The Faces of Lions (Book One - The Reset)

by Angie Morel

  And then my left cheek exploded.

  I didn’t see it coming. The force of the slap stunned me as it flung my head and upper body sideways. Time stood still. My body remained twisted to the side, like it was stuck, as the hard lump of pain that was sleeping inside shook itself awake and began crawling up my throat.

  Surprised to still find myself standing after his hit, I moved my feet wider apart for balance. Eyes narrowed, I turned towards him, lips pulled back from my teeth. My muscles began to shake.

  What was wrong with my breathing? I was gulping in air like a person on the verge of drowning. There was something stuck in my chest, in my throat, and it hurt. I barely felt the stinging in my cheek anymore as my mouth opened, the thing inside needing out before it ripped me apart, just like in the barn. Pure grief, primal and unintelligible, emerged from the depths of me. I went after him, punching, blind to everything but my agony. He let me hit him for a while before blocking my hits. And then he grabbed me in a rough hug, immobilizing my arms.

  Head spinning like a carnival ride, ears buzzing, I turned just as the whiskey exploded out of my mouth, again and again, until nothing was left but slimy white spittle. At some point we both ended up on our knees, with Rolo’s arms still locked around my body.

  My vomiting had given birth to huge racking sobs. I was unable to control the absolute heartbreak ripping its way out of me.

  And then a litany of loss started.

  “Mary!” I cried hoarsely, to which Rolo softly replied, “I know.”

  “Mary!”

  “I know.”

  “Mary...”

  “Shhhh.”

  On and on it went. Hours? Days? All I knew was that I was exhausted. Utterly spent. My breath hitched a few more times, and then blissful darkness injected itself like a much needed drug.

  Awareness arrived by way of sounds; leaves blowing in the wind, birds chirping here and there along the fence line, up in the autumn trees. I peeled open sticky eyes and took stock of things in the glaring light of the day. My head, which was pillowed on Rolo’s thigh, felt heavy and hollow at the same time. With careful movements I sat up. And then I did one of the hardest things I ever had to do.

  I looked at him.

  Unreadable dark eyes met my bloodshot ones. He looked away after a second. That’s when I noticed the scratches and red marks on his face. One cheekbone was puffed up beneath the eye.

  I did that to him.

  “I am so sorry.” My voice came out gravelly and raw.

  “No.” He shook his head. “Don’t ever be sorry for that. I just needed you to find your way back is all.”

  Nodding, my fingers found their way up to investigate the tightness on my cheek. After touching it, I came to the grim conclusion that the gummy feeling of it, combined with the smell, meant it was vomit drying on my face. I looked down at my clothing, my skin—and then over at Rolo. We were both covered in it. What a mess. I was so ashamed.

  Neither of us spoke for a while.

  “Do you remember when you picked a fight with that Marshall kid a couple years ago?”

  “Yeah,” I said after a long pause. It took my mind a few seconds to change direction. I was unsure where he was going with the question, but I was grateful for the change of subject. Still feeling a little dizzy, I eased back until I was flat on the carpet of grass and leaves, carefully placing my forearm over my eyes while resting my other hand on my stomach. Maybe if I wished for it hard enough, I could disappear into the ground.

  “I know why you did it,” he finally said as he laid back as well, hands going behind his head as he looked at the sky.

  The fight he was referring to happened when I was twelve. There was a boy named Winston Marshall who lived in the building adjacent to mine. Winston was a year older than me and liked to talk smack. He wasn’t in a gang but he was a wannabe. Whenever he saw me in the courtyard, and no gang members were present, he felt the need to say shit, mostly suggestive remarks about what he wanted to do to me (stuff he had no clue about), thinking he was cool in front of the kids around him. He’d harass me at school as well, but I paid him no mind. He was harmless, really. But then an idea started to take shape. Something that would—if done correctly—stop Winston from giving me a hard time, and have the added benefit of stopping any future grief from other boys.

  So one day I planned it. I’d been in fights with girls before, each brawl won and lasting only seconds. But I’d never fought a boy. Winston was older and bigger than me, and even though he wasn’t on the same level of toughness that Harvey and most of the gang members were on, he wasn’t a slouch either. A bit extra was needed, just in case. Prior to my fight with Winton, I had my brother teach me some fast and dirty tricks, moves that would be useful in taking down a bigger and more muscular opponent.

  The opportunity presented itself soon enough, just outside the courtyard of our apartment complex. He said something derogatory to me, and much to his surprise, I walked right up and punched him in the throat. A crowd gathered as I proceeded to beat the shit out of him.

  The fight went on until all he could do was use his arms and hands to try and shield his head while on the ground. Unable to buck me off, he’d twisted around until he was face down. After numerous punches to his ears and the back of his head, he began to cry, begging me to stop. As I straddled him, panting from the exertion, I looked around at the ring of spectators, mostly gang members, almost daring them to take me on. They were probably more amused than anything, but it got the job done. Harvey had been in the crowd that day, and I remembered the slow nod of approval he’d given me.

  Violence breeds respect.

  Winston Marshall moved out of the neighborhood after that. Getting beat up by a girl? Might as well move to another country.

  “You have a real, you know, protective instinct. You did that so you wouldn’t have to worry about anybody messin’ with you, since Mary was with you most of the time. I get that now, that protectiveness for people you care about and shit. It’s how I feel about us here, you know? We look out for each other, like a true family. I never had that before,” Rolo said.

  I was surprised that he got it. That he so fully understood the reason behind the fight.

  “Not good with Manny or your mom?” I heard myself ask as I removed my arm from my eyes. Then I wanted to take that arm and punch myself with it for asking such a stupid question. Of course it wasn’t good. It was terrible, according to what Harvey had said.

  “That worthless bitch wasn’t my mom, she was my aunt,” he said. “My real mom got killed by my dad when I was four. My aunt took us in so she could get extra money each month. Yeah, she was a real saint. Back then she was with a guy named Ernesto who thought it was his job to make us tough boys. Can’t have pussy kids livin’ with ya.” Rolo said, his tone even and unemotional. He could’ve been talking about a pair of shoes he bought. “Manny and me stuck together at first, but then he shut down. Started bangin’ when he was like, eight. Wouldn’t come home for days. Ernesto ended up doin’ a dime at Norfolk for drugs, but Manny was never the same with me. Like I reminded him of a time when he was weak. So no, I never had anyone to look out for, or care about,” he sighed. “Fuck! Listen to me.” He ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Pathetic.”

  I was quiet for a moment. “It’s not pathetic at all,” was all I said.

  The sun chose that moment to tuck itself behind a cloud and at the same time the wind eased, breathing on our skin with only the barest of whispers, as if sensing the delicate nature of our conversation. The sun gradually emerged but by then it was too late—there was no dispelling the dark thoughts and memories that elbowed their way to the front of our minds.

  Rolo finally spoke again. “My dad beat her, and then shot her in the face, right in front of me and Manny. Because she was leavin’ him. He was a crack head, all jacked up when he did it. Took the gun with him when he left the apartment, wavin’ it all around. Crossed paths with the po-po a few blocks later.
He took two to the chest and one to the gut, died on the scene.” He shook his head as he squinted at the sky. “That…that image of my mom was burned on the back of my eyelids, though, what her face looked like when she died, all bruised and bloody and shit, with the bullet hole in her cheek,” he paused, taking a slow deep breath in, and then blowing it out in a rush. “I swear the whole fuckin’ scene replayed in my head over and over again every night for years. You know what the worst part is though? I have these vague memories of her, almost like they’re bits of dreams that disappear if I try too hard to remember. Maybe I made ‘em up, I don’t know. But they’re of her singing to me, her face beautiful and lit up, looking at me like I was her whole world.” He shook his head. “But what jumps out at me in full color detail like it happened yesterday, is her bruised and bloody face with a plug in it. That memory is crystal fuckin’ clear.”

  Sighing, he crunched his stomach muscles and pulled up into a sitting position, resting his forearms on his bent knees. His gaze wandered over the hills in the distance. “I had nightmares for a while after it happened. I’d wake up screamin’, and Ernesto or my aunt would come in and shove my face in the pillow to get me to shut up. Then he’d give me something to cry about as he put it. My aunt wouldn’t stick around for that, she’d go back to the other room and sleep. Ernesto was creative too. Sometimes it was just a beatin’, or cig burns, or sometimes cuts. But sometimes he’d hold a knife above my eye, tell me I better not blink, or he’d dig my eye out. He’d do little games like that, you know, for fun. Manny tried to stop him at first, but then the fun would transfer over to him. He gave up after a while, would just lay there next to me, pretendin’ to be asleep. I never blamed him though. I think that’s why he turned out to be such a mean motherfucker, he was makin’ up for how he felt back then. Me? I got good at being quiet. Invisible.” He shook his head and looked down. “And later, I got good at showin’ people how I really felt, lettin’ all that suppressed anger out, or whatever. And I…I got to where I liked it, hurtin’ people, I mean.”

  After a couple of minutes he spoke again. “I never understood how someone could do that, you know, to a little kid. What the fuck is wrong with people?” His hands were fisted tight.

  I had often wondered the same thing.

  “I want to be better than what he turned me into, I have to be.” There was conviction in his voice. He looked at me, and then he stood abruptly.

  I took my time standing, the dizziness hitting me hard before easing off. Clearing my throat, I finally said the words that should’ve been said already. “This is a little late in coming, but I want to thank you. Back when this first started and you saw us in the hallway—you didn’t need to stick with us. You could’ve went off on your own and probably done much better. But you didn’t, you helped us, you stayed. And, I don’t think we would’ve made it if it weren’t for you.” I took a deep breath in. “And just now, when I, uh, kind of lost myself. You pulled me back from a really dark place.” I gave him a shaky smile that was forced, even though the words were true enough. And then I gave him more truth, hard as it was to say. “There’s no one else I’d rather have at my side, Rolo. You’re my family now.” My arms went around him as I leaned in, giving him an awkward hug, trying not to think of Mary. He stiffened—and then a heartbeat later his arms returned the gesture twofold, crushing me to him.

  After a few seconds we untangled ourselves self-consciously.

  Rolo glanced at me and then down. “I feel like it’s my fault, what happened to Mary. If only I’d heard her get up, or been there, you know if—”

  I cut him off abruptly. “No, that’s all on me.”

  He looked at me, his eyes years older than they should be. I guess I had a matching pair. He held my gaze for a few beats longer before looking away, the wind ruffling his jet-black hair. The gang kept their hair tight and short or shaved, but in the past few weeks his had grown out a bit. The length softened the sharp angles of his face. Of course he wouldn’t want to hear that.

  Scanning the landscape of the farm, he spoke in a casual tone. “Ernesto was released from Norfolk last year. Me and Manny, we found him, and I ain’t had a problem sleepin’ at night since.” He looked at me again, making sure I got his meaning. “That’s what you gotta do to evil, you know, stomp the shit outta it. Kill it with zero doubt that it’s dead.”

  I couldn’t have agreed more.

  Chapter 11

  Surrounding me was a sun-drenched field, thick with a carpet of wildflowers and grasses. As I walked through this field, hands skimming the petals of the flowers and spikes of the grasses, someone walked beside me. Try as I might, I couldn’t turn to see who it was. I wasn’t frightened though, quite the opposite. There was a feeling of comfort. What didn’t give me comfort was the tree line of darkened woods that loomed directly ahead in the distance. I didn’t want to go that way, but my legs, encased in black military-type cargo pants, kept moving in that direction. The breeze was picking up.

  “You have to go there,” the person beside me said. It was a girl’s voice, strong. There was something familiar about it, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

  “But I don’t want to go, I want to stay here where it’s peaceful and nice,” I replied in a wistful tone, wishing my stupid legs would slow down or stop or go in a different direction.

  “Your life isn’t about peaceful and nice; you know this. Besides, there are many things you have yet to do.”

  The sky was beginning to churn and turn ugly as the woods drew near. And then I walked alone, the girl no longer at my side. When I reached the line where the meadow stopped and the woods began, I was able to stop the movement of my legs and turn around. What I saw squeezed my chest so tight I couldn’t breathe.

  Mary.

  She stood firm and confident amid the swaying grasses, the last sliver of sun spotlighting her until it too was swallowed by the hungry clouds. Strong gusts were making the grasses in the meadow look like they were fighting to pull themselves out of the ground and run off.

  “Mary! Oh Mary, I’m so sorry! What’s happening? Why did you stop? Can I stay here with you? Please, let me stay!”

  “You can’t. And don’t you dare grieve for me, live for me. You must go, but…est, not south, for he’s…his…there!” She had to yell to be heard, but the wind still managed to steal some of her words. It didn’t matter, because I had no idea what she meant anyway.

  “No!” I cried, not wanting to leave. My eyes drank her in. She looked like the same five-year-old, except the look in her eyes and the expression on her face belonged on someone much older—like she’d aged a hundred years on the inside. But that didn’t make any sense.

  Suddenly she raised her hand towards me. I was amazed that she stood so still even though the wind was a ferocious beast, howling now, whipping her hair about her head in all directions.

  “Go, and…for a sign! But open yourself! You must open your—”she didn’t finish before she disappeared, and in her place grew the image of a familiar green bridge. My ears picked up partial words whispered in the wind. Miss...is…iver. Mississippi River? But I didn’t give a shit about that, I wanted my sister back.

  “Wait! Wait, Mary!”

  I woke instantly, the plea from the dream tangled in my vocal chords. Jamming a hand against my mouth to stop any noise from escaping, I got up and stepped around D and Snick, walking towards the back of the house and into the kitchen. Rolo was upstairs sharpening knives as he kept watch out the windows. The slight scraping that greeted my ears was normally a soothing sound. Not today. Feeling raw after the dream, the familiar sound was more like coarse sandpaper rubbing against my nerves.

  Wanting to escape, I quietly exited the house. I stood on the back porch for a bit before wandering over to the swing hanging from the rafters. It was the same one D and Snick had sat on a few days ago, the morning of—I quickly shook off the images that wanted to surface.

  After sitting, I pulled my legs up and encircle
d them with my arms. The creak of the chains as the swing moved gave me something to focus on as I wrangled up my thoughts, which were all over the place.

  Closing my eyes, I replayed the dream. It was unlike any I’d ever had. So real, I swore the scent of wildflowers still lingered in my nose. And Mary. Oh God. Why did I have to leave that dream? All I wanted to do was stay there so I could look at her beautiful face forever. I couldn’t hold back anymore and cried until my head felt like a lump of clay.

  An hour later I was still on the porch swing, slumped into the corner with one leg bent and on the seat, the other dangling in front. I had a rhythm going. My foot, on every backswing, pushed against the wood plank floor, setting the swing into a small back and forth pattern. I fixed my gaze on nothing in particular and drifted.

  That’s when Rolo found me. Although knowing him, he’d probably known where I was the entire time.

  The door opened and clacked shut as he stepped out onto the porch. His head wasn’t turned towards me, but I could feel him watching in his peripheral vision. An ability he’d perfected. At times you’d think he wasn’t paying attention to something or someone because he wasn’t looking directly at whatever it was. But those eyes of his would be watching and keeping track of everything. All the time.

  “You okay?”

  There it goes again. I could feel the tears wanting to crawl back out of my eyes. I cried more in the past couple of days than ever in my life. I was done crying. And throwing up.

  I gave Rolo a shrug as I stopped the motion of the swing. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’m sitting here, and all I keep thinking about is what I’m going to do without her. How will I...” I shook my head back and forth, closing my eyes.

  “You’re gonna remember her, but you gotta move on. You have to.” Rolo said.

  “But she’s what gave my life meaning, I have nothing now—”