Owen slowly walked to the door, his gun aimed directly at it. Creeping closer to it, a recognizable sneeze made Owen’s entire body relax instantaneously. Remaining cautious, he opened the door, finding that his trust was well-placed. Standing before him was Ali, holding a bottle of water with beads of sweat profusely dripping from her forehead. Austin, rubbing his nose from the sneeze, didn’t seem to have the same sweat problem as his mother. The father and daughter awkwardly stared at each other, while Austin invited himself in.
“Come on in, Ali.”
Ali lightly bowed her head, taking a swig from her water as she crossed the boundary between outdoors and indoors.
After taking another peek outside and locking the door, Owen went to the kitchen to get a damp washrag for his daughter. She thanked him as she dabbed it on her forehead and the back of her neck. The television in the living room was turned on, and Austin could be heard asking himself what he should watch. Staring at his grandson from around the kitchen corner, it filled Owen's heart with joy watching Austin still act like a credulous kid in this situation. Austin had seen more than he could probably grasp in his little mind, yet he didn't show an ounce of pain or suffering. Owen’s heart descended into sadness. A kid should never see or experience physical pain or torture. He shook his head as darkness started to set into the kitchen. He thought about turning the light on, but the dark setting fit the mood.
Owen cleared his throat and took a seat at the kitchen table. “What are you doing here?”
Ali’s eyes widened as she examined what lay on the kitchen table. “You think you got enough guns and ammo here?”
“Honestly, no. I’d like more.”
She forced a surprised look. “I wonder why.”
“Really, why are you here? Was Clint threatening you or something?”
“Clint always threatens me. I’m used to that shit.”
“Nothing happened to you, right? After Ben got me?”
“Oh, I’m sure Clint wanted to beat me senseless, but he wasn’t about to do that with Scar around.”
“I guess that’s some sort of a relief. What happened after?”
“Well, first thing he did was throw a brick through your windshield.”
“Son of a…” Owen trailed off, not needing to finish the sentence.
Ali placed the rag on the table. “Yeah, sorry about that.”
“Better my truck than you or the boy.”
His daughter nodded, picking up and examining a shotgun shell, brushing the ridges of the red shell with her thumb.
“So what happened after that?”
“Clint and Scar got into it. But they didn’t really do anything. Eventually, Clint drove off and so did Scar. We were left alone and I didn’t really want to be alone. So we walked here.”
“Did you go through the woods? That’s a two mile hike. Are you guys thirsty or hungry?”
“I just felt like walking. Kind of a weird want to do something I really don’t like doing. But I did. I have water. I’m fine. Austin was saying that he was hungry on the way.”
Owen turned his head to his grandson in the living room. “Hey bud, you want something to eat?”
Austin's eyes met his. They didn’t have the same bright light they normally did. After everything that he witnessed today, it made sense why he would be down. That thought almost made Owen choke up.
“Um...I am a little hungry, I guess,” softly spoke Austin.
“How about a sandwich? I got some turkey and some cheese.”
Austin nodded his head and turned back toward the television.
“You got it, bud. You want mustard or mayo?”
“I got it, Dad,” stated Ali, getting up from the table. “Mustard, right honey?”
“Yeah, lots of mustard.”
“Okay, honey.”
“Stop calling me honey, mom. It’s embarrassing.”
With a pleased smile on her face, Ali walked to the refrigerator and prepared all of the ingredients to make Austin a sandwich, Owen took a seat back at the table, watching his daughter place the turkey and cheese on a slice of bread. He supported his head with his palm, his elbow planted on the table. As Ali liberally squirted a large amount of mustard on the exposed Kraft cheddar cheese single, a hidden smile came over his face. Even though Ali hated him most of the time growing up, he still remembered her preferences. She always asked for both ham and turkey, Swiss cheese, and a bunch of Miracle Whip on her sandwich. If it didn’t drip from the side and onto the plate after every bite, it was too little. She was a picky girl. Fickle and full of spite, but that picky side was a quirk he loved. Owen was a ketchup guy himself. But Austin loved mustard. He dipped his fries in it. He even remembered a few years back when he dipped an apple slice in it and actually seemed to enjoy the taste. Watching simple things like Austin loving mustard or his daughter making a sandwich for her son filled him with warmth and solace. These were the thoughts that he wanted to be his last.
Ali bent over and kissed Austin on the forehead when handing him his sandwich on a paper plate in the living room. He immediately took a large bite of the sandwich, showing his pleasure with a big messy smirk. He was watching some cartoons that had some adult language, but Owen didn’t feel like reprimanding him about it. As much bad language and adult situations the boy had seen in his life, mature cartoons probably had little effect on him. Although he wished Austin’s childhood was comparable to a normal child’s, the best he could do was to get his youthful life on the right track. For that, he would have to stay alive long enough to remove someone from Austin’s existence. It was a sullen and glum way of looking at things and one that might cause him contrite feelings, but it would have to be done. Owen's track record as a parent may have its share of demerits, but he guaranteed that other normal families haven't gone through half the shit that his family has.
As she entered the kitchen, Ali removed the shotgun from the table and leaned it against a wall. “You wanna get me a drink, Dad?”
“Get yourself a glass. I'll pour you a shot.”
After grabbing a shot glass from the cabinet, Ali took a seat and allowed her father to pour whiskey to the brim.
“You sure you need this?” asked Owen.
“More than ever.”
“I mean, do you need it combined with all the other shit you are on?”
“I’m not on any other shit right now. Not since Saturday night.”
“Meth again?”
Ali muttered something unintelligible.
“I wish you'd be off that stuff for good.”
Ali threw the whiskey back without any wasted motions. Owen mimicked her motions by pouring the contents of his glass down his gullet. The similarities between father and daughter were prevalent. She looked and acted like her mother, but there were the small details, like how she drank, that likened the two of them. It gave him an odd sense of cheerfulness. It was one of those feelings where he felt warm inside. But then again, whiskey has that effect on the human body.
“How'd you get off it?” asked Ali.
“What?” The question caught Owen off guard.
Ali leaned in closer so she could speak quieter. “What did you do to get clean?”
“Technically, I ain’t clean. I still drink, see?”
“You know what I mean. Gettin' off the dope and shit. What did you do?”
“You’re trying to get clean, really?”
“Been tryin’ since the year started. Wasn’t as easy as I thought it’d be. But, this time I’m determined. Haven’t touched it since I woke up. So, tell me. What did you do, Dad?”
Owen sighed deeply and gave his daughter a stare that showed both regret and determination. “I kicked the habit once I saw things clearly. Once I saw how we weren’t being parents to you and realizing how stupid I was being, I just had to stop. I didn’t want us to lose our livelihood over it.”
“But you did anyway,” retorted Ali, with a hint of sadness. It was getting so dark that the only light cam
e from the illuminating television in the living room, but Owen could see that expression on her face clearly.
“We did things. Bad things. All in the name of creating a better life for us...and you. That nice house we lived in when you were little? It was bought on drug money. Before that, we just had a small two-bedroom apartment. God, that place was horrible. Roaches, worms, our window units kept messing up. It froze up once in the summer, wouldn’t blow out any cold air. We had about five box fans just blowing on us. Still didn’t help. We didn’t want that life. So we were stupid and took the easy way out to make a buck. I never wanted to be hooked on that shit either. But, things happen when you get greedy.”
Ali refilled her shot glass, but lightly sipped on the contents. “How'd you even get started down that road?”
“I came home from a day of work and smelled pot in the place. Your mom was smoking in the bathroom. We had ground rules back then. Anything besides alcohol could not be done in the house. But it’s not like we were drug fiends back then. We were kids who loved to smoke some weed from time to time. We just agreed that it shouldn’t be in the house.”
Ali started positioning the shotgun shells upright on the table, but he could tell she was still listening intently.
“Anyway, I open the bathroom door and I see her on the toilet, smoking a joint like her life depended on it. There was a pile of cash at her feet. I remember the exact amount too. $304 of crumpled up bills. She told me that she could make more than that if she started selling it. I remember how conflicted I was, but I went with it.”
“You didn't tell her no?”
“I wanted to, Ali. I did so badly. But, I was barely making enough for you and your mom. Seeing that money lying there on our dirty ass bathroom floor...it made me want more. I didn’t want to live in that crap shack of an apartment. I didn’t want you to grow up in poverty either. Basically, that's how we went down that road. Patricia upgraded in product over time, and eventually, we started testing out our products. And of course, we got hooked. Your mother started doing some bad things for an extra dollar that I fucking stupidly consented to. And...yeah. Shit just rolled downhill.”
“So, about what I saw...with Mommy.”
“It's not something I want to get into, Ali.”
“You’ve already told me a lot, and you’re gonna stop there?”
Rubbing his eyes with the palm of his hand and letting it rub upwards toward his itchy scalp, Owen bit the inside of his lip with his canine. He was too nervous to give Ali any details. “We argued and had a difference of opinion.”
“What do you mean?”
“After an incident with a supplier, well…let’s just say I was tired of it all.”
“Still not making any sense.”
Owen sighed. “I wanted out. She got pissed off at some things. Whenever she got pissed off, she’d go on a binge. She ran into the house. Then I went to find you. You were at your friend’s house. Hell, I should have just left you there. You could have avoided seeing her.”
“But why would she just do that? Was she trying to get high or was she actually trying to kill…her…” Ali’s words paused. She was on the edge of breaking down.
“I don’t know. She had a lot on her mind, but I doubt she was trying to do that. I just…don’t know.”
Besides the noises coming from the television, only silenced reigned in the kitchen, as the father and daughter stared at their drinks. Ali wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Talking about her mother, even in good circumstances, always brought her to tears. Owen had remained upset through all these years, but he realized that Ali’s level of sadness far exceeded his. Not every eight year old gets to walk in to see their mother dead on the ground. She was always a momma’s girl, and that hadn’t changed at all over the years.
Ali picked up the shot glass by the base, rotating it with her fingertips and examining the details of the glass. “There has to be more to that. What were you arguing about? Why would she even be like that in the first place?”
“We were addicted. We did dumb things.”
“Like what? I want answers.”
“I don’t want to tell you this.”
Ali threw her arms up in frustration. “Tell me. Shit, dad. You can’t keep me in the dark. Not now.”
For almost 15 years, Owen had went with the vague excuse to her that ‘daddy and mommy were arguing.’ But Ali was an adult. Perhaps this added spice would add the clarity for her to realize the pain he was living in.
“We…we did stupid, horrible things to get our fix. We sold drugs and spent the money we earned buying more drugs for ourselves. We got way too hooked. It ruined our lives.”
“Sold? So you were in the Roaring 20’s?”
“Not exactly. Just selling for someone who was in it.”
“Okay. And…what?”
“This supplier, the one we were selling for, one day, got the balls to ask your mother for a sexual favor in return for an ounce more of this heroin we were selling.”
“So you beat his ass, right?”
Owen stayed completely silent. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, then wiped off any stray saliva on the corners of his lips with the side of his forefinger. “I didn’t. Not the first time. Or the second. Or even the third.”
A shocked look grew on Ali’s face. “You fucking let her!? She didn’t say no?”
“When you were as addicted as we were, you tend to look past it. We wanted to get high. I’m sure we both thought the same. Means to a fucking end.”
Taking a frantic look at the half-full whiskey bottle, Ali made a distressed face, one that almost wanted to drink the entire contents of the bottle. But even that wouldn’t take away the pain. “Holy…oh my god. No…no, Mom was not like that.”
“I’m not lying. I wouldn’t do that to you right now.”
Ali placed her face in her hands. “I know you aren’t. But…I never saw Mom like that.”
“She loved you, Ali. We both did. But when you weren’t around, that’s what we were doing.”
“I do remember being at Grandma’s a lot.”
“We made a lot of mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes. Mistakes that I can’t forgive myself for.”
Sighing, Ali looked up at the ceiling. She was visibly attempting to hold back tears. “So…what happened that day?”
“The supplier asked for another…blow…ugh, sexual favor,” said Owen. A bad taste developed in his mouth when remembering the exact acts she performed. “That time, I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
“Why then? Why didn’t you do it earlier? Why didn’t you…” Ali decidedly stopped talking before her lividness got the best of her.
“That’s something she asked me too on the drive back. Deep down, she was hurting because I never stepped up and told her no the first time. I was just tired of it all. The drugs, the infidelity…all of it. I wanted our old lives back. I wanted to be poor and happy. So I told Ali not to do it. Not this time. And that asshole then asks if I wanted to suck it instead.”
Ali raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah. I beat the shit out of him. Smashed his face until it was just wet sop and blood. Looked like a pile of smashed up hamburger meat. But she, in her wild state, takes the drugs on the way out. Drugs that were worth a lot of money. Drugs that someone would be looking for. But I wanted no part of it. She almost drove off without me, but once I got in our vehicle, I grabbed that heroin, ripped it open, and dumped it all out the window. She was so furious. Even though she was in so much mental pain, she didn’t want to see those drugs go. It would have taken one hell of an intervention to save her.
“Anyway, so we get home and we are fearing the worst. I just assaulted a Roaring 20, and well, you get the picture. You know what they are capable of. She ran inside, still screaming, and I went to get you. I waited outside with a gun at my back, thinking I would have to use it.”
Ali filled in the gaps. “I remember that. That big guy with a huge truck pulled up. You freaki
ng screamed at me to go back inside.”
“That big guy was Roy Grayson.”
It was as if a million piece jigsaw puzzle just magically put itself together. “Roy? THE Roy Grayson? The same Roy that Clint’s talked about since I met him?”
“That’s him.”
“So what happened next?” Ali asked with anxious enthusiasm.
“Yeah...turns out he was directly over that supplier that we bought our product from. He asked what happened. I told him the truth...partially.”
Ali was animated, eager to hear more. “Partially? What do you mean?”
“I did speak the truth when it came to kicking the supplier's ass, but when it came to the stolen drugs, I told Roy that the heroin was mostly cut with sugar and your mother threw it out the window on our way home.”
“Woah. And he believed that?”
“Turns out my lie was truth. That guy had been cutting his drugs for a while, then he’d take out little bits of the pure heroin to others so he could charge what he wanted. That way, he could make money selling for the Roaring 20’s and selling secretly for himself so he didn’t have to hand out a cut
“Smart, but stupid. Do you know what happened to that supplier? Surely someone did something to him.”
“Roy killed him. Not sure how. Hell, he killed him before he came to speak to me. So I guess he was onto it from the start.”
“Wow. So your lie was right the hell on.”
“Yeah, if it wasn’t. I probably wouldn’t be here talking to you. Anyway, I told him another truth. I told him we wanted to stop selling.”
“And did Mom want to?”
“Not really. She was angry at me for letting it all get to this, but she didn’t really want to stop either. If I had a chance to talk to her after Roy, well, maybe she’d finally listen. I'm telling the truth, I promise. There's no point in lying to you anymore.”
“I ain't sayin' you are lying to me. But, this is a lot to take in. Especially since you've never told me anything like this. But you should have told me. This is definitely something I should have known, for God’s sake.”
“I’ve…just been scared to say it. I don’t enjoy revisiting these memories.”
Comin' Home to You Page 18