Melt (4 page)

ice

floating in them

sockets.

      The sun gleams on his badge. The beam reflects

it bounces

off the badge

it hits me in my pupil. I'm half-blinded but still I look I

look

I

look into him

into

that

frost some call eyes I won't look away

fuck

him.

      Pop

pinches into me.

He pinches into

his

son

that they're taking

away for four

months.

      In his best cop voice

Pop

tells me

he tells his son

that's going away for four months getting caged up like an animal

thanks to him

he says to

me

spattering specks of his

spit

on my cheeks my nose my lips they

seep in they

melt

in my mouth

he says,

People like you,

you

make

me

sick.

      They're taking me away now

really.

Mom steps up

she puts her arms

‘round my neck

she pulls me

down

against

her

she gives me a

hug.

Feels nice even though I had to bash some asswipe's

skull

in to get it.

      Then

she lets go.

      Her tears are on my neck

drip

dripping

down.

Don't cry for me

Ma

save those tears they're

awful

hard

to come by.

      I'm looking at her

‘stead of where I'm

headed.

I stumble

I'd

fall

‘cept for those two court officers

holding

me up

on either side

lucky

me.

      Yeah.

      Incarcerated at seventeen.

      Sweet.

      What's next? My life's

jam

packed

with possibility.

      What loving father what

devoted

dad

wouldn't be delighted to see me

dating his

dear

darling

daughter?

      Doll. If she thought her parents were gonna be standing inside them gates arms open wide like some kind of

sunshiny

welcoming committee

then she really was

caught

in a

fairy

tale.

      Of course that was

assuming

she wouldn't give me the boot

herself once she heard the things

I

done.

 

      I got home

stared at my house

my white house with the light blue trim and the

colorful flower beds and the

nice

mowed

lawn.

No palace for sure but

not

so

bad.

It looked okay

it looked like everyone

else's. You would never guess what went on

inside.

Maybe I could

pass

like my house. Maybe I could

pass myself off as something

okay

something normal.

      But that

prick

part of me just wouldn't shut up. It said, Who do you think you can

fool

when you

can't

even

fool

yourself?

      Then that

new

part that poor dumb schlub who only wanted to be alone with Doll

at the water and

breathe

that's all he asked for it wasn't much just to

breathe and be

all right…

That part piped up. It said,

Fight

for your place.

Fight for your

place

with

her.

      But old part that

bastard

it wasn't finished with me

yet. It had the

last

word it always did and the worst part was it was

right. How the hell do you fight the

truth?

      It said, There ain't no

place

for you and her

you stupid shit. Where you gonna

go? You'll never

pass

behind them gates and you

can't

bring

her

here.

      No.

      That was for sure. I could not bring her

home.

      She looks like one of Mom's dolls and

Pop

don't like them dolls at all

not

one

bit.

 

      I went inside

closed the screen door behind me so it didn't

bang.

I called out

hi

to Mom in the kitchen. She called back

hi

without coming

out.

      Too busy cooking them

potatoes.

      Every day

she makes goddamn

potatoes

to go with dinner.

Mashed

scalloped

crinkle-cut ….

      Same kind of crap

every

day.

      No one was in the living room. I headed upstairs creaking every step. You can

never get up those stairs quiet no matter how hard you try and

sometimes

you

try

real

hard.

      At the top of the stairs is the

closet.

The closet with the ivory door and the iron gray handle and the lock that only

Pop

has the key to.

      I hate that motherfucking closet.

      But it's just another thing ‘round here you gotta face

every

single

day.

      I headed past it

down the hall       

into my room to wait for

dinner.

*

      Late late late

it's late.

I wake in the black

to the racket

in the air reaching up up

up from

under

me.

Pop's cursing like a madman

downstairs

high on whiskey no doubt

pacing

like a caged panther I'm

sure

he's screeching he's howling I'll bet he's

barking through the window at the

moon.

He crashes

glass

he smashes

ceramic

he bashes

Mom too I know.

      My clock glares red from my night stand it's 1:56

a.

m.

      My mouth tastes sour.

      I lean over the edge of my bed grope for the

neck

of my Bacardi 151. I keep it tucked under the bed for nights like this and they're pretty much

all

nights like this.

I had some after dinner but obviously I

should've

had

more.

      I nab it

unscrew

press its cool mouth to mine.

      I swallow quick but not quick

enough it's too

late.

I can't stop

them I can't stop the

memories it's too

late it's too

late I can't stop myself

I'm

going

back.

      I'm in the closet.

Seven

years old.

It's dark oh

god it's so

dark in here it's so hard to

breathe mashed against all these coats

sweaters

Pop's uniforms wrapped in

plastic

the smell of moth balls makes me

dizzy

it makes me

sick.

I'm crying coughing choking on

snot I'm trying to

breathe I'm

begging

Please please

please

Pop

let

me

out.

His fists pound the

door loud

hard they're gonna

bash through the wood they're gonna

nail

me for sure.

His whiskey breath

snakes

through the cracks.

I lean

back back

back into clothes Pop's

cold gold buttons

pressing into my

cheek

thank god there's plastic or my

tears might get on his

uniform and

what

if

they stained?

      I pee myself. I can't

help it it's warm first so

wet and warm but then it's

cold.

It wets my underwear and pants but I don't get it on the floor.

Pop

says, Shut the fuck up or I'll give it to you good. Pop

says, Better get comfortable.

Pop

says, Next time mind your own goddamn business instead of running up all mommy

mommy

don't hurt my mommy.

Pop

says, Forget about saving no one but your own sorry ass.

Pop

says, I'm doing you a favor teaching you this

now. The key

clicks

in the lock.

      I

drop

from the work of all that

fear and crying and breathing in that moth ball air I

curl on the hard

floor with a gift box left

from Christmas for a pillow and a

cold

wet

leg.

      Later

I don't know how

much

later

      the key

clicks

again it wakes me

up. That's it just that

sound. No talking no

twisting

the handle

no one opens the

door there's just a

click

and then more

nothing.

      I'm so cold I'm

shaking my stomach's

twisting my head

hurts so

so

bad

but I can't leave not with all that

nothing

out there

not with all that

quiet

to

face.

      I lay here on the closet floor huddling tight against

myself

head bent into a

box

eyes squeezed shut

dizzy I'm so

dizzy and

sick maybe this is how a moth feels when it

breathes those

pukey

balls. I'm so

cold so

sticky I'm

shaking shaking

shaking

but I'm afraid to use a sweater without

asking.

So I lie here with my eyes shut

tight I make a game in my head to block the

hurt

hammering

away inside

hopscotch I play

hopscotch I just keep throwing down the

stick and hopping hopping

hopping

yellow number to

number box to

yellow

box I keep landing throwing hopping landing throwing

hopping hopping

hopping

in this game of hopscotch that don't

end

and I lie here I

shake I

wait.

      Wait for noise ….

 

      I suck down more rum try to lose the

shiver

creeping up my

back.

      Ten years later it's like I'm

still

waiting

there in the dark in all that

dead

air still cowering like a wuss still playing

hopscotch

in my head.

      I still smell the moth balls I taste my tears and snot I feel the plastic-covered

sleeve

of

Pop's

shirt

brushing against my skin.

      I still hear all that quiet and I'm still so

cold.

      I'm still waiting for permission to come out and

breathe

normal again to

come

back

into the

light.

      Or maybe

not.

      Maybe I been staying in that

closet ‘cause the dark gets

comfortable

when you get

used

to it. In the dark you know things

can't get

worse

so you can

finally

rest some.

      Maybe

it's the light I been afraid of that it might

beam

straight

down on me just melt me

down

to

nothing.

      Not that I was much to begin with.

      But tonight

ten years after I peed myself in that closet and

started waiting

tonight something's happening.

      I hear a noise.

      Reeking of the Bacardi 151 I'm soaking my

soul

in

I finally hear a voice at the

closet

door.

      It's

Doll.

She's calling my name.

      I remember how

pretty she was by the

water the way the light

sparkled

in her hair and

lit

up

her

eyes.

      I remember how

right

I felt with her like one of them

ducks

bobbing across a sunbeam all

along in a row.

      God I never thought I could swim in the

sun.

      Maybe there

is

a place for me and Doll

out there in the

open.

In the clean open

air with the sun beaming on the water

reflecting

onto

us.

      Maybe it's time to

face

the

light

again.

      And maybe just

maybe

I won't

melt.

Part Two

The Yellow Brick Road

“The next morning the sun was behind a cloud, but they started on, as if they were quite sure which way they were going.

‘If we walk far enough,' said Dorothy, ‘I am sure we shall sometime come to someplace.'”

—From
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
by L. Frank Baum