Only when I was alone, in the solitude of my own home, in my own bed, did the reality of his true character surface in my dreams, and cause me pause. I’d wake up remembering. Unsure, unclear, confused. It was a cautionary split inside me, where two women emerged. One wanting love so bad she was willing to subject herself to anything to get it and the other waved bright red warning flags of danger and screamed, “You are enough. No. Back away. You are enough. Please don’t.” A rapid fire conversation took place inside the house, inside me while two women made a list of the pros and cons. He drinks too much. Straight up alcoholic. He’s had two DWI’s and he almost killed you driving home drunk. THAT should be enough right there. But more so, he’s aloof, un-attentive, non-affectionate and brash. Can’t you see that? Normal conversation is limited as if neither of you speaks the same language. There is no intimacy. Sure, neither of us know what exactly that is, but this can’t be all there is. Is it? There is no underlying current of connection between us either. It’s just not there. But why am I so attracted to him? Am I attracted to him? It’s not the sex, even though the sex is good, I still feel like an object of possession, a trinket to play, an object of satisfaction and lust. When it’s done—it’s done. There is not an ounce of love. Not that I’d know what love is…could I be wrong? Is it me? His temper is borderline hostility. Plus, he’s controlling as if he owned me. He has no relationship with his mother. Of course, I can’t talk—I don’t have a relationship with my mother either. Uggghhh. This is so hard. Why am I doing this? I feel as if I have to chase Branson constantly, just to keep him, you know? Why is that? Because he’s unavailable to you, don’t you see that? It drives me crazy, I know that much. I feel second. Not first. I feel I must be more to please him. I am not enough. I must fix this. I must fix him. Yes….that’s what I shall do.
Another voice chimes in. “Run Willodean, run.” For half a second, I want to flee and listen to the voice, trust my instinct, my gut. Instead, my need for love kept me there. Need. I hate that word.
“Run, Willodean, run.” The voice faded in and out. Oh—I ran alright. I ran straight into Branson’s arms and I vowed to love this man to death. But it wasn’t his death—it was my own.
***
I came back to myself. The gold wedding band burned my palm like hells fire. I dropped it along with the two nickels. It fell into the pile of Branson’s body parts. I scooped the riddled bones, nickels and the ring into the demon jacket, and twisted it up so tight, I wouldn’t have to worry about it hatching demon babies. I storm off to the kitchen and bury it deep inside the trash. I could barely breathe. I hear the demon jacket whispering from the bottom of the can. It sifted, rustled and drove me mad.
“Stop it.” I screamed. “Just stop it.”
The rest of the evening was torment. It was getting late. I felt unclean as if I had committed murder, the smear of bloody bones still on my hands, the stench of his cologne like breathing in poison. I stripped off my clothes and made my way to the bathroom, and turned on the shower. It was dark outside. I flipped off the lights and the room fell into the darkness I was used to. For as long as I can remember I have taken showers in the dark, with only glimmers of light from the other bedrooms. I don’t remember when it started or why—I just always remember doing it. Something about it settled me, gave me peace.
I drowned myself underneath the hot steam while it pulsated hard pellets on my skin that stung and made it red. To be clean, to be washed in the waters of redemption—I had to pay for it with my own pain. Inside the house, inside me, is a Martyr in a cross laden room, waiting for punishment, to die and be glorified.
A large mist enveloped the bathroom. The small lamp from the bedroom flickered shadows on the walls, like the walls of Maw Sue’s house. The darkness beyond the dark, the lesser light beyond the black. Under the steady stream of water, I closed my eyes. It carried me to the same place each time. A place in my dreams, a place that seemed real as if I’d been there before. I am standing naked in an open field, my head lifted upward peering into the night skies under a shimmering moon while the sky pours out a thick pelting rain of purification, of pain, of punishment as it beads on my skin like hail stones. The hard pellets remove the film of shame on my skin, like fish scales plummeting to the hard ground. My arms reach and reach and yearn for a place of vulnerable nakedness, where I can be me, whole, complete and real, for the first time, no judgment, just me. I scream chants into the deep of night wanting a fresh, newborn rain to coat me like new love. The clouds part the heavens and out of the split, a new rain falls, and washes me, with love. I am renewed.
Since standing naked in a field might alert the neighbors, I daydream in the privacy of my shower. It is a calming daily ritual of necessity. After finding the ring and the pictures of Branson, the film is hard to remove, so I stay until the water is cold and I have to get out. My skin was water wrinkled and I shivered. Punishment enough. I dry off and don’t bother to put on a gown. I climb into my all-white bed, complete with sheets, comforter and pillows, all white. Pure, undefiled white. It reminded me of Maw Sue’s spare bedroom, the one Mag and I used to sleep in as kids, the room with the outside door that was blocked with the moaning freezer. The feather bed inside it looked and felt like we were sleeping inside a giant marshmallow. It had a white chenille bed and it was so tall, we’d have to take a running leap to get in it. But once we did, we’d sink. It was perfect.
The little girl inside me, hidden in the house, dreamed of being pure white again, so the bed was as close to white as I could get. My purity had long been taken. The cool air of the box fan hanging in the corner throws down wind kisses. They are kisses from God purifying my tainted body. Kisses on every square inch of my body. Loving me. Holding me. Seven. When my spiritual nature can no longer take it—I turn carnal. The spirit of wind drifts into a need for a man. Instead, I clutch the man pillow wanting touch, needing touch, someone to love me. I desire a man’s man, masculine arms to reach out and wrap me up and make me feel safe. I want to be loved, forgiven, kissed and saved. Saved from everything that frightens me. Saved from a life that is slowly killing me. Saved from myself. Saved from the curse. In the outskirts of my mind, I hear her soft cries inside the house, inside one of the locked rooms. The door of my heart is bruised from her bloody knuckles banging. She wants out. She is tired of being a prisoner inside the house. She cut deep grooves and scratches into the door with her fingernails and anything she can find, in an attempt to hurt me, so I would let her escape.
“I’m sorry.” I say in little whispers. “I can’t.” Lumps of tears roll down my cheeks wetting the man pillow. “I can’t let you out. You know why. You know. So quit asking.” My voice turns dark and deprived. The air around me cracks and whistles. I am lost in the turbulence of the fan. I know it’s the little girl trying to make me do something I don’t want to do. She stirs things up. In my mind, I see the blades rip out of the box and spin out of control and tear everything in its wake, apart, including me.
“Look for the crumbs Willodean.” I hear Maw Sue’s voice between the fan whirrs.
“Well no shit dead grandmother who speaks from the grave.” I jumped up from the bed. I speak to a ghost that never seems to leave me alone. She is worse than the stirrings of the little girl sometimes. Both of them irk me. “Do you ever die? Why do you keep doing that? Isn’t there a clause in heaven, once your dead, you can’t come back to irritate family? Jeesh!” I realize I’m stark naked and talking to a dead person, my grandmother, who I’m not entirely sure is dead. I grab the white sheet of purity and pull it to my chest. “And by the way, I AM looking for the crumbs. In fact, there’s a bit too many crumbs of Branson dropping out of nowhere. Did you have something to do with that?” I glared into the nothingness of the room waiting on a ghost to answer me. “In fact—I’m about sick of this crap, legends, Cupitors, Amodgian house of horrors hocus pocus.” No answer. “Do you hear me?” I screamed, my voice getting caught into the fan. “I’m one messed up girl Maw Sue.
Worse than you ever was.”
The room turned silent. If Maw Sue was there—she didn’t answer which made me wonder if I heard her at all. I am a reactor. I over-react. My reactionary nature turned sarcastic and cynical.
“So Maw Sue…let’s not talk crumbs shall we. Or better yet, if we do, let it be a man crumb. I want a tasty, six foot, brown hair, blue eyed tall drink of Texas water. And I’d like to screw him till the cows come home. Deliver that kind of crumb and we’ll talk.” My voice slipped into a seductive tone of wickedness. My radical hormones likely sent Maw Sue rotating Venus. “Mmmm, mmmm.” Said the spider to the fly as I licked my lips. I laid back on the pure white chenille comforter with fringe trim. Lena gave it to me, still in the original package when she bought it with green stamps, no less, in nineteen seventy something. She didn’t have use for it and thought I might like it in my new house. Little did she know I was about to turn it black. My hands stole up underneath the covers finding hidden things of pleasure. Lost in a land of orgasmic chills, I was in ecstasy with my man pillow beside me. Spasms of electricity rocked every inch of my impure body. I watched the pure white bed turn inky black. Just like I was, inside and out. Once the dirty deed of desire was fulfilled, I fell asleep, satisfied but empty, lust fulfilled in my body, but longing in my heart. I dreamed of the little girl standing naked in the field, under the moon and stars while the cleansing rains washed her, purified her and saved her. But it went wrong, horrible wrong. The dream turned into a nightmare.
Memories drench me. Giant horrible crumbs fall upon my chest and pelt me to the hard ground. I could not move, could not breathe. I was keenly aware of my surroundings but yet still in a frozen dream state. The rain did not wash my sins and the crumbs did not come to save me. This time—they came to confront all I put away. They let the pink elephants out of hiding and removed the muzzle from the little girl’s mouth and unlocked her room door. They let her out.
“Noooo. NO! Nooooo!” I screamed and screamed but I couldn’t wake up. Everything that was done, was done. And there was nothing I could do about it. Make lovely your losses. Make lovely your losses. The haunting statement slices through my ears making them bleed. As a child, I couldn’t comprehend its meaning. Now—I know. I see the magnitude of my casualties as they filter in and out of my slain memory and trace their fingers over the scars, and the gaping wounds of my losses.
Dark Thirty
I loved hearing Maw Sue tell the story of my birth. It was so vivid and dramatized, I was positive I fell out of a hard back cover of a Grimm’s fairytale. It was also a burden, a hard stone in my heart, weighing me down. I grew up feeling as if I had to fulfill some prophecy, some grandiose event foretold ages ago. Life was just waiting on me to pop out of my mama’s belly and slip into those glass slippers or in my case, be eaten by a troll or torched by a dragons eye. That red stone around Maw Sue’s neck was the devil anyway, a red eyed dragon always unsettling to look at. It watched me, constantly, every move I made. There was some kind of energy in the tone of Maw Sue’s voice, a magical presence in the air when she told me the story of my humble but awesome beginnings. She spoke of a mystical power that guided all things, all tribes and nations and I was part of that tribe of nations. It made me feel special and if she believed in it—then it made me want to believe in it too.
It wasn’t without its faults though. It was a hopeful story—a story that said the end is better than the beginning. And Lord knows, I needed to hear that, considering what I was up against. And then there’s the mirror bin, an ancient talisman passed from my ancestors, which is my second line of defense against enemies and foes and the more time passes, the more I seem to accumulate. According to Maw Sue’s pig trail philosophy, the mirror bin is made of maple wood and the blood of many generations before us, all contributors. I paused with that thought, because I wasn’t sure I’d give my blood to anyone, much less to make a wooden box.
I was always intrigued when I sat at Maw Sue’s feet listening to her talk. I was more myself that I’d ever been. I marveled at every word. With every telling, I gather a little more gumption for the journey. Survive another day. I certainly needed it because the story in itself, was bigger than me. Way, way bigger. It made me wrestle with myself, always at odds with my shadow, the story was simply too big, a set up for failure, huge expectations, shoes I could never fit. Sure, a part of me believed I had a place in this world, a mold to fit, soil to sink my toes in, and a travel itinerary to get there, all mine to behold. It was the getting there part, I found hard.
It is because of Maw Sue that I see the world in which I was born and live out every day, through vivid eyes of imagination and magical interpretations. Because of her, I have eyes to see and ears to hear, a gift from Proverbs 20:12 which she recited all the time. It is because of her blood flowing through my veins, I am also gifted and cursed. My troubles came early. It was one of the coldest and stormiest nights on record in Pine Log, Texas, according to Dan Petoskey, weather man of KLRT-7 news.
I kicked and squirmed and turned five shades of pink while my father tried to calm and cradle me. “I guess you’ll have to do little girl. You’re a little goblin-goober. A little spook. Ooggloo, goo, cheeky, cheeky.” Dad oohed and awed in baby jabber. “Looky here, looky here, pumpkin pie. I’m going to teach you to hunt and fish and work on cars. You’ll be my little redneck princess. You’re a female but I don’t hold that against you none. And by God, if anything, you’re gonna go out knowing. You, me and James Dean. What'dya say to that?”
Papa Hart barged through the door, Dell following close behind. They were dripping wet and slinging sheets of water. Papa Hart noticed my wildness right off the bat.
“Son…son.” He said to dad. “Looks like you fixing to pay for yo raising.” I began to cry and my shrill voice shattering the silence of the room. “Mercy what lungs. You know what them old timers say.”
“What do they say?” Dad looked at him curiously.
“They say a child born in a storm is trouble waiting to happen. If this is any indication…” he let out a “Whew!” then pointed to the window. The downpour threaded in beads of water necklaces thrown from heaven. “SHE…” he pointed to me. “That little one right there is gone be double trouble. Plus, it’s Halloween.” A strike of lightening hit the building next door making everyone jump out of their skin. The strike was a period of punctuality validating Papa Hart’s prophetic words. Everyone looked at each other but no one dared say the obvious, or the unspeakable things they saw in between the flash of light and the darkness. The aftershock of thunder rumbled the building. The lights flickered on and off. When everyone was through looking strangely at each other for answers, the room went back to normal.
“See what I mean.” Papa Hart said. His eyebrows raised in dire straits.
“Well, that ain’t nothing.” Dad said shushing. “This little shit was also born in the dark. You believe that? The lights went out—and plop. The doctor said it was pitch dark, almost slipped out of his hands.
“Good Lord Lena.” Dell said startled with all the commotion. “That child couldn’t have picked a sunny day to be born…Valentine’s day? Christmas?”
Lena shrugged her shoulders too exhausted for words. The room filled with chatter and new baby bliss. My family had been on alert of my impending birth and despite ominous weather reports, one by one made their way to the hospital to welcome me into this world but only one family member had the gumption to tell it like it was. Maw Sue came to welcome me and warn me.
Her given name is Susannah Josephine Worrell but I would come to know this eccentric, peculiar woman as Maw Sue and she was a hoot. Her storytelling ability took me places, both magical, scary, intriguing and unknown. Sometimes, she’d end a story without giving the ending which left me to panic.
“We have to figure out the ending for ourselves. Deal with what the good Lord gives us.” She’d say leaning back in her rocking chair. “That’s just part of life. We all get something different. ” It left m
e stupefied and wondering what I’d get.
Of course, then there’s William Henry whom everyone called Papa Hart. Maw Sue always says his name with a sneer in her voice. He does the same with hers. They constantly bicker back and forth about nothing. Papa Hart was the only man who could ruffle her feathers to the point she was an exploding peacock. They’ve hem-hawed and jaw-jacked since day one. Papa Hart says it’s because she didn’t want him marrying her daughter on account he wasn’t good enough. Maw Sue says she didn’t trust a man that drank a boatload of whiskey and played cards to all hours of the night, among other things. Papa Hart said he didn’t care for crazy women who took pills like candy. It was tit for tat, all the time. My birth didn’t seem to stop them none, it only aggravated the issue.
Maw Sue busted through the hospital door causing a God awful racket. The metal knob slung against the wall and sent shockwaves down the hallway.
“Speak of the devil.” William Henry mumbled out loud. “Did you ride in on your broom or a thunder bolt?”
Maw Sue cut him the evil eye and scowled as if she’d been weaned on vinegar. Dell shot Papa Hart a don’t-start-it-look but it was too late. They caused a fuss no matter where they were. Maw Sue was the forerunner of the family, a fallen matriarch people merely tolerated. “Where is she?” Susannah said. Her brittle hands rattled the door knob excessively and annoying. Her eyes bounced off every head until she locked eyes with me. The connection sent little eruptions soaring through her aged bones, reminding her of misspent youth. She elbowed the door shut. It split the air with a loud bang and synchronized with a thunder clap outside.
WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1) Page 21
