On the Lips of Children

by Mark Matthews

  “You scared me, Lyric. You scared me, and you should not have left here like that. Okay?”

  “I was just going to get a Pop-Tart. They have the frosted kind, the kind you said I can only have on vacation.”

  “No, it’s not that. You shouldn’t talk to strangers like that. That man—we don’t know him. We can be friendly to people, but you can’t just talk with strangers. Things happen…”

  Her mom combed her hand through her hair and it looked a mess, like she needed another shower instead of just finishing one. Lyric wanted to understand her mommy and help.

  “I will stay with you, Momma. Don’t worry, I’m with you, you can’t lose me.”

  Her mom’s face changed then, colors in her cheeks mixed, and her eyes wrinkled up. She paced back and forth. Lyric watched the mermaid and how it moved with her muscles. It always looked the best shiny, just out of the shower, and the new mermaid had become her favorite. The green legs looked like scales of a pretty fish, and the golden hair seemed like it was always moving. Lyric knew the mermaid was really her.

  “You’re right, honey; I can’t lose you. But I told you about your brother, right? I was very sad when I lost him. And it’s not always your fault, but I get so scared something will happen to you. So much has been pulled out of me that I can’t take it anymore—I can’t take it. It’s been too much. I see you and I see Daddy, and we pretend we can go to parks, get ice cream, sign you up for kindergarten, put you on busses, and go on airplane rides, but things happen to people. Then you can’t do these things anymore. Things happen, and you can never do anything anymore at all. It all stops—stops when it shouldn’t, and then what? What then? You can’t always color over everything like I try to do. Okay?”

  Lyric listened, but couldn’t understand. She wasn’t sure what she did; it was all mush in her head. She only knew she didn’t want her mom to cry and didn’t want anything more pulled out of her either. She wanted to keep Mom safe. But something was going to happen to her, and Mom was so scared. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. They were having such a happy time starting at the airport when she had to take off her shoes and get x-rayed by all those soldiers, the plane on the runway, which was so loud, and then flying off and looking out the window trying to see their house. They were going to swim later and do cannonballs, and for the race tomorrow she was going to make signs saying Go Daddy! Run Like the Wind! with a big heart sign for the “i” in Wind the same way Daddy would always draw on her with his finger.

  But now it seemed like they were in a strange place. It wasn’t safe here.

  “Mommy, I’m scared.”

  Then her mom hugged her desperately, like she was squeezing a stuffed animal.

  “Momma, can we go find Daddy and go swimming?”

  “You know what? I like that idea. Mommy shouldn’t have said those things to you. It was too much and wasn’t fair. I’m sorry, but we can go now.”

  And three minutes later, her mommy had her running clothes back on, Lyric had on her little jacket, the brown blanket was tucked into the jogging stroller, and they were rolling out of the elevator.

  “I’ll be running with my husband,” her momma said to the hotel clerk before they went out the door, but Lyric knew they weren’t really married and she was just saying that. A hotel worker with the nametag “Maria” winked at Lyric, and she tried to wink right back but couldn’t do it fast enough.

  Lyric was snuggled tight under the brown blanket in the stroller, and when the glass doors automatically opened, the colder air on her face felt nice and fresh. Her momma started off by walking, but soon she she’d start running and the world would go whooshing by.

  Lyric liked it better when she used to ride on her mom’s back, because when she was in the jogging stroller, she couldn’t see Momma’s face and sometimes got worried she wasn’t there. Even though she was moving, she worried Momma was gone and somehow somebody else was pushing her. Even when she would call out for her momma, sometimes she couldn’t hear and wouldn’t answer back, especially when she was running fast.

  It was weird that her mom was a faster runner than her dad. Dads were supposed to be stronger, and her dad sure was strong. He could toss her around in the air, flip her like a pancake, and then carry her like a sack of potatoes. Sometimes he would let her walk on his stomach, but it was her mom who could run. Sometimes she saw them both running, and it was funny that Mom was going slowly so Dad could catch up.

  Mommy should let Daddy catch up, she thought, and stay together. They were always running either too fast or too slow for each other, and everybody was all scattered about. It was better when they were right next to each other.

  Lyric kept an eye out for her daddy, but the road was dark with just a few street lamps. Mommy ran down it anyway, going to where the shadows seemed even darker.

  A baseball field appeared out of nowhere, and Momma ran alongside it, around the back of the field, and found a gravel path that was bumpier. Rocks, pebbles, and things shot out from under the tires, and another baseball field was there too. Momma’s lost again, Lyric thought. Maybe they would stop and she could get out and run the bases, but they didn’t. Her momma ran on. Lyric started humming an “ahhhhhh” noise, and it made vibrations in her chest from the bumpy road. Her whole body tickled from the noise.

  But then the monster jumped out.

  The monster had three heads, and all three of them were barking. The barks hurt her eyes and made her blink. Her mom didn’t run close to them, but made a quick turn to the left. The barks faded, and Lyric felt safe, except she knew the heads were back there somewhere. No matter how much she turned her head or twisted her neck, she could never see what was behind the jogging stroller.

  The stroller stopped; everything became quiet. All she could hear was her mom thinking, and then she used that voice she used whenever she was only talking to herself. “Not sure which way Daddy went. I remember they said down the road, behind the baseball fields.”

  Momma turned the stroller around in circles, looking for which way to go. Lyric saw the world swirl in front of her as she spun, until the stroller came to a stop.

  A man appeared, first so far away that he was just a dark shadow, but then he walked out of the cloud. The monster was there too, but it was really just three dogs. The man wasn’t scared, and Lyric figured he was their owner. The man seemed nice, or at least too old and small to matter if he was mean, like a happy skeleton on Halloween. He cocked his head, stared at them, and Lyric waited for her mom to move on. Just then the skeleton man pointed to the highway, near the bridge, and he nodded his head, answering yes to some silent question. One sleeve was tied to his elbow, and he stood there with his other arm pointed out, looking like a one-armed scarecrow.

  Mom was either scared or wanted to obey this man, because she moved with a quick dash, like people do when they cross the street and are worried about a car coming.

  Lyric’s body jiggled over the last bumps of the baseball field. This place seems so sad, Lyric thought, since the children had stopped playing here a very long time ago—she could tell. They cruised over the field, just trampling on the grass, until they ended up on a cement trail, and the tires of the jogging stroller rolled more smoothly. She could hear her mom’s footsteps pick up speed, run faster on the trail, and when they dipped down a little hill, Lyric’s belly felt all funny. A car drove by high above her. They were right by the fast road, the highway.

  Lyric felt the whoosh of wind on her face, and pretended, like she always did, that she was the one steering—that it was her who was in control of the stroller, and just by magic she was making things go forward. Her mommy was the caboose on the back, getting pulled along, running her fastest to keep up with magic Lyric, who was singing her song, making the wheels turn, and making them fly. All Lyric’s eyes had to do was look somewhere and command, “There! Go there, say I!” and in her mind she could make this vehicle a magic carpet.

  I am the magic queen, adventuring through a dark
forest with my trusted servant behind me.

  The darkness of the air and the strange path made it seem like an adventure. Even though they already ate breakfast, it was still nighttime outside, and the whole air here smelled different. It was fantastic now, nicer than being in that hotel room. All sorts of shadows and rivers and rocks were besides her. Once in a while a car drove by, and she watched as the headlights made shadows move and then zip right by.

  But nobody could find them down here.

  Lyric stared straight ahead and commanded the stroller to move faster down the trail to her daddy. Lyric always sat on the left side of the double stroller and put her things on the right. Sometimes it was a snack and a juice box, sometimes a stuffed animal, but now it was mostly empty except for part of the brown blanket that was covering her.

  Mommy had told her how Max was supposed to be alongside of her.

  “Max is your brother. He’s not with us now. He would have only been a few years older than you.”

  Even though her momma showed her pictures of Max, Lyric always imagined him wearing a wolf suit and doing a wild rumpus around the house with a king’s crown. That was because Momma said she named Max after her favorite book, Where the Wild Things Are. Momma would open up the big book that covered both their laps and read it to Lyric more than any other story. After a while, Lyric memorized almost the whole thing, especially the beginning.

  The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another, his mother called him “WILD THING!” and Max said, “I’LL EAT YOU UP!”

  Lyric even remembered which words were written real big with capital letters because she would say them the loudest.

  She wished she could have her own wild rumpus and wished she could do magic like Max could, where he stared into people’s eyes without blinking once.

  But brother Max left one day, like the Max in the book, and sailed to a place far away. If only Max would sail back to Momma now on his little boat. A dinner would be waiting for him, and like in the book, it would still be hot.

  The stroller bumped along, and Lyric looked at the stars in the dark. There weren’t many, and that didn’t seem fair. It was dark and silent, and she did wish Max were there. They could talk, she wouldn’t feel so alone, and plus, there were a bunch of people standing on the trail up ahead. They were running right through where the wild things are.

  Chapter Five

  Macon was a spectator for two of Erin’s marathons. He hurried from one spot to another trying to get a glimpse of her, worried sick that she was injured, and relieved every time he spotted her. How could he not see her running with that determined look on her face and wearing running gear exposing so much of her flesh? The work he had inked all over her body was admired by thousands of spectators as she ran, and she looked like a goddess among mortals. His work molded with the contour of her body, and he swore it made her run faster. Each time at the finish he received a post-marathon hug, which was unlike any other touch he’d received.

  He feigned interest in actually running a marathon himself at first and said he would only sign up if they went some place different and worth seeing. “Isn’t there a marathon some place where… you know, where it isn’t so boring?” When she picked San Diego, he realized he had said too much, but it was too late to back out. She had no idea he was on felony probation and was breaking the law by leaving the state without permission.

  The runs were at first hurtful, slowly became intoxicating, but eventually craved. She taught him the pleasure of not sprinting at the start, but holding back and waiting until he got into a rhythm and his muscles became warm, glowing, and full of energy.

  “It’s tantric, really, delaying the pleasure until you feel any bit of pain, and then it gives you a power like none other,” she’d said.

  The trail wasn’t nearly as hard to find as he thought, it was just too dark to see where it began. It crept alongside the highway bridge, down a small hill, and then shot down parallel to the highway. A steep, rocky wall ran to his left and up to the highway. To his right was a ditch and what looked like a small ravine. It was unclear if it was dry or flowing, as it just seemed a pit of darkness.

  Smooth pavement met each of his strides, but his vision could only identify the outline of the trail in the dark. He worried the pavement might suddenly change and be full of twisting rocks, debris, and ankle-spraining holes, but after a minute of smooth trail he gained confidence that as long as he followed the dark outline, he’d be running on this secret trail that was as fresh as the day it was poured.

  Alone and in the dark, how he wished it were the next day already and that he could get this over with. Tomorrow he’d be exposing himself in the light in front of tens of thousands of others to watch him run. I will kick ass, he told himself, I will destroy this beast, destroy it and torture it, and then beg Erin—no, command her to stay with me.

  His breath became more rapid, and his heart pumped with more might, but it all was welcome. Just a dash to the beach, and then he’d be done and ready to rest, but first, he needed to see the ocean. Salty scents would no doubt be in the air first, carried from crashing waves in the darkness, but right now, there was no sign of anything, just the highway thirty feet above and the ravine that ran along the other side. Brief illuminations from headlights on the highway revealed a dip in the trail ahead.

  Running without Erin was different. He would always follow her lead, let her command him, just like the first moments they met where she took him to new highs. Now he could see that runners, whom he previously looked at as such a bore, really did some edgy shit. During his long, excruciating runs, memories would come to him, not in full pictures but in tiny dots that made up pictures and flashed screen by screen into his mind’s eye. His dad’s tired eyes finally showed a bit of light and looked down on him with pride. His mom’s fearful, disapproving scorn lightened, and she looked relieved that her son was finally giving her bragging material.

  Memories of everything were being rearranged, and hopes and dreams become more fluid, more reachable. He wanted to be a better person because of it. He believed he could be a better person. He would expand his business, make an army of men and woman wearing his ink as their armor. He would play with Lyric and never say no to requests for coloring, Tic-tac-toe, or wrestling matches.

  His rage would release with each breath during intervals.

  His fight against the universe would be fought in ten-milers, and the proof he could battle anything evil was fought in long runs of twenty miles.

  He would join the ranks that Erin had joined long ago, and she’d find him worthy and wear his ring.

  The dark trail was twisting a bit and dipped ahead, and he charged down the tiny hill, letting gravity take him lower. The rush of speed sucked him down, and his leg muscles wanted everything that could be thrown at him. He submerged into a blacker shade of dark under the bridge, trusting the trail to keep going through to the other side where a greyer shade awaited.

  To his left he felt a presence: trolls or shadows or bugs all stationary and quiet at this hour. A scent hit his nose—not that of the ocean, but something acidic that seemed cold to his nostrils. The thick darkness under the bridge enveloped him, his eyes had no time to adjust, and the object in front of him was impossible to detect. Running with speed, his knee smashed into hard metal.

  Fuck!! Goddammit… Pain shot up his body, and he stumbled a bit, but kept his footing and felt an instant swelling.

  It was a shopping cart, and the collision set it moving on crooked wheels, turning sideways.

  Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it! A bruise for tomorrow, a fucking injury, he thought, and pushed the cart away in disgust. The wheels made ragged, jittery noises and could barely roll. He watched as the grocery cart and its contents of old bags, blankets, and contraptions hanging off its sides went rolling off the trail, capsized, and then spun sideways and down like a car crash. Macon’s run was stopped completely, and he walked a circle in light steps, waiting to f
eel if this was a temporary pain to his kneecap, or was it going to hamper his gait for the morning.

  Under the bridge, shadows of bundled blankets appeared on the ground as his eyes adjusted. He noticed the shape of a body, of bodies—more than just one—and they were now rustling. This was a homeless haven, and the larger scene pieced together in his brain. He had come upon some sort of tent city.

  A blanket was tossed aside. A body emerged right next to him, then two bodies, another one closer to the trail, and all were awoken.

  Macon paused, wanting to talk to them, to ask them what the hell they were thinking, then wondered if he should help them retrieve their cart. Should he apologize or be angry? He wasn’t sure.

  The first person up was a scrawny man wearing what looked like pajamas. The pajama-man ran right by him to scale down the brush, apparently to retrieve the cart, and then more men came forward.

  Leathery faces hidden behind old beards appeared with ages untold and eyes barely seen in the darkness. Their aged, tired skin and the time of day made them seem like corpses walking in the night. Up top, tucked snug under the bridge, he saw the red-hots from someone smoking and apparently watching over the whole thing like a gargoyle statue.

  Macon felt like dashing off, like making a break for it, but to do so would be to give them power they didn’t deserve and admit fault. It was clearly this ill-placed cart that intruded on not just his run, but his whole plan to start a new life tomorrow.

  Who leaves a cart in the middle of a dark trail? It was as if they wanted to stop anyone from getting by.

  He felt his throbbing knee and thought of beating them all down, but then realized they may welcome the fight. He waited to fend off their attack should they jump him.

  The lanky person from down in the brush made grunts and caveman noises. His back hunched to the ground like he had just recently evolved to walking upright, and his arms dangled as he took a few cautious steps then disappeared deep into the ravine.