by Angie Morel
“But I think, you know, that this should be it. No more people in our group.” I could tell Rolo slid a glance my way. Yeah, he’d heard those words come out of my mouth before. “Just you, me, D, Snick, and Cory and Claire. No more.” I took a breath and then added quickly, before he had a chance to say anything, “Alright, let’s go talk to them.”
He stared at me for a few more ticks of the clock. Then he nodded and turned, looking out the window again. “You go, I’ll keep watch.”
I began the journey towards the basement stairs. My eyes travelled around, trying to look at the details of the rooms as I walked through them. There was so much to see, so many cool and creative textures and room styles, and I hadn’t even seen a good portion of the house yet. Hard to believe there were people who actually lived like this. Well, the hard to believe part came in thinking that I’d ever be inside this type of home.
The rooms I’d seen so far had exposed wood—ceilings, walls, floors, sometimes all three. There hadn’t been a flat ceiling yet, with the exception of the basement. They all peaked, some with dark wood rafters and white wood slats, or beadboard, on the angled part, some with the wood slats painted navy blue or gray on the walls with the ceiling and floors gleaming with dark wood. The great room was huge. It had a massive stone fireplace and soaring ceilings with exposed beams. Gathered around the fireplace was large, comfortable looking leather furniture bearing soft pillows and fuzzy blankets draped over the arms of most.
The stairs that led to the basement (or more appropriately—the arcade / game room / gym / theater / bar area of the house) were to the side of the great room. The wide, carpeted steps curved before spilling out into a sitting area that surrounded a massive T.V. To the right of that, through an arched opening, was the game room, where I observed a heated ping pong match taking place between Snick and Cory. Cory won.
After Snick got done with his good-natured grumbling, I motioned him over.
“I’m going to ask if we can stay here, are you on board with that?” I wanted to run it by him and D even though I already knew what their answers would be.
“Oh My God yes!” was his enthusiastic (and expected) reply. Ditto for D.
Now I just had to ask the twins if they’d have us.
Chapter 15
It was a definite yes.
Claire followed that up with something about how we were all like peas and carrots, whatever that meant. There was no hiding the look of relief on their faces (and ours as well) after the decision was made. On top of the fact that they were starved for company, I think they simply wanted to feel normal again. Hard to do that isolated in a rural area with only your sibling for company.
I was certainly relieved when they accepted. After what we’d been through the past couple of months, being able to stay here felt like a gift. A much needed gift. It made me nervous though. Gifts in the form of security and happiness and comfort were fabrications in my world. I knew that all too well. They were a pretty box wrapped up to disguise ugly things inside.
One time in particular I had opened a box supposedly filled with those things, eager to believe all the prettiness and endless curling ribbons. What popped out of the box instead was reality. Reality wasn’t pretty; it was dark and ugly and packed a hell of a punch.
The lesson I learned?
Life isn’t about catching breaks, it’s about trying to break you, and after it broke you, it sucked the marrow from your bones. It’s what a person did with those lessons that mattered. Either you let life leave you weak and brittle—or you fought back. After being duped into believing the biggest gift of all was possible, I resolved to never be fooled again, and began filling my semi-brittle bones with titanium.
It was during a rather bad drug period of my mom’s when that beautiful box had been presented to me. And for a brief moment, I actually felt hope blossom in my soul, thinking there was really a chance for me and Mary to have a shot at a normal life. It all started after Mary was born.
After the donated cab ride home from the hospital (sticky seats and bouquet of stale smoke, vomit, and body odor generously included) I’d started thinking about what to do with Mary once school started in the fall. Arriving in the apartment, my mom—twitchy, pale and grain alcohol driven—promptly handed baby and responsibility over to me, which quite frankly, was a huge relief to both of us. Stocking up on formula and diapers, I plowed through the rough how-to-care-for-an-infant waters while my mom cradled and rocked a whiskey bottle, snuffing out the tiny flicker of hope inside me that having a baby would miraculously change her into a decent and nurturing person. So that being that, a plan was needed, and fortunately Mary was born in June, so I had a few weeks to figure it out.
I was eleven that summer and had no qualms taking to the streets, perusing the surrounding area with Mary securely buckled in the donated carrier, the handle hooked through my tough little arm as I checked on possible daycare locations within walking distance. The third one I visited seemed perfect. Spying on them for a couple of days, I observed the honest care and joy given to the children by the adults working there.
While I’d been lurking outside on the second day, peering in through the happily decorated glass that faced the street, both Mary and I sweaty and cranky from the stifling heat, a woman opened the secured door, asking if I needed help. Did I ever, but I mumbled something about waiting for the bus and started to walk away, unprepared for what I really needed to say. Before I’d taken three steps, the woman said something else. Wait, why don’t you and the baby come inside and out of the heat for a bit?
That was the first time I’d met Arlene Missleman, the head of Healthy Minds Happy Hearts Daycare and Pre-school. She was the founder and manager of four of these facilities, all in the downtown area. They were government funded, expanded learning centers for infants to pre-school aged children from poverty-stricken homes. The program was supposedly designed to get children more prepared for school, but I thought its real purpose was to give kids from bad homes a safe environment to be at, for at least part of the day.
Weaving some tale about my mom being too sick to look for daycare (which was completely accurate), I told the woman that the task was left to me and asked what needed to be done to enroll my sister there. Arlene Missleman—or Mrs Miss as everyone called her—was no dummy, she knew what was going on and made it easy for me. She had been kind and genuine, talking and listening to me like I was important, like I mattered in this world, not like some silly eleven-year-old that needed to let “the grown-ups” handle matters like this. She allowed me to enroll Mary, turning a blind eye to the fact that the blocky printing and looping signature (I assured her that I’d taken the paperwork home and had my mom fill it out and sign it) was suspiciously childlike in nature.
After a few months I found myself opening up to Mrs. Miss, which in itself was incredible considering my lack of trust issues with adults. She had a gentle way of pulling information, of getting me to reveal more and more without even realizing it. After almost a year she knew a great deal about my (then crack-addicted) mom, my home environment (particularly after a surprise visit where she witnessed my mom digging in the carpet to find where the “worms” lived), and me, including my dream to find a safe place for Mary.
Then Mrs. Miss surprised me one day, said that I should call her Arleen, and said that she had a plan. How would I like it if she were able to get both Mary and me out of our situation? She’d already talked to her husband and children, and she’d even talked to a lawyer. She thought they would be able to start on the process of petitioning to remove us from our unsafe environment and into Arleen’s home with her family. They would need to be a foster family first, and then they hoped to able to adopt us, if all went accordingly. It might take a few of months, she said, but they were ready to get the ball rolling if this was something I’d want.
My throat closed and I couldn’t speak at first. I was stunned that Arlene cared enough to help us like this. Finally I found my voice, blinkin
g back tears. Yes, I told her. A thousand times yes. Arleen stepped in close and hugged me tight. After my initial shock, I moved my stiff arms up and bent them at the elbows, placing my hands on her back. It was my first hug from an adult, and I remember thinking how soft her blouse felt beneath my palms.
One week later, on their way to a church function, Arlene Missleman and two of her four children were killed by a drunk driver. Life did indeed know when to kick you in the teeth…it was when you were a fool—smiling and blind with hope. It also made me ignore the do-gooders. They’d pop up every now and again. I’d yeah-yeah them, and then go about my way. I knew. At the end of the day, there was no one to count on but me.
“So, what do you guys think happened?” Cory asked the following afternoon. We were lounging around the great room after we’d consumed, with glazed eyes and grabbing hands, a special feast of turkey, green beans, and mashed potatoes, all of which had been prepared by Claire. The feast was to celebrate our staying on at the homestead, as the twins called it. D told Claire after the meal, as he patted his rounded stomach, that he thought he loved her.
“Everyone just like, died, right?” Cory looked around the room.
“Yeah, pretty much instantaneously,” Snick nodded. “Except for older kids, maybe even people in their early twenties. Something happened to them. It’s like they’re brain damaged, and pissed about it. And now all they want to do is kill us.”
“And there’s not many of us. And we’re all younger. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone normal that’s older than me, or if they are, it’s not by much,” I supplied. “And the bangers got to a lot of the survivors, you know, in the confusion. We saw a lot of kids get killed by them in the first few days.”
“Bangers?” Claire tossed me a confused look.
“That’s what we ended up calling them, at first. I guess it stuck. They happened to be the first wacked out ones that we saw in our neighborhood—well D, Rolo, and me, at least. Most of the older kids where we lived were in gangs.” I explained.
Claire still looked confused.
I elaborated. “Except for Snick, we come from what you’d call the projects.”
Claire blinked at me, shaking her head.
“You know, bad neighborhoods…low income housing…everybody lives on welfare…” I paused after each description, waiting for the light bulb to click on inside Claire’s head. Her puzzled expression remained in place. Christ, was she really this sheltered?
“I think she wants to know what the relation is between gangs and the word bangers. Gangbangers are kids in gangs, called bangers for short.” Rolo said, transferring his attention from me to Claire.
Claire confused look gave way to one of enlightenment.
“Oh! I didn’t know they were called gangbangers! Bangers, okay, that makes sense now. The only thing I could think of when you said bangers, was bangers and mash.”
Now it was our turn to wear a blank look. Except Snick, he had a hand over his mouth, trying to contain laughter.
Claire looked around at us. “Bangers, you know…sausages?”
“Wait, bangers are sausages?” D was looking at Claire like the world no longer made sense.
Sheepishly I continued, ignoring D. “Sorry, I thought that you…never mind. Anyway, so we started calling them bangers just to give them a name. They don’t seem to be able to think fully, like they used to. My brother didn’t even recognize me. Rolo’s didn’t either.”
“So what happened? You were able to get away?” Cory looked between the two of us.
“Yeah,” Rolo supplied immediately, relieving me of the need to elaborate on the tragic circumstances regarding my brother. “But the bangers, there’s a whole lot more of them than us. And alone they’re not a big deal, but a bunch of ‘em together is a big fuckin’ problem.”
“I wonder if the storm had anything to do with it,” Snick interjected. “That was pretty intense. It was strange though—no rain. Maybe there was some sort of electromagnetic charge it produced, affecting everyone except a few. And we--”
“I think God hit the reset button,” D said, staring straight ahead.
It was odd to see such a serious expression on his face. We were quiet as we waited for him to continue. “I think God got tired of all the wars and stuff. I think He got tired of us hating each other and ruining our planet.” He paused, looking down at the floor. “Only something went wrong, ‘cause I think He meant for all of us to die.” His eyes continued to study the floor. “That’s what I think anyway.”
Talk dwindled after that, until nothing but silence filled the room.
A heavy, obvious silence.
How life was before, dead family members and friends, dreams and plans that would never be possible now. The things we lost had taken up residence in our thoughts, pushing everything else out. Unable to bear the mirrored looks of sorrow on our faces, we stared intently at the walls, the floor, off in the distance—anywhere but at each other.
Until Claire suggested a cleansing of a sort—straight from the pages of her mother’s psychology book. We were to talk about the elephant in the room. Talk about who and what we missed.
We looked at Claire with skepticism.
“I’m sure it will work, really.” Claire said, nodding her head as she looked around the room.
“Okaaaaay. So who should start? You?” Snick asked.
“Sure, I’ll start.” Sitting back and adjusting herself properly, Claire began. “I miss my mom and dad.” She cleared her throat, “My dad wasn’t here a lot, but when he was he loved to teach Cory and me about new things. It was always wacky stuff, things you’d never think you’d want to know. Like one time it was on the fine art of how to properly pluck a chicken. Another time it was target practice with a bow and arrow. Oh, and one time he hired a clown to come to our house and teach us how to make balloon animals.” She grinned and nodded. “I know, right? Anyway, just fun stuff. And my mom was always very involved with our schooling. She actually wanted to home school us but my dad said no, Thank God. He wanted us to be a part of the normal school routine, be able to do regular kid stuff. Cory and I both skipped a grade, school is…was…very easy for us.” She shrugged, not bragging, just stating a fact. “She was on a ton of committees around town and had us volunteer for things. You know, to make sure we understood the needs of others. She came from old money, so she’d been doing charities and stuff like that her whole life. You could say she wanted us to be well-rounded,” she paused. “And I miss my junior cheerleading team. We went through weeks of practice and only got to cheer at one football game. I loved it, though. I loved the outfit, too. It was red and white with black trim and had swords that were crossed over a shield on the front.” She looked around. “We were the Lady Knights. Plus I had five years of gymnastics behind me, so I was the one doing back flips and stuff.” She sighed and looked around. Then she perked up and smiled. “See? I feel better. Like, lighter or something. Okay, who’s next?”
Shrinking into the chair, I knew I had to get out of there. It would not make me feel better to “cleanse” myself by talking about the people (Mary) and things (only Mary) I missed. It was too soon. I was trying to think of an excuse to leave when D spoke.
“I miss my mama and my Aunt Peaches. And my sisters. And my Uncle Floyd, he was my mama’s younger brother. He made the best ribs, oh man, they was goooood.” He closed his eyes and smacked his lips together. “And he was funny. He’d tell us jokes with bad words in ‘em and my mama would say ‘Floyd, you best not be sayin’ bad words in front of my babies’ and he could make his eyes really big and he had a funny laugh.” D made his eyes big, looking around the room. Claire laughed. Then his face fell to serious again, “And I miss my mama’s pancakes, she’d smoosh berries into ‘em to make smiley faces and stuff. She always kissed me right in the middle of my forehead, told me to be a good boy, every day before I left for school.” He stood and moved over to the fireplace, looking around to see who was going next.
&nb
sp; Judging by his face he didn’t look “cleansed”. To me he looked sad. It was then that I realized how much D had slimmed down. The constant walking and lack of home-cooked meals had been melting the baby fat away without me even noticing. “I’m done,” he said, looking around with a slight smile.
“I miss my orthodontist,” Cory said with an exaggerated sigh to lighten the mood. “How will I ever get my braces off now?” He smiled, showing us his cross to bear. We laughed, obligingly. “Oh, and I miss playing Lacrosse. My team was undefeated. My dad taught me to play, he liked ‘stick’ sports, you know, like hockey, La Crosse, baseball, even hurling. Now that’s a wild sport.” He paused a few seconds. “Mom was great, like my sister said. She had a wicked sense of humor, too. She taught me how to play poker. Okay, I’m done.”
Snick looked around at everyone. “I’ll go.” He cleared his throat. “Well, I was really close to my parents. They were older and tried for a long time to have kids, so when I finally came along they kind of spoiled me. We had money, but nothin’ like you guys,” he said to the twins, eyes wide and hands out to emphasize his point. “Anyway, I was always treated like an adult, you know. We had these deep discussions when I was young about life and expectations. There was none of the silly kid stuff that goes along with the Tooth Fairy, or Easter Bunny, and all that.” Then he glanced at D and sucked in a breath, a panicked expression coming over his face.
D cocked his head at Snick. He did it in an exaggerated manner, as only he could do.
“Sheesh, I know that. Dude, I’m twelve,” he said in exasperation. Snick released his breath. Then D said, “Hey, but…Santa’s real, right?” He wore such a concerned look that we all nodded emphatically when he scanned the room for confirmation. An awkward silence followed.