I shrug and mumble, “I don’t want to upset her. So I guess you’re stuck with just me this time.”
Alfred only nods in reply, moves down the aisle and slides into the seat beside Drew. Since Drew makes video games for a living and Alfred’s a big gamer, they’re more like best friends than brothers-in-law. I observe them for a few seconds as they chat it up like two teens. Alfred will be inconsolable when he learns about the divorce. But he won’t be the only one in a rotten mood. When Mom discovers that pregnant Michelle is set to be a divorcée and single mom, there will be no containing the screech-and-screams. And how the hell am I supposed to manage getting Alfred unexpelled?
I twist my neck to stare out the window as we turn into a gravel covered parking lot. Urlington looks...barren. Like one of those industrial towns time and most people forgot. Or should forget, anyway.
“Be nice. Good people in this town.”
“Hey. Didn’t I tell you to stop reading my mind?”
“Look here, Indigo. As God, I can’t help but know everything. My bad, okay? I’m sorry that I’m so smart and all-knowing.”
Dad stretches his legs out into the aisle and rubs his shoulders. “Everybody off.”
Jedidiah whimpers like a wounded animal.
“Except Pastor,” Dad adds sympathetically.
“The restaurant at the corner looks like it could be good.” Mom pulls parallel into a couple of parking spaces. “We can eat there.”
Across the street, what can only be described as a dilapidated barn has a sign that reads Big’s Bison Burgers.
“We’ll use the restrooms, and while we wait for the prescription for Pastor to be filled, we can eat lunch. We stick together,” Dad instructs us. “We are a part of the Phillips family. That means we have a responsibility to the family name. Be kind. Be courteous. Be aware of the needs of others.”
Everyone waits patiently as Dad assists Violet down the aisle. Once she’s situated in her chair, Dad rushes outside and Mom lowers the lift.
“I’ll bring you back some food, Pastor.” Michelle gathers her purse and slides on her boots. “Try to get some rest.”
“No rest for the weary.” Jedidiah tosses off the blankets. “I need to go with you. Must—” he pulls himself up “—pay attention when the universe guides me.”
He stands. Sort of. If you can call it standing.
“Pastor, you can’t even straighten up.” Michelle slides on her gloves.
“Don’t worry. Feeling fine!” He speaks as cheerfully as one can when they’re bent over at a ninety-degree angle.
Michelle watches Pastor shuffle awkwardly down the aisle, then motions to me. “Ready, Indigo?”
I take my camera out of the bag at my feet, sling it over my shoulder and move toward the exit. As I descend the stairs, I take in such deep gulps of ice-cold air, my chest burns. The outdoors is intoxicating, a welcome change from the dry heat blasting on the bus for hours. Plus, Pastor’s bag of vomit was a bit of a damper on the indoor air quality. Putting it mildly. I stare up at the layers of silver clouds through the lens of my camera.
Click-click.
I love taking pictures of clouds. These are so thick it seems as if they’re all working together: conspirator clouds, determined to keep us shrouded in darkness. Like they’re getting a big kick out of our lack of vitamin D. I lower my camera, close my eyes and visualize warm rays of sunlight enveloping every inch of my skin. The thought heats me up inside. Up this way, the sun disappears during this time of year. Darkness gets into your bloodstream and ferments. Depression lingers in the air at every turn. You even stop dreaming in color. I can’t help but wonder if the lack of sunlight played a part in Violet’s conclusion that suicide was the best option for her. I wonder if it played a part in mine.
“This isn’t suicide,” Violet explained to the family the day she announced that she was opting to end her life. “Please don’t call it that. Besides, I’m only assisting the plan that’s been laid out for me. It’s dying with dignity. It’s the law. And it’s my right.”
The gravel crunches beneath my Uggs as I turn a full circle, taking in all of Urlington. Though, there isn’t much to take in. A few old houses down the road.
Click-click.
A terrifying-looking rusted bridge stretched across a dried-out riverbed off in the distance.
Click.
Big’s Bison Burgers has a few pickup trucks in their driveway. And Carlson’s Drugstore seems as though a strong wind could blow it over at any given moment. It’s an old wood-sided building with paint that was probably blue at some point. One of the windows is cracked. Metal-framed doors look slightly off their hinges. Sitting underneath the dismal sky, the drugstore kind of reminds me of the house Dorothy landed in Oz.
Click-click.
Nam doesn’t seem to mind that the store is lacking in the feng shui department. He’s chasing Brandon around the nearly empty parking lot, laughing and hurling insults at him, Dad’s speech completely on deaf ears with those two.
“Booger boy! Booger boy! You eat boogers for diiiinnnner,” Nam sings.
Brandon has a hand over his butt as he runs. “Stop it. You’re gonna make me poop my pants.”
Michelle rushes ahead of everyone. “I’m gonna run inside and speak to the pharmacist.” She disappears inside the store.
I hurry to Violet’s wheelchair and cut in front of Dad. “I’m with Violet, Dad. You should check on Pastor. He doesn’t look so good.”
Jedidiah takes baby steps, hunched over, in full salute to the gravel. He attempts taking one of his signature deep breaths, but one inhalation and he’s grabbing his stomach in pain. He stumbles forward. Dad speeds toward him.
“Jedidiah, you sure you should be walking?”
“Without pain we don’t grow and expand, Isaiah. If you place silica, soda ash and limestone into a furnace at three thousand degrees, do you know what you get?”
“I can’t say that I do,” Dad replies.
“Glass.”
“Ahh.” Dad rubs the bald portion of his head. “Oh, I see. I get it.”
He clearly doesn’t get it.
“I’m in the furnace,” Pastor explains. “Heating up to something marvelous. I can’t wait to see what I turn into.”
A perturbed look stretches across Dad’s face as he follows behind Jedidiah. Probably imagining the pastor as a glass sculpture, bent over for the next few decades.
I struggle to guide Violet across the thick layer of parking lot gravel, my camera banging against my chest as it sways back and forth, shoulder throbbing.
“I have a weird feeling about this place,” Violet murmurs.
I grind my teeth. “Yeah, me too,” I agree just to appease Violet. She likes to stick to her schedules and plans. Any sort of deviation is unsettling to her. But the truth is, it seems bleak here for sure, but not exactly dangerous. I pause to rub my aching shoulder.
“Do you think you could use some help, Indigo?” There’s a slight hint of amusement in Mom’s voice.
“Nope.” I wipe my forehead, simultaneously ice-cold and sweaty. “I’m fine. I got this.”
Violet holds up her phone. “See? It only has a one-star Yelp rating. You don’t wanna go anywhere with a one-star rating.”
Alfred holds open the door. “Violet, people who live in towns like this don’t Yelp. They drink beer and smash the empty cans over the tops of their heads.”
“Alfred Phillips!” Mom calls out from behind us. “I’m sure Urlington has wonderful people who live here. That’s insensitive and rude.”
An old lady with pink sponge rollers in her graying blond hair and a dusty mink coat that looks like she found it in a box in her basement pushes past Mom.
“Excuse you.” Mom stumbles back.
The old lady turns around and hisses at us, exposing her only two teeth. We a
ll recoil. “Did I ask to be excused?” She scurries past Alfred, an evil glint in her eye.
“See.” Alfred gestures toward the woman as she disappears into the store. “Told you.”
Drew rounds up the boys and we all head inside.
Carlson’s Drugstore is about what I expected it to be. Scuffed tile flooring that’s yellowing in spots. Old, dusty shelving. There is only one checkout counter with a cashier who appears to be about a hundred, watching one of those box TV sets from the olden days.
“Where’s the enemas?” Sponge Roller Lady hollers as she scoots down an aisle.
The cashier doesn’t move an eyeball from the TV screen, or even move a muscle, to be honest. “Aisle three. Bottom shelf.” He speaks so slowly I wonder if he’s a robot. Like the Urlington version of Amazon’s Alexa.
Toward the back, you can see a small pharmacy with a lone female pharmacist who seems as if she’s about had it with Urlington, Carlson’s Drugstore and especially Michelle. The two are having a heated discussion. I stretch my neck, eavesdropping on their conversation.
“So I guess your measly bachelor’s degree trumps my two master’s degrees? Girl, bye,” Michelle declares.
Yep. Classic Michelle. “Hey, Violet, you want anything?”
“Maybe some VapoRub.” We both rub our chests in perfect synchronicity. “It always helps and we forgot to pack it.”
“One VapoRub comin’ up, sis.” I push her up an aisle, thrilled to, at last, be of some assistance to Violet. (In a way that doesn’t involve committing a felony, I mean.) To my left, old, grimy-looking shelves are stacked with packages of ramen noodles and different varieties of soups, to my right...motor oil. “Interesting pairing.” I push Violet to the next aisle, where we almost run into Nam. He’s holding a plastic container of Red Vines.
“Auntie Indigo, can we get these?”
“Why you asking me?” I shrug. “I don’t care if you get sick and all your teeth fall out. Ask your dad.”
“He’s on the phone.”
At the far end of the store, Drew is having another hushed conversation. He’s been on the phone almost this entire trip so far. Probably talking to his lawyer. Divorce. I whistle. Is it because after all these years, Drew discovered Michelle is mean and hateful? Did he cheat on her? Is Michelle pregnant by another guy?
“Ask Grandma, Nam,” Violet offers sweetly.
“She’ll say no,” Nam whines. “She says no about everything.”
Violet takes Nam’s hands into hers. “Try this. Say... ‘Grandma, Aunt Violet wants these, but I don’t think she should have them.’ Then ask her what she thinks.” Violet grins. “She’ll buy them. Watch.”
Nam lurches forward and hugs Violet. “Thank you, Auntie Vee! You’re the best.”
He skips off, blissfully clutching his giant bin of Red Vines. Nam’s right. She is the best. All I did was basically tell Nam to get lost. She was patient and even found a way to help him get what he wanted. Maybe I should ask her what we should do about Alfred’s situation. She’ll know what to do. She’s so much better than me.
“Geez luss, Indigo! Self-deprecate much?”
“What? It’s true!” I reply.
“What’s true, Indigo?”
“Oh, uh... I was just sayin’ I gotta stop being so mean to Nam and Bran.”
The front doors to the store are pushed open and a young man steps into the flickering neon lighting. He’s got greasy brown hair and dull gray eyes that match the color of the thick layers of clouds outside. He’s in his early twenties, maybe. He stops abruptly after moving through the door, eyes darting back and forth like someone high on something. I lift my camera and quietly twist off the lens cap as he steps to the cashier.
Click-click.
“Can I get a pack of Lucky Strikes?” His voice is deep and raspy.
Without taking an eye off his tiny TV set, the cashier reaches behind him to unlock a glass case. “Be just the pack?”
Click-click.
“Yeah.” The man stuffs his hands into his pocket.
I lower my camera and hold my breath, nervous about what could be in his pocket. There’s something about him. Almost like he could go full-on serial killer right before our eyes. He extracts a crumpled ten-dollar bill from his coat pocket.
“Is he okay?” I look up at the ceiling. “Am I being paranoid?”
“Definitely. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Okay, maybe a fly. But nothing bigger than a cricket.”
“Look at that man, Violet.”
She looks up. “What about him?”
“Something seems off with him. Don’t you think?”
“Now that you...mention it.” Violet pauses to take a deep breath. “He looks so sad. Poor guy. The winter months...get everybody down. Indi, I’m pretty sure this isn’t the right aisle.”
I scope out the shelves. One side is stacked with baby diapers, wipes and lotions. The other side, wine and hard liquors like tequila and whiskey. “Oh, yeah. Let’s try another.”
When I turn my attention back to the mysterious man, he’s exiting with his pack of cigarettes in hand. Yep. Definitely being paranoid. I return to the task at hand and we make our way down another aisle.
“Yay, we found it.” Violet leans forward to study the items placed neatly on the shelves.
There are a variety of medicines like cough syrups, Tylenol and other, off-brand painkillers. I kneel. “What about this one? It’s called—” I snatch up the box “—Chestix Rub.”
“I guess it’s like the generic of Vapo?” Violet runs a hand through the ends of her hair. “Let me Google it to see if Chestix is a good brand.”
“Violet.” I smile. “Chestix is probably not the best brand, but it’s all they have.”
“I’m being a total ESTJ, aren’t I?”
I have to take a second to remember that ESTJ is a personality type—extroverted, sensing, thinking, judging.
Violet groans. “I wish I could be more like you.”
“Me?” My eyes bulge. “I’m sorry? Why?”
“Because...you’re not an ESTJ, anal-retentive like me.”
“You’re right. I’m not ESTJ. I don’t even know what I am, because I pretended I had to go to the bathroom and hid there until class was over when we took that stupid personality test at school.”
“See? I’m always trying to do what’s best. What’s right. But...what difference does it even make? What good has it done me?” She leans back in her chair. “Sometimes I hate caring so much.”
“And I hate not caring.”
“We should switch brains. Okay, that settles it. I’m not gonna Google Chestix. Let’s just get it!”
“Look at you, Vee.” I squeeze her shoulder. “Living on the edge.”
She laughs. Her second laugh of the day! It warms me up better than thoughts of the sun.
Pastor Jedidiah shuffles past us. Dad trails behind him.
“Pastor,” Dad mumbles. “Why don’t you go on and sit down somewhere? I’m pretty sure they don’t sell kava kava tea. Try the one I showed you. It was English breakfast.”
“That wasn’t tea. It was a well-marketed packet of dust is what it was. Kava kava is rich and delicious and a wonderful natural remedy for pain. You should try it for your rotator cuff.” Jedidiah is basically speaking to the floor as he shuffles around the corner with Dad looking none too happy to trail behind him.
The front doors are pushed open again, causing my muscles to tense and harden like petrified wood. It’s the man. He’s back. He steps over the threshold and into the light. His eyes do a quick scan, like he’s looking for something. Maybe that’s it. He forgot something. I look to the ceiling. “Why is he back?”
“Didn’t I tell you he was as harmless as a declawed cat? Girl, when are you gonna start listening to me?”
“Why is who back?” Viol
et asks.
“That creepy-looking guy.”
“Oh, yeah.” Violet sounds genuinely sympathetic. “The sad one.”
Mom chucks a bunch of items onto the counter, including the large container of Red Vines. While she looks at the magazines, Brandon and Nam sneak bags of Sour Patch Kids and candy bars into her basket.
“Violet,” I whisper. “I think this guy is a bad egg.”
“Really? Why?”
Before I can explain the sensation I’m getting deep within the pit of my stomach when I look at him, the man unzips his heavy winter coat and extracts a gun. I’ve watched Alfred play enough Battlefield on his PS4 to be able to properly identify a fully automatic. Rapid-fire guns where a single pull of a trigger can kill a room full of people. “Everybody on the floor!” He holds the gun in the air.
It’s instant pandemonium as a variety of high-pitched screams reverberate throughout the cramped store.
Dad rushes to Mom and the boys.
Nam and Brandon drop their bags of candy and slump to the floor, screaming at the tops of their lungs.
Pink Roller Lady hollers “Sweet Jesus, he’s gonna kill us all!” before she slams onto the tile, covering her head with her hands like it’s an elementary school fire drill instead of an armed robbery.
The man grabs Drew by the collar, pushes him down and places a steel-toed boot onto his back. He points the gun directly at the back of Drew’s head. “Everybody to the front of the store. On the floor! Now! Do as I say, and nobody dies.”
“Daddy!” Nam screams.
“Don’t be scared!” Drew’s voice quivers. “Do what he says.”
Mom and Dad put their arms around the boys and hunch together, splayed out on the dirty tile.
“Hurry up!” The man points the weapon at Michelle and the female pharmacist as they walk slowly to the front, their hands raised. “On your stomachs!”
Clearly Michelle can’t lie on her stomach but she quickly gets down on her side. The pharmacist sprawls out beside her. Both are visibly shaking and teary-eyed.
He motions to Violet and me with his free hand. “You two! Get on the goddamned floor like I told you to do.”
Violet is holding her chest. Barely breathing. Face turning dark red.
The Voice in My Head Page 12
