by JB Duvane
“What?”
“Kindness. You’ve got a good heart and you care. Maybe too much. But you’ve got eyes that are looking for something, maybe for something you don’t have inside you. And I’ll tell you, you’re not going to find it in that place,” she said, pointing her finger in the air. “And maybe you figure those acts you put on every night are your only escape. But when you get out of here you’ll be free of all that. I can feel it.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Maggie put out her cigarette and offered me the ashtray so I could put out mine. I leaned my head back against the couch with a sudden urge to shriek, or break something. I just wanted release.
She was right. I made a huge mistake going to Red's. I'd already been wallowing in self-hatred for years, but getting up on that stage only seemed to make it worse. I didn’t know how to find what I needed to make me feel whole. But Maggie could see something that I never could. If I didn’t do something I was going to wake up one day and find myself still in the same dead-end strip club in some other dusty ghost town.
“Rest here tonight. You smell like a concert,” she laughed bitterly.
“You sure?”
“You can't drive tonight.”
I lay down and curled up, letting the lace on my teacup dress ruffle against the couch. “Thank you, Maddie.”
As I drifted off to sleep I thought about the way I had always pictured my life. In my daydreams, I was always in lavish surroundings with beautiful antiques and fabrics with intricate patterns. Places I’d only ever seen in movies. I pictured a man who adored me, who would finally see and appreciate the real me. I hoped maybe I’d find that man in Phoenix and then laughed to myself at how silly I was being.
Yeah, right, I thought to myself as I drifted off. Unfortunately, the dream I had that night was far from beautiful. It was a patched together memory of my childhood that always came to me in the anxious hours of the night when I wasn’t really sure if I was asleep.
I hated the dreams I had during that time of night.
I lay on the carpet, with its tough surface swollen from ancient filth, staring at a can with my head ducked so he could see the TV. I always had to duck. The can was red, white, and blue, as quintessentially American as it got—beer and TV.
My father picked up an unopened can from atop the coffee table, opened it, and knocked the whole thing back. Then he kicked me in the side, just hard enough to make sure I knew he wanted something. “Go get me another.”
I got up and ran to fridge, which was filled with beer cans and one dried up package of half eaten lunch meat, then grabbed him another beer. “Here you go, Daddy.”
He snatched it right out of my hand while I waited patiently for him to drain it. It didn't take long. Then I ran back and grabbed him another while he added the empty can to the pile sitting next to the coffee table.
“Wanna see my tutu, Daddy? They showed me how to make it at school today.” I grabbed two beers and ran back, only to find myself being slammed in the face with a fist like a solid rock.
“You're gonna grow up to be a little fucking slut, aren't you?”
I looked up, my head throbbing and my lower lip quivering. “N-n-o.”
“Yes you are. You ain't gonna be any good at it either. You're ugly as shit. You got those nasty-ass buck teeth, and you're stupid. I should beat the whore out of ya. Make sure you know the right way to do things, rather than running around in some glittery outfit trying to get men to look at you.”
I sat back up.
“Duck the fuck down. I can't see the TV.” He kicked me back down, and I stared up at the ceiling. “You're too goddamn ugly. They're only gonna want one thing outta you, and they ain’t gonna be looking at your face when they get it.”
I looked up and saw him with his fingers parted in a “V” shape, wide-eyed with his tongue slithering in between them.
I didn't know it until I was a teenager, but everyone has a point when their idealistic childish delusions shatter. There were no candy houses, no witches, and no princesses.
I didn’t realize it until then, but when I did, the real world became the thorny trees surrounding our house, so brittle that the monsoon winds could've easily snapped one off, shooting a three-inch wooden needle through my windpipe. In fact, I prayed for that exact thing to happen almost every night. I would have deserved it too, because I knew that I wasn't her. I wasn't who my daddy wanted there with him. I was the little girl that had killed my mother—my beautiful, kind, perfect mother—when I was coming out of her.
How could I possibly be a princess with a tutu or a ballerina dancing around the stage? That was just pretend. I was a horrendous murderer with a pudge and thighs that jiggled around. I didn't have any right pretending. Murderers were guilty. They deserved to think about what they'd done, so I did. I thought about it and I cried about it. Countless nights I worried about my father, while I thrashed around in bed, thinking about what it must be like having to live with the little girl that killed the love of his life.
He used to tell me that I should have been an abortion. That they should have done away with me and tried again. He said if they had done that, then maybe she'd still be alive. That I wasn't worth keeping if it meant losing her.
I wondered that myself when I left Maddie's. Was life worth living when you're nothing? I was nothing, just some girl, racing down the highway through the rain, trying to escape her camp in the desert where her father beat her and spit on her, calling her every name imaginable. I used to think that you are where you come from. If that were the case, then I wasn't even human. Just some creature that lived in an aluminum shell in the middle of a wasteland.
I used to believe that I was different. That my father really wasn’t my father. I imagined that I had been dropped off on his doorstep and that he had found it in his heart to take care of me. But really I was from a royal line. I was the daughter of a queen and someday they would come find me and take me back to my kingdom. It was the daydream that kept me alive during most of my younger years.
I believed that until I was a teenager. When I looked around one day and realized nothing was ever going to be any different than the piles of garbage and filth that surrounded me. I had to admit that I still believed that fantasy a little right up until I left my father’s house. When I realized that if I didn’t do something to make my life better, no one would.
I didn't know what my plans were. It didn't matter. The rain was too thick to worry about anything, so I focused on the white and yellow lines on the road, hoping I could get through without running my car into the desert.
When things did clear up, the sky became a canvas of gray and white, towering over slick red dirt. The drive was slow. The highway curved over violent river beds, up bright yellow and rose-colored rock formations. There was nothing, no towns, no gas stations. Had I not brought my gas cans, I would probably have run out of gas halfway there.
By the time the tiny green clock on the dashboard reached noon, I was about three quarters of the way there, and things were starting to dry up.
Traffic was slow. There was one car, a black luxury sedan that rode my ass, barely leaving more than ten feet between us. Eventually, he got impatient and pulled to my left side, gunning it as two black SUVs merged into traffic. The sedan got in front of me and started lowering his speed while one SUV took my left side and the other stuck to my ass.
“What the fuck!” The sedan slowed to a crawl along with the SUVs. We were going so slow that I could have jumped from my car without feeling the impact, and I almost did when I realized what was going on.
They were slowly moving off the highway toward the next exit, herding me along with them. What was going on? I reached into my glove box to get my revolver and realized that it was gone.
Unless it evaporated into thin air, it was gone.
My body was caked in a thin film of sweat, and my hands were shaking. I tried to find a way out, but they had me blocked in just a few inches from th
e concrete wall that led to the off ramp and divided the highway from the vast desert wasteland. The traffic had picked up, but we were still out in the middle of nowhere, far from Phoenix.
When we got to the end of the off-ramp we pulled up to an old gas station that was covered in beige dust. No cars, no people, nothing. I looked back to the highway, but no one was looking over at me. No one could see me or even cared. All I could think to do was run. But three black cars with tinted windows? I knew I was about to die.
I locked my car door and sat there waiting for the inevitable. My body froze and I went numb as I became a spectator in my own body, already having accepted my own death, no matter how painful it was.
Three men, one from each car, rushed toward the driver door. One slammed a crow bar through the window like it was paper, sending a rainbow spectrum of light and glass flying past my face. Then a cloth wrapped around my nose and there was nothing.
Chapter Seven - Raymond
Mama taught me everything about the way a man should treat a woman. She told me that if she was kind and honest with her man she should be appreciated. If she was cruel and hateful, she should be punished. She said these things, but her actions said something different. I was the one who always needed to be punished.
I understood why she did the things she did to me. I wanted to be a better person—the best person I could be. So I took everything she gave me. But more than that I did everything within my power to be a good son. I wanted her love and her approval. I wanted her to be proud of me. I wanted her. But I also grew to fear her and to resent the random punishments that she doled out.
As I grew older the punishments became less and less frequent, probably because she couldn’t physically control me anymore. She couldn’t stuff me into a cupboard or throw me over her knees for a spanking. But there were times when I could still see the anger in her eyes and hear the contempt in her voice and those things alone kept me in line.
One evening, while we were sitting in the parlor reading with the fire roaring between us, offering comfort from the frozen mountain air, she closed her book and gazed at me for a long time. I was growing into my body. My voice had deepened and my body had changed considerably over the last year. I was tall and skinny, and my days were filled more with curiosity than demands. A curiosity that my mother was more than willing to satisfy.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
I stood up from my armchair and closed my copy of the Iliad so I could follow her through the long corridor that led off the side of the parlor towards the back end my wing of the house. I was eighteen now, but I was still not allowed to enter most of the house that we lived in. Mama had recently taken up her own room in my wing of the house and we spent all of our time there together.
We had a dining room that would always have meals set out at the appropriate times so I knew that we weren’t alone. But that wasn’t the only reason I knew that there were others in the house. Many times, especially as I grew older, I heard Mama yelling behind the closed and locked doors that led to the rest of the house. And I heard a male voice yelling back at her. I tried looking through the keyholes but I could never see anyone.
I could barely see Mama's round form in the globes of light that stuck to the side of the wall as she wove her way down the long, dark hall to her bedroom. When we entered her bathroom she turned around and looked at me. “Have I been good mother?”
“How could you ask that?” I stepped forward, closing the space between us. She lifted her chin so that the light filled her dark blue eyes. They were kind eyes tonight. “I love you, Mama. You’ve been a perfect mother.”
“But there will be others.”
“Others?” Mama was all I knew, aside from that other voice I heard occasionally. “What others?”
“You'll learn soon enough. You will find someone to love and you will leave me.” She rested her hand on my shoulder, but I swiped it off. “I don't want to love anyone else. I want to love you, Mama. You know I’ll never leave you.”
“Raymond, there's another part of life that you don't know anything about yet.” She paused a moment and turned away so that I couldn’t see her eyes. “I don't want to leave you, Raymond. I want to find some way to stay with you forever.”
“I'll find a way. I promise, Mama.” I was desperate to keep her in a good mood. It had been days since the last time she became angry with me and I had a feeling that something was stirring up inside her again. Plus, the words she was saying worried me. When I was a boy the thought of being in this house without her was what scared me, but now that I was older I was no longer afraid of the house. It was still very mysterious to me, but it was more of a curiosity than anything. But the thought of being without her? That was terrifying. I didn’t think I’d be able to live without her.
She brushed her hand against my face. “I love you, Raymie.” She reached up and pecked me on the cheek, leaving a circle of warmth when her lips moved away. She grabbed my hand, squeezing it softly. “Come.” She turned toward the bathtub which had already been filled and sent up a thin veil of mist that held a floral fragrance that I always associated with Mama.
She stood in front of the ceramic tub with clawed feet and reached into a small, antiquated chest that she'd opened so she could pull out a white robe and towel. “You grandfather was the one who had the water lines drawn up to this wing so he and your grandmother could lay together in the water. He loved this part of the house so much that they spent every evening here.”
“Why?”
“Because people that love each other like to spend time together. They like to be close, and they like to do it in places that look nice.” She stared out the window above the bathtub at the waxing moon and started to unbutton her dress.
“That’s what we do, Mama. We spend every moment together,” I said as I pulled her dress off her shoulders.
“Raymond,” her tone was serious and quiet. It scared me. “What do you know about women?”
I froze. “Nothing other than what you’ve taught me.”
“That can’t be all you know.” She let her clothes drop, her body fully illuminated, and slowly crept into the tub. “Could you hand me the soap?” She looked back. “And hand me that sponge. My back aches.”
I did as I was told. “Women love men. They love how strong they are, and how delicate they can be. Their delicacy is always just underneath their tough shell, and something about that shell opening up excites us. You must learn to move in order to make a woman love your touch.”
She showed me how to knead her shoulders, the right spots to press in around the shoulder blades, and the spots to avoid. Every night it was the same thing. Our nightly ritual began with a back rub and eventually, she would have me move onto her feet, massaging them with a fragrant lotion.
That evening, as she sat in her dressing chair and I rubbed the pink lotion between her toes, she continued to talk to me about other women. “There's a woman that will come and she will love you, because I've shown you the things that women really love. She will want to take you away from me.”
I'd look up at her, misty-eyed and trembling. “All I want to do is make you happy.”
“And that will change.”
Before I could protest there was a sound outside the bathroom door. Mama stood up quickly, the bottom half of her robe falling down over her legs and covering her feet which she shoved into golden slippers. “Stay in here, Raymond.”
She went through the door and locked it behind her. I immediately heard that man’s voice on the other side of the door but after a moment it faded so that I couldn’t distinguish any words. I went to the door, crouching down at the keyhole and trying to see or hear anything, but every sound was muffled.
“You will not tell me what to do in my own house!” I heard Mama shriek. In response I heard the man say something about this being “our house.” He raised his voice even louder and I heard the next thing he said clearly.
“We don’t like what you’r
e doing in there with that boy, Felicia. He’s your son!”
“What I do with my son in my house is no one’s business but my own!” She flew through the doorway but before she slammed it shut she turned and screamed. “Get out!”
When she turned back to me her eyes were wild and crazed and she seemed to be having a hard time catching her breath.
“What is it, Mama? Who was that?”
“Raymond, please!” She sat down in the chair, her whole body shaking as she tore at the tie on her bathrobe.
“Mama, is there anything—“
“Go to your room.” That flat voice that I dreaded was back.
I did as I was told but I refused to leave my room for three days. She brought my meals, but I wouldn't speak with her. She tried to draw me out with games and even baths, but as much as I knew my isolation hurt her, I knew that I needed to drive the point home. We were never going to be apart. I wasn't going to allow it.
I was never going to touch another woman. I didn’t even know where I would find one. I had seen picture and admired them, like someone admires a beautiful flower or a moving sunset—their glowing hair, their pouting lips. I saw the allure, but Mama was the only woman I would ever love and that was never going to change. I didn’t understand why she kept insisting that I would leave her. The thought seemed impossible to me.
As far as I was concerned, without her, there was no life.
I didn’t realize it until I grew older, but Mama had constructed my upbringing so that she would be the only one who could influence me. She was the only person I ever spoke to, and dear God, I'd thank her for that the rest of my life, because our talks were sacred. I realized the value in isolation and I vowed to keep things the way they were.
What purpose could I possibly have than to worship this woman who had given me love and life, who'd dedicated everything to raising me? Neither one of us was going to leave. I wasn't going to let it happen.
