Armadillos

by P. K. Lynch

  She was helping Ade with some issues to do with the house but it was hard to say what the specific problem was when only Freak and Beast Woman were allowed into his room. How a guy like that could hold attraction for two such different women was a mystery to me. Not only did he smell kind of funky on account of all the dope he smoked, his hair couldn’t have seen water in years. Freak loved the dreads but I thought they were weird on a white guy. But more than this, it just plain pissed me off that he was keeping Freak all to himself. I wondered if Beast Woman was pissed off, too. Maybe we could help each other. I filed that thought away for another day. I was loyal to Freak and didn’t want to get in the way of the big romance she seemed set on.

  ‘Hey there, daydreamer.’

  Tawanna smiled at me through the stair rail.

  ‘You gonna stand there all day?’ she asked.

  I shook my head and tried to smile back.

  ‘That aint a real smile,’ she said. ‘Now come down and tell Tawanna what the matter is. That’s an order.’

  With no Monty around to keep her at bay, I moped down the stairs. She put her arm around my waist and pulled me in as she led me through to the kitchen. She was fat and comfortable and I was happy to feel like a child again. She slid a pitcher of iced tea towards me and told me to add sugar while she squeezed some lemon.

  ‘And then you can tell me all about it.’

  We poured the sugar and lemon in and I tasted it. It was still warm but would be good in a while. I nodded and said, ‘Aint nothing wrong a glass of that won’t cure.’

  She laughed again and I noticed she seemed different. Kind of sparkly.

  ‘Yeah, it’s good stuff. I made some brownies, too,’ she said, as she lifted some paper towels from a plate on the counter. ‘Try one.’

  I was relieved she wasn’t pursuing her line of questioning, although if I’d needed proof there was something odd about her, that was it. I took a bite of brownie and made all the right noises, even though I couldn’t help notice it was a little dry. Guess I’d been spoiled in my previous life by Jojo’s baking.

  ‘They’re good, huh?’ she said, picking one up and putting it in her mouth whole. She couldn’t talk like that so she settled for making noises like they were the best brownies in the world. Her eyes grew bigger and she waved her hands at me, making sure I couldn’t look away. Tawanna was a communicator.

  She stuffed another two down, one by one, all the time rolling her huge eyes and waggling her fingers in the air. Eventually I couldn’t help myself and I laughed. She looked mock-angry.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Are you okay? You seem a little… different.’

  Tawanna slapped her hands down on the counter. ‘You noticed? You can tell? Oh my God, Lloyd told me not to tell anyone but if people can already tell just by looking…’

  Her hands flew to her boobs.

  ‘Is it these? They’re getting so big. How big do they go, do you know? I already got a goddam basketball each side. My Lloyd’s one lucky guy, oh yes he is.’

  She laughed her usual deep, dirty laugh but this time there was a touch of hysteria in it.

  ‘Tawanna, what are you talking about?’ I asked, completely confused.

  She slapped my hand, as though I was playing games with her.

  ‘Why, Aggie – you just worked it out! I’m having a baby!’

  Her lips were parted in a wide smile, her tongue glistened through the gap in her teeth, her eyes shone with a wild kind of happiness I’d never seen before, and still I couldn’t find any enthusiasm for her.

  ‘Wow,’ I said.

  ‘I know, isn’t it amazing?’ Her eyes grew moister than her brownies. She leaned over and took a hold of my hand. ‘We been trying, Aggie. I mean, we been trying for years. I been on my knees in that hall closet so many times asking God to send me a child and at last he’s heard me. God is good, He is.’

  ‘That’s great, Tawanna. I’m happy for you.’

  ‘But don’t you go telling anyone, okay? I can’t believe you just straight out guessed like that. Incredible.’

  ‘I won’t tell. But what… Where you gonna go with a baby?’

  She seemed surprised by my question. ‘We’ll stay here, of course. Ade always said we could. I don’t see why he’d change his mind now. And this place aint so bad now, is it? We’ll turn it into a palace. Never was much point before but now… well, now we got reason, aint we?’

  I tried so hard to reply but I just couldn’t get the words out.

  ‘Holy shit, Aggie. Tawanna’s gonna be a mommy.’

  Her eyes flooded then and her smiling face was swept away in a tide of tears. She apologized and rushed out the room. I heard Freak on the stairs telling her to slow down and then the slam of a bedroom door.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ Freak wanted to know, as she sauntered over to the counter and helped herself to a brownie. I thought about telling her. Up until recently, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it.

  ‘Not sure,’ I said. ‘Think she’s just tired, maybe.’

  Freak accepted this and made to walk out.

  ‘You wanna do something later?’ I asked. I was too eager, I could hear it. She swayed on the spot, like she couldn’t decide which direction she was going to move in. There was a look on her face I didn’t recognize. I knew she was keeping something from me.

  ‘Naw,’ she said. ‘I gotta go. See ya.’

  I followed her to the front door and touched her gently on the shoulder as she bent to zip her boot. She jumped and brushed me off.

  ‘Jesus, Aggie. You scared me.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Alright, I’ll catch you later.’

  She skipped down the steps and disappeared down the street without looking back. I closed the door and leaned against it. The hallway caught hardly any light and was cool and gloomy. Across from me, the door to the hall closet seemed to shine. I hadn’t been in since Tawanna had shown me what it was for.

  On the floor inside I found a flashlight and a black marker. I picked up the marker and placed the nib on wall. I didn’t know what to write, where to start. I closed my eyes and my hand moved without me telling it. When I looked, the same two names were written over and over: one in strong, jagged up-and-down strokes, the other in messy loops.

  FREAKFREAKFREAKFREAKFREAKFREAKFREAK

  JOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJO

  I was embarrassed by myself. I used all the paint to cover their names up, but I still saw them, plain as day. To my mind, they’d break through all the paint in the world.

  She had my arm and she cut. She squeezed real hard and her nails dug in. My blood slid between her fingers. She took her hand away and wiped it on a towel. I waited for my reward: her smile, her whispered ‘Sisters’, but it never came. She still had that look on her face – tense, focused, far away.

  ‘Again,’ she said.

  Before I could say no, she’d cut me again. She focused real hard on the cut, like she could pull some special energy from it. She pinched the good skin on either side and the open wound gaped. I tried to pull my arm away but she had it too strong. She slapped it in frustration and the blood smeared. She slapped it again, and I couldn’t tell if it was the blood smearing, or her hand slapping that made it redder.

  ‘It’s not working,’ she said, her eyes alive with something I couldn’t put words to. With a hard, final pinch of my bleeding arm, she let me go.

  There was a time I could only be found in the red barn. We always kept cats to keep the mice down. One of them had sprung a new litter and I busied myself making sure the kitties all got their turn on their mama’s teats. I snuck little cubes of cheese out the kitchen for the momma. I also snuck some bread and cookies and milk.

  For the momma cat, I said to Jojo, when she caught me red-handed.

  Hmm, said Jojo. Do you think momma cat would like some apple pie, too? My mouth watered as she removed the foil from a freshly baked masterpiece. I nodded my yes pleases, then set off to the bar
n loaded down with treats and drool.

  She tracked me down later that day when Pop was at auction. She told me to leave the kittens and follow her out to the field. Ash was waiting for us. Without speaking, he swung his rifle off his shoulder and gave it to Jojo. He pointed some way down the field to where a pyramid of tin cans waited on an upturned crate.

  Jojo lifted the gun and he settled in behind her to help adjust her aim. She fired. Not a single can so much as bounced.

  Again, he said.

  When it was my turn, he swapped the rifle for a smaller gun. I lifted it and looked straight down the middle. Pop! The first can went down. Pop! The second can went down. Pop, pop, pop! One after another, all the little cans fell down.

  Shit, Aggie. You’re a frikkin natural, Jojo whooped.

  I grinned at Ash but he was unsmiling, his attention focused on something behind me. I turned around to see Cy watching us. Maybe he’d been there the whole time.

  We’ll do this again, okay? Ash said, quietly. He gathered the guns in as Cy walked towards us. Jojo put her arm around me and hurried us back inside.

  When Cy told Pop we’d been shooting, there was hell to pay. Why was Ash wasting bullets on damn women? As punishment, Ash had to go round the field collecting sheep shit and then burn it. There was no good reason. It just made Pop happy to see him do it.

  As a reward for ratting on us, Cy was allowed to go with Pop to auction whenever it was on. He crowed like a rooster to be so tight with Pop. Promotion, he called it. But we didn’t care, because on those days, Ash took me and Jojo back out again. Those days were the shooting days.

  One afternoon after school, I was sitting behind the barn playing with the kittens. I’d picked a cute little tortoiseshell as my favorite and was trying to decide on a name when Pop’s voice suddenly roared out of the sky and landed all around me. I whipped round but he was nowhere in sight. Then the whole barn juddered as something thumped against it, once, twice, three times. One of the kittens was tugging on the hem of my jeans and I kicked it away as I scrambled up.

  Through a gap in the wood I saw Cy lying crumpled on the ground, his back against the wall with all the tools hanging on. It was pretty dark but I could tell he was looking up at something. And then I saw Pop. He rained down slaps and punches harder than a stampede.

  After a time, Cy stopped trying to protect himself. His hands useless at his side, he lay motionless. Pop growled, Think you’re man enough to go behind my back, do you? and then, Think you can take my place, do you? And he hit him again, and kicked him. Cy moaned and folded over like he was trying to make himself small, and all the time Pop telling him over and over what a joke he was.

  The kitten I’d kicked was crying so I picked it up and tried to hush it. When I looked through the crack again, I just caught Pop’s back disappear out the barn into blinding sunshine. Cy was flat out, breathing heavy. I was thinking I should go get Jojo when Ash stepped out of the shadows. He must have been there the whole time. He offered his hand to Cy and Cy let him pull him up. The kitten mewed real loud and they were only a few feet away, so I cuddled it closer and told it again to shush.

  Cy stood swaying, his head down like he was trying to find his balance. Ash held him by the arms, trying to keep him steady. Their voices were so low, I couldn’t hear what they said. Then Ash gave Cy a rough shake.

  You should let her be, Cy. It aint normal anyway.

  There was a shift in Cy then. His back stiffened, though he still just looked down at his shoes and I reckon Ash missed it. The kitty cried and squirmed in my hands and I kept it tight into me and kissed its head and begged it be quiet. Ash patted Cy on the shoulder and turned to go.

  I knew it was going to be bad even before Cy had reached the pitchfork. My mouth opened but nothing came out. Ash didn’t know what had hit him. The fork ran through the back of his thigh and pinned him to the ground when he fell.

  Think you’re better than me, do you? Cy sneered. He dragged himself forward and pulled the fork out. He lifted it high over Ash and I pictured him bringing it down again, only worse this time, but Ash rolled over onto his back and then I heard my brother beg.

  Cy lowered the fork but kept it at Ash’s throat. More, he said. Beg some more.

  There was more begging, and there was spitting too, before the pitchfork was thrown to the side and Cy limped out of the barn, leaving Ash lying in the dust and muck of the barn floor.

  A few feet away, I stood mute in the bright afternoon. I unclenched my hands and looked down to where the little kitty lay, still and quiet at last. That’s when I learned that violence can be catching.

  14

  When the scars come first they’re like trace lines, leaving a whisper of what you felt. Then you make them a little bit longer, or a little bit deeper, and your skin bursts red. Red for danger, red for life. Your skin feels everything so inside you don’t have to. Lines, little cuts, scattered around in random places; forearm, wrist, then up to the shoulder. Lines, lines, lines. Sometimes you leave it long enough for them to close up and heal, fade to silver white, but one day you have to open them up again, make sure you’ve still got it, the ability to feel without feeling. You make lines upon lines of hurt on your skin. Each line a scream you never made. Finding out that inside you it’s beautiful. Pure, untainted blood; you’re human after all.

  Except mine wasn’t untainted and she knew it. But we pretended like mine was normal. It was good blood, she said. Good and healthy. Sometimes I believed her.

  There comes a point where you notice someone is more fucked up than you are and you want to run but you can’t. You know you should. But like a crowd around a car crash, you stick it out, and then wish you hadn’t.

  She’d been walking, she said. Deliberately walking through bad parts of town. Deliberately drawing attention to herself. When she knew they were behind her, she’d led them down a little dark alley and waited. She never had to wait too long.

  Freak. Her arms, legs, stomach, feet, all spliced to shit, her punishment to herself, and now she wanted me to do her back. She stood in front of me, naked from the waist up, waiting for the cut to come.

  ‘C’mon, Aggie. Do it.’

  This was the new thing. Using the knife on me didn’t help her any more. Cutting herself did nothing. She told me I was the only one she could trust to do it. So I did. Traced the knife all over her arms, joining up old scars. Trying to make them pretty. Turning nightmares into dreams, she’d said. Everywhere you could see on her was dreams now. Except her back, which was flawless. Not so much as a freckle on it.

  I’d tried to talk her out of it but she didn’t want to know. It got so I was crying and she was yelling. I’d begged her not to make me do it. Her back was so pretty and perfect but what good was that to her if she couldn’t see it, she said. For my part, taking a knife to what was already damaged made some sort of sense. But this clean new canvas made me feel bad. I wanted to fix her up, not break her down. Finally, I said that if I was going to cut her it had to be my way. She looked surprised at that. I’d always gone along so meek with everything she said. ‘I mean it,’ I told her. ‘You want cuts, you want me to do it, it’s got to be my way.’ Don’t know if it was the demons inside or if she was just plain curious, but something made her agree. Don’t mean I found it easy, though.

  ‘Can’t do it standing,’ I said, stalling. She sat right down straight away. Her hair was swept round one side, a few short wisps danced around the nape of her neck. Her natural colour was baby blonde. Baby Freak.

  She lowered her head and her back curled, all the knobbled parts of her spine poking out of the whitest skin I’d ever seen. I placed my left hand around her rib cage, feeling her heart beat even from there. She took a deep breath and my hand rose with her ribs. With the blade in my right, I began.

  Didn’t do it all at once. She was good at breathing through the pain but when she started moaning it was time to stop. She didn’t want Ade coming to see what was wrong. He’d stopped having sex w
ith her. Didn’t give a reason and she didn’t ask. My theory was he got fed up washing sheets that were bloody from leaking scars. I knew she still gave him something now and then to keep him sweet. Something that didn’t involve her taking off her clothes. Keep him from moving us on, Freak said.

  Took six days in all. Freak got kind of weak and shivery and I thought I should stop but she insisted we keep going. Every night I’d do a bit more and she’d spend the next day lying face down on the floor. Bags of bloodied bandages piled up by our bedroom door. The blood soaked through every shirt we owned.

  I had to take a picture on a phone she’d sneaked in so she could see what I’d done. I don’t know what she expected to see and I didn’t know what to expect of her reaction. Instead of the endless lines crisscrossing their way across the rest of her body, I’d carved her a flower. Starting in the curve of her waist, it had nine petals, three leaves, and the stem, when it healed, would disappear down into her jeans. I’d been as gentle as I could.

  ‘It’ll look better when it fixes,’ I said. It was swollen a furious red. Didn’t see how it could ever look better. Freak gripped the phone in both hands, staring so hard at the screen, I couldn’t read her face. I’d cleaned it up best I could for the photo but you can’t hold back blood. Some of it started to seep out before I could take the shot. It was a mess.

  Freak started to shake. Sobs ripped out of her in long, shuddering breaths.

  ‘Oh my God, I’m sorry, Freak. I’m so sorry,’ I cried, but she looked up at me, all blue eyes and pink, and said, ‘Thank you.’

  15

  No one asked about Freak. She wasn’t missed. I’d been holed up taking care of her for days. I’d never spent so much time with someone and felt so alone. Guess talking’s hard to do when you’re in so much pain.

  It was one of those rare days we were all there, apart from Freak and Ade who had stayed inside. Brandon, Ricardo and Lloyd had split a pack of beer, and Tawanna was beside them, reading Marjorie’s palm. It had been a while since Marjorie had posed a threat. I figured Ade must have called her off, because she’d been almost civil lately. Anyway, I didn’t worry about her too much. I was glad to be outside, catching a buzz from the impromptu party atmosphere.