Scribbles and Scrawls

by Bethany Votaw

  “What if he takes them?” she asked.

  “He won’t. He’s too smart for that.” Dad let out a long sigh, and I swore the alcohol fumes floated from his mouth and into my nose again. Maybe Jamie smelled it too.

  “But my oxy,” Mom cut in.

  “There’s nothing we can do right now. We have to wait it out.”

  We all knew Dad wouldn’t mind Jamie taking the pills. He probably pictured what it would be like to shove a handful down Jamie’s throat and end it all. It was the relief he chased from the bottle. And I could almost taste the grape Advil on my lips.

  “We should check the knives,” Mom said. “Maybe the forks too. Oh God, what else could he have taken? What else has he stashed?”

  The knife drawer had a lock on it, and I heard them jiggle it open. The clanking of silverware and the slamming of drawers came next.

  “Robert?” Mom’s voice shook. My stomach dropped. Jamie, who had been grunting out another series of push-ups, paused too. “We’re missing a steak knife. The big one.” The last bit came out a sob.

  A chill raced through the house. A frigid breeze squeezed my lungs. They felt it too. Four separate bodies under one roof, each suffocating.

  They marched down the hall, a united front, sort of. One soldier wobbled in his boots, the other quaked. The commotion next door would have woken me regardless. They searched his room, stripped it all. The screams of fear and rage mixed into a cocktail strong enough to rival Dad’s tumblers of whiskey.

  I decided to cry. I cried out my rage. I cried out frustrations, and finally, a soldier came knocking.

  “Mom,” I whispered. “It was me. It was me.”

  She gave me a blank face. I squeezed out a tear. My lip trembled. “It was me, the knife.” I jumped at the sound of Jamie’s door handle turning. I brought Mom to my bed and lifted the pillow. The long, serrated knife glinted in the light. It was still warm from where my head had been pressed against it.

  “Why do you have this?” Mom’s face was a look of anger, fear, horror, and something else.

  “I was scared,” I whispered. I could hear Dad talking with Jamie, keeping him in his room. Both of their words were slurred.

  “You were scared?” Mom shook my shoulders. Ice crawled up my spine and broke my stare at the door, forcing me to look in her eyes.

  I nodded. “After what happened last time, I just wanted it—you know, in case.” Another tear fell. I let it slide down my cheek. My hand twitched, and eventually I couldn’t resist and wiped it away.

  She blew out her breath. She smelled like whiskey too. And lemons. She patted me on the shoulder, and I melted into her. She hugged me fiercely and whispered in my ear, “You can’t be doing that. If you are scared, you need to let me know. We can get through this together.”

  She squeezed me again, taking the knife with her. It was shorter than I remembered. I heard the mumbled exchanges, and Jamie stepped into the hallway. He gave me a glare. I shrugged and then he did too.

  The next night was Dad’s turn to scream. “Honey, we have a problem.”

  Mom’s feet pounded the floor as she raced to the kitchen. It was after dark, and I had already heard that click of the liquor cabinet.

  “What is that? In the bottom there?”

  “Powder? What is it?” Mom asked.

  “I don’t know, that’s why I called you.” Dad’s voice was shaky. It was never shaky. He was never shaky. I wondered what it felt like to be a lion scared of a twig.

  The lion stomped to Jamie’s room. “What did you put in my drink? In the bottle?” I imagined him shaking Jamie by the shoulders in his bed. Jamie would have pretended to be asleep, of course. I would have too.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Jamie said.

  “Bullshit, what did you put in the whiskey?”

  Mom’s whispers broke the rising tension between lion and monster.

  “What is it?” Dad demanded, losing the invisible thread of control.

  I cracked my door. Dad’s eyes were wide. Jamie’s matched his look of shock.

  “I can’t do this anymore,” Dad said.

  “What is that smell?” Mom asked when she walked into the room.

  I retreated to my closet. I fingered the much thinner stack of bills, just a few dollars. The biggest bill I had was a five. The feeling of letting the hundred go made my eyes well up. I had the most memories attached to that one. I stole it from my teacher’s wallet during lunch.

  “I asked you to check his room. What is it, Jamie? What did you do?” Dad demanded.

  “I didn’t do anything!”

  Dad barreled past Jamie, searching his closet, under the bed. “Oh my God,” Dad wailed.

  A banshee screamed. It was Jamie. “I swear it wasn’t me! I was going to get rid of it! I don’t know how it got here!”

  “Is that the stray dog? Oh my god, the cat,” Mom wailed. “Not again.”

  “Don’t come in. It’s dead. I don’t know for how long. It’s partially skinned. Oh God.” Dad wretched. “Did we interrupt your playtime with this animal? Go call the facility, honey. Now.”

  And then they left, leaving me alone in that house with that rotting cat. I wandered over to it, breathing in that awful scent of decaying flesh. The top half was skinned, the fur matted in dried blood. A gross piece of art fueled by pent up rage.

  I found the little camera I hid on Jamie’s desk, among his books he never touched. It had been pointed at his door. That camera cost me two hundred and thirty-eight dollars, and one of my favorite memories. The time I swiped a twenty from a homeless man.

  I trotted down the hall, the smell of the decaying cat finally clearing from my nose. I grabbed Dad’s hidden key, pulled a stool from the kitchen island, and opened the liquor cabinet. I reached around in the back, ripping the camera taped to the top. It was the hardest to hide. It cost all the jewelry I had at the pawnshop. It took me four tries to get a place to haggle with me. It was worth it. Even that pearl earring I stole from that redhead from the park was worth giving up.

  I sat on Jamie’s bed. It felt right to do it there, among the stinking cat and ironed curtains. I played the videos, their content sent straight to an app on my secret phone with the push of a button. I watch as crushed pills were poured and mixed into Dad’s bottles. The screen was blank for a long while, Jamie entering and exiting his room. It was only activated by movement. He used to sneak out at night too. I wondered if he ever bumped into Mom or Dad. Then the cat came in, already dead and skinned, placed under Jamie’s bed. There was always trouble with skinning the arms and legs.

  I called the number the counselor told me to. “I have the evidence you need.”

  And the cops finally picked up my mother.

  “Munchhausen by proxy,” some social worker said. Dad didn’t believe it. Of course he wouldn’t. I knew he still dreamed of shoving oxycontin down Jamie’s throat and ending all of the problems, as if they all stemmed from his firstborn. A sacrifice of sorts. We all knew Mom would come back home at some point, new pills in hand, the precarious veil of peace a shadow over our lives.

  At least I got my brother back, for a time. My fingers burned, and I searched for an earring to steal.

  2

  Coffee with the Devil

  I cleared my throat and wiped my palms on my pants. “I need to know. Do all of God’s creatures go to heaven?”

  The Devil looked back at me with his vacant eyes; they were not as terrifying as I first thought they’d be. All the scary stories in Sunday school class never mentioned how normal the Devil looked. His eyes were like dark pools of water, a mirror. Maybe that’s why the emptiness of those eyes was so unsettling.

  “All of God’s creatures go to heaven,” the Devil said. He never blinked. “Sinners and all. God loves them. He made them.”

  Relief flooded me—a new lightness to my body threatened to carry me away, like the steam from our cups. “Are you not a creature of God, then? Why not give up this—” I outstretched my ha
nd and gestured around me, as if it were enough to indicate all that was wrong with this world.

  He nodded slowly, his sharp nose taking a moment to inhale the coffee in front of him. It had cream in it, and I didn’t know why that surprised me more than his lack of horns and tail.

  “I could have gone back.” He stirred the coffee. “I almost did.”

  I thought of a world without the Devil, without this evil and power. It was a strangely disappointing picture. No separation between the good and the terrible. There would only be the option for good. Life would be linear; we would all be equal. Maybe he was more human than I’d thought. Or I was more devil than I’d thought.

  “But you wanted to be in control?” I asked. It’s what I would have wanted.

  “You could say that, but I fell into a new role when I left heaven. ‘Fell from heaven,’ as the poets like to call it. I created my own beings, my own devils. How could I have left them? They are not God’s creatures; they are mine alone. It is because I love them that I stay. Like a father who loves his children.”

  “I see.” I shifted in my seat, unsettled by the idea of a devil capable of love. I stood, reaching out to shake his hand.

  “Where are you going?” he asked. “What makes you think you can leave?”

  I slipped on my coat, ready to flee. “I’m going to tell everyone the good news, how we are all going to make it to heaven. No need to worry.”

  He shook his head, sipping the coffee. It was still too hot, but he swallowed anyway. “Oh no. I am afraid not. You are one of mine.”

  3

  Scribbles

  Violet liked to read and draw; I liked to talk and walk. It had always been that way. I moved; she didn’t. I was too loud; she never was.

  “What are you doing, Vi?” I asked.

  “Drawing our life,” she said, scribbling across the page. She was on her stomach, laying on an old blanket, face scrunched in concentration. She took drawing seriously. “Pass the crayons.”

  I handed her the box of broken crayons and nubs of color she could barely hold. “What are you drawing?” I asked again, peeling the paper off a broken crayon. She never answered me the right way.

  She huffed and held out the picture for me. The white page was full of little pencil outlines of people. The background was slowly being filled with color. Green trees, red flowers, yellow sun. She and I were next to each other, holding hands, beside to a tall person. Mom. Neither of us were colored in yet. I hoped she’d give me a purple shirt. I thought she would; twins could understand stuff like that.

  I scoffed at the other two figures. “Why’d you put Donnie in there? And Toad?”

  She snorted and went back to drawing. I sat on our island of blankets spread across the hardwood floors. The patched blankets were like our own country. We had our own rules on our land of quilts.

  I watched her draw. And waited. She would answer my question, eventually. She just needed time to plan her words. She liked to read and draw. I was the one who liked to walk and talk, after all. Her words formed some order by the time the trees were colored in. She said, “Donnie and Tod, they will leave if they have to. Got to give them a chance first.”

  And then Toad walked in.

  “What you brats up to?” He was older than us by four grades. He thought he was like his dad and we had to obey him too. But Donnie wasn’t our dad, and Tod wasn’t our brother, no matter what Mom said. But Mom loved Tod and Donnie. She found them somewhere, and we moved in with them. Donnie had a big house. I guess Mom liked that bit too. Mom said this was our family, and Donnie was Dad.

  Our own dad was “out of the picture.” I wondered if Violet could draw our own dad back in. I wonder if she remembered what he looked like. I didn’t think I did, but I could make up something if she asked. I was very good at talking.

  “I said, ‘what are you brats up to?’ Are you coloring on the floor? I’m gonna tell my dad.” Tod wore a sneer; he was excited over the prospect of getting us in trouble.

  I wanted to spit on him and not care, but my stomach squeezed tight. I glanced at the paper on the ground and hoped none of the crayons made smudges on the wood when Vi colored the edges.

  Toad used his foot to tap on Vi’s back. “What you got there?” It was nearly a kick, but I couldn’t say that, then he’d really show me what a kick was. Maybe bust up another one of Vi’s ribs too. He picked on her more than me. She stayed still, on her stomach, but her fingers curled into her palms, unwilling to give Toad a chance to step on them.

  He kicked her again, his muddy shoes leaving prints on her island of blankets. On her. Her space. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Ribbit,” she said. She didn’t even look at him.

  I cracked a smile.

  “My name is Tod!” He ripped the page from her hand and studied it. “What is this?”

  This time I found my voice. “It’s us. And you’re lucky she put you in the picture.”

  He scoffed and threw it on the ground. Violet’s quick hand snatched it from the air as it floated down to the splintering wood floor. She pulled it to the safety of her blanket island.

  “Pass me the eraser,” she said.

  I handed her the gummy thing, and she erased the pencil legs of Toad and blew the pieces of rubber from the page away. She shrugged and sat up. “He did this to himself.”

  Mom was frantic about dinner. She thought she overcooked Donnie’s steak. Toad was in a mood too, growing pains or whatever. Mom gave him some syrup, and that seemed to help. I peeked over at Vi. She stared out the window, her lips pursed. I looked at Mom; her lips were pressed together. I looked at my reflection, and my lips were closed tight too.

  “Violet, Scarlett?” Mom said as she fussed over the steak. Our hotdogs were giving her no trouble.

  “Yes?” I asked. Vi only looked at Mom.

  “I got a call from your teacher, and some things have got to change. Scarlett, you can’t just speak for your sister.”

  She lectured us about something. I wasn’t listening. Well, sort of. I listened for the engine of Donnie’s truck and the rattling of the door handle twisting.

  “Do you understand?” Mom asked. “I am not going to repeat myself.

  Vi nodded, and so did I. I hoped I agreed to something reasonable. Vi rolled her eyes and went back to staring out the window.

  “She just thinks because you’re twins you should at least be getting the same marks. Has no regard for how different you two are.” Mom lectured the steak as if it were the teacher. But we never went to those school meetings anyway.

  Toad kicked me from under the table.

  “Ow!” I yelled, hoping Mom would come to my aid.

  “Sorry.” Toad stuck his tongue out. Mom didn’t see. “Leg cramps. I was just stretching.”

  I was going to say something, so was Toad, Mom too, but the rattling of the doorknob made us fall quiet.

  Donnie sent us to our room early. Toad too. Vi didn’t get more than a bite of her hotdog. I figured it was coming, so I scarfed my down. Donnie said we were all ungrateful brats. Toad pinched us both real hard on the way to our confinements. I yelped and hollered back, but Vi just took out the eraser and took away the figure’s lower half from the drawing. She took away Donnie’s legs too. Now they were floating arms and bellies with heads sticking out the top. She colored me in though, and that made me feel better. She even gave me a purple shirt.

  Donnie woke us up later that night, slamming the doors. He bumbled around getting to the bathroom. He was up four times, Toad too. I knew Vi was awake and could hear them, but she didn’t say anything, didn’t move either. She just fell back asleep, holding that eraser tight in her hand.

  When Mom sported a big black eye the next morning (almost Vi’s favorite shade of purple) Vi bit her lips and took out the wrinkled drawing and eraser. By now the clouds and grass were colored in, the flowers too—she used the last bit of the red crayon on those. She sat at the kitchen table with me and Donnie and stared at the ma
n the whole time she erased his stomach and arms. Only his head floated in the picture.

  He started coughing, little grunts that he usually had after smoking cigarettes. But it didn’t stop. So, he went to take a nap.

  Toad came into the kitchen next.

  “Ribbit,” I whispered when he sat in Donnie’s place.

  Mom smacked me on the back of the head. “Be nice.”

  I rubbed my skull. It stung. I think she used a spoon; I couldn’t be sure. Vi rolled me the eraser from across the table and slid the picture to me. I stared at the drawing.

  The trees were filled in with different greens. The sky was blue, and the sun was a perfect circle, colored yellow with orange rays bursting from the giant dot. The only blank spots were the people, except my purple shirt. Vi colored hers orange.

  I looked at the eraser, the picture, then Mom. Then I looked back to Vi. She just shrugged and munched on her burned toast.

  I took the gummy eraser and slid it across Mom’s left leg. The pencil marks lifted, and I erased her whole left foot, careful not to smudge the crayon in the background. I passed the eraser and drawing back to Vi.

  “Ah.” She looked at it. “Just a little.”

  “Just a little,” I said.

  But Donnie’s coughing and hacking grew worse throughout the day. Eventually, probably in a weird way to make the day end, Mom sent us to bed before dinner. She complained of a sprained ankle and went to ice it with frozen peas.

  Donnie still kept us up through the night. He hacked and hacked, coughed and coughed.

  Finally, Vi said, “I think he’s got to go.”

  I just wanted that incessant coughing to stop. I loved that word. Incessant. It was the perfect thing to describe the deep, wet cough that went on for hours. It was like Donnie pounded my ears with a hammer each time he coughed. Vi was right. He had to go.

  “Just a little,” I whispered, hoping he or Mom wouldn’t hear and burst in with a wooden spoon ready to paddle our behinds.