Apple in the Earth

by C.T. Millis

  Chapter 16

  After school let out, Sonny would haunt the hallways. The hall monitors stayed an hour after, and looked away whenever he walked by. They were the only students besides the ones who were to be in after school art or music programs who were supposed to be there. It usually took him about half an hour of tearing pages out of library books, scratching paint off of walls, or stealing dessert bars from the cafeteria before he was kicked out.

  This day, a custodian in a faded blue jumpsuit told him to get out of school,

  “Go where you are supposed to be,”

  “Whatever,” Sonny replied, “I don’t need to listen to you.” the man lifted his mop out of the grimy water in a way that was menacing enough to push Sonny’s confidence out of the front double-doors like he was a stray.

  He was supposed to take the bus home because he lived on the edge of town. Sonny instead crunched his way to the kick ball field that had a few inches of snow over its smooth surface. With his bare hands, he sifted the white to the side, and dug with his sneakers a good foot into the line of dirt where the runners would pass after the snow settled down. He replaced the field’s hollow scab with fluffy white snow, looked around, and pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his ears.

  He walked sloppily as to destroy the pristine beauty of the snow on the edge of the sidewalk before him all the way to the gas station where that fruit worked.

  When he barged in, the pimply creep hardly even looked up at him. Sonny was a little disappointed that the attendant only sighed and flipped the page of his magazine instead of sending him a cheery greeting that he could shoot down with mockery.

  Walking directly to the snack isle, Sonny stuck three king sized candy bars in the shared pocket of his hoodie. Sam looked up at him and could see everything from the curved mirror on the ceiling. Whenever Sonny looked around him to clear his crime scene, Sam would look away. When the door chimed upon Sonny’s exit, Sam got up the courage to yelp-

  “Hey you!” this caused Sonny to stop immediately, hand as frozen on the glass of the convenience store door as if it were the cold itself sticking it there. Without moving anything but his mouth, he replied,

  “What?” Sonny said in the most forceful way a ten year old baby face could.

  “Aren’t you going to buy anything?” but that was not what Sam was asking- he meant I just saw you steal something, if there were a tape on I’d call the cops. The convenience store relied on honesty to operate. Most people in town were honest, at least with what they bought.

  “You know what,” Sonny paused, wondering if he could pull this off, “I wouldn’t buy anything from you,” there was a pause between the two people standing in the store. They were no longer Sonny and Sam, they were movies, the news, church gossip, angry words from old drunk men. Sam knew exactly what Sonny was going to say. Sonny looked at Sam’s face, already molded into that of self-consciousness and disappointment, “because you’re a fag.” The door closed behind Sunny with an especially loud chime, and the song on the radio gave way to a used car commercial before Sam pulled out his wallet and took three of his five dollars and put them into the cash register.

  Sonny tore into his first candy bar before even leaving the solitary parking lot. Nobody ever just drove around in their town. The most activity was seen in the summer, when people would mow their laws at an angle from the street to help the grass grow better. Winter seemed to push everyone indoors. Sonny himself wanted to be inside. He dropped the empty wrapper on the snow and pulled his arms closer to his body. The wind trickled through his sweatshirt, and he was glad it would not get any colder that year because he was not going to get a coat.

  He thought about stealing one, but the nearest department store was in the next town over. If he got one from the stupid church in the old garage where his family got their bread, or his mom gave him twenty dollars for one, it would look cheap and everyone would know it was the best he could do. It was better being cold.

  He walked for half an hour as fast as he could, and he got to the lonely stretch of dirt road that led to his house. The muck under the snow was undeniable on the single pair of tire tracks his dad and all his neighbors used to get to town each morning. The sun was going further away that he was by this time. The slush was audible between the seams of his gym shoes. He could feel his soaked and freezing pant legs saturate his mismatched socks to the point that it began to sting.

  While walking over the cement bridge that carried him and several cars a day over the creek that even in cold weather sped past he was able to concentrate on his feet again and the lack of grey cold snow at his ankles was a sudden relief.

  His family moved into their trailer a few years before. It was during the summer when the sound of the bubbling creek mixed with the scent of wild flowers like some sort of music. His parents thought they were lucky to buy the trailer for as much as they did. They never owned a home before, and only talked about the beautiful view from the kitchen window throughout signing the paperwork. The window itself was slid open as soon as they walked into their new home and revealed a screen that had more holes in it than screen material left.

  He shared his room with his two younger brothers, and his two little sisters slept in the other room. His parents got their own room at the end of the trailer. The trailer itself was vast, before they moved into it. With each child and each child’s things- the walls seemed closer to one another, and the furniture seemed to choke up the living room.

  The carpet had always been worn, and his dad vowed to buy rugs for every room, but they only acquired a rotten welcome mat at their front door that his little sister Sammy brought home. It was within a month of living there that his bedroom floor became uneven. It seemed to sink to the middle and desperately pull at his triple bunk bed that his dad built. His younger brothers were the ones who were scared of it tipping over, they complained until their dad stuck two-by-fours under the offending posts of the bed.

  The roof began leaking and cracking under the snow during the first winter, and his dad had to tape a black garbage bag over the minuscule kitchen window that looked out at the iced creek to secure the heat that was mostly produced by their bodies and the constant boiling of potatoes. Sonny’s family, were a classic sort of poor; they relied more on the skillful handling of potatoes, rice, church bread, cauliflower, carrots, WIC cheese, milk, discount cuts of meat, butter, and eggs by his mother than the gentle arms of fast food or microwave meals. Because of this, the oven was always on, preparing something for the next meal. This was wonderful in winter, and during the summer- all windows and doors remained open.

  When Sonny walked into the shaking trailer, he was greeted by the hot steam of dinner.

  “Stop your complaining, Sherry. You, you stop pulling your brother’s hair,” his mom belted from the kitchen like it was a familiar song. The trailer was alive with small feet running back and forth. Sonny shut the door before the shrill wind his anyone and slowed them down. The trailer shuddered like a beast. The whirring from the electric can opener overcame the sound of his entrance. His mom got the can opener from her husband the year before, and she was crazy about it. Sonny started walking to his room, thinking about stashing the other two candy bars under the top bunk’s mattress.

  “Nuh-uh, I see you, get over here,” with sunken shoulders, he slunk back to the minuscule kitchen. His mother, had wide hips that overcame half of the kitchen, which in itself was only large enough to hold a stove, refrigerator, and a sink. His mother pressed him into her side while she drained the canned peas with her other arm.

  “Boy, you are as cold as death- you shouldn’t be running around like that, we can’t afford for you to get sick.”

  “I missed the bus,”

  “I’ll tell you what you missed- you missed those dishes,” she pointed at a few bowls in the sink.

  By the time the suds cleared from the sink, Sonny’s dad was home from the mechanic shop. His dad looked like what Sonny would
look like if he grew a few feet taller and a beard. His dad stepped sideways through the blustery door, and the other four children were on him, squealing and hugging, immediately.

  They sat around two folding tables pushed together with a faded, stained, floral tablecloth. When they settled, Sonny’s father looked over at the array of food and said;

  “Honey, these are all vegetables,” Sonny’s mom lifted a lid to a blue ceramic dish and immediately filled the room with the scent of hot salt. “Oh,” he corrected himself, “You’ve done something beautiful with that bacon,” and looked at her with loving and longing eyes. She had quartered small red potatoes, diced bacon, and boiled it in a big pot until the water between them became a salty, creamy broth.

  Cramped around the small table, Sonny’s dad began serving the soup, stealing glances at his wife who was spooning broth into their youngest child’s mouth.

  “I guess we ought to bow our heads,” Sonny’s dad said like he always had to. Everyone stopped moving, and looked down at the gleaming white of their plates while Sonny’s dad mumbled something about a harvest.

  “Reverend at the church said we’re promised a piece of heaven for the way we live,” Sonny’s mom said as she picked up the spoon.

  “At the smelly church?” Sonny asked, wondering if the was talking about The Garage.

  “The Garage is a very good church, it’s nice we have a place to go.” She looked at the meal. Half of it came from that Garage.

  The trailer was dark, and the only brightness in the room came from the kerosene lamp in the middle of the table. They bought it from a thrift shop the year before to save money on electricity at night, ‘we don’t need all these lights on if we’re all in one place,’ Sonny’s parents argued. So, they would gather around the small flame each night for dinner. Its light flickered on their white plates and everyone avoided one another’s hungry eyes.