Wear Your Home Like a Scar, page 15
Kathy shrugged, then Benny turned around and grinned, waving a tiny plastic bag of powder. She smiled. “Yeah. Comatose.”
Slipping down from her bed, Kathy went to the closet, curled her fingers up around the top of the drywall and found the satin pouch that held her gear. Benny was already sitting cross-legged on her bed, licking his gums. She handed him a piece of cotton from between her toes then gave him the pouch.
“There’s some ice in there to put in,” she said.
He gave her that smile that made her want to fuck him, made her think for a couple of minutes that maybe it wouldn’t be too weird, made her wonder if they could someday be more than friends—despite all the stuff he’d said in the past about Matty Kohoutek and how dreamy he was. Who the fuck still said dreamy? “Already in, darling.”
While he cooked, she rifled the clothes piled over her chair for a pair of jeans, pulled a belt from the loops and wrapped it around her bicep. Benny kissed the crook of her arm, then the needle did and she melted into his arms, letting the bones in her body turn to water and swish through her limbs. His fingertips left wakes on her skin like tiny swans landing in her lake, rolling along her shoulders, through the valley of her breasts. The ice made her brain spark and snap, thoughts flowing smooth and clear as the liquid that made her body tremble.
“Kath.” Benny said it like he’d repeated himself a few times.
“Yeah, B. I’m here. Keep your voice down so Ruth doesn’t hear. She’ll kill us if she finds us.”
“I’m not worried about Ruth right now. I said what the fuck are those?”
Kathy looked around the room, trying to figure out what Benny’s problem was. She pointed to the closet, like that might hold the answer. “That?”
Benny shoved her upright, stood in front of her and pointed at her chest. “Did he hit you?”
Her hands covered her breasts without a conscious thought. “No, I was wrestling with Sampson.”
“Your dog didn’t do that.” He pinched his bottom lip between his fingers. “Tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell.” She reached for the works but he held it just out of reach, arched his eyebrow. She picked at her nail, looked at the blanket, exhaled so hard it made her bangs flutter. “He was fucking Erica. I called him out on it.”
Benny took a step back, cocked his fist to punch the ghost of Dwaine, let it waver there in the air but kept the needle away from anything that might break it.
“I’m pretty sure he was fucking her,” she said. “But I don’t let anybody play with me like that.”
“Doesn’t matter whether he did or didn’t. Those,” he said, pointing at the bruises dotting her breasts, “are what matters. I’m going to kill him.”
“Don’t.” She leaned forward, let her palm curve along his jawline, let her fingers flutter against his skin. Benny, her protector, her angel. He’d never let anything happen to her and maybe this would help him realize he loved her, too. She wondered if she could press hard enough that their skin would melt together, if he could carry her around with him. She didn’t really like Dwaine that much, but didn’t hate him either. He filled a space for her the same way Letterman filled the nights she stayed up, waiting for Ruth to get home from her late shift. “Just, just bang him up a little.”
Benny’s jaw flexed under her palm and she could smell the alcohol of his impostor cologne mixed with the sharp tang of nail polish. She wavered on her feet and wondered if she was going to lean forward finally, leading with her lips, or if it was just because she’d already pushed off and left him dry-docked.
A bang upstairs. They froze.
“Is that Sampson?” Benny said.
A rattling cough. Benny breathed, fuck. Kathy squeezed so hard she thought she’d tear off a chunk of Benny’s face.
“I thought you said she was asleep.” Benny’s voice made Kathy cringe. He jumped onto her bed as she grabbed the satin bag from the carpet.
“My gear,” she said.
He handed her the syringe, legs halfway out the window, and pointed at her arm. “Belt.”
She ripped it off and shoved it into her closet, but by the time she turned back Benny had disappeared. She tasted words to say to him but coughed and spit them out when Ruth appeared in the doorway, cigarette dangling from her lips.
“Who you talking to?”
“Erica called.” Kathy took a breath, told the water in her body to stay still.
“Didn’t hear any phone ring.”
Kathy picked up her cell phone off the desk, waved it. “Vibrate?”
Ruth just smiled. “Lemme see the call log.”
“You can’t just barge in here you know.”
“My house.” She blew a needle of smoke at Kathy. “And I heard another voice.”
“I was talking to Erica. On speakerphone. I just told you that.”
Ruth stepped forward, pulled the cigarette from her mouth and inhaled through her nose for so long Kathy was worried she’d explode and throw chunks of blood and meat all over her new bedspread.
Kathy opened her mouth to say what do you want? when Ruth stole her breath and protests with a quick fist to the solar plexus.
“Don’t you fucking lie to me.” Ruth cocked back and hit her daughter twice more on the shoulders and ribs. “Where is he?”
Cries made her words wobble and spin. “What are you talking about?”
Ruth’s teeth touched through her cigarette. “Where is Dwaine?”
“I told you he’s not here.”
“You want to go back to the clinic?” Ruth struck out against her breasts, her hip, the edge of her shoulders. “You going to take up with that little cocksucker and make yourselves a nice little home there? Or you going to end up sleeping in some abandoned house or under the highway?”
“Mom, please,” Kathy said, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Mom? I’m Mom now? Not Ruth or bitch or you goddamned cunt? I’m Mom now.”
Kathy collapsed on herself, let her body fall back against her dresser, knees tucked under her chin and head beneath her hands. All she could hear was Ruth’s breath rushing in and out. Though she focused intensely on the slash of pink on her middle finger, she reckoned she could feel the cigarette trembling in Ruth’s hand.
“Hear me now, Katharine Anne. I’m sorry I lashed out. I really am, but I love you too much to see you end up like your father.”
“I just—”
“I said hear me. My father was a no-good vet drunk who left when I was but four. Your father was a violent, no-good dope fiend. So no longer will I keep stead over a no-good junkie daughter.” Ruth’s swallow was audible, but she held herself from kneeling beside her daughter, even though all of her was screaming for it. “If I catch hide or hair of Dwaine ’round here again, I’ll kill the both of you.”
“Remember what I told you about using your legs,” Ruth says to Benny. She readjusts her hands around the tarp and exhales a cloud of smoke. “This is the last push, okay?”
The boy looks peaked, though Ruth isn’t sure if it’s from the moonlight, the exertion, or the lump of meat in his hands. He nods, though, takes a deep breath and hefts the body. As they move from the car toward the hole, Benny catches his heel on a tree root and tumbles down, the body rolling on top of him. He starts to scream and a dead arm slips forward, cold palm landing on Benny’s cheek.
“Shut the hell up,” Ruth says, slapping her palm over Benny’s mouth. She can feel the boy trembling beneath her. “You want everyone to come see our party?”
Benny bites down on his lips as Ruth grunts, yanks the corpse inch-by-dead-inch across his chest and into the hole. When she finally folds it into the ground, she falls back on the dirt, breathing heavily, and searches for her cigarettes. She pulls one out, finds it’s crushed, and tosses it on top of the body. Another crushed one before she finds a smoke that’s workable.
“Hey,” she says. “You okay?”
Benny’s sitting up but not doing much else, just looking down at the swathes of blood across his shirt.
“I just picked up Kathy’s softball uniforms, so you can change your clothes. They’re girl’s, but I figure it’ll work, considering.”
He nods a couple of times, listening to the echoes of the owls’ hoots.
“Take a minute to get yourself together, then throw some lime in here. I want to get home soon.”
Benny crouched behind a blue Chevelle in the alley of Kathy’s rowhouse, counting the rats crossing the concrete while waiting for Dwaine to show. After thirty-something minutes, he saw a figure enter the mouth of the alley. Benny ducked a little lower behind the Chevelle, pressing his back against the wall. When he saw feet pass beneath the chassis, he jumped up, fists cocked.
Dwaine could only say what the before Benny smashed his fist against his nose. Benny shook his hand a couple of times, then tackled Dwaine, pinning his arms down beneath his knees. He tagged him twice more in the face, feeling his hand start to numb.
“Fucking scumbag.” He spat in Dwaine’s eyes.
Dwaine tried to roll his ruined face away but Benny clocked him again.
“Think you can just fuck anyone then hit her when she finds out?”
“Hit what?” Dwaine’s cracked front teeth sheered his words.
“Kathy, you cocksucker.” He slammed Dwaine’s head against the ground.
“I never hit her.” The kid was trying to scream but blood and fists kept his voice low.
Benny grabbed the collar of Dwaine’s shirt, pulled his face up. “The only reason I haven’t killed you is because Kathy asked just to bang you up.”
“She said that?” Color bled from the boy’s face, leaving a pale death-mask in its wake.
“Yeah,” Benny said, raising his fist. “But I can just tell her you got hit by a car.”
He was ready to do some unholy shit to this asshole’s teeth, when something grabbed his wrist. He turned around and caught the outline of Ruth, her face backlit by the setting sun, cigarette smoke curling from her lips turned electric by the light. Her left hand held tight to Benny’s wrist, her right wrapped around a brick. A chunk of mortar clung to the edge.
“This ain’t your fight, Ben Junior.”
Benny shook his hand free and tried to swing again, but Ruth knocked him aside and saddled up on Dwaine’s chest.
“My daughter’s a good girl,” she said. “You don’t go near her with that stuff again.”
Dwaine shook his head, said I didn’t, then Ruth brought the brick down on his mouth. Benny coughed. Ruth smashed the brick down again, again. His teeth clicked against her fingernails. Benny gagged. Ruth felt his nose crush down under the brick, a hard, wet crunching. She felt his eye socket crumple, felt his temple give way. Ditches of marbled flesh glistened where the mortar had dug out skin. Blood bubbled on Dwaine’s lips. Benny threw up through his fingers. A burning sting spread through Ruth’s arm as she brought the brick down over and over.
When she could no longer raise her arm, she rolled to the side, falling off the boy onto the concrete. The cool alley tingled against her cheek. Her fingers were leaden but her chest was light, relieved. When her breath stopped rolling and she could rein in the smile, she raised herself up to her elbows and caught a glimpse of Benny, slumped against the brick wall, strings of vomit laced between his fingers.
“Hey, Junior,” she said, digging into her pocket. “Go bring my car ’round.”
He just looked up at her.
She tossed her keys to his feet.
“I failed my test.”
“And you never went joyriding in your momma’s car?” She shook her head and spat onto the alley, found some of Dwaine’s blood had made its way into her mouth. “Figure it out, then.”
She offers him a cigarette as they sink into the vinyl front seat. Pulling her hair out of the ponytail, she massages her scalp, feels the tension leaving like ants fleeing brushfire.
“Just don’t start smoking, okay? It’ll kill you, you let it.” She lets her lungs crackle. This moment has been a long time coming and she tries to resurrect the wave of relief that swallowed her as the bone under Dwaine’s temple split, but it’s as hard to hold as the smoke in her chest.
“This is a little weird, Miss Ruth, but,” he stammers a second, “you don’t have anything, like, stronger, do you? For nerves?”
“I haven’t smoked weed since 1978.”
He looks at her all doe-eyed, and damn if he isn’t a younger version of his father.
“You mean pills or something?” She shakes her head, exhales slowly. “That’s how Katharine’s dad got started. Pills after he hurt his back at work.” Her voice drifts away a moment. “Rather burn down my own damn house than have that shit at home.”
“I thought you might…” He trails off.
Ruth looks at him from the corner of her eye. “She tell you I had some?”
Benny doesn’t answer, which is an answer in and of itself.
She chains a smoke, throws the butt aside. “She saw him hit me once, Katharine Anne, when she was about seven. He was angry because I threatened to throw him out, said I wouldn’t have pills or dope in my household, around my child. He thought he’d show me. Broke a couple teeth. Damn near shattered my eye socket.” She pauses a moment, her mind drifting back to those bad days. “I think seeing her dad beat up her mom did a number on her head. Part of me wonders if that’s why she started using, trying to deaden those images. I took her to therapy for years, but, well, you know.”
“It’s not your fault,” Benny says, both because he feels like he’s supposed to say it and he’s never seen Miss Ruth be real like this.
“Maybe. But I lose my temper too sometimes, when I just can’t take it anymore, and I’ve lashed out at her. Couple days ago, I even left a bruise.” She feels a wail growing in her throat, admitting things aloud, like she’s confessing her shortcomings as a parent, detailing the ways she’s failed her daughter. She pinches the inside of her thigh and waits until the sensation passes. Ruth looks over to Benny, dragging hard on her cigarette, her face cast in an orange glow. “So does that make me as bad as him? I don’t think so, but sometimes I wonder.”
Benny sits in the passenger seat, picking at the polyester softball uniform, the unsmoked cigarette in his grip. Ruth sets her fingers under his chin and raises it until he’s looking at her.
“Lift up your head, Junior.” She sucks hard on her cigarette. “Preacher says we’re our brother’s keeper, and that applies to you and Kathy, too. Nothing to fret about with all this. You were just keeping after your sister.”
Benny says, “Yeah,” and keeps fidgeting with the uniform.
Ruth considers him with an exhale, pats his cheek. “You hungry?”
“Ma was supposed to take me to Rita’s tonight after she got home from bingo.”
“Mmhm,” Ruth says. “Think I could go for some ice custard myself. If they’re still open.” She turns the ignition over.
Benny lights his cigarette and blows the smoke through the crack in the window. He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, then catches himself, worries his bottom lip between his thumb and index finger.
“Need to get something off your chest?” Ruth says to him.
He hesitates, then shakes his head. “Just worried about Kathy is all.”
“You and me both, kiddo. You and me both.” She slips the wagon into drive, looks both ways for some reason she can’t quite explain and pulls away.
Benny stares blankly out the window, playing with his lip while the cigarette smolders in his hand.
The owls hoot and echo through the park.
Back to TOC
Haymaker
Rollo peels back the Sentra’s rear-passenger weatherstripping, bending the panel’s edge to peer inside. “Three today, yeah?”
Diego nods, sips on a bottle of water. He’s drank almost a gallon so far today, but needs at least another half-gallon to keep hydrated. Pee’s still yellow, not clear like it should be. “You need to check it?”
“Nah. If it’s good with Harry, I’m good.” With a soft pop, he nudges the panel back in and pats the door like a favorite horse. Two young boys circle the garage’s gate on pink bikes, swinging broken boards at each other and laughing. “How do you feel for tonight?”
He feints left and throws a right, stopping a breath from Rollo’s jowl. Gives him a smile instead. “A little stiff but it’ll pass.” He hides his grimace as he presses down on his left quad, in the space between muscle and kneecap, trying to force it loose.
“You sure it’ll loosen? I’ve got three riding on you.”
“Shit, me and Cyn have three days until we’re taking up the sidewalk suite. I can’t plant well, I can’t fight well. It has to loosen.”
A car screeches on the street, and Rollo’s hand darts inside his canvas work jacket. Some old man yells and throws a bottle at the boys, who merely ride away, laughing still. His tires chirp as he drops the clutch, scuttles away. The fabric’s stretched so tightly over Rollo’s belly that Diego doesn’t see the point in concealing. It’d be pretty damn hard to mistake the Magnum-shaped bulge for a bag of chew.
Diego wanders over to the Corolla, pulls out two Faidley’s paper trays and tosses them in the garbage can. “Your boys vacuumed this?”
“You’ll be fine.”
Running his fingers along the rear door panels, checking for residue, he tells Rollo the warehouse on Twenty-Fifth got tagged earlier in the week, on account of the dog-boys who shared the space getting lazy with security. “Mr. Harry found a basement off Conkling. Some bar over by The Pine Box.”
“Is it big enough for a fight?”
“For now, I guess. There’s some rockabilly band playing the bar to keep our noise down.”
He checks his watch, purses his lips. “You heading over there now?”
