Starve the Vulture

by Jason Carney

  “In a vase or an arrangement in paper?”

  “What’s the difference?” I ask, playing dumb.

  “About ten dollars.”

  “Then paper, please.”

  “What kind of flowers do you want?”

  “My mom likes carnations. Red ones.”

  “Red carnations, how many?”

  “Three. One for her past, present, and future.” I am proud of myself.

  “Wow,” she says. “You have thought about this a little.”

  “Been saving my money all week,” I smile. This line worked before.

  She chuckles. As she wraps the flowers in the green tissue, she winks at me. “How about a red ribbon?” The question is rhetorical, as she ties the ribbon before I can answer. “How about a nice card for your mother?”

  “No thank you, ma’am.”

  She punches the buttons on the ancient cash register. I hear the gears tumble loudly as the numbers roll to the correct amount. I prepare my insides for what will happen next.

  “That’ll be three dollars and seventy-six cents.”

  I study the contents of my hand, slowly counting each coin two or three times. I look up at her in pain. “This is all I’ve got,” I say, handing her the change.

  “Sweetie, you’re about three dollars short.”

  I stare at her blankly, waiting. She looks confused.

  “Is there anyone who . . .”

  On cue, I start to cry. “I don’t want my mommy to die. Can you help my mommy?”

  “Sweetie, she is going to be all right. God will protect her.”

  “No He won’t,” I blubber, “He is going to take her to heaven.”

  I continue to rake up three dollars’ worth of tears. The look on her face is anguished. She probably deals with customers visiting terminal family and friends most days. I just bet they are not eight-year-olds with convincing blue eyes sparkling with saltwater.

  Surely, I am breaking her heart.

  I wipe my nose and face on my arm. A long trail of snot latches to the thin pale hairs of my forearm. The string snaps, flings onto my shirt. I smear the snot with my hand for effect. Her face crinkles with compassion and disgust.

  “You poor thing. Here, take the flowers.” She hands me the flowers and a napkin. “Wipe your eyes; your mommy is going to love the flowers. You go on now, God bless.”

  “Thank you.” That was not so hard. “God bless you too.”

  PINK ROBES

  1978

  I SQUEEZE MY GRANDMOTHER’S HAND, unsure of what to expect. Three carnations in my left hand, I ask my grandmother, “Do you think she will like the flowers?”

  “Yes, sweetie, she will. Aren’t you just full of surprises, saving your lunch money all week? Now, remember to tell your mom that she looks pretty. She really misses you.”

  The elevator doors open into a large corridor. Directly across is a large window wall that runs the length of the hallway off to the right. At the end of it is a large security checkpoint with a set of sliding glass doors.

  There is no privacy here.

  I can see people in robes and hospital gowns on the other side of the glass.

  It is like being at the zoo.

  All of the people look disoriented. Few appear to have taken a bath or combed their hair. Hygiene does not seem to be important on the other side of the glass.

  I want to go back downstairs.

  Those gathered around the tables play cards. Their heavy faces do not smile as they fumble through the motions. Others sit in chairs smoking. They watch the television perched in a box on the wall, while a few amble about the large open room, staring off into space. Behind this communal area, a row of doors open into bedrooms. Over in the corner stands a woman with blond hair, in a light pink robe, her back to us. She teeters back and forth. My skin crawls.

  She looks like my mom. I hope that is not her.

  The strands of her hair spindle out, rigid wisps float in the air. Each strand is frail and translucent against the light, matted in such a way that she appears to be balding; but that is just an illusion.

  She is too short to be my mom.

  “She is so excited you’re here,” my grandmother says.

  “Me too.” I cannot take my eyes off the large glass-enclosed room.

  Why are they locked in there? They must be contagious. What is that woman doing?

  I understand the term suicide, but this is my first encounter with mental illness. The horror of this place lurks in the silence of the hallway. Our shoes stick to the linoleum, each stride like the sound of adhesive peeling back. Walking down the hallway, I can see over the shoulder of the woman in the pink robe. She stares into the mirror, applying lipstick. I do not see the lipstick canister. Her vanity allows her to pretend. I begin to consider my own appearance.

  I should have cleaned up for Mom.

  “We cannot stay long; you’re not old enough to be up here,” my grandmother explains. “The doctor is going to let her visit for ten minutes.”

  “Okay,” I mutter, wondering what kinds of people bring kids to the crazy house. “Why is this glass wall here?”

  “People on this floor have to be locked up,” she replies.

  “Why?”

  “Because they may be a danger to themselves or others.” She hesitates, shaking her head, rethinking her last statement. “Your mom is doing fine, she’s just a little tired with all the headaches.”

  They don’t lock you up for headaches.

  1:53 A.M. (25:17 BEFORE GRACE)

  I PULL INTO THE APARTMENTS. I am on a mission. I scan the gate. C is nowhere around.

  Damnit, he is supposed to meet me at the gate.

  A lookout recognizes me, punches in the access code to enter. I drive slowly into the maze of buildings. At night, this apartment complex is a different world. From dusk to midnight, dealers and hustlers sit on their porches and cars, waiting for the drive-through drug-and-flesh sales to begin. They do not like strangers around here. If you do not know someone, the dealers will not sell to you. Half the cars rolling through are strangers. Easy to spot, they sit outside the gate waiting for another car to roll up and let them inside the mall. All regular customers give the access code. Once inside, it is up to the dealer to keep the customers faithful. I know the code. I only talk to and buy from C.

  A commotion breaks out between two parked cars, off to my right. I slow to see what’s up. Two figures, a man and woman, argue. She appears to be older than he is, by years. She looks tough, street worn. Her clothes hug the contours of her large belly, sticking out from under her shirt. Her gray shorts scream that no woman this big fits in shorts so small. She wears house shoes. I judge her to be an out-of-work streetwalker.

  His hands are around her throat. Her hands are in the air in surrender. I stop, unsure if I should get involved. I watch. He slaps her. He raises his head and I clearly see his face. I recognize C. He slaps her again. He yells at her between his clenched teeth, the veins in his neck bulge and pulse. She does not fight back. In between two parked cars, she has nowhere to run. He shoves her to the ground. Her short bleached-blond wig falls to the ground. She cries. He does not care. I do nothing. She is on her hands and knees. She tries to get off the ground. He does not let her, a swift knee to the side of her head pins her face against a car door. I hear the air escape her mouth as her body crumples. She no longer looks tough.

  “Better do what I say, bitch!”

  “I will! I will!” she replies, face now against the asphalt.

  He kicks the backs of her legs. His feet fly over and over again, legs to midsection. She does not move.

  “Better shut up, bitch, and start paying me my money!”

  Her tears turn to pleas for him to stop. He does not.

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” he yells.

  He draws his leg back, kicking her one more time. Midswing, he notices my car idling with the window down. Before his leg comes down, the smile of a salesperson sprouts over his fa
ce.

  “Clockwork, my muthafucka,” his leg comes down, “you look a little freaked out! How the hell you doing?”

  “Please stop! Please! Please, I’ll do better,” she cries.

  He steps over her and spits onto her back. His fangs retract. The hustle of our fake friendship consumes him. She does not get up. She waits for him to finish correcting her. I don’t know how to react. I just know I never want to be on the ground with him over me.

  “J, what up, my brother?” he says, climbing into the passenger seat. “Take me to Burger King and the house. My day is about over.”

  “Who’s that?” I ask.

  “Some stupid bitch that better get me my money!” he screams out the window in her direction as I turn the car around. “How much you need?”

  GUNS AND MAIL SLOTS

  1974

  “DON’T LET HIM IN, DEBBIE!” My mom’s best friend Pam is frantic from a loud banging on the front door.

  Awakened by the commotion, I stand at the dark top of the stairwell looking down on the entryway. The angle of the stairs seems steep to me and a long way to the bottom. The pounding continues. The vibrations flow along the closed curtains of the living room window. Unable to comprehend the weight of Pam’s panic, I hide in the shadows, confused and frightened.

  “He just wants to talk,” my mom says.

  “Don’t be stupid! Sit down and be quiet,” Pam says. The violence of the pounding increases.

  My mother and Pam are invisible, far back in the living room, only their voices identifying their locations. I stand mute and motionless.

  “Open the fucking door and talk to me!”

  The slams on the bolted door rattle the brass plates covering the mail slot every time his fists hit it. I feel feeble. A warm sensation runs down my leg, settling in the padded bottoms of my footy pajamas. I stand there, wet and breathless.

  “Why are you doing this to me? I love you!”

  “Go away, Roy!” Pam screams.

  Pam, much smaller than my mother, wears a curly perm and has a toughness my mother lacks. Pam came over after my mother called her earlier in the evening. Roy spent the afternoon drinking and belittling my mother for her housecleaning abilities. They fought. Disgusted, he left in his company work van. Pam’s strong sense of family had given my father the benefit of the doubt for the last time. In case he returned, she took us to dinner.

  “This needs to be the end, Debbie. Think of Jason,” she says to my mother as we eat Mexican food. “He will kill you both one day.”

  “I know. I know,” my mother says.

  She picks at her food nonchalantly, as if she does not believe it. I do not understand his anger. I see it but I do not think it is real. I place it deep within me near imaginary friends who can suppress its pain. They hold me in their arms when black-eye midnights rip me from my bed.

  “Nothing has changed. He’s still an asshole,” Pam says.

  “I want him to go. I can’t make him leave.” My mother starts to cry. “What has happened to me? I love him so much.”

  “His love is sick, Debbie. How many beatings do you need?” Pam holds her hand. “We can do it tonight.”

  “Okay.”

  We return home. My dad gone, they gather his things.

  Now, a chill runs over my arms and legs. The impacts cease. An electric hum races over the air, then a few moments of surreal silence. I hear the heavy breath of the women downstairs. Each inhale, a frightened question. “Did he go away?”

  “Come on, Deb, let me in.” My daddy’s voice sounds calm and ordinary. “We need to work things out.”

  “Go away, Roy,” Pam says, “y’all can talk tomorrow.”

  “Stay out of this, Pam! Please let me talk with my wife.”

  The round bottoms of his fists knock on the door again as he leans against it.

  “Open the door, bitch! This is my house!” Roy’s rage flows like the discipline of a sprinter, who exerts his will in quick bursts containing immense power. “This is my fucking house!”

  I want to go to the door, to quiet the storm. Trapped between two parents and a situation I do not understand, my pretend friends hold me in place. I want to order my parents to love each other. We loved each other—pieced together puzzles, played records, took pictures, and made his lunch together. I do not understand why complicated adults mess up good things.

  My mother, still not convinced that ignoring him is the best policy, comes to the door. She does not see me hidden in the darkness of the stairwell. I make myself rigid, not wanting to get in trouble. Pam holds her ground on the other side of the room.

  “Debbie, if you don’t open that door, don’t ever call me again,” my dad says.

  My mom stands motionless, the palms of her hands resting on the door. Confusion surrounds her. Bewildered at the upside-down nature of her daily life, my mom hesitates.

  “He’s crazy, Debbie,” Pam pleads.

  “You fucking bitch!” My dad starts kicking the door.

  My mother jumps back, terrified; she knows what is coming.

  “I’m gonna kill you, bitch, you fucking whore! This is my fucking house! Don’t laugh at me, you bitches—fucking dykes!” he screams, lost in another reality.

  He hurls his whole body against the blocked entrance; it sounds like a bomb. I love him, even though sometimes I do not want to. She needs to unlock the door.

  “I’ve got my gun, Roy! You hear me? I got my gun!” Pam screams at the door, pulling my mother back out of my sight. “You hear me, Roy?”

  The minutes pass in silence. Pam and my mother both jump when the phone rings. The conversation is distraught and abrupt.

  “What, Roy? She doesn’t want to talk.” Pam remains stern. “Don’t come back here. I have my gun! Roy, I will call the police . . . Yes, I’m sure I have the gun . . . Who are you calling a lying bitch? . . . What do you mean, you broke into my house? Roy, don’t be stupid, I have my gun . . . I am calling the police, don’t come back here!”

  She hangs up the phone in a frenzy.

  “We have to go,” she tells my mom. I hear fast shuffling as Pam gathers her things. She drops her keys as she picks up her purse, which empties out when she bends over for the keys. “Goddamnit, come on, Debbie, let’s go!”

  “Why? What did he say?”

  “He broke into my house and stole my gun!” she yells, throwing her valuables back into her black leather bag.

  “He doesn’t have your gun. You have your gun,” my mother says. I stand in the stairwell waiting for my mom to discover me there, wet and crying.

  “I don’t have my gun, I left it at home. I don’t want to find out how he knew that.”

  The door almost caves in from the thunderous impact of the human cannonball that then roars across the parking lot. Both women downstairs lurch with fright. Our only family photograph rattles off the wall between the front door and the living room window. Thin glass crashes into jagged shards all over the linoleum entryway.

  “Let me in this fucking house! I want to talk with you!” my father shouts. “Open this fucking door!”

  “Call the police! Call the damn police!” Pam cries out.

  “Fuck you, Roy, you bastard!” my mother yells.

  Light-headed, unsure of what to think about the violence of the shaking door, I stare at the mail slot. I want to crawl inside that space, because I connect my parents. They have to listen to me. It is my duty to intervene. My daddy on the other side of the door, he wants to come home. I do not understand why Mommy doesn’t want to talk with him. He loves us. I need to unlock it.

  “Go away, Roy! Why are you doing this?” my mom wails.

  I start down the stairs. A triumphant feeling, my solution: if we just talk about the good things, the bad would not seem so bad anymore. I look back up the stairs. My invisible friends give me courage and protection. It is too late to change my mind. I stand directly in front of my fear, covered in piss.

  “Open the door! I hear you standing ther
e!” he yells in unison with his blows.

  The hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

  “I hear you, bitch! Open the door! I got something for you cunts!”

  My mind keeps screaming, Stop, Daddy, stop!

  I cannot force the sound out of my frozen mouth. The chain out of my reach, it jumps along the track securing it to the door. The hinges are coming off. He will crush me under its weight, laughing at the bloody pool of my pain.

  I remember us swimming the previous summer, alone in the apartment complex’s pool. The afternoon sun fell behind the tree line while we bathed in the cool wind of the shade. I laughed as he pulled me around the water. Roy was gigantic to me. His hands grasped and towed the red flotation ring I sat inside, unable to swim. He stood shoulder-deep as he pushed me out over the water, never letting me float away too long.

  The last time he sent me out laughing with safety, he pulled my legs as the ring sailed back. I slipped through. Under the water, I choked and sank. He chuckled with a muted grin. I woke up on the side of the pool, my father giving me mouth-to-mouth.

  “I got something for you! You will not disrespect me!” His voice now hovers through the hinged bends of the mail slot. “I got something to show you, Deb!”

  “Daddy,” I say to the covering. Time slows to a quarter of its natural speed, I put my face right up to the opening.

  My father’s hand shoves through the slot. The short black metal barrel rams against the bridge of my nose. Blood surges from my nostrils. I scream as I stare at the gun. My father’s face resembles a frustrated clown, both insane and happy. He does not remove his hand or the gun.

  “Let Daddy in, he’s not going to hurt you or Mommy. Let Daddy in, Daddy is only joking with Mommy.”

  “Get away from the door, Jason!” my mommy yells, yanking me back. The lid of the mail slot makes a muffled ding as it lands on the barrel of the handgun.

  I will never feel safe with him again.

  RIDDLE

  We forget ourselves whole among the holy.