Toxic

by A. C. Bextor

  “Call me?”

  “Right.”

  “You’re an ass.”

  As I light a cigarette, hoping it helps clear my head, I respond to her sweet name calling. “Been called worse by better, babe.”

  After she dresses and collects her shit, she slams the door. Oh, that fuckin’ bitch … my head is pounding even more now. Fuck.

  Now that the slut is gone, I’m going to get my morning snacks; aspirin and beer. I could have gone for another blow job before she booked, but once she started talking I lost interest.

  I check the clock - eight oh three in the morning. Good, I haven’t slept in, I can get an early start to my binge. It’s Saturday, so fuck it.

  Downstairs, I walk in on Hem, who’s sitting in Doc’s chair lacing up his boot. “Hello, sunshine. How are you this morning? Guessin’ by the piece that just walked out, you’re feelin’ pretty good.”

  “Fuck off, Hem. No one wants to hear your voice.” I throw my cigarettes on the bar and wait, knowing he’ll have more to say.

  He stands from the chair, and I can already tell he’s confrontational. He’s told me at least fifteen times within the last month, that I need help dealing with my issues. PTSD, what the fuck is that? I don’t need mental help; a bullet to my fuckin’ head is free, and when I’m ready I’m going to pull its trigger.

  Hem is in my face as I stand near the step leading to the bar and common area. He pushes my chest with his finger. “Maybe you need to hear my voice, Shame. You sure as hell need to hear someone’s, preferably someone you haven’t pissed off with your ridiculous antics. You’re fuckin’ up. You’re letting that son of a bitch eat you from the inside out, and he’s in a box in the ground, man. What the fuck do you think you’re doin'?”

  Moving my hand to his, I throw his finger off my chest and drop it between us. “What the fuck am I doin’? I’m living, Hem. I’m fuckin’ living and that piece of shit is dead. I should be free now that he’s gone, but I’m not. I don’t feel free. I don’t feel anything anymore. Instead, I’m wallowing in these God damn thoughts about what it would be like to be like him … dead.”

  This is the first time I’ve ever reacted to his words. Doc and Hem have tolerated my adolescent behavior, but over time they’ve grown tired. I need to make a decision right now. Either I need to find that bullet and use it to end my constant state of misery, or trust that Doc knows what’s good for me and get the help I need. Today, though, a decision needs to be made.

  “Look, Shame, I want to help, but I can’t if you don’t talk to me. This shit that’s going through your brain … this shit happened years ago, and you’re living as if it happened last week. Let ... It … Go. By hanging onto the past, you’re letting it chain you to him. He was a rotten son of a bitch who murdered a woman with his bare hands, and he deserved to die.”

  “I could have saved her.” I haven’t said those words out loud since the day they both died. Other than Lynda and Hem, no one knows the guilt I’ve kept buried deep. The guilt that lives and breathes in my soul and every so often finds its way to the surface like a serpent trying to get out and ruin me.

  “Hem, she wanted to see me.” I move past him to get past the bar and into the fridge. That cold beer is what I need to relax me. Especially during this fucked up emotional discussion.

  “You couldn’t have saved her, Shame. He had just as much power over your mother as he had over you. Maybe you could have delayed her death, but was she ever really livin’? She’s dead because of the choices she made; those choices she never offered to you. Fuck, you’re walking a fine line here, and I gotta tell ya, if you don’t start walking this shit in the right direction you’re going to be walking it alone.”

  I move my eyes to his, take a pull of my beer, and contemplate his meaning. I don’t want to ask, because I fear the answer. Hearing it said holds more meaning; it makes it real.

  “You’d walk away from me.” I say this with conviction, and not in the phrase of a question.

  “No, I wouldn’t. I’d never walk away from you if I thought you could be saved, but you won’t be welcome around my family until that happens, Sadey included. You’re not taking the light they see you in and dimming it with this ridiculous guilt you’re carryin’ around. It won’t happen; I won’t let it.”

  Well, fuck if that’s not the last arrow to the chest.

  His words of family cut me too deep to gain an immediate recovery. I’ve just been let go from the only job I ever believed I was any good at; protecting those girls and being a part of their lives. Lynda loves me; she would be ashamed to see me like this. I need time to think and figure out what I’m doing.

  “Leave me alone, Hem. Walk away, and just leave me the fuck alone. I’m not interested in your help.”

  “Yeah, thought so. When you’re ready to man the fuck up and get help, you let me know. I’m here, but until then, you’re not to be near Mace, Sadey, or my mother. You’re not the same person to them anymore, seeing you like this, Shame.” Heavy sigh and in a softer tone. “You’re hurting them.”

  I don’t respond because there isn’t anything I can say. As he passes me, I can hear him hiss in disgust. He takes the stairs two at a time, headed towards his room. I have no interest in being here for any further enlightenments.

  I’m out.

  Grabbing my smokes, beer, keys, and wallet from the bar, I make my way to the front door. Once I open it, I’m met with another look of concern, this one in the form of a fourteen year old, Mace Cash.

  Instantly, I feel that familiar pull to protect; my heart beats achingly in my chest.

  “Hi.” She says meekly, giving me a small wave of her hand.

  She’s standing so close to the door, I’m looking directly down on her and her neck is craned up straining to look at me. She’s searching my face for warning signs; asking me without words what is going through my head. I don’t know what she’s heard, but if this kid is anything, she’s intuitive.

  I reach for her head to run my fingers through her hair, but she cringes at my gesture. I pull my hand back instantly, and she relaxes again.

  “What are you doin’ here, sweetheart?”

  “Waiting for Hem. He said I’m not allowed to come in there, so I’m just waiting here. I thought about going to sit on his bike and wait, but he would get mad. He’s taking me on a ride today. My mom isn’t feeling well, and he said he would spend time with me today, so we are going for ice cream, and then maybe a movie. I don’t know what movie, we are just...”

  “Mace.” My voice is raspy, because it makes me sick, knowing she’s nervous around me. She’s filling the air with words. She and I both know she’s stalling until Hem comes out. Mace Cash is anxious to be in my presence alone.

  I’ve just hit rock fuckin’ bottom.

  She isn’t talking or looking at me anymore. She’s looking to the ground, and then she turns to sit on the stoop directly outside the door. The sun is shining, and I’m sure somewhere birds are singing, but I don’t hear them over the breaking rhythm in my chest. Her back is to me, and now I’m being ignored as if I were nothing more than a passing brother, just another stranger, on the way to his ride.

  “Mace?”

  “Yeah.” She still won’t turn around, even though she acknowledges my address.

  “Can I sit?”

  “Yeah, I guess. I mean, you can if you want to.” She scoots her body over, making room for me to sit next to her. I set my beer down on the other side of me, so she doesn’t have to look at what I consider my morning medication.

  We sit in silence for a few seconds enjoying the fresh morning breeze. Until she breaks it. “Hem said you’re sick. Are you getting better?”

  I turn my face to her, not wanting to talk to the club’s driveway. “I don’t know yet. I want to be.”

  Her stare doesn’t leave the drive as she continues. “What’s the matter with you?” She doesn’t mind talking to nothing in front of her, as long as she doesn’t have to look at me.r />
  “I’m not for sure. I just don’t feel good, I guess.”

  She doesn’t say anything else for a few minutes, and finally she folds under my stare and turns to look at me directly, silently searching for answers that I don’t have. Her eyes are filled with tears, and it hits hard when I realize I’m unsure if she’s sad for me, or she’s afraid of me.

  “No matter what, sweetheart, this has nothing to do with you. You know that? I wouldn’t hurt you, and I’m sorry you’re upset.”

  “I’m not upset.”

  I nudge her knee with mine, willing her to admit her fear. “You’re upset and it’s my fault. I’m sorry.”

  Her shrug is the only confirmation I’m granted. She’s holding herself together, but not by much. I want to wrap her in my arms and feel her goodness taking me to a better place, but it would scare her away and I’ve already become a monster in her eyes.

  Gently, I move my hand to her head, and she doesn’t hesitate this time. I move her hair that has curtained around her face and put it behind her ear. “Hey Mace, it’s alright if you don’t want me to come around for a while.”

  “Okay.”

  “I need you to remember something for me, though.”

  She turns to face me again, holding her hands in her lap between her knees, as her shoulders tense. “Okay, I will.”

  I lean to her, again she doesn’t hesitate and allows my gentle movement. I whisper softly as I kiss the side of her head, bringing her into me. “I love your face.”

  She smiles in my hold. She’s constantly trying to get me to tell her I love her, but those words will never mean anything to me. They are empty and meaningless if they are said during the action of hurting someone, and I’m breaking her now. If I said the actual words, she would only remember it as a dark passage during a dark time.

  As soon as I start to let her go, she wraps her small arms around my waist and scoots closer to me, in order to hold me tighter. We sit in silence for a few minutes, until I hear the soft sniff of the emotions that she’s finally letting go. She’s releasing her feelings of shame, loss, and concern … for me.

  Not seconds after, I hear Hem open the door behind us. He doesn’t say anything, and my only thought is that, after hearing all of his words of anger towards me inside, now he’s giving me a few minutes to say goodbye to her.

  He doesn’t know yet that my decision was made the moment I stepped on that porch and saw the look she held for me in her eyes. She was hopeful that I would be fine. She wasn’t scared of me; she was scared only of losing me. I swore to everyone in the room the night my parents died, no one was going to hurt someone I loved again. I’ve no intention of being the reason they’re hurting.

  I knew at that moment, without a doubt, that I couldn’t protect anyone from the grave, and I needed to get better and be the person I swore to her and everyone else I loved that I would be.

  ~~~~~

  “Fuck, Lynda. Our girl saved me that day without even knowing it. She was just a kid, and I was a fuckin’ weak and lost soul, wandering in a veil of darkness. She should’ve been playin’ ball, or hanging out shopping with the other girls. Instead, she was sittin’ on that porch, looking into my eyes and trying to find me, so I could come back from the realm of hell I had created inside myself.”

  I get off the ground and clean up my cigarette butts, because Lynda wasn’t ever supposed to know I smoked. After putting them in my pocket, I reach out to Lynda’s stone and hold my hand there for a beat, remembering how close I came to taking my own life, but in a moment of clarity had allowed my family to save me.

  “Thank you for being my hope. You gave me more of that than you’ll ever know, and I’m so sorry I wasn’t there when you needed your own well of hope to draw from. Rest with the angels and be free forever.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Lying is not only saying what isn't true. It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true, and, in the case of the human heart, saying more than one feels.”

  -Albert Camus

  There are moments in my life that I mark as before and after’s. Meaning, things that happen before the event occurred, and then after it. For me, Prom night is such a reference. Before that day, I would hold Mace in my arms feeling nothing but adoration, love, and a need to protect her from everything that lurked in shadows. After that day, when I held her close to my body, things got cloudy. I looked at her differently; I saw behind her eyes, as she had always done to me. What I saw could only be described as ‘forever'. I was older, more experienced, and knew I had no business attempting to draw out her feelings.

  It was the start of something that would never have an end, but the journey would be long and painful, and I wouldn’t change one God damn moment of it.

  ~~~~~

  “Need two, please.” I’m at the front counter picking up smokes, beer, and a few lottery tickets; I’m feeling pretty lucky now. My luck ran low this morning when I was advised by Lynda that I was to take both Sadey and Mace to the mall and watch them as they find their prom dresses.

  Shoot me. Seriously, shoot me now.

  Prom night is tonight, but the girls have yet to pick out a dress. This is because Sadey won’t choose one, and Mace has zero interest in dressing up. Now it’s crunch time, and how this shit falls on me to fix I’ve no clue, but it does so, away we go.

  I’m preparing for this memorable experience by having a beer and stocking up on cigarettes. I’ve seen Sadey in shopping mode before. It makes my skin itch; it’s that bad. The kid is drawn to fashion like no teenager I have ever seen, including celebrity teens and models. It takes her for-fucking-ever to just get ready for school. The few occasions she’s had to call me because she missed her bus, she never looked scared, upset, or disheveled because she had overslept. No, it was always evident that she had spent too much time getting makeup and hair ready, and had just blown off the bus completely. I don’t want to think of the poor sorry son of a bitch that has to put up with that shit the rest of his life.

  Mace, though, is a fuck of a lot easier. She doesn’t care about any of that girl shit. Give her a pair of sunglasses, sweatshirt, and jeans, then leave her the hell alone. She’s not wanting to go to Prom either, but she’s excited because some punk asked her, and when I overheard her telling Sadey how ‘awesome’ he was, I got suspicious. I know of the kid and I don’t like him. I don’t dislike him just because he’s going after Mace, either. Even though he’s probably one of the better boys at school, he’s not good enough for that sweet girl. She’s growing up, and her body is changing. She’s the epitome of the old tale ‘Ugly Duckling’; although she was never ugly, she’s becoming a beautiful swan. Boys, fuck, even men, are starting to look at her. I know this because I’ve witnessed it several times throughout these bullshit teenage years.

  Fuck, these girls are goin’ to kill me.

  “Thank you, Shame. You have a good day.” The blonde on the other side of the counter has nice tits. They look familiar, and she knows my name. I don’t remember names or faces, but bodies … I can recall. That’s about all she’s got for me, though. I’m too busy dreading this God damn day to enjoy mental pictures of that chest in my face. Fuck, I wish I could remember her name, though.

  Prom dresses, son of a bitch.

  Walking to the door, I catch sight of a kid standing in the magazine aisle. He’s holding a smut magazine that he’s ripped from the plastic, and he’s smiling behind it. If this kid smiles at pussy like it’s a cotton candy treat while looking at it, he will never get laid. I’m not about to help him by explaining that shit to him now, but I am going to help him alright. I’m willing to help him survive to see his next birthday.

  I grab the magazine from his hold, and he stares ahead at me, until he realizes he has to look up to see me. That’s when he drops the box of condoms I hadn’t seen him holding.

  Fuck no.

  I’m towering over the kid, and in this instance, I’m thankful as fuck. It looks like he will scare eas
ily with words, and I won’t have to lay a finger on him. Going to jail wouldn’t work with my plans at the mall. It would be more comfortable for me of course, but would hurt Mace and Sadey.

  “You Mark Wilson?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Manners - how refreshing, but still not enough for sweet Mace. No one is enough for Mace. “Tonight your prom night at the school?”

  “Yes, sir.” He’s relaxing a bit. He must think I’m here to make idle chatter.

  “You taking Mace Cash with you to the dance tonight?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Wasn’t my question. Are you the kid that’s taking Mace Cash to prom?”

  “I am, but seriously, dude, who are you?”

  God, tell me he did not just call me ‘dude'. I would laugh, but I don’t have time for this shit right now. “Well, little ‘dude’, I’m Shame.”

  Now he smiles, not the porn search smile, thank fuck, but a friendly and familiar smile. “Yeah, she talks about you. You’re like some super hero or something.”

  I give him an evil smile so he drops his immediately. “Yeah, or something.”

  Throwing his porn to the side, I start my tirade. “Listen, I’m sure you’re a good kid. I’m sure you get good grades and play for the football team…”

  “Soccer. I play soccer, I’m a…”

  “Don’t give a fuck, so don’t interrupt again. Again, I’m sure you’re a star receiver and shit, but you’re not taking Mace Cash anywhere. Not to prom, not to a movie, not to ice cream, not to the fuckin’ library, and sure as hell not to bed.”

  He looks to the ground to avoid my face and it’s now he realizes I’ve seen the condom box at his feet. Once he looks back up to me I watch as his face color changes. He’s white as a ghost.

  Hello, Casper.

  “Tell me you understand what I’m sayin’ here.”

  “I understand.”