October 24, 2016The dereliction etched transiently without the usual innocuous sentiment once feigned; her touch blazoned with a hundred bruises at the child who sat watch, in his strange stare atop a disheveled bed, breath sustained, unmatching socks, mouth slightly ajar, breath releasing ruthless rage incumbent upon the slow walk she had whilst fading out of frame. He was a hundred years old enslaved to a vessel of vicious bones and flesh furtively bleeding within. Eyes solicitous and slowly wanting. Short legs swinging just above old soda stains and cigarette-burned carpet. The shifting breeze outside danced excitedly above potholes on the near-vacant lot of the hotel, through bowing branches, amid dust-covered automobiles. Traffic in a distant freeway reminded him of a feverous dream he had the night before as he slept in the bathtub curled inside himself. One day he would find the correct concoction of kitchen and bathroom cleaning supplies that would grant him super human powers. The last couple of times were unsuccessful and ended in vomit and then tears of frustration and melancholia. The rest would be easy–the color of suit and cape–red and black, of course. He would, with his mind, debilitate his father into a freezing, whining subject as he raised him off the floor and throw him through the cheap walls of whatever motel he found them in.
***
“Lex, I told you, I am not going back there. The cops are sick of my complaints. You are not changing. You promise me and promise me and every time you go back on your word, and here we are.”
“Lou, baby, don’t talk this way. You know I ain’t nothing without you, girl–nothing!”
“You swore you would never lay a hand on me again. I swear Rosa can tell my front tooth is a fake; she stares whenever I’m yacking with her. That woman gets on my nerves.”
“Forget that bitch right now. It’s you and me, Lou…it always has been. Just hear me out, please.”
“No, Lex, you’re always pulling this shit with us. No more.”
“You’re fucking crazier than I thought if you think you’re gonna take my child away from me. You hear me?!”
“You start screaming at me and I swear I’ll leave right now.”
“See…c’mon, baby…let’s talk, for christ’s sake. Please? Do you remember the time we used to talk and smoke some of your dad’s stash while he was driving that rig across the state back when we was in highschool?”
“Lex…”
“I’m serious…”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“Shit, girl, I was fucking nuts about you.”
“Oh,” she said sighing and reaching for a cigarette and pulling herself up on the restroom sink. “You really were, weren’t you? The next day you beat up on Manuel Clark for asking me out at work. How the hell did you find out anyway?”
“Your momma told me. She said you were all excited and all.”
“Excited? More like creeped out. I swear that woman likes to start shit ‘cause she’s got nothing better to do.”
“Is that where you get it?”
“You asshole,” she said then smiled warmly and releasing a long cloud of smoke into his face. “I can’t stand you.”
“There she is. There’s my girl.”
“Whatever.”
“C’mon, sugar dumpling, get your stuff and bring it on home to me,” he said shifting his cigarette between his teeth. Her reflection on his aviators. Dimples and prison tattoos–just some of her weaknesses.
***
The boy knew there was no escaping. His body would have to catch up with his mind so that one day he would be able to defeat his arch nemesis. He crawled into bed and wept gently into a bleach-smelling pillow and threw the covers over himself.
“I am safe in here,” he thought, “in my fortress of solitude.”
∞
