On the other side of the tracks

Her eyes he would remember years after, how they could go from sunny and wide to dark and dull in an instant. He never knew when or why this happened but he was smart enough to understand that those dreams she had were connected to her eyes' chameleon qualities.

But that is in the future and this story is about the present. The brilliant, bright, burning present.

“Billy!” his mother’s voice was shrill. “Billy!” He rolled his eyes and yelled: What? “A spider!” His room was hot under the roof but at least he was alone. “Billy!” He sighed loudly and rolled out of bed. His mother stood in the middle of the kitchen floor and pointed to one of the corners. A big black spider clung to the ceiling. “Kill it,” she demanded and gave him the broom.  He swept the ceiling and hoped he would get the spider. If it didn’t die his mother would have him crawl around on the floor and look for it.

In June it had been great to come home from college. See his parents, sleep late, have dinner and hang out with his old friends. Now in August he started to long to go back. He missed the freedom of being away from everybody he knew. In that loneliness he had changed, perhaps it was called finding yourself.

The spider was a mush on the broom when he looked and his mother let out a satisfied sigh. He put the broom in the cabinet. “I’m going out.” His mother got that wrinkle between her eyes. “Will you be back for dinner?” He shrugged. “Probably not,” he said and pulled on his Converse.  “Are you seeing Tess?” His mother’s voice got that tone he didn’t really recognize every time she said Tess’s name. “Mm.” He pushed open the screen door but his mother got hold of his arm. “Is she really good for you?” His mother’s hair was frizzy from the humidity and she had a thousand freckles on her face now in the late summer. “She is older.” He shrugged. “She is…” his mother’s voice faded. He pulled his arm out of her grip and she let him go. “Be careful!” she called after him.

He walked down the street; the day was still hot even though it was after five. Some boys were playing street hockey and had to move when a car turned down the street.  His father was on the train by now coming home from the office. The office, the word made him cringe. He would never be able to put on a suit and sit in an office every day.

At the train tracks the gates were down, for a short moment he hesitated then he bent down and walked under them. The train blared the horn but he didn’t care. On the other side of the tracks the houses started to change. The Cape Cods from the forties disappeared and brick townhouses with stoops lined the wide street. His mother had grown up on this side of the town among first and second generation immigrants from Italy and Eastern Europe. The houses were still impressive but had started to look run down by now. After the riots of the sixties this part of town had never truly recuperated.

She sat on the stoop when he stopped in front of her house. She had a couple of take-out boxes from the Chinese place on the corner next to her and ate from one with a plastic fork. She looked at him as she chewed with her mouth full and when she had swallowed she smiled her crooked smile. “Are you here again?” Before he could answer she spoke. “Did you eat?” He shook his head and walked towards the stoop. “I have fried rice, fried shrimp and noodles.” She pointed to the different containers. “Fork is in the bag.” She pushed the white plastic bag with her foot. He sat down next to her. She smelled sweet, tea with milk in his grandmother’s kitchen in the winter or those pink roses that climbed his grandparent’s house in the summer.

 “How is your father?”, he asked. She made a few incoherent sounds of irritation before she swallowed . “You would think he could have the decency to die before school starts again.” The noodles had small pieces of egg stuck to them; he spun them around his fork and took a bite. Tess put down her box and reached behind her and brought out a bottle of Southern Comfort. She took a swig and gave him the bottle. First sweetness on his tongue then the burn down his throat. He grimaced. “You really have the worst taste in liquor.” She laughed, loud and clear.

The Chinese food was gone and half the bottle, she laid with her head in his lap on the porch swing. He slowly rocked them back and forth. The cicadas filled the evening with their whirring. “I wish I could just leave,” she said and made circles with her finger on his arm. Her touch was comfort and thrill in one. “I wish I wasn’t so good so I could just leave.” She walked her fingers up his arm and down again. “Billy,” she whispered. “Mm,” he whispered back. “Let’s go inside.” Her words rushed in his head, down his spine into his groin.

She slept in the small bedroom downstairs. The room that used to be her younger brother’s. The blonde haired, blue eyed angel who as a three year old had run out the door one day. Straight out in the street and instantly got hit by a car. He died two days later in the hospital. “It never was the same again, she often said with a flat voice. But now the room was hers. Her smell, her things, her persona. She stood in front of him in her blue dress and she pulled it over her head. The skin around her breast shone white in the evening light. The tan line as sharp as a marker line. “Come.” She took his hand in hers and pulled him close. Her skin was so warm, so soft against his. Her arms were around his neck. Her lips on his. She nibbled on his bottom lip. His body reacted immediately. She purred under his touch. Slithered under his tongue. Curved under his weight.  He melted into her, surrendered.

Sleep was about to bring him under when Tess whimpered in her sleep. She laid with her head on his arm and one hand across his chest. Her hand twitched and she whimpered again. Suddenly she sat up and he was wide awake. “Are you ok?” he whispered in the dark. She didn’t respond so he put his hand on her back. Her whole body jerked under his touch and she moved away from his hand. “What is wrong, Tess?” She laid down again, curled up against the wall and seemed to be deep in sleep. Then another whimper, a thin, childlike whimper filled with fear and pain. Then another, and another and she started to breathe fast and shallow. Billy sat up, didn’t know if he should try to comfort. Reached out his hand put pulled it back, afraid he would only make it worse. Make whatever was haunting her more real. The feeling of being inadequate and powerless was a soggy stone in his body as he listened to Tess’s cry filled breaths.

A woman called out a man’s name on the street and Tess stopped hyperventilating. He relaxed an inch.  The woman called out one more time and Tess moved a little, she pushed away from the wall and turned over. He heard how she patted the bed and searched for him. When her hand found his thigh where he was sitting she got up on her elbow. “Why are you sitting there?” she asked sleepy. He took hold of her hand, her palm was sweaty. “I am watching over you.” She sniggered. “What is that supposed to mean?” She moved closer and put her head on his leg. He caressed her bare back. “Don’t you remember?” She yawned widely and moved a little closer. “Remember what?” Her body was so relaxed against his. “You cried,” he said but she didn’t answer. “Maybe it was a dream.” A tension went through her body. “Did I hurt you?” The question surprised him. “No, no not all. You were hyperventilating and I worried about you. I didn’t know what to do.” She laid still on his leg, he could tell how she was thinking. “Sometimes...” she started and then the phone rang. “What the fuck?” She sat up, the phone rang again and again. “Maybe it is the hospital,” he said and she jumped out of bed, ran out and slammed the door behind her.

As he heard her muffled voice he started to get dressed, suddenly his nakedness felt awkward and out of place. As he pulled his t-shirt over his head he heard the door open. Tess stood in the doorway. She had an odd expression on her face. A mix of surprise, sadness and relief. “Was it the hospital?” She nodded and took two steps into the room. Her arms hung by her side and her hair was unruly. “I guess I am supposed to go in, right?” Her voice uncertain. “What happened…did he…” She looked up at him; her eyes were huge, glossy, and empty. “He…his…he…his heart gave up.” Her bottom lip trembled and he put his hand on her shoulder and pulled her close. She sobbed a few times then she grew quiet. “It is ok to cry,” he said into her hair. She smelled of their closeness, their tenderness, their passion. “I know,” she said quietly, then she pulled away from him. “I…I have to go. I am supposed to go.”

He watched as she opened the closet and pulled out a few dresses, she put them on the bed and then she opened her dresser and pulled out tights. “The hospital is so freaking cold,” she said and smiled at him. On top of the tights she put a dark dress with white flowers. She French braided her hair then she sat down on the bed. ” I will take a cab from Main Street.” He nodded. “I don’t know when I will be back...”her words stopped short. “I can come back tomorrow.” She shrugged. “I might need to sleep,” her voice was very soft and polite but he got the message. “Ok,” he said, “I will come back some other day.” She stood up and grabbed her bag. “Good.”

He watched as she walked up the street, she looked very determined as she walked with her back straight and head held high. He wanted to go after her, hold her hand, be with her at the hospital but he had a feeling she wouldn’t want him there. But he stood still and looked after her until he couldn’t see her anymore.

His parents were sleeping when he came home. He went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and drank from the tap. When he looked in the mirror he saw long red streaks down his arm from Tess’s nails and for a reason he didn’t even know he started to cry.

Thunder woke him up, the room was shady, his head heavy. He laid and listened to the rain.  It started slow but it soon  pounded the roof. It was past ten in the morning, his father was gone for hours and his mother was working today. He had the house to himself. He rolled to the side, closed his eyes and tried to will himself to fall asleep again. His mind dove down into slumber but was abruptly brought back up when fire trucks came down the street. Not one, but several. The sound stirred something inside of him. Something worrisome. A premonition.

The rain was coming down hard as he ran down the street. Lightning cut across the navy blue clouds. He slipped on the tracks but got up and kept running. The fire trucks, he counted to five, were parked outside Tess’s house. Flames were licking the windows on the top floor. Smoke was rising through the roof. People had gathered on the street, stared, whispered. He tried to run up to the house. What if she was sleeping? A broad shouldered firefighter put a hand to his chest and stopped him. “Can’t go in there, son.” He tried to move past the hand, move past the uniform but no use. “She might be sleeping,” he said and his voice was shaking. “In the small bedroom on the first floor.” The fireman looked down at him with curious eyes. “I had the smoke divers in there already. No one is in the house. Do you know the family?” Billy shook his head. “No, only Tess.” The fireman put his hand on Billy’s shoulder. “She is not in there.”

He backed away from the house, stood by the other spectators, heard the whispers.

“The father is in the hospital”

“I heard he died last night.”

 “Where are the boys?”  

“That girl…”

Billy turned and looked at the woman who said the last thing. She was probably around sixty, her hair in a typical old lady style. Her mouth a disapproving line.

“I know,” the woman next to her said. “Something wrong with that girl.”

A third lady leaned closer. She had straight grey hair in a bob.

“After little Tommy died…and the mother left…not easy for that girl.”

“The mother was crazy too,” the first woman said.

Billy felt the blood pumping. He bit down hard on his teeth. Wanted to yell at the women.  The woman in the bob looked at him. She put her head to the side, squinted a little, pondered.

“You know Tess,” she said and the other two women turned their heads and stared at him.

He nodded. It looked like they were waiting for him to say something. He took a few steps backwards, and then he turned and walked home. He waited that day, and the next, and the next…then school started and eventually he stopped waiting.

One time at Disneyland, many years later. He had his three year old son on his shoulder and he saw this woman with a little girl. They sat on a bench, their heads close together, talking to each other, it was something about the shape of the woman’s shoulders. Or the way she held her head or how the hair hung over the little girl’s forehead. He wasn’t sure but he thought it was her. She must have sensed his eyes because she lifted her head and looked at him. Then she smiled her crooked smile. He wanted to talk to her. Ask how she was. Where she had been. But at that moment his wife called for him and his son pointed in excitement at Mickey Mouse. The next time he looked they were gone. 

You reap what you sow (inspired by True Detective)

The boy and the girl lay close together in the narrow bed. Their faces almost touching and the boy whispering.

“Death is not the end. He will avenge us. We will rise. Dark stars in the sky. No one can do this to us.”

The girl got a little closer. Her hair frizzy from the moist heat.  She caressed the boy’s face gently.  

“You are so brave, Errol. So strong. You can do anything.”

Her words made him feel good; she was the only one who made him feel good. His mother had made him feel like a prince. She used to hold him in her lap, stroke his back and whisper in his ear.

“You are my prince, Errol. My prince. One day you will rise up. You are special.”

He remembered so little, but that he remembered. And how she used to smell of flowers and how the house was different then. When she died the sun never really reached all the way into the house anymore. He rolled over to his back, looked up at the ceiling. Watched the Devil’s Nest moving in the breeze. Making stick figure shadows on the wall.

“Grandpa Tuttle is coming tomorrow. The men will go to Carcosa. Soon I will be allowed to go with them.”

The girl moved restlessly in the bed. Sat up and leaned against the headboard.

“I don’t like Grandpa Tuttle,” she said and started to pick at her cuticles. “He hurt me.” She picked the scab off her left index finger. Yesterday she had cut herself peeling potatoes. It started to bleed instantly. She put the finger in her mouth and sucked  the wound. Iron and salt landed on her tongue .

Errol put a hand on her leg.

“I never hurt you.”

She shook her head, the finger still in her mouth.

“No, never,” she said with a smile.

He moved his hand up her thigh, squeezed the muscles. Betty was strong, not the smartest girl in the world, but she was fun. And she made him feel good. She slid down so she could lie next to him and he could put his hand inside her panties. Touched the fine hair, the silky skin and the wetness.

 One day when he was nine, during the winter when the air was clear, father had brought Betty home. She was eleven, dirty and full of lice. Miss Janette had bathed her, combed her hair, cut her finger nails and fed her. He had watched as she ate. She used her fingers more than the silverware. That night when Miss Janette had put him to bed, he had asked about the girl.

“She’s your sister,” she said and helped him button his pajamas. “She has been left alone for too long. Longer than any child should be.”

At first he had been scared of Betty. She was bigger than he was and strong.  She pinched him instead of talking to him. One day that spring, when the ground had started to warm up, Grandpa Tuttle came to visit. He brought with him a large white box with a pink bow. Betty opened it in awe, inside was a beautiful doll. Bright eyed, blonde curls, a shiny white dress. He looked at Betty for a long time. She shifted her weight on the chair, uncomfortable under his gaze. After lunch he asked her to walk with him. Father didn’t object.

When Errol went out in the barn to work on his bike he found Betty sitting curled up in a corner. Crying, with blood on her dress. She wouldn’t look at him when he spoke to her. “Are you sick?” he asked over and over but she didn’t say anything so he went and got Miss Janette.

Miss Janette undressed the girl, washed her up and sang low; “Someone is cryin’ my lord, come by here”. Betty stayed in bed for a week and after that she wouldn’t leave Errol’s side.  Next time Grandpa Tuttle brought another doll, then another, then another but never did he ask Betty to walk with him again.

“I like when you make flowers on me,” she whispered in the murky room. The sun was about to set and the crickets had started singing their song. He pulled down her panties and got out of his pants. She welcomed him in her arms with warmth and tenderness. He kissed her neck, her breasts, she moaned and lifted her hips.

The headlights from the car lit up the room and Errol jumped out of the bed. Their father would soon enter the house and if he found them in bed together he would be furious. Out of instinct he rubbed his face, felt the shiny scars under his fingers. Shuddered.

“Betty.” He pulled the girls arm. She scrambled to find her panties and then she tiptoed across the hallway into the bathroom.

 

Errol walked slowly down the stairs, heard his father move around in the kitchen.  “Betty!” he screamed and Errol heard the anger in his voice. Now close to fifteen he was taller than his father but the fear was still there. The fear of violence. The fear of humiliation. The fear of the words that used to burn his insides. When his father saw him, he stopped in the middle of the kitchen floor. Stared at Errol, narrowed his eyes.

“Where is Betty? Where is the damn dinner?”

Errol didn’t look up but spoke to the floor.

“Father was running late so we ate. Dinner is on a plate in the refrigerator. Chicken and potato salad.”

“Where is that stupid girl? Betty!”

Errol heard Betty’s clumpy steps  down the stairs. She ran into the kitchen and stopped a few steps away from their father.

“Yes father?” She also kept her eyes on the floor.

“Dinner,” their father spat out.

Betty hurried over to the refrigerator and took out his plate. She placed it on the table and brought out a glass and some silverware. Their father sat down heavily. He grabbed Betty by the arm, squeezed hard around her wrist. Errol could she how she flinched.

“Drink, you stupid cow.”

“Yes, sir.”

Betty poured iced tea into the glass and put the pitcher on the table.

“You should be grateful. I could have let you die or sold you.”

“Yes, sir,“ Betty said and curtsied, and then she left the kitchen.  Errol wanted to leave too, he wanted to watch TV. He had seen in the newspaper that Hitchcock’s Psycho was on tonight.  But when he turned around to leave his father’s voice stopped him.

“Sit!”

Errol sat down and watched as his father ate. The big man cut the chicken into pieces and shoveled the meat in with the potato salad. He drank big gulps of the iced tea.

“Grandpa Tuttle is coming tomorrow.”

Errol nodded and waited as his father ate some more. Betty had turned on the TV.

“You are old enough to come with us to Carcosa.”

Errol’s mouth fell open.

“Only to watch at first. We need new younger warriors in our ranks. You will be fifteen soon.  A young man. Not a boy anymore.”

“Yes, father.” 

His father told the story of Carcosa. A fortress, a stron hold no one could conquer. The Romans,  the Crusaders, the French. They all tried but no one could defeat the city. The King in Yellow protected them. But the protection wasn’t for free. The King needed sweet, fresh blood to nourish himself.

Errol had heard this story more times that he could remember. At first it had scared him, a story of the bogeymen coming to take him. Miss Janette had comforted him many nights when he woke up screaming.  She had made Devil’s Nest’s to hang over his bed. To capture the thing that scared him. The nightmares had been so real. The man dressed in yellow stood over his bed with a knife in his hand. As he grew older he understood that he had no need to be scared. He was one of the chosen ones. His bloodline came from Carcosa. His uncles rose through society, got more power. Reverend, sheriff, governor. One day it would be his turn.  Tomorrow would be his turn.

 

Betty sat by the TV with one of her dolls, she absentmindedly caressed its hair. Errol stood in the doorway, didn’t move, only watched her. Carcosa, Carcosa, Carcosa. A dream. A curse. What I will do for revenge no one understands. Only you Carcosa. The King in Yellow, do you hear me? I am the dark star. I will do what you need me to do. All I ask is revenge. I am yours.

The words in his mind grew, burst, rained down like shattered glass. Fragile, beautiful, kaleidoscopic, sharp.  

“Betty,” he said and she jumped up scared from the floor. When she saw it was only him her face relaxed.  “I’m going to Carcosa tomorrow.”

She dropped the doll, then a big smile spread across her face and she clapped her hands.

“Oh, oh, oh,” she said and ran up to him.

“I can only watch first.” He bent down and looked into her eyes, it glimmered in there. “But when I am in charge I will avenge us. No one can treat us like this. We will get the power.”

She nodded excitedly, put her hand on his face. Followed the scars over to his lip.

“He will regret what he has done to us,” her voice low, vibrating.

Errol nodded and opened his mouth so he could lick Betty’s finger. The thought of power made him hard and he could tell she felt it too.

“I want to fuck you,” he whispered into her ear.  His words fell into her and she licked her lips.

“Father?”

Errol pointed to the ceiling. They listened to the heavy man’s steps as he walked around in the bathroom. After a few minutes he walked across the hallway and into the bedroom. The bed creaked under the weight. When it got quiet Errol grabbed Betty’s arm. Pulled her close.

“I will get it all. His power will fill me up.”

She gasped under his touch as he pulled her dress over her head. She stepped out of her panties and he got out of his pants.

“Look how hard I am. I can feel his power.”

She laid down on the couch and he entered her. Pushed hard, he knew she liked it hard.

“Errol,” she moaned. “You are so strong! So brave!”

“Yes,yes, yes. I will get it all!”       

At the moment of climax when he normally was filled with nothingness a man appeared. A two faced man. A tidy man with a notebook and a man filled with haunt, burning eyes, a man who could taste the air. Next to the man the faint watermark of a girl. She held onto the man’s hand. A string of gold tied the man to the girl.  A sudden flash of realization hit him. This man was his destiny.