Waiting on Justin

by Lucy H. Delaney

  Between sleeping spells, we pretended to transport to faraway places. He always picked Washington State, which never seemed like much of an exotic destination to me. He liked Seattle because of Nirvana and Boeing. Boeing, he told us, was a place that invented planes, and he loved planes and flying, the faster the better. He was determined to make a real teleportation device someday, and he knew they were the company to do it. He liked the woods of Washington too because Sasquatch was supposed to live there. He wanted to be the first man to find him, and he liked hiding in the woods anyway, and he thought Washington had the best woods from the books he read. He was sure someday when he was old enough he would move there and have a good life far away from our house. I played along, even though I would have preferred teleporting to somewhere more fun like Disneyland.

  He deserved to disappear to anywhere he wanted to go that night, so I let him take us to Diablo Lake in the North Cascades. We must have had a dozen pictures of the Cascades posted in the fort along with a thousand other pictures of places we teleported to. He showed me different pictures of the Washington forests all the time, so I knew what they looked like, and we went there in our imaginations with the flip of a BTTF24 toggle switch.

  POOF! One second we were in a cold dark fort with make-believe buttons and wires inside it, and the next we were warm, safe and happy looking out the windows of our mansion-cabin with a stunning view of the lake.

  “Do you hear that, Haylee? I think Bigfoot is out there. I've got my rifle in case he comes out and I can shoot him. Watch for him.”

  “I'm hungry. I want some cake,” I said

  “Oh, that sounds good. Let me have some.”

  I handed him a fake plate with a fake slice. Lizzie wanted some too.

  “Sorry, you were sleeping so we ate it all. You don't get any,” Justin teased her, ruffling her thick black hair.

  “Have some of mine,” I offered.

  She took a bite off of my fake cake and we were in heaven, or as close to it as we were ever going to get. Lizzie fell asleep again, and that's when I told him. Maybe it was a mistake, but I told him I loved him.

  “I love you too, Haylee. You'll always be my girl,” he said. “Now go to sleep.” He smoothed my stringy hair, but instead of scaring me the way it had when Brad did it, it reassured me that I was safe. He had a notepad he was drawing on, I think it helped him stay awake, and he would tear off the pages every so often, crumple them up and toss them into the fire. The noise would startle me out of my dreams momentarily, but I would fall right back to sleep, safe with my hero on guard.

  CHAPTER 3

  AND THAT'S HOW life was for us. Me and my drunk mom and Justin and his crabby dad living miserably together and taking Lizzie along for the fun of it. They had their party weekends at home or away, and we had our shack in the bushes that would teleport us anywhere we wanted to go.

  I honestly thought we were happy for the longest time. I thought our lives were normal, that everyone had parents like ours and a lifestyle like that. I couldn't imagine a house without yelling or parents that didn't disappear for days on end. I had fun with Lizzie and Justin, and it never dawned on me that other kids went to birthday parties at roller-skate decks and petting zoos while we hid in shacks from perverts. Other kids had parents who helped them with spelling and math and made them snacks after school, but we learned fast that it was best not to depend on our parents for much of anything.

  I was too young, I didn't know life could be different, so I didn't know we weren't happy. We smiled, we laughed, we danced to the music Clayton blasted with my mom when she was in a good mood. She would tell Lizzie and me what to do when she wasn't passed out, and she was actually pretty fun before she got too drunk. She would put make-up on us and let us dress up in her old dresses and be show girls or cowgirl line dancers. She had lots of dresses we could pick from, and we had real fun. I don't know why she kept all her old clothes around; we all know they were, like, fifty sizes too small for her. She had grown to be a large woman over the years. But she would tell us about the dancing she used to do 'back in the day' and show us her moves. She would even say, “Who needs $100 dance lessons when you got a mama who can shake it like me? Right, Haylee?”

  She said stuff like that a lot, making sure I knew we didn't have the kind of money to do things other families did. Aside from our neighbors’ lack of liquor, those comments from Mom were my first clues that we were different. We learned that we were poor because Mom and Clayton told us we were.

  It's hard to explain, but I didn't feel poor. And even though they told us we were poor, they would insist they gave us everything we could possibly need.

  Our poverty was something I learned to recognize and despise as I grew, though. I hated to bring up my needs to Clayton. If I slipped and said the wrong thing, like the time I asked for $8 for a field trip, he would remind me that I never went hungry and claimed that should be good enough.

  He would rant that my good-for-nothing, loser, sperm donor father ran off and that he was footing my bill out of the kindness of his heart. All he got out of the deal was a whiner baby who couldn't even pull her own weight around the house and a heifer for a woman. He would tell me I was lucky I was a girl because if I was a boy he would knock some sense into me, and if he was smart he'd do it anyway.

  His tirades were long and loud—not blaring music loud, but Clayton loud. They were arguments. Not that I was allowed to argue back. The “ungrateful-for-what-you-have” lectures were some the worst kinds.

  “You think you have it bad, but missy, you don't know how bad it can be. My parents were poor; we didn't have nothing! You've got everything: a roof over your head, clothes, food in your belly... You ain't starving, are you? You ain`t needy, are you?

  “I'm not sending that school of yours a single nickel. What do you think my tax money pays for anyway? You want to be like the rest of the girls at school? You know what they are? Whores, little whores in training. You want to be like that you go find yourself some other sucker to pay your bills ’cause I ain't raising you to be like the rest of them girls. I'm raising you to be a lady who knows how to take care of herself and her family. Now make me some dinner! You think I'm going to work all day and make myself some food? You lazy sack of wasted life. Get out of my sight... Now!”

  Face in my face, red with anger, beads of sweat so close I could stick out my tongue and lick them. I had to stare straight ahead or it would get worse. If I looked him in the eye, he would slap me and say I was being defiant and questioning his authority; if I looked away he would slap me for not paying attention to him. If I sat there and took it, it would eventually end before too long.

  Usually he sabotaged himself. He'd get rolling, yelling so loud and long that he choked on his own words. It was absolutely not OK to laugh or look sorry at him when he went into a coughing fit. So I stared straight ahead, waiting for him to retreat to the bedroom to smoke up, or to the bar to drink up, and then I would slip away to the teleporter to some other time or place, even if Justin wasn't there.

  Sometimes I would do the dishes or make Clayton dinner before I left the house to calm him down first, then I would run to the fort and pretend to disappear to somewhere safe. There, in my secret hideaway, I was allowed to feel sorry for myself. I cried so many tears in that place over the years, but they would always dry up, and I knew I had to go back. I would tell myself to suck it up, in a fashion not unlike Clayton's, and go back to the place I called home where I thought I was happy.

  I suppose my stories make it sound like we had a horrible childhood, and we did, but Lizzie reminds me that it could have been a lot worse. She gets mad when I only bring up the bad stuff. She's like Pollyanna to this day, always looking on the bright side of everything. So to honor her, let me reflect on some of the good times we had in the middle of all the bad.

  My favorite childhood memory of our parents is when I was nine or ten and Clayton taught Lizzie and me to ride bikes. Granted, he had to get good and hammere
d to have the patience to teach us, but it was truly fun. One day he came home from work with two bikes, one pink and one red. It was summer—I know that because it was still light for a long time after Clayton got home. Justin already had a bike, but neither Lizzie nor I had one yet. Clayton proclaimed that they were ours, and it was about time we learned to ride. To this day I don't know where Clayton got them, but he was happy and smiling and wanted us to learn to ride them that day, and for one afternoon we got to be normal girls with someone who wasn't either of our fathers pretending to be a dad and showing us how to pedal and balance.

  Justin must have known to not interfere because he rode in wide circles around us but didn't interrupt Clayton's lesson even once. I remember the beige paint on his white pants and the brown beer bottles he held in his left hand while the other balanced my seat or Lizzie's. He still yelled, but it was happy yelling, and it was wonderful.

  We both learned in one day, and after we got the hang of it we raced up and down the street with Justin until it was dark. Clayton stayed right there, cheering us on. I think he had fun too. When we got back inside Mom had dinner made, and we all sat down in the living room together to eat. I felt like we were that family on 7th Heaven with Jessica Biel. But we didn't watch them; we watched X-Files, which was just about as good.

  Lizzie wouldn't appreciate it if I mentioned how, a while later, Clayton ripped her a new one for leaving her bike where he couldn't see it. When he ran over it as a result, we all had to take that lecture. Nor would she want me to bring up the time we got yelled at for being out too late riding our bikes and had to endure his tirade about being good-for-nothing kids out looking for trouble. So I won't.

  The other best thing I remember is the year the Salvation Army adopted our family as their token poor family for Christmas. That was the Christmas of my sixth grade year, by then I was so in love with Justin I was thinking I might give him a kiss for Christmas, but I completely forgot about it in the excitement of the day. Mom or Clayton must have filled out a form with everything they thought we wanted that year because, I swear, we got everything they ever complained about us asking them for.

  The people brought food too—bags and bags of it, enough to fill the cabinets and fridge until after the new year. I don't know what they thought when they saw the stocked bar but mostly bare cupboards, but that food made me as happy as the CD Walkman did. We smuggled some of the non-perishables out to the shack to have for emergencies when Clayton and Mom weren't paying attention. Yeah, that Christmas was happy.

  There were other good times too. Once my mom took us to the movies. That was nice. Then there was another time when Lizzie and I had a Veterans Day presentation at school and both our moms showed up to watch us. Even though it was the middle of the day, they were there. I felt like all the other kids with parents who cared and gave my mom the biggest hug I could when I ran off the stage.

  And once during a middle school conference, the teacher told my mom about all the things I was learning, and I heard my mother say I was a bright girl. I knew that meant she thought I was smart, or at least she was willing to lie to my teacher for me.

  Lizzie is absolutely right: there were some good times, a few happy memories. It wasn't all bad; it could have been worse. But it wasn’t good either, and no matter how optimistically Lizzie tries to remember it, there's no denying it got worse the older we grew—or maybe we just became more aware of our depravity.

  As the years passed I was learning slowly that what the three of us had was not a normal life; it was, in fact, downright abusive. I can share the happy memories for Lizzie's sake, but if I said it wasn’t bad I’d be lying.

  Between their partying and Clayton's yelling we never stood a chance at a happy, normal life. Mom became as deaf to his yelling as we did. We had to listen, but eventually we stopped hearing what he said. He made me feel worthless, but it had to be a million times worse for my mom. What he said to her made what he said to me seem like mountains of praise.

  At least he wasn't a hitter. By that I mean he didn't hit her every time he was mad, which was all the time. He saved it for extra special screw-ups on her part, like the time she was passed out when I tripped on the way home from the bus and broke my ankle. We screamed and screamed for her to come help, but she couldn't hear us because she was out cold. By the time Clayton got home I had managed to get inside with help from Justin and Lizzie. We had my ankle bandaged, and I figured I’d be in for it when he got home. I just knew he was going to yell at me for being stupid and clumsy. To my surprise he didn't yell at me at all. Instead he beat the crap out of my mom. He must have slapped her ten times to wake her up; then he grabbed her by the back of her head and twisted her face to look at my bruised and deformed ankle.

  “What kind of a sorry excuse for a mother are you? You're so drunk you can't even wake up to take her to the hospital?! You're pathetic. I ought to kick you out right now, but she'd probably end up dead. Drink up, Lush, while I take your daughter to the hospital. Clean up this cesspool while I'm gone. We're gonna have the state out here after I tell them her mom left her to deal with a broken ankle by herself because she was passed out drunk!”

  Mom looked pitiful, bleeding from her lip and crying like she was. I didn't feel sorry for her, though; I was mad at her too. I knew she loved vodka more than me, but I really needed her, and she wasn't there for me. I can't say I liked seeing the blood, but I was glad she got hers, and I was glad I didn't get yelled at. It would have made the pain so much worse.

  On the way to the hospital Clayton told me what our story would be. I would tell them everything just the way it happened except I was supposed to say that Mom was out grocery shopping; that was why it took so long to get to the hospital. He told them he brought me because my mom was too upset to drive.

  The story worked. They didn't ask any questions, and they didn't follow up—or if they did, we never knew about it. Clayton was so nice in the ER. At least he knew how to pretend to be a good dad even if he wasn't one in real life.

  I have to admit, that broken ankle scored me big points. Clayton hardly yelled at me about cleaning or cooking for a month. I loved the crutches; I was famous at school. Kids had to carry my books, and Justin would pack my stuff all the way down the road. I was ten then. He was in high school and was the first of us to take the big-kid bus home. Like an angel, he was always there for us an hour and a half later when our bus dropped us off. When my ankle was broken he would give me a piggy-back ride all the way home, and we let Lizzie goof off on my crutches.

  That's when I first noticed his smell. He was no longer a boy—not that he ever had been to me—but was fast becoming a real man. It was sweat and pheromones, cheap cologne and deodorant, and I couldn't help but breathe him in. I imagined if I breathed in hard enough he would become part of me and could never leave. I would hug my cheek into the warmth of his neck and take him in.

  By then I was old enough to understand what Brad had meant to do to me that night long ago. Life has a way of sucking the innocence out of unfortunates like us, and I was growing up fast. I think at ten I still shouldn’t have known what he meant to do, but I did.

  By then I'd seen the movies my mom watched with Clayton. Some weekends Clayton and his buddies would gather around our thirty-six-inch TV and watch them together, whooping and hollering and being vulgar with their lady folk. When Justin was there, he would keep Lizzie and me safe in the fort or in my room. He made me promise to stay in my room if they ever put the movies on when he was away. He showed me how to lock my door with a one-by-four board under the doorknob.

  We found the board on one of our scavenges, and it was to stay hidden under my bed, out of sight, so Clayton or Mom wouldn't ask about it. I was also supposed to use it any night Brad or another creeper was in the house. I could spot the creepers easily; men shouldn't look at girls like they looked at women. When I saw one who looked at Lizzie and me funny—I mean it wasn't funny; it was creepy— we would lock ourselves up in my room or
hide out in the fort. I don't know how to describe the look, but I know now that any female who's lost enough innocence can recognize it. When we saw it peer out at us, we locked my door or stayed close to Justin. I guess it worked because no one ever touched me after that night with Brad. I hope Lizzie fared as well, but something inside tells me she didn't.

  The paradox and irony of lust was mine alone to ponder; I thought about it in my room in the darkness of the night but never told anyone. Even though I knew what a creep was and what they did to girls, I wanted Justin to want me like that and look at me the way they did. I wanted him to because that's the way I wanted him. I remember the exact day I wanted things a woman wants from him. It was more than love—well, maybe I shouldn't say that. It wasn't more than love; it was different from love, but just as strong. I suspected he felt the same way, but I didn't know for sure. I wanted him to touch me, or at least kiss me like in the movies—not Clayton's movies, just the regular love story movies, but he never did.

  I tried to kiss him once, the year after that missed Christmas kiss. Lizzie was watching TV, and we were in my room alone. He liked to play my mom's old guitar, and he played it like a heavy-metal rock star. I knew he would be famous for it some day. He was playing “More than Words” by Extreme, a classic (at least for us), and ever our song. He was working the strings trying to get it right and singing in his sweet, squeaky voice. His hair hung down enough to almost cover his eyes, and he would look up every so often, just long enough to look at me and melt my heart into his. I loved him, and I loved watching him.

  His fingers were busy on the strings, moving over them like a magician, tricking them into melody and harmony. The muscles in his arms mesmerized me as they flexed and twitched, drawing lines of strength from wrist to elbow in time with his finger movements. He was becoming a man in front of my eyes. I touched his arm, and it stopped him. He flipped his hair up and looked at me, green eyes smiling. He must not have known what I was thinking or he would have looked at me differently, I'm sure. He must have thought I was going to tease him about his pitch or playing, but that wasn't it at all.