Grim
Gavin McCallion
Copyright © 2017 by Gavin McCallion
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the author
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either
the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
or actual events is purely coincidental.
Right, so…
One
The Bus Stop
Before he was Grim, he was my Dad.
From what I hear, he was six-foot-tall, made of apologies, and dressed like he had someone's mum to impress. He wore his shirt neatly pressed and a belt to match his shoes.
We don't know his name anymore.
In a bus stop, he sat with Mum. It wasn’t as private as she’d like.
Rain clattered against the roof of the shelter, creating a din not quite as loud as Dad’s breathing.
He clamped his hands to the bench beneath him.
His right leg wouldn’t stop shaking.
Mum was playing with his testicles.
~
Yeah, sorry. This is how the story has to start.
~
'Hrn... May, what if a bus comes?'
'S'Sunday,' Mum sighed. 'No service.'
'Right, well, but, eh, what about people? Or Cars? Or Cameras?'
'Sexy, right?'
'May...'
'C'mon babe.' Mum shuffled her hand from a coy juggle of my Dad’s testicles to a firm grip on his poor, stressed-out erection.
'Oh!' He yelped, gripping the bench.
'I want you.'
'Y-yes, I understand.' He stared directly ahead, out into the road.
Mum grabbed him by the chin and turned his face to hers. She wanted to look sultry as she stared into his eyes, but found herself distracted by the rainwater hovering on his top lip, and collecting in his eyebrows, and dangling from the tip of his nose.
The rain had picked up right after they left the house, tearing through their jackets and drenching them to their skin. It took a lot of work to feel sexy in sodden clothes, but Mum pushed through.
Dad's eyes darted from side to side and wouldn't settle anywhere near her.
She forced eye contact. 'Hey, you with me?'
'Could we... could we go anywhere else? Anywhere? Even so we can cover-'
'Nope. Here.'
'Right...'
Mum watched him swallow a constantly redeveloping lump in his throat. He let out a long breath, steadying himself, putting on his big-boy trousers.
Ready, Mum thought with a smirk, to partake in her dirty little plan.
Dad unclamped his hand from the bench and placed it on her face. It felt damp, and cold, and sticky - just not sexy at all.
He drew her in for a kiss.
She shut her eyes.
Nothing happened.
She reopened her eyes and Dad stared past her, fear scrawled all over his face. A fear that undid all the good work her left hand had done. Behind her, something caught Dad's attention that widened his eyes, slackened his jaw, and softened his willy.
'Hey, you alright? Are-' Without letting go, she turned.
She couldn't blame Dad for his reaction. Her erection probably would've vanished too.
He was far off, for now, but he was definitely there. Against the dank backdrop of Wilson's Well, under an endless curtain of rain, walked a figure in black. He travelled with no rise or fall, seemingly stood on a hovering platform that moved him at a steady pace. He was obscured entirely by a cloak from head to toe and carried an umbrella propped on his shoulder.
Mum thought that was strange. Typically, if he were carrying anything on his shoulder, it should have a blade on top. Regardless of that little oddity, Mum knew exactly who it was.
The Reaper of Wilson's Well walked towards them.
The closer he got, the colder the air became. Mum clamped her jaw shut to keep her teeth from chattering.
Dad did not.
Mum couldn't move, not even her hand on Dad's limp penis. She felt paralysed by the possibility of death and the thought that her last living act was coaxing her moron of a boyfriend to do her in a bus stop. Her blood rippled with every step The Reaper took. She willed him to carry on without so much as slowing down.
She didn't want to die.
A minute passed before The Reaper reached them, casting a long shadow over their little shelter of passion. He didn't stop, but he did look. He looked at them as if to let them know he saw them, he knew what they were up to, and they should immediately stop it.
Mum rediscovered the use of her limbs and snatched her hand back from Dad’s crotch before properly releasing her grip.
Dad squeaked.
Just steps away, The Reaper offered a slight nod. '...Afternoon.'
Mum didn't think it was appropriate to reply.
Dad did, but he got himself caught somewhere between 'sorry' and - by some ridiculous internal logic - referring to his district Reaper as 'bud.'
'Sud,' he said.
That's the kind of guy my Dad was.
Sud.
The Reaper didn't bother to address the issue, for chances are he only spoke to let them know he existed. He passed without further incident, and my parents started breathing again.
Mum leant back against the shelter. 'Jesus.'
Dad looked at his crotch. 'That might have been the most confusing thing that's ever happened to me.'
'Why did I freak out?' Mum chuckled, shaking her head. 'He wasn't here for us. We're not dead.'
'No? I'm somewhat certain I was dying the whole time.'
'Yeah, dying. Not dead. If you see a Reaper, he's not there for you. It's where that saying came from, eh-' she clicked her fingers a couple of times '-what's for you won't go by you. That one.'
'Oh...' Dad said. 'That's... chilling.'
Mum grinned, lifting herself from the glass behind her. 'Anyway...' She thrust her hand back at Dad's crotch with such force he yelped like a dog.
'Wo-ho!' He held her back.
Mum swiped his arms away. 'Hey!'
'I'm not... I'm not really, eh...'
Mum didn't like to be told no. She had to stop herself from saying 'GIMME IT.' Instead, she cosied in near him, speaking in delicate tones. 'Come on... we're fine, we're alive... where were we?'
'No... I uh, how come you know so much about The Reaper?'
Mum groaned. The answer to that question wouldn't get her laid. Worse still, Dad already knew it. There was no point in lying.
'Tom told me,' she said, resigned.
'Ah.'
'Let's not do this again.'
'Y'know, he walks around telling people he's going to marry you someday. He tells everyone-'
'He's not.'
'I mean, he doesn't even deny being in love with you, I wish you wouldn't-'
'I'm asking nicely. Let's not go through this again.'
'Please, I wish you'd stop speaking to-'
Mum grabbed Dad and kissed the face clean off him. She made sure not to miss this time. 'I love you,' she said, between dramatic smooches. 'Don't forget it.'
She tried to convince herself every bit as much as she tried to convince Dad. On top of the little heart-attack her brush with death had given her, it made her realise that maybe she didn't love the boy.
Maybe, gun to her head, she would rather be with someone else.
Maybe she would rather be with someone like Tom. A boy so sure he would marry her one day, t
hat he swaggered around Wilson’s Well telling everyone.
He said it was his destiny to do it, the fact that she had a “boyfriend” or whatever didn’t phase him.
Destiny would break them up, and it just so happened that in this instance, destiny dressed as The Reaper.
~
Anyway, after ten minutes of declaring her love to Dad above all else, she eventually got him to shag her in the bus stop.
Without protection.
Now I'm here.
Ta-da.
I'm Cora, by the way, but this story isn't about me.
This story is about my Dad. My birth-Dad, to be exact. That guy my Mum sexually assaulted in a bus stop; that guy who Mum and Tom neglected to tell me about; that guy who died before I hit three; and that guy who got brought back to life when I was nineteen, to save the day.
And God help him, he tried.
~
Two
My Other Dad, the Home-wrecker
Dad died nearly three years later, on the 16th of July 1999.
That morning, Tom lay in bed, growling at the ceiling. 'Fuck her,' he said.
When he got up, he did push-ups, crunches, squats, burpees and leg raises, and then he went for a long shit, shower and shave. For breakfast, he put together a lovely green smoothie and drank it in the living room, standing up, butt-naked, facing the window. Cock to the world, he examined the type of day he had ahead of him.
Rain. Always Rain.
Wilson's Well rained all the time, literally. Tom expected that much. He checked more for the accompanying conditions. He'd cancel his run altogether if the rain paired with winds, snow, sleet or hail, but he only saw the rain and a pinprick of sun piercing the clouds. Desperate for therapy only a two-mile run could provide, he got dressed and went out.
He should've stayed in.
A brief account of his terrible, terrible morning run:
He forgot - even though they're there all year - the location of every puddle in the road and traipsed himself through every one of them.
He forgot - even though they do it every morning - commuters like to soak pedestrians at the Park Way crossing.
He couldn't catch that car because - while Tom would never admit it - he couldn't run faster than a car.
A fox halfway up Alisonhill stared him down, even though they are historically cowardly animals.
The fox attacked him.
The supermarket had run out of plasters.
The other supermarket was an extra fifteen minutes run away - he took this as a challenge.
This supermarket had plasters, but he forgot his wallet.
The pub was shut.
To be fair, that was Wilson's Well all the time. Wilson's Well never got better. It was the littlest of a group of islands off mainland Hadleigh, just outside of the light. It was angry and miserable. On Wilson's Well, it always rained, there were always puddles, commuters were always bastards, the foxes were always hard, the supermarkets got like one delivery a year, and the pubs only opened when the owner needed a hair of the dog. None of it was new, and none of it was what made Tom's run so horrible.
It was horrible because he woke up alone.
Tom stayed mainly at Mum's, but his continued renting of a flat he could barely afford symbolised how often their arguments ended in Mum kicking him out.
Were the arguments a constant slew of disagreements on a variety of issues, Tom would've called a mulligan on the relationship about a year in. That wasn't the case. They had one problem. One problem causing the same argument repeatedly since my birth. The problem whose last act as Mum's boyfriend was to get her pregnant and ensure his presence in Tom's life forever: Dad.
Tom couldn't think about him without clenching a fist.
In a nutshell, they argued about who got to see me more.
It always ended the same way: Tom had to understand Dad had rights too, but she'd see what she could do about rescheduling his time with her. Tom got his way, but he had to work for it.
Tom didn't know why he was delaying the inevitable. He would end up at her front door sooner or later. Running back up Alisonhill to his flat (past the vicious fox) to hang about for a few hours, just to come back down the road to Mum's door with his tail between his legs, was wasting time. He didn't have the energy for the theatrics, so he decided to skip them and jump to the end.
When Mum opened the door, he apologised right away.
'Are you sure?' she asked.
'Oh, aye.'
She stood back and let him in. 'Cora is his daughter, Tom, we can't cancel on him every time you come up with plans.'
'I know, I know.' He knew, and then he entered the household, dripping wet from the rain.
'He's really excited, we can't keep breaking his-'
'It's fine, I get it.' Tom put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her cheek.
She wiped a raindrop off her face and nodded him towards the kitchen.
Tom should have let Mum finish. If he had, she'd have said Dad's plans with me stuck this time. A family dinner with his parents for their anniversary didn't trump Dad's excitement about the release of the new Star Wars film.
Oblivious, Tom entered the chaos of the McKay home. He sidled past a teenage Aunt of mine as she absorbed the cover of a magazine and then spent ten minutes saying hello to me in the kitchen. Afterwards, he excused himself into the hall where he spotted Gran. She had knelt to reach a particularly sneaky dust clump beneath the telephone stand at which stood my other Aunt, gibbering on the phone. Gran noticed him and said hello out of sheer courtesy, but she couldn't be stopped in the middle of a cleaning spree. He stepped over her and slipped into the living room.
The living room was the biggest room in the house. It took an amber hue from the orange blinds that were kept shut all day and a toasty atmosphere from the fire that was kept on all day. Grandpa more or less lived in there. He sat in his armchair at the back of the room with a napkin in his hand, mopping his forehead to stop the sweat beads from ruining his newspaper. On his days off, he'd chain-read every paper out and swear at sports on the TV. It was tennis when Tom walked in.
Grandpa peered over the top of his specs at him. 'Kicked out last night, were you?'
'Aye...'
'You'll learn one day, sit down.'
Tom plonked himself onto the couch opposite. He made a choice to hang about with Grandpa all day. He thought he'd let the heat simmer him off to sleep and wake up refreshed and ready for some good lager and a steak with his family. Content, he burrowed down into the cuddle of the cushions at his back, listening as Grandpa flicked the pages on his paper and grumbled obscenities at the TV.
Three hours later, Dad showed up to fuck with his day again.
~
At one, the doorbell went. It had an old-school bing-booooong… to it that echoed throughout the house and usually started the argument on who was closest to it for answering.
Tom settled it before it started by peeling himself from the couch. 'I'm on it.'
'Gid lad.' Grandpa didn't lift his head from his paper.
Tom, wet with sweat, squelched from the room and down the hall, marking the carpet as he went.
He opened the front door and found Dad. Still a gangly length of man from his goofy, over-sized feet to his shaved-sides-long-top haircut that wouldn't be out of place in 2016. He had a face made up of odd, jaggy angles and eyes too big for it. In one hand he held an umbrella over his head, in the other he held a chunky mobile phone.
He presented it to Tom. 'Oh, afternoon Thomas! Have you got one of these yet? Are you familiar with Snake? Or text messaging? It's thrilling.'
'The fuck are you doing here?'
'Oh.' Dad lowered the phone. 'Well, I'm here to get Cora.'
'Right, May didn't tell you?'
'Tell me?'
'Aw, mate.' Tom tried not to sound thrilled that he got to deliver the news. He exaggerated a grimace. 'Argh, oh, she didn't phone you, did she?'
'No, Thomas, don't, you
can't.'
'Sorry bud, she double-booked you. Pretty shitty, I know.'
'No-no, Thomas this isn't fair. May promised me. We have plans. We have plans.' He passed his phone to the hand sharing the umbrella and rummaged around the inside pocket of his tweed blazer (again, very 2016) to produce two cinema tickets. 'We were going to see Star Wars, Thomas. They've totally changed lightsaber-'
'Hey, heeey mate. Stop talking, I don't care. It's my parents’ anniversary and they want the whole family there.'
Tom was a big guy and Dad was weak as a kitten, so his bravery can't be faulted when he chose his next words.
'But, she's not your family, she's mine. She's my girl.'
Tom wasn't angry in 1999. That came later. Later in life, he'd fight with a sandstone-brick of rage living at the bottom of his stomach every day, but in 1999 it was just a pebble.
He calmly retorted, 'nope, not today she's not. Bye.'
Tom tried to shut the door.
Dad couldn't have that, but he couldn't think up a way to stop him fast enough. Instead, he forced his whole upper body into the closing gap yelling, 'PLEASEYOUCANTDOTHISSTARWAR.'
'Jesus!' Tom planted his hand on Dad's face and forced him back out into the cold.
Grim became suddenly tangled in his limbs and fell on his arse. 'Oh!' he yelped, but he seemed more concerned with the residue left on his face. 'Why is your hand wet?'
‘Cheers.' Tom shut the door and sniggered. He carried it with him back down the hall until he saw Mum standing ahead of him. She held me in one arm (out cold, snoring)(in an adorable way) and an overnight bag over her shoulder.
He stopped.
Mum spoke. 'Tom, what was that?'
'He tripped and fell over, he's all limbs.'
'He's here to pick up Cora.'
The doorbell rang again.
'Let him in.'
'Didn't we say Cora was coming with us?'
'No, we really didn't.' She barged past and answered the door herself.
Dad was back on his feet. 'Oh, hello May. Has there been a misunderstanding? I thought-'
'Nope, here.'
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