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He
awoke slowly, more tired from hours of nightmares than when he had lain down.
The small round window set high in the peak of his loft room was dark. Benny
curled up in the bedding, unwilling to move from the comfortable nest he had
made.
The
odor of broiling steaks and the dark scent of frying potatoes and onions drew
his head from under the sheets.
Benny
hugged his ribs and dressed with slow care. Every movement brought spots before
his eyes and a thumping ache to his head.
He
winced. His jeans were a total ruin. Shoot, his butt must a been half hanging
out all the back from Wilkes-Barre. Not even his mother’s magic sewing hand
could save them. Shaking his head in despair, he scowled. Twenty bucks shot for
a new pair, and it would be a lot of washings and days and days of wear before
they were perfect and broken in.
The
tee shirt was even worse than the jeans. Shoot. At least Mom could use it in a
quilt. All the jeans were good for was a rag rug. He looked at the tee shirt.
With gallows humor he noticed the blood made a nicely colored stain. With a
stoic shrug, Benny grinned at the tee shirt. He tossed them into a corner.
“Mm,
ow,” he rasp, and gingerly touched
his lips.
He
grimaced with distaste at the fresh blood on his fingers.
The
lips were still swollen, but he hoped not discolored. At least they didn’t
look like his clothes. His hands . . . Geezis, how was he going to do auto shop?
He closed down the worry tugging at his stomach and clenched his fists. A
dispassionate Benny watched the blackened scabs crack and bleed.
“Crap
happens.” He shrugged. Benny opened a chest and pulled out a clean black tee
shirt and a pair of well faded and properly thread-worn jeans.
He
gazed at the window. What the heck time was it, anyway? Benny glanced at the
clock. Cool, only six-thirty, he hadn’t missed supper. But why was it so
durned light out?
Weird.
Shaking
his head with extreme care, he didn’t want it to fall off, Benny muttered to
himself and hunted up a pair of socks.
Man,
but boots seemed to eat ‘em up.
Giving
the boots a slow, loving buff with the dirty pair of socks, his eyes crinkled up
in a smile. They were an old pair of Carl’s. Funny how him and Carl had almost
the same sized feet. If you didn’t count the paper he had to stuff in the
toes. But other than that they fit real good.
Benny
stifled a yawn and rubbed his arms. It was growing cooler, and Mom would start
harping about him needing to wear shorts again. Geez, didn’t she know it
wasn’t cool? Huh, she must a been born an old lady of thirty-two.
With
infinite care Benny hobbled to the ladder and grasp the top rung. Old man Grey
used to come up here at night when Mom was at work and-
Benny
shook off the self-disgust, the bitter taste of nausea the memory always left
him with. He edged a booted foot out onto a rung and carefully lowered himself
through the trapdoor and into the kitchen.
Carl
and Anna offer him a lethargic, “‘Morning,” from the table. They looked
away, pretending for his sake not to notice how painfully he eased himself
passed the bench.
Staggering
out the back door into the crisp air, he shivered violently and scurried to the
bathhouse. Benny threw open the door and breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God
Carl was home. The dude had a fire laid in the pit, with plenty of rocks and
cold water to throw on them.
A
half an hour later, drained and chilled from the cold dousing he got with a
bucket of water, Benny staggered in the back door and smiled at them. He was so
clean he’d squeak. Benny took a seat next to Carl and across from his mother.
Benny
watched Carl roll a smoke. He sniffed eagerly. His fixins were up in the loft
under his mattress. Benny’s gaze shot to the trapdoor. Ain’t no way he was
gonna be able to make it back up, and wasn’t about to ask anybody for help. A
dude suffered on his own. He didn’t bug others about it.
He
tried to catch Carl’s eye and get him to roll one.
Carl
refused to look his way. Anna slid a plate loaded with a well charred steak,
salsa, and a heap of fried potatoes on it in front of Benny.
Benny
took the fork and his stomach rebelled. He glanced at his mother and quickly
looked away. Pushing the food around, Benny grimaced. He looked at the clock.
Then his eyes widened.
“Six-thirty
AM?” he yelled, “Why didn’t you
call me? Uncle Charlie needed me to help milk, Mom.” He slumped at the table
and glared at Anna.
“I
went up.” Carl shrugged with one shoulder, raising his gaze to Benny’s.
Carl’s
face was tight. He was so proud of the way Benny was handling his pain. He tried
not to grin. Damn, but the kid was stubborn. He looked into Anna’s eyes and
spoke his pride in this step-son she had given him.
She
glared at Carl. Anna wanted to cry every time Benny winced or shivered. She
needed to hold him, to sooth away the pain that showed on his face and the stiff
angle he held his body. It took all her reserve to keep a stony silence when her
son finally pushed the untouched plate away, his face queasy and tinged with
green.
“Guess
I’m not hungry,” Benny said in a mutter to Anna’s raised eye brow. Benny
grabbed his books and stuffed them into a saddle bag. He glanced out at the
Night Sun, wishing he could ride it to school. He was always being punished by
the school for breaking one dumb rule or another.
Anna
scowled at Carl. The idiot looked about ready to burst. She snatched up a small
black trash can, and shoved it at Benny.
With
all the loving warmth of a starving coyote, she said, “I want the Uohali’s
keys, du’e.” Anna rattled the trash can and Benny looked in.
Eyes
wide, he cried out. All his laser wires and CDs were in there. Every disk he
owned.
“Mom?”
he gasp. “What gives?” Benny started to protest, then thought better of it.
He winced. She had that set look about her that said she was beyond compromise
and being conned.
Def-finitely
frosty.
He
tried to back away from the coming disaster.
In
one fluid motion Carl moved from his place at the table to stand next to Benny.
Benny scowled. How did somebody so big move so fast? The wars did it, he
guessed, the war with the State for his freedom, and the one he went to in South
America. Move quick or be a punk. Move fast and survive to fight one more lousy
day against the drug lords.
Almost
gentle, Carl lay his hand on the back of the kid’s neck.
“Give
‘em up, bro,” he muttered in Benny’s ear. He was sympathetic, but
uncompromising. “It’ll only be for a day or two.” He glanced at Anna and
hastily revised that. “Maybe a week.” Geezis, but Anna spooked him when she
got that look on her face. He willed away the urge to shiver.
Carl
shook Benny, trying hard not to cause anymore pain, but warning the kid it
wasn’t going to get any easier until he did as he was told. He glanced at
Anna, pleading for her to do something. Benny was a rock, not really willful
unless he got angry. Yet neither would the kid back down from a fight.
Holding
out the can, Anna shook it hard.
“Keys,
Benny,” and the disks rattled ominously once more. “Or do I have to throw
them in the stove?” Reaching behind her, Anna slammed down the door of the
Warm Morning coal stove. Inside the stove, the coals were a malevolent red hell.
Carl
winced. Probably half those CDs were his. He grimaced and looked at Benny. Benny
set his mouth into a thin, cold line. He snorted, then glanced into the can and
spotted one of Carl’s. A wire that was his cousin’s . . . .
He
started to speak, then just dug out the keys and tossed them into the can.
Twisting
out of Carl’s hand, Benny snatched up his books, the denim jacket that had
been his father’s, and stalked from the house. Had he looked back he would
have seen the love and pride on Carl’s face and his mother’s silent tears.
Out
of the house, he slowed. The crisp air took away much of his anger. Benny walked
around the broken and pitted cobble-stone driveway, slipped through the wild
lilacs and laurels that edged the road.
Benny
stumbled down the quarter mile to the cross-roads. His cousins were already
there waiting for the school bus.
A
hiss caught his ears.
He
glanced up at the old white pine snag. Lightening had struck it, his mother
said, on the day he was conceived. He smiled at that. Dad must have been mighty
good.
In
the top was a pile of trash and dead grass.
A
raven’s nest.
The
raven glared down at Benny and hissed.
It
arose on stiff wings and flapped across the road to sit on Leda Melancowski’s
roof tree. From there it stared hard at Benny.
Leda’s
shack was quiet, seeming to be rotting away, at peace with the world.
Anything
but.
“Pig,”
he whispered, the hate burning in his chest. He clenched his hands into fists.
Black,
beady eyes stared at Benny. The kid looked like road kill. The old raven hissed
and muttered at its aching joints, then settled down to await the sun’s
warmth.
Twisting
away from the sight of her house, Benny stumbled up the slight rise to the
Grey’s family cemetery next to the Owl Hell road.
Benny
scowled. Man, but like something was def'netly wrong with grandfather Grey’s
burial plot. He stooped and took a ball of cold red clay from it. It smeared
between his fingers. A sniff made his face twist. It stank of rotten meat. Benny
glanced around. Weird, the soil should be frozen solid, it must be only twenty
degrees out here. It was then he saw the pieces of the cedar Grampa Waya had
planted on the grave to imprison old man Grey and the demons that possessed him.
To
his horror, Benny’s realized something had dug up, out of the grave, then
reburied itself. What frik was going on?
“Geezis,
no,” he blurted. “Not again.”
Ignoring
the shouts of his cousins and the children of the few neighbors that survived in
the Valley, Benny squatted by his father’s grave stone, his face a careful
neutral.
©2002 StoriesByEmail.com
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