fiX
by: Michael Golvach
By Michael Golvach
BOOKS
Split The Middle
Missing Pieces
fiX
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
Bloody Gullets
INSANE RAMBLINGS / SELF-HELP
This Is Not A Book: Brain Spanking Vols 1–4
SHORT STORIES
What I Did This Summer by Davey Fitz
Copyright © 2016 by Michael Golvach
Cover design by BookStylings – bookstylings.com
Book design by BookStylings – bookstylings.com
Book Editing by Richard “Tony” Held – heldeditingservices.blogspot.com
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organisations, products and events portrayed in this work are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.
Michael Golvach
[email protected]
ISBN: 9781370181384
For Cadence Chablis
~
For The Girl Who Always Felt Out Of Place And On A Different Level. For The Oddball Who Never Quite Fit In. For The Strong, Independent, Creative, Smart, Empathetic And Forgiving Woman You Always Were. And For The Fond Memory Of You.
~
Thank You.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter I: Prologue ~ Once Upon A Time I: “What I Did This Summer” by Davey Fitz
Chapter II: The Storm I: Three Weeks
II: This Is Not A Fairy Tale
III: No One There
IV: Machetes And Tape
V: Bent Straight
VI: I Know It Knows
VII: Seeing To Her
VIII: Rubbed Out
IX: Remember Desperately
X: Never Could I Be Wrong
XI: Out The Back
XII: Hanging God
XIII: The Monkey And You
XIV: Back In The Borough
XV: The Smell
XVI: Useless And Still
XVII: No Time
XVIII: Tearing Apart The Night
XIX: And It Begs
XX: In Grass
XXI: Good And Strange
XXII: The Floating
XXIII: Ask Not Why
XXIV: Off Day
XXV: White Night
XXVI: This Time
XXVII: Unconscious Thought
XXVIII: Believe And Know
Chapter III: The Flood I: Feeling Drained
II: Off The Wall
III: All Or Never
IV: Not Quite Small
V: Behind The Door
VI: The News Desk
VII: Now Arriving
VIII: Wearing It Well
IX: No Comfort
X: Bury The Same
Chapter IV: The House I: Giving It All Into Nothing
II: What You Question Least
III: As It Was, This Is
IV: The Interest And The Cost
V: It Is Here With You
VI: The Ground Where You Stood
VII: It Will Go Where The One Is
VIII: Armed And Watching The Seconds
IX: Lying Down And Sleeping Around
X: Do You See It At All?
XI: Of My Favourite Monkey And The Distance
Chapter V: The Sand I: No Going
II: Right And Good
III: What Was
IV: Spin Out
V: The Kill House
VI: Lifting Sin
VII: Living Underneath
VIII: Calling The Night
IX: All The Meaner
X: I Hear What Might Be
XI: It And I
XII: The Talking Room
XIII: No Looking Back
XIV: She Alone
XV: Her Doing
XVI: It Is, It Was
XVII: You That Look, Know
XVIII: Listening To Weakness
Chapter VI: The Rock I: Swimming With The Possible
II: Crying Blood
III: This Story Is For You
IV: All Hell In Check
V: Look For It
VI: Tell Me Yes
VII: The Answer
VIII: Weapons Out
IX: That Is All
X: Good Night, My Son
Chapter VII: Epilogue~Happily Ever After I: The Beautiful Sorrow
Acknowledgements:
A Great many thanks to everyone who took the time to read this book, and provide me with their valuable feedback, at the expense of their own time.
Thanks to my editor, Richard “Tony” Held, for his exceptional work helping make this book better.
Thanks to Nikki, Meredith and all of the brilliant folks on the BookStylings team who made this book’s inside and outside look and feel so beautiful.
Without all of your help, and infinite patience with me, this book would not have been possible.
This summer I stayed a district away from home at my favourite uncle’s house. Actually, to be honest, I’m not really sure he’s related to me. I think my mom just calls him uncle because he helps out by watching me when she has to go away. I’m not even sure she’s ever really met him. He said I should start out this paper by writing that I really hope I get a good grade on it. I told him I didn’t think we were allowed to do that. But he insisted, so I put it in here. It’s not the first sentence, like he wanted, but I think he’d be happy it’s in the first paragraph. He also said I shouldn’t write that I think this sort of essay is too childish an exercise for a teenager to still have to do before the beginning of the school year, but I’m putting that in here too, so you’ll know what I’m writing is honest and true.
I learnt a lot of things living at my uncle’s over the past three months. For instance, when I first got there and wanted to watch some television he said to me: “Look around you, Davey. Look at your world. Are you surrounded by things you love? Why not?” I didn’t understand what he meant. Except, I thought maybe he meant the world is a beautiful place and I needed to live in it, not just watch moving pictures of it, to really experience its true wonder. He would never explain himself. I think it’s because he figured me out a long time before I really understood myself. Or maybe he just guessed correctly, based on what he knew of my relationship with my mom. He knows I need my world to have some sense of certainty. But he insists I’ll be better off if my world is a puzzle. A riddle. Something to work on, inside my head, when he isn’t around, which is almost all the time. I’m not really sure why my mom thinks it’s a good idea to have him look after me when she’s away, but I don’t have much say in the matter and it gives me the freedom to do whatever I want when I’m living with him. Except watch television, because he doesn’t own a TV set. Or any lights. He doesn’t own a lot of things most people do. My bed is usually a mattress on the floor in an otherwise empty room.
I think the most important lesson I learnt this summer with my uncle, I learnt on my own. While I was feeling truly alone. While he probably assumed I was sitting around my room trying to figure out whatever confusing response to a simple request he’d left me to ponder. I had a few friends in his borough and, even though my uncle and my mom probably wouldn’t approve of me spending time with them, it’s not like either of them were around to complain. As long as I made it back home by night, no questions were asked. If anyone was there to ask them.
&nb
sp; My friends and I spent most of the summer doing nothing of real consequence. That’s what summer’s for, I think. I got to watch television with them, so that made me happy. But it also made me sad, I guess, because they liked to watch the news and that made me think of what my uncle had said in response to my initial plea to waste some time sitting in front of a TV set. The stuff the news reported on every night wasn’t good. And it wasn’t fun, like most of the times I spent doing stuff around town with, or without, my friends. It was all depressing. And it made me not want to watch any more. Mostly, it made me realise that, when I was watching the television with them, I felt like I wasn’t surrounded by anything I loved. My friends were there, sure, but the terrible things the news people showed us were happening all over the world—even in our little part of it—made it seem like maybe my world wasn’t really that beautiful a place after all.
But my uncle, for all of his strange and evasive behaviour, had managed to get that philosophical muscle working overtime inside me. And sometime around a week or three into my vacation, I started hanging out by myself a lot more, after my friends and I got done doing what we did for fun. His little questions even got me wondering if what I considered fun was really that great, because what my friends and I did for fun wasn’t legal and, if we ever got caught, we’d get in a lot of trouble. My uncle told me not to put that part in this paper, either, since he said it might put him in a fix too, but I thought I should, since it directly relates to what I learnt and he’s never going to read this far into my essay anyway. I could be wrong. I can’t predict what he’ll do from moment to moment. But I’m positive I won’t be there in person to hand in this assignment and get whatever grade I deserve.
During my first three weeks in town, while I was hanging out with my friends and we were having fun, I met a girl I liked a whole lot. I’d seen her many times before, over the years, on other summers with my uncle and on days when I didn’t have school and my mom had to go away. And I always remembered seeing her, even though I was sure she never noticed me because we didn’t have the same friends, I was never in town on any sort of regular schedule, I didn’t want her to meet my uncle, or see my room, and she was way too pretty to just go up and talk to. My friends would make fun of me whenever she was around. They were being mean, but I felt sure they were trying to help me out in their own way.
They started out calling me a chicken whenever I couldn’t get up the guts to talk to her but, as we got older, they began telling me she had a stupid looking face and she was fat and ugly and I could do a lot better. It made me angry when they talked about her like that, but it also made me feel special. And it made me feel lucky. Not to have friends like them, but to know the one girl who could stop my heart with a glance in my direction might be meant just for me. If she looked as repellent to the rest of the world as she looked attractive to me, that had to mean something really good. It made sense to me, anyway, and I didn’t care much about what the rest of the world thought as long as I could look at my world and see myself surrounded by at least one thing I loved.
Her name was Melody. And I suppose, if she’s still among the living, that hasn’t changed. Although I’m pretty sure the last time I saw her was the next to last time anyone ever did.
She was stunning. Skin as white as milk and orange-red hair that looked darker in the sunlight. Covered from head to toe with a nearly invisible soft white fur. A little heavy around the sides of her lips, but the whiskers were incredibly sexy and not masculine at all. Very small breasts. Long, skinny-fat arms and legs. Hips that looked wide, even though they weren’t broader than her waist, and an ass that looked wide too, and flat, even though it was fat at the bottom. Her upper thighs were big and soft, perfectly shaped and fluid and the lower half of her stomach was an adorable pooch belly. Most of these imperfections, if anyone were to consider them imperfect and not impossibly arousing, she kept tucked away in body slimming undergarments. Hosiery she wore from the waist down instead of the revealing lacy panties all the other girls wore underneath the extra short skirts they dared us not to peek up while making sure to give us every opportunity. She wasn’t textbook beautiful, but that made her all the more appealing. I think, if I can be sure of anything, I fell in love with her the first time I saw her. Back before she slowly began crumbling under society’s ridiculous definition of glamour and she still wore her gorgeous body with pride. With a confidence that was more perfect than any subjective standard ever could be.
And over the past summer, when the things my friends and I did for fun expanded into moving drugs from dealer to dealer, we finally began to mix in the same social circles. But by the time I really met her, she was already dating some older guy named Dan, which, after all that time, hurt bad enough. And the guy she was with dealt drugs for some big hitters, and a few of my buddies told me he pimped her out from time to time. Only to show everyone he could, they said, because he could just as easily finalise any drug deal with a handshake or a gun. And that made me sad and angry at the same time. Because they said I could have my favourite girl now, if I still wanted her. Just like everyone else who was interested in buying whatever her boyfriend was selling. For a long time, before my friends told me that, I was convinced they were looking out for me when they talked down about her. Trying to keep me from getting my heart ripped out by some girl I was too scared to approach anyway. And, before I found out she was seeing someone steady and they told me the real deal, I honestly felt like my world was starting to fill up with things I loved. Or, at least, one thing I could love.
I tried not to get too close to her after that, no matter how desperately I still wanted to. Even though, as the days passed and we stayed out hustling more often, I’d see her here and there. At a party or on the streets with her friends. On the rare occasion when I couldn’t run away and hide, I’d ignore my bruised and battered ego and talk to her and she was very friendly, very well spoken and proper, and also very shy. That confused me, because my friends talked about her like she was a piece of property and they told me she was like all the other girls, except easier. Yet I never felt that from her. Whenever I saw her and we’d notice each other, I felt a sadness that wasn’t coming from inside me. But my friends had poisoned my mind to a degree, and their voices were always in my head fighting with my uncle’s. Telling me she wasn’t a thing I loved. That she was just really good at seeming like one.
Still, my uncle’s wisdom, or maybe it was insanity, always won out. Because I wanted to believe the world was a beautiful place. And I wanted to believe I was surrounded by things I loved. And love, as I understand it, has to work both ways. When it only works one way, when it’s not returned, it’s just infatuation, dependency or desperate need. I didn’t want to believe my world merely consisted of things I was addicted to. I wanted Melody to be better than the drugs her boyfriend dealt, and my friends and I helped him move. I wanted her to be something beautiful and I wanted my feelings for her to be something true. So I kept my distance, which kept me safe. Not knowing for sure if what my friends told me was true was better than having my heart broken. I thought.
But she kept showing up in my world. Maybe it was circumstance, coincidence. Maybe it was because the universe, or God or whatever it is that makes everything the way it is, was making sure we both found out what we really meant to each other in our respective worlds.
And I truly connected with her for the first time the last time I saw her.
It was a late afternoon when the sun was shining more brightly than I thought it should have been, after my friends had gone home and I was heading back to my uncle’s. I only had a little while left before I had to go back to my mom’s and I was feeling down. Melody was walking on the other side of the street in the opposite direction and when she saw me, I could swear her eyes magnified the light from the sky as she stopped to wave at me and smiled. I looked back at her, my expression blank as my hand raised to return her greeting, at once totally aware of how empty the street was and how beautiful
she looked painted against its backdrop. I remember she didn’t do anything in particular to make me slow my walk and stare back at her. She never did anything in particular, any of the times I’d seen her, to make my heart melt. She just was. Her smell, her skin, her hair, her strangely adorable body, her awkward social manner, the way she moved and the way she spoke. The fluidity of her features. All of those things, weaving together to form something greater than the parts, like magic.
Then she continued to walk, the skin of her face flushing pink as she looked down at the ground with embarrassment and brought her hands back together in front of her stomach. As I watched and wondered why she had suddenly broken contact, I noticed she was wearing a fine white dress that zipped up the back and was made of a sheer fabric that seemed to show her nipples. As her gaze darted back up to meet mine and drifted away sadly again, I felt like she had seen something in me. That the way my eyes adored her made her sense I believed the things she knew my friends, and everyone, said about her. And, ironically, the look she threw my way convinced me the things my friends told me about her couldn’t possibly be true.
I remember I crossed the street, to put myself directly in her path, very quickly but very cautiously. Like I was afraid if she saw me approaching her, she’d run. But when I said hello to her and asked her how she was, she just looked up and fixed my gaze as she replied, questioning my motives or maybe questioning her assumptions. No shock, no surprise. I took off my jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders, covering her dress’ top, even though it wasn’t the least bit chilly out, and I asked her if she wanted to take a walk with me. My head didn’t even have time to process the fact that I was asking her to do what we were both already doing before we saw each other—or that by covering her up I’d unconsciously confirmed I had noticed her breasts—in time for me to feel appropriately ashamed and embarrassed before she said yes.
She waited for me to lead, so I walked her in the direction I was originally heading. Back to my uncle’s. The one place in the world I didn’t want the girl of my dreams to see, ever. By the time I realised where I was guiding her, it was too late to change direction without seeming even more like a nervous little boy. But she walked with me and we talked about almost everything except what we really wanted to and, before I knew it, the sun was going down and we were standing outside my uncle’s house.
fiX - A ParaBnormal Fairy Tale Page 1
