. If she marries me today, that’s all she will be promised going forward and that thought is what continues to haunt me.

  I’m pulled from my heartache as the phone in my jacket goes off again. I pull it out and let out a sigh of relief; it’s not Mace.

  “What’s up?”

  “What’s up? Fucker, its past noon and Honor and I are at the club getting ready. You. Are. Not. So ‘what’s up’ is that Hem is starting to ask questions, Mace is clueless, and I’m trying to run interference so that your lack of tellin’ time doesn’t light a damn bomb up in here and we’ll have a wedding that’s still on.”

  Jesus, he needs to get laid. “Wow, you nervous about somethin’, Gunner?”

  “Fuck yeah I’m nervous ‘about something’, you asshole. Are you kiddin’ me, man? Hem will shoot me if I don’t get your ass there on time. I’m headed to a church for fuck’s sake and I’m guessing Hem wouldn’t hesitate to kick my ass for your late arrival, but not before offering Father Marcus a bowl of popcorn to watch the show.”

  I smile into the phone. Gunner has always dodged both Hem and I during our fits of anger. We’ve never touched the little shit and we wouldn’t without reason, but his ‘poor me’ routine has me wanting to laugh.

  “Bitch, I’m on my way. I won’t be late. Give me an hour, ninety minutes tops.”

  I hear him shrieking, grown ass man that he is, before I hang up on him. He won’t call back, he knows when I tell him something I mean it.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Human relationships always help us to carry on because they always presuppose further developments, a future - and also because we live as if our only task was precisely to have relationships with other people.”

  -Albert Camus

  Enough, Shame, pull yourself together.

  I thought I could expel these demons if I visited them today, but it’s not helping. At this point, if I didn’t truly believe Hem would have my ass, I would hop back on my bike and ride as far away as I could get. It’s not a smart plan, but it’s the only one I have running through my fucked up head.

  I love her, but I’m hurting her. She will never know peace and security with me. At any time, the same thing that happened to Hem and his disaster with Warren could happen to me. We all have ghosts from our past, and those I’ve left in the wake of my misdeeds will eventually find me.

  Running drugs for my parents all those years have left me a marked man. My dad never ran a clean and honest business. He supplied blow and meth to some fucked up people. When deals went bad, it wasn’t my father’s face they remembered, it was mine.

  At this point, I’m unsure I could handle a near Mace loss again. She’s my girl, the only solid person in my life who brings into it the serenity I need. Imagining myself with club whores or sharing women again makes me physically sick.

  She was young and beautiful until I claimed her. She would have avoided me forever if I hadn’t pushed her into being mine.

  ~~~~~

  This place is littered with kids. Jesus Christ, I hate picking up the girls from school. Every snot nose dumbass is walking around here trying to look cool, but damn if they don’t look like a bunch of after school special rejects. This place is a fuckin’ zoo, and the animals have escaped their cages.

  When Lynda calls me and asks a favor, any favor, then I’m doing it. Today, the favor was getting the girls because she’s unable to leave the house. She’s unable because she’s had too much to drink and masked it by sayin’ she was getting things ready at the lake for Mace’s twelfth birthday party. Usually the girls ride the bus home, but it takes for-fuckin’-ever just to get them there with the route they take, so I agreed to pick them up from the school to avoid that.

  The little shithead is twelve. That makes me … fuck it, men don’t age.

  My instructions are to pick them up, take them to dinner so they’ve been fed, then meet everyone back at the house for the small gathering at the lake afterward.

  Sitting in my truck, flippin’ through the radio stations, I catch a glimpse of Sadey as she comes waltzing out. Her auburn hair is pulled tight into a high ponytail, which ages her by five years, and a small green skirt, that’s too fuckin’ short, paired with a small button up shirt.

  After my mood has been doused because of Sadey’s school attire, I’m dealt another shock and this one pisses me off to the point I’m about to unleash the fury on someone’s ass.

  Mace comes waltzing out of the school door next, and it’s not the clothes she’s wearin’ that’s pissin’ me off. It’s the fuckin’ boy she’s wearing that’s making me see red.

  Fuck. This. Shit.

  I hop out of the truck and make my way to them. All the kids are casually talking and laughing under a tree in the schoolyard. It seems innocent enough, so maybe I should cool it. Sadey is spinning her arm around the tree, singing some shit song that I’ve heard before, but can’t place where, and Mace is giggling like the twelve year old she is, at whatever this prick just whispered into her ear. He’s older, no way is this kid in the sixth grade.

  I’m aware that I’m probably being overly protective, and it’s most likely I’m being ridiculous, but I just don’t give a fuck.

  “Sadey, go to the truck.” She’s startled at my tone, but without another word she does what I’ve just told her. She walks to my truck and I see her send Mace a scare glare before closing the door to the back cab.

  Mr. New Prick is about to meet me, and introductions will be quick and to the point. “What the fuck you doin’?”

  “Shame? What are you…” Mace is surprised at my reaction? She shouldn’t be, I’m not.

  Slowly, I get near this ass, who is stupid enough not to remove his arm from Mace’s shoulder. Gently, I lean in close to him and move my hand up so I can remove his arm for him, but before I get the chance he sees my intentions and does it for me.

  Lucky son of a bitch.

  “What’s wrong with you? Oh my God! Why are you acting like this?” She’s exasperated - good. I like her look of exasperation a hell of a lot more than watching her look at him like he’s the only person in the yard.

  “What are you doin’ here, sweetheart? What you’re not doing is walking your ass to the truck like you’re supposed to, but instead dealing me a mouth full of sass that I shouldn’t have to listen to.”

  “We were just walking out of class and … wait, where’s mom? She’s supposed to pick us up, not you.” She snarls those last two words, pissing me off even more with her lack of respect.

  Even though I’m l
ivid at her soon-to-be teenage tone, I need to tread carefully here. Her mother is home clinging to a bottle of vodka and it’s her birthday. I don’t aim to ruin it for her, but hell if she’s not boiling my blood.

  “She’s home. Hem is with her and they’re getting things done around the house, now let’s fuckin’ go.”

  “Not yet. He has to give me something.”

  Oh the fuck he does not.

  “Who is ‘he’, Mace?” I don’t look at her when I ask, but instead I’m letting my eyes penetrate into his as I talk.

  “This is Michael. Seriously, what’s wrong with you? You’re acting crazy, Shame.”

  “Get in the truck, Mace. Right now. If I tell you again, your ass will regret it. So, take yourself To … The ... Truck.”

  With a signature Sadey move, she swings her tiny arms around her face, trying to make a point with dramatics. “You are mortifying me. Shame, please stop.”

  “Nope. Truck, Mace Cash. It’s runnin’, and so is the time that’s about to run out if you don’t start listenin’.”

  Mace throws herself away from her new ‘friend’, and after sending me another glare of hatred, walks past me to the truck. I’m so pissed at this little pecker head. He can clearly see she’s young. He’s going to get a quick warning and that’s it.

  Once she’s gone, and I’m left alone with creeper, I start my tirade. “Michael, is it? That’s your name?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jesus, he can’t say the word ‘yes’ or ‘sir’, even when he sees I’m seething in his direction. His eyes are defiant and I can tell the punk is getting ready to make his presence seen. He’s got Mace believing he’s some Wally Cleaver type. Nope, this is Eddy Haskell three times over.

  “How old are you?”

  He sneers back at me completely unafraid. “How old are you?”

  Grabbing his shirt, I swing his back to the tree and hold him tightly to it. His feet are dangling near the ground and his face is changing color. Red is a good color on him. There is no fear coming through his eyes, though, he looks to the truck to see if Mace is watching. She can’t see him from here, just me.