by Gail Giles
“I couldn't stand it. I needed to come up with something to shut them both up.”
“Mom? You're yelling and it's hard for me to…No, I wasn't planning to come down this weekend. But…Mom, if you would leave David alone for a few hours every night so he could get his homework done, he…It's not a matter of taking sides…Well, it's hard to get any studying done if someone is talking to you…I know, Mom. I'm not there and I don't understand what David puts you through, but…I know; I've got it good up here. No worries; just me and my books, you and Dad paying all my bills. I know, I'm ungrateful and I should come home and take some of the burden from your shoulders. No, I'm not mocking you. I can't do anything right; I can't say anything right around you, Mom. Neither can David. I wish you would leave him alone a little, just…Mom?
I know Mom gave me that whole speech about wasting her time concentrating on the social parts of school, but that was bullshit. She hated David because he was a dweeb. I skated by because I was more socially acceptable. I knew what David had to do to make her happy and grabbing a wad of A's wasn't the answer.
I told David what to do. What to say. I didn't tell him who to pick but I did tell him what type to choose. I told him what shirt to wear, which shoes, what pants, the whole works. I pumped him up, told him how it would work out fine. It would be cruise control the whole ride. I reminded him of how I taught him to climb the tree in front of our house. How he could reach higher than he thought.”
I shook my head. “He called me Monday. Late. Ten, maybe a little after.”
“Kyle?”
“David, we need to make it quick. I've got a huge test tomorrow.” I could hear him breathing over the phone. He wasn't crying. He sounded calm. Thank god.
“Sure, hmmm, I just wanted to thank you, for all your help.”
“Oh, did it work out? The date thing?”
“I've got everything set up,” David said.
“Good luck, then.”
“I couldn't have done it without you. You're a great brother.”
“Don't go mushy on me, bro. Just go for it; don't have second thoughts, okay?”
“Sure, go for it.”
“Gotta go.”
“I love you, Kyle.”
“Don't be a dork.” I hung up.
“I told him to go for it. Don't have second thoughts.”
CASS
Was Kyle really taking this long to answer every question or had I lost all sense of time? Two conflicting things seemed to be happening to me. The air had turned heavier, pushing me down, weighing me down against the bottom of the box. But at the same time, my body seemed to be lighter, like it was drying out into a husk, fragile enough to be blown away, blown apart with a puff of air.
But the husk hurt. My skin felt like it cracked every time I moved, scraping against the linen of my pj's or the rough boards, and my lips bled every time I moved them. And the constant muscle cramps made me move when I didn't want to. I had to work faster. I was losing control of my body. I was losing focus. I was losing track of time. Pretty soon, I'd lose Kyle.
“Catch on?” Kyle said.
What had we been talking about? Think. “Yeah, how old were you when you got the picture that she wasn't Hallmark Mom? That she was the Wicked Witch of the Back Bedroom where David was concerned? That she treated you different?” Shut up, you're blathering. Let him talk. Don't get amped because you've worked your crowbar into a crack. He'll catch on.
“Shut up!” he roared into the radio. It filled my black space and shocked me back to exactly where I was. The claustrophobia swamped me and I dragged in breaths rapid and ragged, squeezed my eyes shut, and clenched my muscles to keep from kicking, beating, and screaming. My heart slammed and I wasn't cold now; sweat broke out on my face and neck and warmth flowed along my thighs and—
I had peed myself. An idea. I hit the button and forced a small laugh.
“What the fuck are you laughing at?” He was still pissed.
“At how stupid I am.”
Silence. Dad was so right. Agree with someone and they don't know what to say.
“I just peed myself. And you know what was the first thing that went through my head?”
“Oh, I can't live until you tell me.” Good, step down from furious to sarcastic.
“I thought, these white pajamas are linen, I'll never get the stain out.” I held the button and worked my sob into a laugh. A laugh born of a sob is a dark thing, but it must have fooled Kyle.
“Moron,” he said. But the sarcasm wasn't there. He was amused. “First off, you peed yourself before you ever got in the box. The pajamas were already a lost cause.”
We both let the irony hang over us. “When you were on the ground, unconscious, I was surprised at something. Your pajamas. Not the all white. But they're man pajamas.”
Soft now, almost regretful. Don't alienate him; just plant doubt, but don't push. “You expected…what?”
“Are you a lez?”
If nothing else, I wanted to get up out of this box to kick the shit out of him for being such a dick. I drummed my heels against the bottom of the box so the pain could settle me down.
“That's it, isn't it? That's why you shot David down so bad,” he said.
“No. Why do people always go there when…forget it. I'm not gay. But I'm not a flash-the-goods-what's-the-highest-offer kind either. I'm not a hottie.”
“What are you then?”
This time I was silent. Caught off guard.
“I…don't know.”
I honestly didn't know. It must be all the dizziness and mind fog that seemed to be setting in.
“I don't want to talk about me. I want to hear about David. You were going to tell me about—”
“When I caught on to Mom. That talking too much, the explaining over and over you did was just like her. When she got on something, she wouldn't shut up. On and on, and if David or I left the room, she'd just follow and keep yammering. She did it to Dad too, but he would escape.”
“How?”
“Job. Sales reps travel all the time. I'm sure he extended his stays rather than come home.”
“He was leaving you two alone with her?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he know she was picking on David and screaming at you?”
“He knew.”
I waited a minute. Really thinking. Not playing the head game now. Trying to figure out this guy that left his kids alone with a woman so monstrous.
“Um, doesn't that mean he left knowing she was shooting all her bullets into two targets instead of three?”
Nothing.
“And he knew she'd fire most of them into David?”
“You trying to make me hate my father too?”
Soothe. Redirect. “No. You said you were a bad guy because you didn't protect David.” He never said it, but he meant it. If the buyer won't lay his cards face up, the seller has to do it for him. “But you were a kid. The other adult in your house, your dad, should have been protecting David. He didn't. He ran away. How were you supposed to protect yourself, much less take care of David?”
Leave him to think a little.
“It must have been hell for you,” I said. That shot out of my mouth before I could weigh it for advantages.
“Breakfast.”
Breakfast? What brain fart had produced that?
“Not following,” I said.
“That's the first time I noticed that she treated us different. Breakfast.”
“Oh.”
“He had to eat soup,” Kyle said.
“I was in third grade and David was in kindergarten. Mom was making pancakes. She put a plate in front of me, poured juice, and ladled scrambled eggs onto my plate and then hers.
“She told David he was on his own.
“He didn't say anything, but he looked from my plate to hers and then at Mom.
“She said she was tired of cooking for him because he complained. She mocked him.”
Kyle made his voice hig
h and ugly. A high-pitched whine. ‘I don't WHIKE eggs. This pancake isn't a GIRKWUL, it's OOGY.’
Was that supposed to be his imitation of his mother mocking his brother? I was getting mixed up. What would he do if I asked for water? His voice interrupted my thoughts.
“Mom told him that if he didn't like what she cooked, he could fix his own food.
“David had to stand on a chair to look for cereal, but he didn't find any and Mom told him to get tough.
“David pulled out a can of soup with a pop-top. He ate it cold because he didn't know how to use the microwave.
“He ate canned soup for more than a month. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. She tortured him so he'd remember the price of complaining.”
“She didn't feed your brother? That's what you’ re telling me.”
“She bought the soup, so it wasn't like she starved him.”
I let that dangle a while.
“He dressed really nice,” I said.
“Sure, both of us. She liked to shop. And she wanted people to see us wearing good labels. That was about her. Not David.”
“He looked, I don't know, uncomfortable in his clothes,” I said.
“She'd screech at him, you know?” Kyle's voice rose again. “’I buy you the best and you still look like a loser. Unbutton the top button. Are you too stupid to know how to wear a shirt? Tuck it smooth, don't wad it up, you look like you're carrying a load in those pants. Which you have belted under your armpits for Christ's sake. You could screw up a good dream.’ When she caught sight of me, she'd either tell him to catch a clue from me or ask what I was looking at or why wasn't I helping.”
His radio clicked off. Then back on. “I can't talk anymore.” Off again.
Nothing.
For a long time.
No, no, no. I didn't want to be alone now. I needed him here. I couldn't work him if he wasn't here. Wasn't talking. I had no power over him if he wasn't here. If Kyle was talking, I wasn't thinking about where I was.
I wanted to call out to him but I wasn't sure I wouldn't cry instead. It was almost like I missed him. He was my comfort, the only thing to keep me from being alone, yet he was just out of reach, kind of like my father. God, I was as pathetic as Kyle was.
I got cold. Not chilled cold. Aching cold. Shivers that wouldn't stop. Muscle tremors that turned into full body rattling. Temperature falling? Or was it that I felt it more without words to keep me focused…?
Kyle was gone. I was certain. I didn't think he meant to be gone for good. But could I make it through this cold? How long had I been here?
I pulled my knees in as far as the box allowed, then straightened them. My joints ground against each other. All my joints ached and creaked when I worked them. Is that how dehydration started? My mouth was dry and my tongue felt too big. The headache had to be a bad sign. How do you die of thirst? Would my cells leach the water from my blood?
My chest heaved in a sob, but tears didn't roll. My eyes felt “scritchy.” A word my mom always used. She called me “bebe” too, when I was little. Before I decided she was embarrassing.
“What the hell have you done?” Dad was furious.
Mom came in and her eyes registered surprise, but she knelt down to look in my eyes.
“Bebe, you know you're not allowed to use the scissors.”
“I don't want bangs anymore. You don't have bangs.”
“Look at this mess,” Dad shouted. He picked me up and faced me to the hall mirror. A stubble poked from my forehead, the rest of my hair long and flowing. A mess.
“This is your fault, Leatha. Can't you watch a five-year-old, for pity's sake!”
He plunked me down like I was dirty. Wiped his hands against each other. “Forget the company Easter egg hunt. You can't be seen in public like that.” He stormed away.
Mom put her arms around me. “Bebe, it's okay, but for some things, like growing out your bangs, you have to wait.”
My eyes roamed the nothingness around me. There's no good place to hide in the dark. In the light you can hide from yourself by concentrating on others, deflect attention from your flaws to your strengths or from your flaws to someone else's. I'm a champ there.
The light lets someone see his own airbrushed reflection in you—and that's the best sales pitch ever. Stand in the light and show the audience what they want to be.
But in the dark, it's only you. No shiny reflective surfaces to dazzle, just black holes to stare into and see what you really are.
David Kirby was a suicide waiting to happen. But if my note hadn't pushed him off that limb, hell, who knows? He might have stepped back, talked to a counselor.
But, my words were waiting for David Kirby, left under that desk for anyone to pick up and read.
Sticks and stones may break my bones.
But words will never hurt me.
How much bullshit is that?
And…what hurt can an unsaid word do?
Can it be like an antibiotic withheld?
Did Mom leave because of crappy things Dad said or because of things I didn't?
Like, “I understand why you have to go, but please call me.” Or, even better, picking up the phone and saying “Hey, Mom, I miss you. I love you. Why don't I come visit?” All that has gone unsaid.
We lie here: me and the box and the dark and the questions.
BEN
A tall man in his early thirties who looked like he'd been assembled of random twigs hunched over a computer monitor.
“You got anything for me?” Ben asked.
The man held up a long finger with knobby knuckles, nosed closer to the screen, then hooked the finger over the bridge of his nose. He slumped against the back of his chair and hit a key. “Printing. Got a ransom call yet?”
“Nope,” Ben said.
“Wouldn't do anybody much good. Ted McBride is, indeed, deep in debt. But, it ain't just living above his means. McBride is a savvy businessman. He's got loans against his home and his business, everything but his dog.” The knobby-knuckled finger pointed up. “However, and this is a big however, these loans are for his investment in a subdivision for ‘adult living.’ Like a retirement village. Big business now. You know, for old farts. Well, young farts ought to be investing, but old farts buy the houses.” He looked at Ben and shrugged. “He's probably set to make a killing, but right now he's cash poor.”
“He got insurance on the kid?” Ben asked.
“Not enough to count. Barely enough for a funeral.”
“Any money coming to him through her in case of her death?”
“Nada.”
“So…,” Ben said.
“It's not about money.”
Ben turned to Scott. “We're running out of our first forty-eight and we're going nowhere. Remember Oakley's spider feet about the Kirby kid?”
“Yeah, we talked to everybody and she didn't know the kid.”
“But, did he know her?”
Scott scrubbed his spiky hair. “What's to lose?”
KYLE
“So, I thought we had a chance. David would ask some girl out. Someone just like Mom, someone with a bubbly personality. I gave him the lines to make the approach, a few kinda funny things that made him seem a little witty and not so needy, told him exactly what to do.
“And one more time, there wasn't enough hurt sitting on David's shoulder. He goes and finds the biggest hurt he can. Cass McBride.”
I dug my nails into my thumbs again. Pain felt so much better than guilt.
“Here's David, thinking it's his last chance, his last chance ever to get Mom to approve of him, and what happens? Cass shoots him down. And she does it by calling him a loser, a bottom-feeder, gay. She rejects him with the same words my mother has.”
I wiped the tears from my face. “One thing made me feel a little better. The way David did it. Hanging himself so publicly. In front of our house, with that note on his chest. It told me something.
“David finally worked up the nerve to…” I looked at
the cops. “The kid just royally shot Mom the finger. For everyone to see. Big and bad.”
CASS
Cicadas? My head pounded so hard and loud I didn't know if the sound was inside or out. Dark all around, but white noise. Go figure.
“Hey, are you asleep or dead?”
Kyle.
Not cicadas. Not white noise. Static from the radio. He was back. Oh thank god, he was back. How long had he been gone? Was it night or day? Was it Sunday now? Had I been asleep? Could it be Monday? Had it just been minutes? Time was impossible here. I faded in and out, sentences paused and I didn't know if it was seconds and minutes or…
I moved my thumb to the button. Even that was an effort. I pressed. Opened my mouth to speak. It was already open, my tongue swollen and the tip sticking out between my front teeth a bit. Stuck to the top of my mouth. I tried to talk but my tongue was foreign, too heavy and cumbersome. All I managed was a rusty groan. Even breathing seemed to take grueling effort. I was going to die. That thought wasn't panic now. It was truth.
“Miserable down there?”
I groaned again. Not part of my campaign. Reactive. I couldn't think or plan with this headache or tongue or all-encompassing thirst. I brought my left hand to my lips to break the scab on my knuckles and lick the blood, but a sweet, sick liquid oozed out. Pus? Wounds get infected that quickly? Why couldn't I have learned a few facts in biology classes? I sighed. Like it would help to know what was going to kill me first: infection, dehydration, or the cold.
I worked my tongue loose from my hard palate and tried to own it. I pressed the button again. “Water, please, water.”