by Beau Johnson
But I’m having fun. Oh yes. Loads. Which brings us to you and how you fail to see things as you should.
Molly. Molly-Molly-Molly.
The way Rob treats you is not the way a person should be treated. Not someone such as you. You are a fine woman, strong, and opinionated. Your hair is long and your eyes are bright. But I know this is just for show. Parts of it anyway. I can respect that. I have to. Not because I have seen the medication your doctor has you on but because sometimes we all need a little alone time to let out the air.
It’s okay, I’m on your side.
And you never asked for help, correct, but I am a man who not only believes in averages but one who is compelled to do what he thinks is right whenever he can. This might run counter to what the world thinks of men like me but it is who I am regardless. Just because you did not give me a key and I had one made does not make me any less forthright than the next guy. I’m only looking out for you, ensuring you are as safe as can be. It’s why I friended you on Facebook and joined all the groups you like. I also “happened” upon your passwords, doing so from my computer late at night. You are quite the little saver I see, though you do still owe quite a bit on your student loan. This here, us getting to know one another, this is what eventually leads me to your underwear drawer and why I eventually try on all nineteen pairs. We have touched now, you and I, but not as I want, nor as I need. It’s why I find your dirty clothes bin and pull out the final two pairs. You are on them, in them, and then so am I. As I knew you would be, you are exquisite. It’s why Rob will never again touch you as he’d like, why you will never again wear nothing but turtlenecks for weeks.
You understand what it is I’m saying here? It’s importance?
I am not as stupid as I look, not when it comes to matters concerning the heart. Some are, sure, and this is the reason I took our Rob home to the old farm where my dearly departed parents eventually purchased old Mr. Kemper’s thresher. As is its purpose, the big machine eats, the time between sittings quite vast indeed. I want to say Rob understood this but the man seemed a little preoccupied there at the end. Some could wonder why.
It means you are safe now. Or safer than you were. I will continue to check in on you from time to time. I might even say hi. If I do, a word of caution. Do not ignore me, not as you have. Not after everything I’ve done. Give credit where credit is due. At least do that. It would also help for you to remember and believe in what makes this world go round.
If anything, I would have you do that.
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More Than They Could Know
To be fair, I think I have always been like this.
Cycling down, compressing, I watch as the arms and legs hanging outside the machine snap off like muted branches. Thick and bleeding, they fall to the concrete floor, no longer a part of what once made them whole. Occasionally—perhaps one in five—these appendages roll toward me, but most times they do not. Inert, they remain still about my feet, each piece a rearranged fragment of something which will never again be.
It is Sunday, pre-church, and before the morning rush.
Did I care that they made fun of me? Yes. More than they would ever know. Did I show it? Never, not once. I am good at things like this, at holding them in. I let them stew, boil. It’s how I’ve come to cook; how the man inside me rolls. In the mirror, naked, I repeat: I am Rage.
At seventeen I was hit by a car. Scars come, many, and to this day still I limp because of it. My right hand turns inward as well, up and toward my chest. It resembles a claw, but one which has lost the will to live. I’d like to say chicks dig this, but no, this has never been the case.
Mr. Gray, the manager at Mister Food, keeps me on staff even though corporate had suggested otherwise. I give the man credit for that. I truly do even though I have been told this more times than I care to count. Mr. Gray—he of the tall, the bald, and the very bad breath—shouldn’t have done what he did though, and only because of what it produced. Truth be told, he should of given me severance; just ensured I went away. He didn’t, however, and soon after is when I find out that Mr. Gray is no better than all the others talking behind my back. Mr. Gray never yells at me, nothing as vulgar as that. But he whispers along with the rest of them, and at times I have seen him laugh.
It is this which has caused me to do the things I’ve done.
Why I rage. Why I seethe. Why I formed big bad habits.
The final straw is the baler, and the day that Mr. Gray takes me aside. He tells me the machine is only meant to house cardboard and plastic, that only a bale of each could be made at a time. I say I understand this; that it hadn’t been me who’d mixed the two. It’s here that Mr. Gray chooses to call me a liar, and his voice, had it been raised? I can’t recall, not really. What I do see is my fellow employees and how they have stopped dead in their tracks, there to glare and stare. One of them had been Sara, a girl I had at one time wished to call my own. She would never fuck me though, and I have never held any delusions concerning that.
“And, Ronald, seriously, you need to be washing your uniform more than once a week.” I nod, take what has been given, and then watch as Mr. Gray begins to walk away. From the side I see him roll his eyes as he passes Patrick, Bill, and Mark. They smile in turn, the secret shared and understood. The rage comes forward then, leaping, but I smash it down, my wide and toothy grin fighting to contain that which no longer wanted to be contained. This is a skill, something I’d come to excel at, the fuel which has filled me these last few years.
It’s only later that the staff meeting at the end of the month goes and enters my mind.
They are always held on Sundays, before store opening, and out back where Mister Food keeps all of its excess stock. Mr. Gray rents folding chairs and everyone gets a seat. To the right, beside these seats, looms the baler. Industrial grade and painted brown, it possesses a mouth I had come to dream of: six feet long, three feet wide, and five feet deep. Plastic and cardboard, Mr. Gray had said, saying it as though I were someone new.
Producing rectangle kids, you fed the baler until you no longer could. Full, you pressed the button which activated the plunger, three thousand pounds of pressure then compacting recyclables the only way it could. Needless to say, I was far from wondering about cardboard and plastic as I spasmed into my hand. I was thinking about bodies; about stacking them high. Could it be done, I thought, and suddenly realized I had asked the question aloud.
“Mr. Gray?”
“What is it now, Ronald?”
“At the staff meeting, if it’s not too much trouble…I was wondering…would it be okay if I was in charge of refreshments?” Pausing, Mr. Gray finally swivels in his chair. He is elated, I see, just as I thought he’d be. All told, it’s shit like this that makes me want to heave. Fact is, it proves what I’d come to understand, that people like Mr. Gray don’t just call the kettle black, they fucking well paint it.
The dosage I drum up is enough, more than, and all but Florence has taken a glass. It doesn’t take much to persuade her, however, not once I put the full force of my limp on display. She takes the glass, sips, comments on how peachy it tastes. Thirty minutes later all thirty-seven employees lay prone before me. Where to begin, I think, and suddenly notice how hard it has become to breathe; how hard my heart is now knocking inside my chest. “I am Rage,” I say and take each of them in one at a time. I will be stacking you, I think, and then go on toward Mr. Gray. In time—stupid fucking hand—I get the big man up, rolling him up and over the baler’s top lip. Easier, I take the cashiers next, each of them half the weight of Mr. Gray. Eleven of them inside, I close the safety gate and then push the big green button on the side of the machine. With a start and then a screech the plunger descends, crushing bone and breath alike. They never wake, not one of them. They only bleed, forming a lake like the syrup we kept in aisle nine.
The buggie boys come next, followed by the ladies who ran Floral. Of them all, it’s Sheila the office girl who proves the mo
st difficult. Over three hundred pounds, she is more than I can lift. Using empty milk crates, I stack them like steps and create the leverage I believe I will need. In, she sinks halfway down, her face coming to rest next to George from Frozen Food. Amanda is beside them, her brain exposed and grey.
Finished, I look around at the empty chairs, at the skids full of overstock and beyond. I take in the blood that continues to seep from the bottom of the baler and the arms and legs that rest within. Should I leave them, I think, but realize I have been trained too well; that a job is not complete until you have cleaned up after yourself. Smiling, I make a bale using twine that will never again be white. It does not turn out as I hoped, not as rectangular, nor as solidly built.
From skin that runs in flaps to muscle that hangs and drips, I stand in front of the baler’s open door, squint into the chamber for all the faces I can still make out. There in the corner is Stacy and Beth, both of them covered in what remained of Stu. Below them I see Richard, the man finally making his way inside Peggy-Sue. And there at the bottom lay Mr. Gray, his bright eyes now dull, his nose beneath his mouth.
To reiterate: Did I care that they made fun of me? Yes.
More than they could know.
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I Remember
I remember holding you in my arms for the first time. How you turned your head and grasped my finger with yours. It’s how I fell in love.
You had blue eyes at first and eyelashes as long as your mother’s even though you weren’t an hour old. I remember feeding you, bathing you, and pretending to hurt myself because of how it made you laugh. All told, the very best parts of any parent’s day.
I remember walking you to school. Pre-school. Kindergarten. All the grades up to and including four. You are ferocious in your learning, hungry for everything that was new. I remember figure skating, Minx the cat, and all the times I carried you to bed. The teeth you lost and the smiles you gave; a heart which seemed to dance. All of it, every part: our lives as meant to be.
I remember the officers, their posture, and how they held their hats as they stand outside our door; that our prearranged meeting time for walking home alone had come and gone and the grace period you knew nothing about had come and gone as well. This is how it starts. How we knew something had gone wrong. Once he has been caught, I tried my best to burn holes into the back of what passes for his head. He never turns to meet me, not in all the years it takes.
I study him, dream of him, and become something less in the exchange, a version of myself I can’t help but begin to hate. Your mother tries with me, cries with me, but everything you were is bigger than the sun. I give her what she wants, but not what I believe she needs.
I fall further, deeper, the blackouts I create as feared as they are embraced. I want oblivion. I want clarity. Each and neither at the very same time. Only when I’m told he’s been granted early release am I able to put these things away. Not for me, but for you, because you were my child.
Free, I remember the day he is paroled and the day I follow him back to his father’s farm. He bolts when he sees me, recognition creating flight. I pass goats and cows and un-mucked stalls as my body becomes younger than it is, faster than it should be. Unlike him, this comes from memory. From days I longed to know.
I follow him up the silo, his face turned down toward mine. It’s exactly as I picture your face, there when your fear was at its worst. At the top I stop, step forward, my mind ablaze and set. He knows this, sees this, his mouth going on and on and on. I don’t think, only act, and ensure I end up on top. We fall, him screaming, my hold upon his body stronger than the stone atop your grave. It compresses when we hit, collapses, crushing breath and bone alike. Liquid splashes upwards, outwards. I feel it mix with mine.
I recall all of this, every bit, but the part I remember most is how I held you in my arms. How you turned your head and grasped my finger with yours.
It’s how I fell in love.
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The Place Before the Place
Wincing, you prepare, and as the car swerves hard onto the pavement, your back is jabbed by the pointy end of the tire iron which is wedged and leaning at an improbable angle. It’s not the first time this has happened. Cursing, you can only hope the driver will ensure it is the last.
In the dark you struggle to free your hands against the duct tape they have wrapped around the wrists you find behind your back. It never gives, not an inch, but still you believe the strength will come. Drenched, your hair falls into your eyes, lays matted to your forehead. It’s hot in here, a furnace, but you know the majority of the heat is more from you and the situation you have gotten yourself into; that this, the trunk, is no more than the place before the place.
You swallow, spit, your breathing unlike anything you have experienced before. Not from playing ball, from running, or even from sex. This is breathing scared. Or perhaps you’re hyperventilating and you just don’t know the difference. Either way, it was stupid what you did, skimming. Did you think they wouldn’t catch on? Better yet, did you have to up the stakes? In what world is an extra five grand a month considered chump change?
You shake your head, unable to answer your own questions. Instead you think of Luke, of how he will continue life without a father; that you will never get to teach him all the things never taught to you. You well up at this, there in the dark, and just once you wish you were able to remember the face of your own father; a glimpse, a flash, a smile. Next you envision Becka, she within your arms, and at one moment she is naked, in another she is not. It will be the end of us, you hear her proclaim, and deep down you have always known her to be right. The type of life you chose far from what your dreams had been. However, there can be no blame, not upon anyone who is not you. A man grown, choice becomes our own, each one dying and alive at the very same time, this very moment proving your entire point. You didn’t have to get in Big Mike’s car that day; neither did you have to agree with what he asked of you. Opposing him would have provoked a beating, sure, and let’s face it, possibly your life for simply saying no. But the choice would have been better than what you do years later, believing you deserved a little something more in addition to what the man was paying.
There in the dark you think of these things, the story which has become your life. You see things fast, a blur, but you also see them slow. In one you are six and crying, fallen from your bike. Suddenly your mother appears and like always the pain is run away. She holds you and hugs you and whispers that things will be alright. You believe her, hold her, and why the hell would you not? She is your mother, your life, and not for the majority of your time together passed out on the floor. She never hits you, not often, but when she does it’s accompanied by regret. A chaser we’ll call it, and only after the bottle is done.
Suddenly the car begins to slow. You hear gravel and pavement and then gravel once more. Slower now, you can make out the voices of the men inside the car but not the words they speak. Do you really need to know what they are saying? No, you don’t think you do. The sudden warmth spreading about your groin tells you everything you need to know. Stopped, all four doors open and gravel comes underfoot. Like it’s nothing, you can hear them now, each of them shooting the shit like they don’t have a care in the world. Benny and Bob go on about the Bucks, Carlos and Stacks smoking and nodding their heads in agreement.
Is this really happening, you think, and realize that you have been straining so hard that something lets go in your head, a pop. It’s small, not painful, and somehow feels like the color red. You begin to scream and scream and thrash about the trunk. You hear laughter, more, and then one of them kicks the side of the car and tells you to knock the shit off. You fail to comply, which of course only speeds the process up.
They open the trunk, freedom, and you erupt upwards as the fresh air rocks you. The taste is sweet, like butter, and oh so better than wine. You fall forward, belched from the trunk, the dirtiest tongue alive. Halfway down, as your fac
e and gravel meet, you, the middle of you, is caught by the hitch. You groan, go fetal, and all you hear is laughter as you writhe and take the pain. You squint, tell them to fuck right off, and then take notice of the stars, that there are none, that it is only the moon which lights the way.
One of them, Bob you think, pulls you up, throws you back down. “Shunta did what ya done, Ricky,” he says and then spits into your face. The saliva is hot and gross and you picture rotting meat as it slides into your mouth. Inside, it makes you want to run as far and fast as you possibly can. Instead you scream and shake your head as violently as your neck allows. A second later, before you see them, you feel the wood; all four, and then your screams begin anew. They beat you, break you, crush you. Swing after swing after swing. Jagged and loose, your bones are transformed, like powder that has run to soup; all bones, to every appendage and extremity you own. Skin is next, gone, removed and replaced by a pulp that now exists—and still you are aware! How, you think, and understand the stupidity of your question the moment it is asked: to ensure every effort is taken in making you feel everything that comes before.
The choice is obvious, befitting your crime, as you know how the men above you work; have done the job yourself, in fact. Bleeding, dying, you watch the end draw near. Down, the bats obliterate your mouth, your nose and the top of your skull. Last, they save your eyes and the truth each one has struggled to hide. Unrecognizable, you heave and spurt, your gurgling breath the only sound into the night. You think of Luke and Becka and your mother during the times that she is real, her love sober. As the final arc comes down and takes it all apart you can only wonder: Was this really all I am?