Ashes ashes, p.17
Ashes, Ashes, page 17
She went off about how somebody had to have wanted something other than what happened, “otherwise why does anything we don’t want to happen happen?”
“She didn’t wanna do it, so why did she?”
“Do what, have an abortion?”
“Procedure,” she said. You know, because the word was the real tragedy, not the act itself.
“Call it what it is.”
“Why’d she do it if you didn’t want her to?” she asked.
I crouch on the sidewalk in front of Miss Bonnie’s. Herbert nuzzles his face into my hands, and I scratch behind his ears. He closes his eyes, twists his neck so he can face the sun, and grins with his tongue hanging out lazy and slick. My shadow’s all stretched out, misshapen. A car turns onto the street from the east. The sun bakes the back of my neck as the car cruises past, some geezer driving. Could hardly see over the wheel.
“What’d you kill all those people for, baby?” Monica will ask.
“For you.”
“Everyone was so sad at my brother’s funeral, but not me.”
“He shouldn’t have come by that day. I warned him not to but he had to stick his nose where it didn’t belong one last time.”
“What about those other people? They didn’t do anything to you.”
“Never did anything for me, either.”
“Heath.”
“I had to.”
“You didn’t.”
“I had to. I did, Monica.”
And that night Delia going, “What do you suppose she had to say about you, Heath? What’d she say to my daughter? I’ve wondered …” Because in her mind it must’ve been Miss Bonnie who told Monica something, something jarring enough to make the choice easier for her. “What’d she say, Heath, what’d she say to Monica?” Delia’s words were so precise, so measured, so premeditated, so spiteful. I had to look down at her bare feet to comprehend them. “What do you suppose Miss Bonnie said? That you were broken, you were sick in the head, you weren’t to be trusted, you couldn’t be a father any more than a husband any more than a boyfriend because you’re a twisted little twerp, those wires in your head like a rat’s nest all kinked up, what do you think …?”
How was I supposed to explain this to Monica?
“I killed her.”
“But why?”
“I killed her.”
“Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?”
How was I supposed to explain this to her when everything Miss Bonnie said about me was true. Everything. No, I couldn’t explain this to Monica. I can’t. I never will. Because Monica’s the last person I want believing these things.
Everything moves slowly now. The dead air blisters my skin. I let it. A feisty cat named Maxine wobbles toward me, gunk-eyed and grubby and looking punch-drunk. She hisses at Herbert, and they fight. I watch them for a bit. If Herbert wins, Monica will show up any minute because she loves me, and if Maxine wins, Monica’s isn’t leaving with me because I’m exactly what Miss Bonnie took me for in her heart of hearts. In the distance is the long peal of the firetruck horn. I don’t want Maxine and Herbert getting clipped by a ricochet but I don’t have time to corral them inside, either. I hustle in, slam the door behind me, and scream until I’m lightheaded and queasy.
What Miss Bonnie took me for. Didn’t she, deep down? I should’ve died yesterday. The house stinks of mothballs and compost, of the salty remains of sweat-stains, of death. I look for the shotgun.
I walked home from Monica’s after talking to Delia for the last time. Miss Bonnie was standing in the kitchen, humming to herself, sniffing her upper lip merrily. Like nothing on Earth could ever alter her tidy Christ-loving existence. Nothing. I rushed up to her.
“Hello, my handsome boy.”
“Why’d you tell her those things about me?”
“Who?”
“You told Monica I wasn’t good enough for her, that I was broken and couldn’t be fixed.”
“Heath—”
Until that instant, I never had the guts to really smack someone. It felt like every swing I hadn’t taken I’d been saving up for her all along. The room was dark after that. Dark for a long while. I wasn’t sleepwalking and I wasn’t really awake. When I came to. When I came to. When I came to. There she was. There she wasn’t.
There’s the horn again, closer and cruder now. And with it a siren. The police.
The shotgun’s in the utility closet. I can hardly lift it. I put it down. The shells are downstairs. Fuck, what if I actually survive? What could be worse? I have a better idea. I sling the shotgun over my shoulder, head up to the front-facing bedroom. It’s gloomy, dust motes like tiny devils calling me home.
I call Monica again.
“The police are on the way,” she says the instant she answers. “Please, please, please just do what they say.”
“I have to ask you something before … I have to ask you.”
“Heath, what’s going on? What are you gonna do?”
“Hush, baby. Don’t worry. I’m not gonna hurt anyone else. I wanna tell you why I did it.”
“Did what?”
“Your mom said you and Miss Bonnie talked about whether or not you’d keep the baby. She said Miss Bonnie told you a lot of things about me. That I wasn’t any good for you, that I was fucked up in the head.”
“You moron, I wanted to do it. I didn’t want my mom to be mad at me, so I told her Miss Bonnie talked me into it. If my mom told you that, it’s because she hates you so much.”
I start to whimper.
“Heath?”
“I’m here.”
“Don’t do anything dumb. Promise me, Heath.”
“I’m so sorry to have put you through …” I trail off.
“Heath, are you there?”
“I’m here. You’re right not to come with me. Stay home, baby. I have to go now.”
I end the call. She calls right back, and I don’t answer.
Unsteadily, I climb through the window, onto the awning, and up to the roof. The sun is in the west, grim and apricot-colored, the closest to healthy it’s looked in weeks. The neighborhood stretches out before me in every direction. Emergency vehicles come from the east. Trailing them are two trucks. I stare down at the street me and Murphy used to shovel together. He meant well. He did. He was only trying to toughen me up, trying to keep me from getting raped in the future. My weakness disgusted him. Him and Dorian both. That’s all he knew of compassion. He and Dorian came here, their shit in garbage bags like they might run away at any moment. Once upon a time, they loved me, one then the other, each for a short while. Two brothers who in another life may have let me be the third.
My legs give out and I slide down the roof on my ass. Braking with my elbows against the shingles and jamming my feet into the gutter, I manage to keep myself from flying down onto the lawn. As the vehicles park on the street and Doleman and Travis and all their goons swarm below, I crab-walk back up the roof, kneel, and take aim at Travis.
Suddenly my knee explodes, and I topple onto my back, bullets whistling overhead. The shotgun slides down the roof and disappears. I wriggle for a long time, shrieking loud, my leg burning, blood like an overturned can of crimson paint. If just one of them would finish me off, I’m ready. Been ready.
“Heath,” a man calls out from further up on the roof.
I kink my head back to look but there’s only the glare of the sun. He comes closer and when his crouching frame blocks the sunlight, I see him.
“These guys are gonna kill you,” Dorian says.
“How’d you get up here?”
“You hear me?”
“Let them.”
“You have any other weapons on you?”
“Why?”
“Do you?”
“I dropped my shotgun, that’s all I had.”
“Come on, then.”
“I told you already, let them take me out.”
Too weak to fend him off, I let him drag me up the slope toward the back side of the roof. He lifts me onto his shoulders, carries me to the front of the house and down onto the awning, then feeds me in through the bedroom window and dumps me down on the cot before crawling in after me.
He steps in front of me, turns to face the door, squats down on his haunches. “Climb on.”
“They’ll shoot you, too, you know.”
He reaches back for my arms, pulls them over his shoulders like two seatbelt straps, and carries me sort of piggyback out of the room and down the stairs. He sets me down and I crumble onto the living room carpet.
“We’ll go out there together,” he says, crouching in front of me again.
I don’t respond.
“Heath.”
“You know what I did, don’t you?”
“I’ll carry you the rest of the way. We’ll go straight to the police car. They won’t shoot us both.”
“I killed her, Dorian.”
He looks at me for several seconds. He has no expression, like some sliver of him knew her fate before I did, before anyone. “You ready?” he says.
I get on his back again and he lugs me out onto the sidewalk and down the walkway. At least three officers have guns pointed at us. Judd has a rifle. Travis is holding Miss Bonnie’s shotgun.
“Release him!” an officer directs Dorian. “Step away from the suspect!”
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” Dorian replies.
“Step away from him!”
Dorian takes me all the way to a police car parked sideways in the street. He sets me down and I put my hands on the vehicle, standing with all my weight on my good leg. “Stay put,” he whispers.
“Step away from him!” the officer barks.
“Okay! Okay! I’m stepping away!” Dorian says.
He steps to the side and stands beside me and puts his hands on the trunk next to mine.
“Do everything they say, Heath,” he tells me. His voice is gentle, like he’s waking me from a nightmare.
I look down at my gory knee. I close my eyes.
Then comes the shame.
We All Fall Down
Dorian
Seven years later …
Early one morning in late October, I sit on Juliette’s single bed and nudge her awake. She groans but doesn’t open her eyes. There’s a gold tiara with jewels next to her pillow. She’s wearing her Halloween costume, a blue gown with white shoulder poofs, having changed out of her pajamas after I kissed her goodnight the night before. I grin. To her this is mischief.
“The queen is asleep,” my girl mumbles.
“We gotta get going.”
“It’s already time for school?”
“You’re not going to school today.”
Her eyes spring open and she sits upright, grinning my grin. She has Kelly’s happy auburn eyes, ash-blonde hair, slender nose, and ears, the left sticking out a tad farther than the right.
“It’s a surprise,” I say. “But you have to change into normal clothes.”
The Saint Cloud Zoo is two hours away.
Tigers pace side to side. Wolves nap in the shade. Monkeys fly between branches. There are fish, snakes, lizards, bugs, bears, giraffes, and gorillas. For lunch we eat burgers, then I buy her cotton candy and chocolate ice cream. It’s unseasonably warm but I don’t take off my sweatshirt. Over the years, she’s often asked why I wear long sleeves all the time. I shrug, like it’s just a personal preference of mine. In a way, it is.
After a long day of surprises, excitement, treats, and giggling, she naps on the drive home. It’s almost her bedtime when we get back to Walker. We have fish sticks for dinner. After, she puts her gown back on, climbs onto her “throne” (bed) in her “castle” (bedroom), and talks to her “handmaidens” (Janie and Millie and Po, the dolls on her dresser).
“Juliette, did you brush your teeth?” I ask from the hallway.
“Duh!”
“You’re in your jammies?”
“Yep!”
“And in bed?”
“Yep, yep!”
I open the door and she rushes across the room to hide under the covers. She closes her eyes, pretends to be asleep. I sit by her feet. “Juliette.”
“Juliette is asleep,” she tells me.
I poke her belly until she laughs and opens her eyes.
Now it’s time. This is the plan.
I scratch my beard.
“I’m sorry, Daddy, I’ll go brush my teeth now.”
“It’s not that …” I rub her leg over the covers. “Remember how I used to be gone some nights visiting my friend? And remember that time you and I drove out to that big house a long ways away? There were a bunch of men living there and we talked to one of them?”
“He seemed wacky.”
“It’s just that he’d been locked away for a while.”
“Where?”
“In a jail.”
“What for?”
“He did a very bad thing a long time ago.”
“Steal somebody’s car?” she asks.
“No, not that.”
“Break into a house?”
“Someday I’ll tell you, but that’s not what I wanna talk about—”
“He did something real bad, then,” she tells me, her mind busy now.
“Do you remember what I told you about him?”
“No.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Okay,” she says. “You two knew each other when you were boys.”
“That’s right. His name’s Heath.”
“Like the candy bar?”
“Yep. And I care about him a lot. He’s a little brother to me. I got it okayed through the right people so that tomorrow when you’re in school I’ll pick him up from his house.”
“Uh-huh …?” She’s putting it together.
“Then … I’ll bring him home with me. He’ll be here when you get home. He’s gonna work for me and stay with us. Just for a bit.”
I wait for her to speak. She’s still processing, like she knows it’s bad news but isn’t sure why yet.
“You know how there are tornadoes and floods on the news sometimes?” I ask. “And they interview the people who lost everything they have? He’s like one of those people. We’re gonna be very nice to him, honey.”
I wait again. Wait for mystification to become anger.
“Where’s he gonna sleep?” she asks.
“That’s the thing.”
“I’m not sharing my room with him. No way.”
“Of course not. He’s—”
She snaps upright. “No, he can’t. That’s not fair, Daddy. That’s her room. You promised, you promised, you promised!”
“I know I did, Juliette. But this is different. I’m sorry, there’s no way around it.”
“What about her stuff?”
“Some of it can go in the garage.”
“And the rest …?” she asks.
“We’re gonna get rid of it. Sell what we can. We don’t have room—”
She yells and kicks and sobs for a bit. I hug her and when she stops yelling, she repeats, “You promised, you promised,” again and again, weeping.
Eventually I give up trying to get her to brush her teeth and put on her pajamas. While she cries, I say alone the nightly prayer we usually say together, kiss her on the forehead, shut the light off, and leave the room. I have work to do.
The house is a quarter-mile from the nearest neighbor and two miles from downtown Walker. It’s small. There are two bedrooms on the main level, each on the backside of the house. Juliette’s is on the right, mine is on the left. There is also a kitchenette and a small living area. The TV rests on an entertainment center. The large avocado green rug I bought at a garage sale covers the scratched-up hardwood floor. Between the bedrooms is a short hallway that leads to the basement stairs. There’s a spare room in the basement.
It’s really the only place Heath could experience some privacy and quiet in this house, two things he hasn’t had much of in the past ten years. His parole officer thought he’d benefit from a change of environment. Given his record of compliance during and after incarceration, and his struggles to find long-term employment in the Twin Cities, she agreed to transfer his case to Crow Wing County so he can live with and work for me.
I head down to the unfinished basement. Grey concrete floors and walls. A washer-dryer set next to a sink with exposed pipes. A bedroom little bigger than a king-size bed. I’ve been in this house longer than Juliette’s been alive, yet I’ve never bothered to carpet the floor in the room, paint or wallpaper the walls, haven’t even mudded over the nails in the drywall. When I first moved here, I was swamped with roofing projects and needed money for Kelly’s hospital bills, the nursery, diapers, baby clothes, formula, and countless other necessities. After Kelly left, I had to pay for daycare on top of everything else. By the time I saved enough to feel financially stable I moved the things Kelly left behind into this room. Since, I’ve had no desire to go downstairs. It isn’t pleasant, the thought of sorting through her belongings, even if it means I can discard some of them afterward. It reminds me of an old bitterness I don’t identify with anymore.
Juliette is coming down from her tantrum. She’s gotten better at this the past couple years, at calming herself down. I used to have to hold her, and we’d talk until she was too sleepy to be wild, to sob and throw limbs at me. She’s always been dramatic, and I’d say she didn’t get it from me but there’s no one around to tell me what I was like when I was eight. Might be my fault, anyway. This room and the owner of its contents are things I haven’t discussed with Juliette all that much, leaving her imagination to fill in the details. Her imagination is good for that. Vibrant and reckless.
Years ago, when she first asked about her mother, I was ready. Or thought I was. I didn’t hesitate to tell the truth, at least as much as I felt she needed to hear. “She left.” “You were eighteen-months old.” “I don’t think she’s coming back.” It’s not that I thought what I had to tell her would head off her follow-up questions. Just, I figured the spigot of questions would turn off quicker than it did. I kept thinking, You’re a baby. My baby girl. You don’t need to know all that shit.
