Sick & Tragic Bastard Son

by Rowan Massey

  Lottie was a relaxed and easy person to be around. Not a lot of people made me smile genuinely, but she’d managed to make smiling a smidge easier than usual. I did my best on the board, but I’m not exactly an active person, and I was getting tired.

  “I think I’m done for today,” I said, and picked it up.

  “You have to practice longer than that each time if you want to get anywhere,” she said.

  “I’ll definitely practice at home,” I lied. The only thing I wanted to work on was more lying.

  “We gotta go hang out somewhere less, you know…” She glanced over at a little kid who was weighed down with pink safety gear and being taught by a man who was probably her father.

  “Less parented?” I asked, and grinned. “I know a spot.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You ever go to Gravity Hill?”

  “No. What’s that?”

  “You’re in for a treat.” I handed her the board and started walking towards where my shitty car was parked. She followed a little hesitantly. I slowed until she was next to me and elbowed her. “You a real skater? A daredevil?” I asked her.

  She tucked her chin slightly and gave me an evil grin. “I’m in for some trouble, aren’t I?” she said.

  “Your mom wouldn’t approve,” I stopped and shook my head mockingly. “Maybe we should just go home and watch Andy Griffith.”

  “Aw, fuck you,” she laughed and rolled her eyes. “Take me to Gravity Hill already.”

  “Okay, okay,” I smiled and put an arm around her shoulder, getting us walking again. For a second, I worried the physical contact was too much, but she swung her arm around my shoulder too.

  We got in my car. I was lucky the notebook was closed. I snatched it up and put it under my seat.

  On the way over, I gave her control of the radio. The stereo was an old piece of shit just like the rest of the car, and only the radio was functional, but she worked the dial like a pro and found some stupid songs she could loudly sing along to. I didn’t know any of the words, but I did some silly dancing in my seat and made her laugh, which I loved the sound of.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d goofed off with a friend. That was because I didn’t have any real friends. I hoped she would be different, and my evil plan was looking less attractive by the minute. I wanted to be her cool brother. What if Clay was just as nice to be around, and I missed out on something awesome, turning it into unbearable trauma instead?

  I turned onto an old and weedy dirt road. Trees crowded overhead, and pebbles flew up at the bottom of the car. I took us far enough off the beaten path that she was getting a worried look on her face.

  “If you think this is scary, wait till you see my ax,” I joked.

  She gave me a look.

  “That is not funny from my perspective,” she said.

  “I know. Sorry.” Suddenly it was awkward, and I was thinking I’d fucked up and misjudged. “There’s cell service out here. I don’t know how, but it’s full bars.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’ve been checking.”

  I laughed, and then felt bad again. “Do you want to go back? I don’t mind.”

  “No way. I’m too curious.”

  I bit my lip and didn’t say curiosity killed the cat.

  “This is it,” I said.

  There was another car up ahead at the dead end, and I parked beside it. I’d seen it before but had never run into its owner so I figured it was somebody who went out there to smoke up but didn’t go to Gravity Hill.

  We got out, and I led her down a short path through the woods to our destination. It was a path people used a lot, just not so early in the day. It was almost noon.

  “I love these crunchy leaves,” Lottie said behind me, sounding more relaxed, and we started seeking out leaves that would be nice to step on, jostling a little for the good ones.

  When we got there, she was too occupied with looking at the ground to notice. The rope swing was attached to a huge oak tree that must have first sprung from the earth two hundred years ago. There was a wooden board at the bottom of the rope, which was threaded through the middle and tied off. I grabbed it from where it had been helpfully stuck under a rock to keep it from swinging out of reach and having to be fetched with a long stick.

  “Ooh, rope swing!” she said excitedly.

  Getting into position at the edge of the cliff, which was more like a steep hill, I hopped on without hesitation and went swinging twenty feet off the ground. I’d done it a hundred times, but it always made my stomach tighten. It was a head rush. I stared straight down at the rocks and bushes below just to make it even more of a rush.

  “Holy shit! Holy shit!” Lottie was freaking out, and it was making me laugh as I swung back and forth.

  The problem with it was that you absolutely had to jump off while it was still reaching the top of the hill at the apex of the swing. It was scarier than getting on, but I made it, landing solidly on my feet. I put my heels together and spread my arms out like a gymnast, still laughing at Lottie, who had her hands on her cheeks.

  “You scared the shit out of me!” She slapped my arm.

  I grinned. “You want a turn?”

  “Fuck yes.”

  “Just make sure you jump off while you still can.”

  The rope was still swinging, board spinning and bobbing, but she caught it without getting hit in the shins. She situated herself on the edge and looked up at the branch it was hanging from.

  “There’s gotta be an urban legend about a kid who fell off this thing and died or became a paraplegic,” she said, turning to give me a sly grin, “and you can tell me the whole story…right after I jump.”

  “Okay, then I won’t tell you before you jump that it isn’t just a legend, and people come out here and cut thing down a dozen times a year because people get hurt. It just gets put back up.”

  “I hate you,” she whined, but her smile was so big it probably made her face ache.

  “Jump,” I said, giving her a casual shooing motion.

  She did, and I could see the fear on her face, as much as she was trying to hide it. I had a morbid anticipation while she was on the upswing, hoping to god I hadn’t just killed her right after meeting her. Then, there was a quick little thrill in my chest as I hoped, on the other hand, that I didn’t accidentally look away or blink if she fell. I would want to see the whole thing, just because that isn’t something you witness every day.

  She made it all the way back to the top of the hill and hopped off like an old pro. But she was shaking.

  “You okay?” I asked, and touched her shoulder. Her knees were wobbly, and she was panting.

  “That was awesome!” she laughed, and breathed in deep. She leaned forward and rested her hands on her knees just a second. “That feeling in my guts. Holy shit. I love it.”

  “Me too,” I chuckled. “I knew you were the type.”

  I caught the swing while it was still getting close enough to catch and took another turn, looking down while I whizzed through the air, then up, to make myself dizzy. Below me, the bushes were like seaweed, undulating underwater. That wasn’t good. Above me, the leaves were crawling the branches like ants. I didn’t jump off and ended up swinging out again, but I wasn’t screwed yet. I kept my eyes on Lottie where she stood with her hands on her hips. She had a rapturous look on her face. She was eager to get back on.

  As soon as I jumped off, almost falling to the ground this time, she grabbed for the rope and went again. If she’d wanted to show off, she’d succeeded in impressing me a little. I turned and watched her, rubbing my rope-burned hands together. The swing had a spin to it, but she didn’t seem concerned, she just tilted her head back and enjoyed the ride.

  “I love this shiiiit!” she screamed, hair flying around her face.

  We took turns, one after the other, for several minutes. The greenery kept swimming, but it was kind of nice, and I didn’t worry.

  I had low stamina, and after a while, my
arms and stomach muscles burned too much. I’d had my last swing for the day. I gave her the rope, arms shaky not from fear, but from exhaustion. There was nothing to sit on except dirt and weeds, but I wasn’t about to be picky. I sat down cross-legged out of the way and leaned forward on my elbows, catching my breath.

  She took two turns after me, and then relented to her own sore body, and let the swing go. It bounced and wobbled out into the air and disappeared behind a cloud, never coming back. Lottie plopped down next to me, lungs working hard.

  “This was amazing,” she said. “Just what I needed.”

  But her face fell after a minute of sitting together in silence, and she stared into space.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Sorry,” she said, and started fumbling with her bootlaces. “I always do this. Whenever I really have fun, it’s always because I did something dangerous, then I get depressed. I think I’m crazy.” She blew a raspberry with a sigh.

  “Trust me, I know crazy, and you’re not crazy,” I told her.

  “But I feel crazy, you know? I’m always insanely restless.” She made a grabbing motion with her hands over her chest. “And I hate life so much, and then, I figure out a new way to get a rush and end up breaking my arm for the second time or getting a concussion. But I always just feel so much worse when the fun is over, you know? Because it’s just so over and I’ll never get enough.”

  Girls were chronic oversharers. It always made me a little uncomfortable. I lifted my knee to my face and hid behind it, but I recognized that she was saying things I was always saying to myself.

  “We’re a lot alike,” I told her. “You have no idea.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” I said, and we sat for a moment, each thinking our own thoughts.

  “I can’t wait till I’m old enough to go skydiving,” she said, probably just to change the subject a little, or to keep acting tough.

  I cleared my throat. “I’m starving. We gotta eat. Like, right now or else I’ll die.”

  “Oh my god.” She rubbed her stomach. “Suddenly I’m dying of starvation.”

  I got up and gave her a hand. On her feet, she gave me a small smile. Her face was sweaty, and her hair was all tangled.

  “I have zero money,” I said. “And I can’t have people over to my place. So we can split up or you can feed me. Your choice.” I gave her a big grin, trying to make sure it wasn’t awkward.

  She cocked her head and pretended to think about it.

  “I’m going to feed you,” she said. “As thanks for helping me try to kill myself.”

  “Nice,” I said, and we headed down the path to the car.

  Chapter Eight

  Zander Age 18

  STARING OUT THE car window at the rain was my only entertainment. Mom hadn’t gone back to work after that Wednesday when I’d taken Killy the Knife to church. That had been months ago and I still hadn’t gotten in trouble for it. Eli and Hannah’s families must have felt too sorry for me to complain too much, or else they just didn’t want to talk to my mother after the scandal. In any case, I’d gotten away scot-free. But I didn’t feel lucky. That night, I had much bigger problems. We’d been living in the car for two days.

  Our latest parking spot was in front of my old elementary school. I examined the way the raindrops splashed on different surfaces and in puddles. I put my eye up close to the smudgy window to see how the water bent the light of the streetlamps.

  Mom was in the backseat sleeping. She was always asleep. She’d only been getting up whenever somebody knocked on the window and asked us to go somewhere else. Those knocks had started to make me jumpy. It had been the cops earlier that afternoon.

  “Exit the car please,” the policeman had said with a bored voice. I’d stared at him, unable to hide my fear. Would they arrest my Mom?

  She’d gotten out of her nest in the backseat at a snails pace and gone over in front of the car to talk to them. I’d opened the passenger side window and stuck half my body out so I could hear.

  They hadn’t talked for long. The cops wrote down a number for the women’s shelter, but Mom told them we didn’t have a phone. She’d politely asked them to go away when they said they could call ahead for her. After a few minutes of conversation about it, she’d promised she would move as soon as they pulled their cop car out from in front of us.

  “God provides,” she’d said to them in a dull voice, but then chuckled humorlessly to herself.

  Before they’d left, one of them had come over to where I was peeking out the car door. Hesitant and ready to slip back inside, I’d taken an offered card.

  “That’s my card,” he’d said. “It has my number on the back. See? That’s my personal cell phone that I keep with me all the time. Call me if you need anything, okay? Anything at all. Doesn’t matter what time it is.”

  I’d had a gut-twisting urge to tell him I was hungry, and tired of sleeping in the car, and not having a TV anymore. But I’d never talked to the police, and I thought he probably didn’t care, so I kept my mouth shut and slipped down into the car seat. He’d went away.

  The rain outside the car wasn’t letting up, and I was glad because it gave me something to look at. I took the policeman’s card out of my jeans pocket and read the phone number again. Mom was never going to get up and I was so hungry. The last of the lunch meat from home was gone. There wasn’t even plain white bread and water left.

  Twisting around, I stared at the back of Mom’s head. She had her hand around the last of her wine.

  “Please wake up,” I whispered, afraid to actually wake her up, since she’d been horribly cranky for weeks. “Wake up.”

  I wanted something in my stomach. Taking a chance, I put the card back in my pocket and crawled towards her. I had to partially stand on the seat to get my fingers around the bottle’s neck and steal it. At first, I thought it was empty, but there was still some of it sloshing around in the bottom. I tipped it to my lips and swallowed it down to the last drop. Mom wouldn’t know the difference. I dropped the empty bottle in the foot well and it rolled to the edge of a pile of clothes.

  I knew I had to call someone. Mom would let me die of starvation if I didn’t. Not wanting to cry again like a baby, I held tears back thinking about it. Why wasn’t she taking care of me? How could she ignore me until I felt like a ghost? She probably hadn’t ever loved me.

  I got myself together and took action. I investigated her purse and found forty-three cents. It took a few minutes to search for change in all the compartments and under the seats. I had just over a dollar in coins.

  The school had a few lights on, so I would be able to see my way, even in the rain. It wouldn’t be fun to get wet like it was in the summer. I knew it would be cold. My blanket was stashed on the driver’s side. I shook it out, about to use it against the rain, but then I’d have a wet blanket all night.

  I groaned and allowed myself a self-pitying sob. Being poor was an adult-sized problem, and I was painfully aware of being a child—having no idea what I should do about it. I’d learned to live under the day to day stress of not knowing what we would lose next or when, but our poverty had never been so urgent. I was fraught with doubts about taking any kind of action. Maybe I was just supposed to shut up and suffer.

  Jacket collar pulled up around my neck, I opened the door and was immediately hit with heavy drops of water. I thought if I ran fast, I wouldn’t get as wet, so I took off at a sprint. The air was cool, but not freezing, and I was grateful for the small mercy.

  I reached the covered walkway with soggy socks and shoes, water in my eyes, but I’d misremembered where the row of payphones was. They were way over on the other side of the school, beyond a large, grassy area, which had turned into thick mud.

  I was tired. So tired. Everything in the world had turned to hell and a pressure was pushing at me from the inside. I was like a balloon about to pop. The sound that came out of my throat was a wail I’d never heard before. My knees bent a
nd I crouched. I was in a dry spot so I just hugged my legs and let it out. It wasn’t the way I’d ever cried before when I was just feeling sorry for myself. This was overwhelmingly dark and impossible. My entire home was gone. My house, my family, and before that, all my friends, even the certainty of religion. Everything was painful, and I was weak to the bone from hunger and stress.

  Nobody was around so I cried as noisily as I wanted, not that I had a choice. The scary and painful place deep in my being was breaking down whether I liked it or not. And it was loud.

  I was there a long time. I didn’t know how long, but I sat on the ground, legs out in front of me, and slouched until the next wave of harrowing darkness didn’t come to rip my chest out. The rain was falling just as strongly as ever, if not more so. I had to face running through it again, but this time, I was too numb to be upset about it.