“And then I heard it. I heard his voice, like an old man’s whisper. ‘SON,’ he said, ‘YOU NEED SOMETHING TO FIX WITH. SHOOT SOME.’
“I was crazy, see, crazy as I am now and crazy as you will always be. But the grey seemed to rise in the air and speak to me.
“’ASHES OF BURNT UP SMACK. GO AHEAD, BOIL IT AND FIX UP.’
“Bullshit, I thought, of course, but he kept talking, saying over and over, ‘BOIL IT AND FIX UP.’
“Maybe there is dope left in there, I thought.
“’THERE IS. THERE IS,’ he said.
“Where else would it go? I thought.
“’IT’S HERE.’ He told me.
“No time for cotton filter or none of that shit that me and you don’t use anyways. This was my dad. Fuck you Mom, I thought, fuck you. I boiled it up.
“It was chunky in the syringe and dark oil in the barrel, but I hit the vein. And ahhh yes. It was like an angel had come to me. Like every cell that was butchering my insides had laid down its knives and the smooth warmness was around me again. You see what I mean? The ashes were an army and fought back the evil sickness that had invaded my body down there. I could see the dark ashes travel through my veins. I could see them good as you can see your own veins.”
He put a finger on me. I flinched, thought about punching him, but instead just listened.
“I felt so god damned blessed then like I was sprouting wings my own damn self. Best milk-blood you ever had. Music filled the basement the days I was down there, like a nice violin with my veins as strings. I shed my old skin and grew a new one. When my moms finally ripped out the nails, opened the door, and came down…well, she saw what I was, and…I ain’t gonna scare you with that story, but she never bothered me again. I became a Red-Man.
“So now I do things. I do lots of things. One of them’s filling me up with the right kinds of people, and the other is filling peoples up with the right parts of me. I been changed forever. That’s how you got in your momma, and that’s how come you’re like me.
“And before I take you out to the back yard to be back with your momma, I think you need a little bit of me in your veins. You need it. You’ll see.”
The bedside story was over. I pushed myself farther back away from him and imagined paths out of the room. He stood tall in front of me, and pulled a syringe out of his pocket like a magician waving a magic wand. He uncapped it, and I heard a pop. He aimed it under his neck and looked like one of those people who puts a gun up against their chin pretending they’re going to shoot, only he did shoot. He poked the needle right into himself.
His body jerked. My muscles clenched. He was pulling down on the plunger, yanking as if the needle was stuck. He started grunting, his face twisted up. I had my chance. Stay small, quick, and zip. I started my dash off the bed.
One step, two steps, and I was past him to the door. “Vermicious,” he yelled, and swiped his leg under mine. I went sprawling sideways and landed on the wooden ground. Dust and dirt flew up, got on my tongue and in my eyes. I started to spit and got up to dash again when he grabbed me with one hand, and tossed me back on the bed.
“You’re not done here? Never done here. I told you. You’re made from me and the same as me. Same veins from my dad are in you. I will show you what else you can shoot, not just the H. You’re my girl. Once you taste this, you’ll see.”
He grabbed me then, and pulled my arm and clamped it to his side. His tentacle fingers squeezed my hand so tight, trying to get me to be still. I could hear my bones crinkle. He was going to poke me with the rusty syringe. I punched his back with my free hand and screamed “NO” a hundred times. None of it mattered. He was a big hulk of a being.
My breath was leaving me. My heart thumped waiting to explode out of my chest. I was going to die here and wanted to. I didn’t want anything like this inside of me. I wanted to be back at home, in bed, back at school eating lunch, back at recess, with my back against the wall with boys teasing me and me teasing back. Isn’t someone supposed to be here at times like these?
I felt the tiny prick of the needle hit my skin, like stepping on a pin and you can’t pull away. It was over.
A smashing noise from outside of the house shattered the air of the room. It felt like an alarm, and it woke me into hope. The Red-Man stopped everything. The sound of a car door slamming, two car doors, then more. Then voices followed. Murmurs. Like men getting ready for work. Or somebody getting ready to save me.
He let go of my arm and I felt blood seep back into my skin. Louder steps came from the front of the house. Was this real or just another one of the sounds this house makes? The Red-Man wasn’t sure either. He was confused, I could tell. He wasn’t the master anymore.
We heard footsteps, chatter, movement, and I waited for the right moment to scream. The noises got closer. Someone shouted from the front door;
“Hello. Hello. Hello in there!” the voice boomed serious like an assistant principal. “Attention. Heads up. Here ye, and pay attention all you mother fuckers….you have five minutes to vacate. Five minutes. This house is being secured and boarded up, and you can’t squat here no more if that’s what you been doing. We are armed. We will let you leave. Leave now. Leave now. Leave now, now, now. Leave now, now…”
He started humming and singing. I could hear his feet moving along as if he was dancing to his own words. “Attention: I repeat. Attention, attention. If anyone is in here, you must leave now. This home is going dark. You got four minutes to leave….da doo doo da doo doo” he hummed to himself.
The Red-Man kept his grip on me but his heart seemed to drop to the floor. I was going to be free. “HELP…” I started to scream, when his hand clamped over my mouth and cut the scream short.
“Don’t you say a word,” he whispered in my ear so close I could feel his breath fill my ear canal. “You’re staying here, you see. We just gonna hide and let them board it all up.”
His hand was stuffed over my mouth and I could taste the skin between my lips. Salty, dirty. He dragged me across the room and pulled me into a closet, but it had no doors.
Stuffed in the corner, in a closet, but not hidden. They should find us. They will find us if they look, they had to, right?
“Come out, come out if you in there. We don’t want to chase you out.”
“Shhhhh,” the Red-Man whispered to me. We heard their boots inside the house, not moving fast, not moving deep. Just standing at the front. Shuffling. Waiting.
The smell of the Red-Man's breath filled the closet, and I couldn’t help but breathe it deep into my nose since my mouth was covered. I could tell his heart was beating hard and his pulse was racing. My own heart thumped in my chest and banged against my chest bones. My body felt so weak like it was disintegrating, like I was turning to ash too and would scatter in the air.
Boots paced a bit. The sound of men working, some grunts. Objects being moved. They were smoking. The smell of freshly lit cigarettes mixed in with the burnt scents of old.
“You got one minute now. One minute mother fuckers. Gather up your shit and go. We starting with the windows now, then the door closes. Closes, closes, closes.”
“It’s empty, let’s just get this done,” said a brand new voice.
“Maybe upstairs. Maybe down. Go look,” said another.
“Fuck that. The pounding will make anyone leave if they’re in here. Come on, its late,” and then more shuffling.
I pictured what was about to happen. This place would go from dark grey to full black. Thick dark black, like being buried alive. Then what? The others in the basement. They’d come up. The voices. The boy. They’d come in. It would be like a dark cemetery and I would be the only one alive inside. Nobody from the street would hear me scream. Who will look for me? My dad? Someone from school?
The man’s hand was still stuffed in my mouth. I had a plan.
I let my lips part and opened my jaws wide. His fingers slipped inside my mouth, and I snapped my teeth shut and squeezed my ja
w hard as I could. My teeth sunk into his fingers like I was a rabid pit bull. I felt bone, tasted salt and grime and all the dirt of this floor. I didn’t stop but kept clenching like a stray dog. Blood from his finger was on my lips. He screamed in anger and shock, jerked up in reflex, and pushed me away shouting nasty cusses just for woman.
I was halfway out the room from his push, and kept on running. I was free, and dashed down the hallway. I saw the light of the front door, and the shadows of men standing still. I didn’t want to stop, but scurried right by them like a rat running across the floor. They didn’t seem too surprised to see me. But I was gone.
I thought they might follow me but they stayed inside. I was just a little creature in their big world. Two of their trucks were parked in front, and my dad’s car was parked across the way. The outside air was the color of dusk, but everything was just like I left it. I bounced up the front steps of my house, and then turned for a last glimpse. I saw the Red-Man. He wasn’t chasing me. He was walking around the front door, trying to carry a bunch of stuff. He dropped it on the ground, tried to pick it back up, and then dropped it again.
The man couldn’t live there anymore. He would need to go somewhere else, but I was back where I lived and safely inside.
* * *
“You let her go. Why? You had her and didn’t bring her to me.”
“I am done. I am leaving here. Men are here.”
“I will go to her. I will get her myself.”
“I shall get her first and make her mine.”
Chapter Eleven: Lilly Back Home
I lay underneath my familiar blanket but it never felt as strange as this. Cars drove by and their headlights reflected though my bedroom window and made shadows move across the room. I watched them go from left to right across my wall, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Sometimes noisy engines seemed like they would crash right through the brick right into my bedroom.
I was panting and sweating when I first escaped the Red-Man and made it back into my house. I tossed my backpack on the ground, and was going to run into my dad’s arms and tell him everything. That all changed the minute I saw him.
His angry eyes made me freeze. Something else was happening.
The lady from child protective service came to our house today. She was with someone. They looked around. Looked in my bedroom. Looked in our refrigerator. Asked my Dad questions.
“They are on me again because of you. That’s why you were staying away from home after school today isn’t it?” Dad said, but he didn’t really want me to answer. All I could hear was Grandma smacking her lips like she was drinking Ensure. The chocolate flavor.
“What you been telling people? You know you don’t talk about our business. They’ll take you away to somewhere else and you’ll never see me again? You want that I guess. They’re coming back here again and if I don’t do the whole list they gave me then guess what? You gone.”
I could have told him right then about the Red-Man. I could have shown him the scrapes on my arms for proof. Maybe he would stop being mad at me and just kill the man across the street. He would kill him, I knew it. Especially since he had that smell on him from getting drunk. But I wasn’t sure I wanted that. The Red-Man said a lot of things. He had answers to questions that my dad wouldn’t tell me.
I felt restless and couldn’t sleep. My skin felt clammy, and I knew it was from not having the medicine. I was safe in my own bed at least. I had Chef Boyardee ravioli for dinner, but then had diarrhea right after that. Now I felt all empty inside. My nose was runny, and I kept wiping it on my pajama sleeve. The pajamas were dirty anyways. I wished he’d wash them because that was when they were my favorite, right after they were out of the dryer.
The protective service lady taking me away? What would that be like? I thought of being in a new house with a new family, trapped again, like I was across the street. The house was all boarded up, for now at least, like a person tied-up with gags in its mouth. It is the Red-Man who needed to go somewhere else, not me. I wanted to stay with my dad and Grandma in my own house.
Dad had Grandma in the bath, and my bedroom door was cracked open so that I could hear the splashes. I couldn’t sleep. Today was a bad day and not over, and I wanted someone to help me. Someone who really was protective services.
I lay there for a long time, watching headlight shadows on the wall. After a while, Dad came into my room. He had a steamy cloud from the bath around him and smelled of soap and anger. I knew he was holding it in. If he knew everything, he would probably explode.
“You still awake Lill’? Go to sleep. I’ll drive you to school tomorrow. I’ll make you lunch. We’ll talk. We have to get the next few days exactly right.”
He was taking me to school. I had planned to say I was too sick to go, but if he was driving me, maybe it would be okay. We could talk. I wanted him to stay and talk to me now.
“Dad, how long is Grandma going to live here?” I ask this a lot.
“Long as she is alive she is gonna stay with me.”
“How long is that?”
“Grandma is going to live forever,” he said. But I know he didn’t mean it.
“Ciana likes to call her a witch. Maybe that’s why.”
“Kids say a lot of things, they joking.”
I thought of the way Grandma’s skin sags on her neck and the way she smells when I lie next to her. It made me feel safe, but it wasn’t what a person should smell like. Plus, Grandma didn’t even know who I was sometimes. Most times. A witch would always know. Ciana shouldn’t be so scared.
“If I had a mommy, I would take care of her forever, like you do.”
“You do have a mom, we all have them. You just don’t see yours.”
Because I was sick. That’s why she left, I wanted to say. Mothers don’t stick around for blue veiny sick children.
“When will we be with Mommy again? Is that still never?”
“Someday,” my dad said and looked away. “You do the best with what you got. Do the best with what you got. That’s what we do. But some just don’t understand that.”
I felt my back ache and the scrapes on my arm burned. My muscles were still bunching up and turning on me, begging me to help them. They seemed to be whispering, We could have had the needle today, why not?
“Daddy, I’m still sick, do they have to cut me again?”
“Doctors always trying to cut you. We’re doing okay. They said you wouldn’t even be here now. But look at you, look at me. Don’t you ever believe anything that comes in your ears you know in your heart isn’t right. That’s how we got here. Now good night.”
He kissed me on the forehead and then my cheeks, and I still felt the gruff of his whiskers on my skin when he left. The bedroom door he left open, just a crack, and a ray of the hallway light shot into the room. Across my room, my closet door was open, and the dark shadows came to life. I needed to get up and close the closet door. I hated it being open, and it reminded me of the dark closet from across the street.
Then I heard a voice.
“Lilly.”
I searched inside me to see if it was coming from my own body or not.
“Lilly.”
“Lilly.”
God I hope I don’t have to go to the hospital tonight. The nurses would see the scrapes. There would be more questions. I would be taken away.
“Lilly”
“What, what?” I finally answered.
“You want to play. Do you play with anybody?”
I turned my head and was eye to eye with the red stuffed bear. The one I got for winning tickets at the pizzeria. The stuffing was all smashed down and the neck of the bear couldn’t hold the head up anymore but just limped to one side no matter how I set it on the pillow.
I watched it closer to see if the lips moved. They didn’t. It couldn’t talk, that would be impossible, but it did turn its head, even with a broken neck, and the marble black eyes looked at me.
“Do you play with anybody?” The voic
e asked again, and I knew who it was. The boy from across the street, speaking in just a whisper.
“I don’t play with anybody,” I said, barely with my lips but mostly in my head.
“I don’t either. We can play.”
I thought of screaming and then saying I needed to go to the hospital. Dad would be so mad. He wouldn’t know what to do with Grandma. He would drive too fast and the car seats would be cold. He’d smoke in the car. The car would ‘ding’ because he wouldn’t wear his seatbelt.
Or I could just listen to this boy talk, safe in my own bed.
“Okay, we can play, but you aren’t real.”
“I am real. I live across the street. You know that. You were here. You are my friend.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“Yes, I know you have a purple backpack. I know you wear blue pants to school usually and a white shirt…I know your daddies. Both of them.”
“How do you know?”
“I know because I see them,” the boy’s whisper said. “And I know because I know your mom.”
This was a bad joke.
I traced my fingertip along the sewed up linings of the red bear to see if the stuffing was falling out. Outside the door, I heard echoes of water splashing from the bathtub and my dad pacing back and forth.
“How do you know her?”
“We’re together now. She has been here for a while. I been here longer.”
“How did you get inside my house?”
“Through the sewer line. Under the street. We can’t stay too long. It’s not easy. I can’t explain it. You’ll see what I mean if you come back here with me.”
“I can’t go back there. It’s not safe.”
“Come back here for me Lilly. Please. I need you to help me…”
His voice faded. I didn’t know if I needed more of the H or if it was the smack that was making these voices, but I was pretty sure that the pinch of the needle in my arm would make all of this go away.
“Lilly,” a voice came again. This time from the other side.
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