Rusty Knob

by Erica Chilson

  My head hitches backward as a peal of laughter spills from my lips. “Ain’t that the goddamned truth.” I snort a few times. “I think Francis is the anti-erection. I go soft just thinking about him. Fuck, my dick would stay hard thinking about Penny, and you know I ain’t feeling her. If I was hard and anybody touched me, I’d stay hard. It’s not a fag test. It’s a guy with a dick test. It just is.”

  “Yeah, when Jesse blew me, I wasn’t thinking about her. I was just hard. I didn’t even get off. She told everyone I did to save pride.” Jack shifts around uncomfortably. “So, say someone failed the fag test, what would they do?”

  “The basketball team?” I mull that over while I park in my reserved employee parking spot at the Circle K. In other words, I park next to the dumpsters. I can’t tell Jack what I really think, how Bren isn’t looking to out gay kids, but to find himself a trustworthy ‘friend’. Bren’s behavior is all an illusion. “All talk. No bite. They’re just looking for another victim to pester.”

  “Okay.” No longer looking green around the gills, Jack hops down from my truck. He flips the lid on the dumpster to contain the smell so it doesn’t permeate my interior.

  “But…” I snarl when I see some lazy fucker left the trash next to the bin instead of inside it. I flick the lid back open, toss the trash bags into the dumpster, and then shut the lid again. “Our fathers… our uncles… our grandfathers… It’s not their sons you should be worried about.”

  “Fourteen months and I’m out of here,” Jack threatens as he charges into the Circle K, ready to tackle the shit job we were given.

  Keep the Change

  Leaning over the counter, getting into my face, “I can’t believe you told Warren I was pregnant,” Penny chastises me. Her brows pinch together in the middle, like she’s trying her damnedest to get those fake tears to spring from her eyes but failing miserably.

  I know who Penny truly is. Flawed. Jealous. A manipulator. I can only tolerate her because I love her like a sister. I can’t go around punching everyone who annoys me, because my hand would be broken and all of Rusty Knob would be hospitalized. So, instead, I just accept it and move on.

  My last nerve snaps, and I pray Warren won’t execute me in my sleep. “This sucky, boring ass job that I hate so goddamned much, is going to put food in your kid’s gut.” I point at Penny’s rounded tummy. “Here you are, worried about a term paper that means jackshit since come June you’ll be married and living in Gillette Holler. You won’t even make it out of junior year, I suspect.”

  “Winnie the Po–”

  “No, you’re gonna listen, and listen good,” I warn, getting into Penny’s face like she was mine. “Since I turned twelve, I’ve been supporting my family of lowlifes, my brother included. I already put food in the mouths of my niece and nephew, my momma and sister, and your worthless baby-maker. I’m not gonna be around forever. I hoped the news that Warren was gonna be a daddy would light a fire under his ass to get a goddamned job and quit acting like our worthless daddy. I’m gonna live my own life, and I ain’t gonna be fathering your kids until the day I die.”

  Penny mimics a fish, eyes bulging and mouth gaping open. “I… I… I thought we were friends? I thought you loved me like a sister.”

  “I do.” I lean backward, wanting to end our conversation. “I graduate in a little over a year, lest you forget since you won’t be joining me. I want more for you than the life I’m living. But y’all are cut off after that, ‘cuz I’m gonna get my own life. It’s about time y’all fend for yourselves.”

  “I’m pregnant,” Penny sputters, aghast.

  “You ain’t dead,” I say flatly, hating how Penny is forcing me to speak like her. When passions arise, my roots show. “You got enough energy to spread your thighs for Warren still, and he’s got enough life in him to make children. You assholes can get jobs and support your kids. You need to do that instead of lying around on your asses in filth, while your kids raise themselves, waiting for me to put food in the fridge. Just like my daddy and momma and my sister.”

  Penny stomps across the floor toward the exit, nearly taking out a display of potato chips. “I ain’t like that!”

  I just roll my eyes. “I love you, Penny. I always will. But you were raised like that, same as Warren was, same as I was. But instead of hating it, you saw it as normal. You could break the cycle if you realized there was a better way of living. You’re a smart girl, but you got knocked up on purpose because your momma told you it was time to get out of her house and into mine. My house is hell, and it makes me sick to think you’ll be living there.”

  “I ain’t like that!” Penny shouts again. She jerks the front door open with force, proving being pregnant isn’t a disability. “I ain’t!”

  “Prove it!” I shout at the closing door. I narrow my eyes as Penny stomps across the parking lot toward Warren’s idling, piece of shit car.

  I know I’m going to regret our fight around two in the morning when I wake to a sawed-off to the forehead. Maybe Warren will pull the trigger this time and put me out of my misery.

  It’s Friday, which means it’s payday. Which means I’m going to want to shoot myself within minutes of getting home anyway.

  Carrying a crate of milk to the cooler, “Only fourteen months,” Jack tries to cheer me up, but it only makes me feel worse.

  Fourteen more months of working a dead-end job where I don’t get a penny of my wages. Fourteen more months of my family sinking their teeth into me. Fourteen more months before I go to college yet still remain in Rusty Knob, West Virginia.

  “I’ll miss ya, bro,” I say to Jack on his next pass through with another crate to stock the cooler. “I hope you find what you’re looking for wherever you end up.”

  “I will.” He flashes me a cheeky grin that transforms until it looks painful. “You can always come with me.”

  I shake my head sadly. “Nah. I’m a Gillette. Loyal. Blood comes first.”

  Words projecting like sharp weapons, “You’re a Gillette. Shouldn’t they put you first at some point? You weren’t born to funnel money into their chaos.”

  Words stinging me, I blow out a deep breath, and decide now is the perfect time to close out the register. I jump when a hand thumps down a Gatorade on the counter.

  “Anything else?” I ask, not bothering to look up while I press a few keys on the cash register. My cheeks flush bright red, knowing the customer had to have heard my fight with Penny and everything I said to Jack. I’m a quiet guy, so I’m a bit freaked.

  “No,” comes a cold voice. I shiver, eyes flicking up to meet the most violent stare I’ve ever encountered. I’m a big dude, the next to the biggest dude in all of Rusty Knob, with this guy being the biggest.

  “It’ll be $2.49, Kade,” I mutter, getting tongue-tied because Kaden Marx is murdering me with his feral stare. I want to mutter, “What’d I ever do to you?” like a pussy. I mean, I’m a nice guy. I’ve spent my life making sure nothing violent happens, and Kade is glaring at me like I kicked his puppy and then pissed in its wounds.

  A heavy palm slaps a ten on the counter, and then lifts the Gatorade. “Keep the change.”

  Confused, I mutter, “Thank yo–”

  “Don’t buy booze with it,” Kade cuts me off. “I don’t want your dad pissing my money down the toilet, or your mother breathing it into her lungs, or your sister shooting it into her veins, or your brother snorting it up his nose. If you don’t use it on yourself, then feed those dirty assholes who call you uncle.”

  The Gillette in me erupts. “Aren’t you those dirty assholes’ teacher?”

  “Yeah,” Kade grunts. He reaches over, grabs a bar of Ivory from the shelf, and then slaps another ten on the counter. “Keep the change. Keep the soap. Buy some detergent with what’s left. When Hayley and Hayden walk into my classroom come Monday, they better not burn my nose hairs off with the tang of drugs, booze, and shit and piss on their skin and clothing.”

  “What the?” I stammer, at a c
omplete and total loss as Kaden stalks out the front door. “What’d I ever do to you?” slips out, even though he can’t hear me.

  “I’m sorry?” Jack’s upward inflection makes the apology sound like a question.

  “What the fuck was that about?” I stare down at the bar of soap and the two tens, paying Jack no mind.

  “I’m gonna go finish up in the back. I’ll walk home tonight since you’ve yet to close out the register. I’ll see ya Monday at school.”

  “Yeah, bye.” I continue to stare at the money and soap, confusion and hurt warring in my emotions. “What the?” Snapping out of it, I remember it’s payday. I begin closing out the cash register while Jack locks up the front, and then disappears into the back of the store.

  Cash register closed out, the front locked up nice and tight, I tear open the envelope containing my pay. “Motherfucking payday,” I snarl. “I hate you!”

  I close my eyes, hoping against hope that I got my full pay this week. “Christ,” I whimper. Thirty-seven hours, and I only got paid for five. Not even enough to pay for a tank of gas. “Daddy, if I had the balls, I’d shoot you dead.”

  I press the itemized invoice on the counter, detailing the charges my father had amassed this week while I was at school. Daddy sneaks in here when I can’t stop him, and charges thirty packs of beer for himself and cartons of cigarettes for my momma to his seventeen-year-old son’s tab.

  My boss doesn’t stop him because they are buddies. I started working here when I was twelve, under the table because it was illegal, because someone had to pay my daddy’s tab when he was too goddamned worthless to do it himself. I work so my father can drink, which puts him in a foul mood, so it’s my fault he knocks my mother around, and then he pisses my hard-earned money down the toilet.

  Yeah, I could quit. I’ve been there and done that. My father beat the fuck out of me because he was sober, and I spent three nights in the hospital. I had to go back to work to pay my medical bills. Daddy threatened this would be an endless cycle unless I just went to work like a good son– a son who wasn’t in physical pain. Either I pay for Daddy’s beer, or I pay for more medical bills. My choice.

  Pull the Trigger

  As my truck rumbles over the ruts in the hard-packed dirt path, my eyeballs jiggle in my head and my nuts get pounded into the bench seat. Slowly simmering, my anger gets the best of me with every jarring movement.

  Sometimes I envy Warren for his ability to pick a target at random and release all of his pent-up fury. But mostly, I envy him because he can get lost inside Penny and forget the world.

  I refuse to hit back because the thought of anyone hurting as badly as I do makes me choke on misery. No matter how low of a lowlife they may be, no one deserves this existence. When I accidentally insult someone, it never leaves my thoughts until another fuck-up buries it.

  Gut churning, my tires hitting junk in the yard signals I’ve arrived home.

  I glare out the windshield with bitter hatred at the trash heap known as Gillette Holler, understanding why Daddy drinks like a fish, Momma smokes cigarettes by the carton, Warren snorts powder up his nose, and Willa has a needle plunging into her shrinking veins.

  To forget.

  To commit slow suicide.

  To be a coward.

  I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t do drugs. I won’t fight. I can’t fuck. All I can do is smile and keep on a-giving.

  A crooked shack greets me with light glowing from the cracks between the rotten boards acting as siding. The majority of Rusty Knob’s homes have painted siding, double-pane windows, insulation, sheetrock, and solid framing, with a waterproof roof over their heads. They also have a hardworking daddy and a good momma, with a couple of smart kids I go to school with. For the rest of us who were born to shit parents, there are portions of our home where animals can crawl in to lay down next to us while we sleep in our beds. Where I have to go outside, pluck a piece of junk from the yard, and then nail it over the hole while the rest of the family gets a broom after the coon curled up on one of our cots.

  It’s not a home. It’s a motherfucking dumpster.

  My eyes rove across the yard. My path is lit by the huge bonfire blazing in the center of the trash heap. The grass is so high it brushes my nuts when I walk to the front door. Somewhere buried deep within the mass of green are the prehistoric remains of seven push mowers and the chassis of a John Deere lawn tractor. My worthless family is so lazy, they will step over a mower with weeds choking it to death, instead of starting the bitch and clearing the land.

  Who am I kidding? They won’t mow the lawn because then we’d see the junk littering like a wave of misery across our land.

  The bonfire leaps a few feet, its flames licking at a plastic chair– Daddy’s favorite. A sick smile twists my lips as I watch it melt and then collapse into itself as fuel for the fire that spreads. I calculate how far it would have to grow for the flames to sweep to the shack.

  As fast as it started, it’s a pity the fire extinguishes when it meets a solid metal barrier– Daddy’s recycling pile. His cash accumulating interest, he likes to say when he’s drunk. When isn’t he drunk? He’s a dreamer. Always waiting for the price of metal to rise, and then he’s going to make the motherlode. I’ve watched the price of metal go up and down in my seventeen years, and that pile has neither moved nor grown, but it’s rusted to the point that it’s worthless just like Daddy.

  Daddy loved to sit in that green plastic chair he stole from the sanctimonious bitch down the Holler, where he’d stare at the fire and toss his spent soldiers into the recycle pile at his back. Irony, the fire ate his chair and his beer can barrier saved him from certain death.

  “Cora, ya fat hag! Get me a beer!” Daddy’s voice bellows from the smashed out front window. Momma isn’t fat but she is a hag, and she’s never not gotten that piece of shit his motherfucking beer.

  Momma’s only job in life is to sit in her rocking chair, guarding Daddy’s beer while smoking like a chimney. She won’t work. She hardly cooks. She sure as shit doesn’t clean, because you can’t polish a turd, she likes to say. She says her children are grown, so she’s done raising ‘em. She shouts at her grandkids while filling the house with the scent of cigarettes while leaving a pile of ash at her feet… and then she passes Daddy a beer from the never-ending supply I bought.

  From my seat in my truck, because my muscles refuse to move me to the house yet, I watch my father’s hand rear back, whipping my mother’s face to the side.

  Momma’s offense?

  Momma didn’t get Daddy a beer quick enough from the thirty pack resting right by his side. She had to get up and cross the room so he wouldn’t have to exercise his elbow by reaching for his own warm skunk piss.

  I don’t react after witnessing the act of violence since I was born. I stopped flinching a decade ago, learning how if I tried to step in, Momma got beat worse and I broke a few necessary bones.

  I don’t even feel bad when Daddy hits Momma anymore, because I wanna hit my momma too. I want to hit her for ever spreading her legs for that worthless asshole. I hate her for creating Warren, Willa, and me. I want to kill her for letting Daddy growl at us kids, strike us, and destroy anything we’ve ever tried to build. I hate her for pushing Willa out of the house when she was only fifteen because it was time to rear her own children, knowing Willa would either be abused or find herself back home with kids suckling at her teats.

  Momma didn’t want better for her only daughter. She wanted Willa to experience the same suffering she had. Because in this world I live in, if you want to rise up and find a better life than the one your parents provide, their ignorant pride gets bent. You get pounded in the face because your momma and daddy see it as a grave insult, as if you think what they gave you wasn’t good enough– they see it as if you’re judging them.

  “Ya think yer better than me, don’t cha, boy?” A meaty fist explodes against my face, dropping my ass to the floor. “Guess what? You ain’t shit, son.
You ain’t never gonna be shit ‘cuz yer a Gillette. Ya best come ta terms with that ta-day.”

  Every time I look at my sister– who Penny reminds me of time and time again with her quick wit and squashed potential – I blame my momma for ruining Willa. Willa is a shell, just like our momma. She won’t do shit. She won’t lift a finger to raise her children. She won’t even cook the food I bring home to warm their bellies. She hasn’t been right since her husband was locked up for beating her so badly that she was in the hospital for eight weeks. Momma blames Willa because Donny Kennedy was sent away for seven-to-twelve years for attempted murder, saying she brought it upon herself. My sister should have just laid back, spread her legs, and taken the hits by her husband’s friend that night like he ever so politely asked.

  Willa was nineteen years old.

  Daddy put Momma in the hospital for saying it was Willa’s fault, not that that will erase the words once they were spoken. When Daddy finds the gumption to defend his daughter, you know it was fucked up.

  I can’t do it anymore.

  I just can’t.

  My family is a disease.

  I don’t understand sitting around bitching about your shitty lot in life, complaining about how horrific your parents are, and then acting worse than they do. That’s what Warren and Willa do. They sit around and get high, saying how bad our parents treat them. How we went to bed more often with empty bellies than filled ones. Instead of getting a job and righting the wrongs, they sit there, snorting and shooting up the money that Hayden and Hayley need to survive, and they do it in front of the filthy, hungry kids.

  “Ya hungry, boy?” Daddy lifts his beer to his vicious lips, and when he pulls away he’s smiling– taunting me as he drinks his liquid sandwich while my empty belly growls. “Ya better git used to it until ya can feed yerself.”

  The victims became the worst victimizers.

  I don’t drink because it destroyed our lives, same as drugs and smokes. We didn’t have food in our bellies or clean clothes on our backs, but my parents had the funds to pollute our air with their smoke and piss beer down the toilet.