Ruin Box Set (10 page)

“Sorry.” Ruin was getting good at using that word in a general sense. He was sorry for a lot of things. Sorry that she was a liar, that he had felt ill. Sorry he’d thought going to the church would do some good, and that he was now having to go see Old Man Gohspired instead of taking Isadore back to her house and pleasuring her again. He was
not
sorry for Isadore not talking to Geraldine. Geraldine who didn’t know how to stop having kids, or didn’t know how to get out of the house, or know when to quit eating. He was sorry somebody didn’t do her a service and tell her the truth. She was wretched. She needed to give up trying. She needed to quit pretending that life would ever be anything but an ocean of despair and woe, all by her own hand for the most part.

“Well?” Isadore said, as she drove down the country road like demons chased her before turning onto a gravel road.

“Well what?” Ruin kept both feet braced to the floor of the cab, and his right hand strangling the open window frame as she coated every nearby tree with two inches of solid dust as she went.

“Did you like it? Did you get anything from church?”

“Yes. Stomach cramps.”

She gave a sigh of disbelief. “Very funny, seriously, surely you got something.”

He watched the caramel colored water of the bayou speed by through the trees on his right. “Seriously. That’s it. He recited things I’ve read and only confused what I thought I knew.”

“Don’t worry,” she nodded, adjusting her eager grip on the large steering wheel, “Old Man Ghospired will have plenty to say.”

“Yes, let’s hope it’s meaningful.”

“Now he has a son—” Isadore came to a skidding halt at a stop sign, slapped her blinker on and turned left. “—he’s deaf, so, don’t say anything crazy that would offend him.”

Ruin let out a sigh of relief at finally reaching pavement. “Like what would offend him?”

“Well… don’t treat him differently, for one.”

Ruin quirked a lip. “But he is different.”

“Yes, I know that,” she glared at him, like he was being deliberately dumb. “Don’t say anything that would make him seem…inferior.”

“But he is inferior. He’s deaf.”

“He’s not inferior!”

“Compared to most normal humans, yes, he can’t hear.” Ruin looked at her, perplexed. “Why is it that you like to hide the truth? What is it about the truth that you despise so much? He’s deaf, why can’t we just say it and be done. Hey, I’m Ruin, I’m not normal, the end. Do you think if you treat me normal, it might make me normal? Do you think if you treat him like he isn’t deaf, then he’ll be able to hear? I don’t get that.”

“No, you have it all wrong,” she said. “I mean I don’t want you to pity him. Don’t treat him like that because he’s deaf, he can’t do things like anybody else.”

“Well he can’t hear like anybody else.”

“Oh my God,” she cried, “you’re just being difficult.”

“I’m just saying the truth. He can’t hear. I can’t seem to lie. You don’t see me crying about it or wishing I could, or trying to find ways to. Maybe he’s accepted he’s deaf, maybe people should too.”

“Wow.”

“What?”

“Well… you’re just a piece of work, that’s all. You remind me of a big brat.”

“Maybe you’re the brat, always busy trying to make things what they aren’t.”

“I try to improve things. Fix them. If I thought like you, I’d be so
depressed
I’d likely hang myself.”

“Maybe that would be the first logical thing you’ve ever done. Please look at the road, the truck can’t drive itself.”

Her jaw dropped as she gave her attention to driving again. “I cannot believe you just said that. You are one pessimistic bastard. I’m optimistic, sue me.”

“Sue you for what? Your optimism? I don’t want it, it’s just empty lies anyway.”

She gasped. “It was a
metaphore
fuckwad
!
”

“Fuckwad.”

She nodded with a sweet smile, throwing him into the door while taking a curve too fast. “You like it? I told you I have many uses for that word.”

Ruin realized the fire and ice was eager again. For her. He loved her when she was angry. And he was convinced it was because she was her most honest in those moments. And that aroused him. In every sense of the definition.

“Well did you like the praise and worship at least?” she finally said after a long while.

Surely her God was against him. Why that question? “It was… unlike anything I’d ever heard.”

Judging by the proud smile and nod, she didn’t catch on to his clever evasion. “It never fails to lift my spirits.”

Ruin raised his brows. He cringed to think how low you had to be for that kind of auditory dysfunction to lift you. They turned off the pave road and bounced down a dirt lane.

“That’s it,” she said, raising her finger at the house in the field before them. “He’s got a few mean pit bulls, but they’re chained. And blind. He’s very poor too, so try not to say anything about that.”

“I’ll do my best not to open my mouth.”

“Don’t say it like that, I want you to talk, I just don’t want to offend him. He’s been known to kick people out of his house.”

“For what?”

“Oh, like for speaking against God, for one. So be sure and don’t do that.”

“I’ll speak the truth.”

She put the truck in park and looked around. “You speak what you know.” She turned to him, her wavy brown hair bouncing. “How about we assume for a moment, or at least while we’re here, that you don’t know it all, and you could be wrong about what you think you
do
know.”

Ruin studied her, unable to disagree with that idea. “That’s actually very logical.”

She poked her lower lip out, making Ruin wonder over the texture. Did it feel like her secret parts? It reminded him of it. “What?” she suddenly asked.

Ruin’s heart nearly stopped at the smile she gave him. For an instant, everything brightened and cast doubt on all those things he thought he knew. Made him wonder if somehow, there was a purpose for hope. And while seeing her like that, there
was
purpose. At least for him. To wake up to that smile. Go to sleep to it. Study it. Taste it. Bring it. “You’re beautiful when you smile.”

She stared at him for a long moment, and he could only wonder what went through her head, but judging by the negative way the fire behaved, it was something that brought her pain. But why? Why did the truth hurt her?

Chapter Ten

Standing at the door, Ruin glanced around at the wretchedness of the place. Everything was broken down, falling apart, and dying. Vehicles, furniture, the shack, the tiny little pen for sick looking animals—all of it was a living graveyard and it made the fire in Ruin want to torch the entire place. Purify the five mile vicinity with fire.

The two blind pit bulls laid like death on vacation, breathing because it was all they had left to do until they couldn’t do that anymore. “Ruin, fix your face,” Isadore whispered after knocking.

He glanced at her. “What’s wrong with it?”

“You look disgusted!”

“I am.”

“Well… can you hide it?”

“Lie with my expressions?”

“Or just
hide
it? Can’t you find a look that isn’t a lie but isn’t the brutal truth either? Geez, come on, work with me here.”

“I can’t think of an honest expression that would help. This place is the motherboard of wretched.”

She widened her pretty eyes and punched his arm. “So it’s wretched. Get over it already. Do you think pretending for a little while that it’s not will make it any less wretched?”

He couldn’t keep from smiling at her cleverness just as the door opened.

“Isadore, I thought that was you.”

Ruin eyed the young man who spoke the way a deaf person would that had learned to talk, despite his inability to hear.

The screen door opened. “Sam, it’s so good to see you!” Isadore hugged him and Ruin followed the exact location of the man’s hands. Both on her back, the lower one seemed far too low for a friend. “Sam, this is JD, JD, this is my good friend Sam.”

Good friend? And he was just JD. Ruin regarded the man’s extended hand, trying to remember what the gesture meant. Hand shake. Putting his hand in his, he locked gazes with this Sam, immediately bothered with his smile and the knowing look in his eyes. What did
he
know, wretched human that he was? 

“Come in,” he said to Isadore now. “Dad is waiting for you.” He eyed Ruin again with that smirky secret smile and turned to lead the way. Isadore punched him in the arm and he met her huge smile and bright gaze. The fakery of it reminded him he was supposed to play nice. He wouldn’t lie for anybody.

Walking into the house, he was greeted with the smell of incense and… something cooking that reminded Ruin of simmering death in fecal matter.  The first room they entered was small but oddly clean. Sparsely furnished with one decent couch, a non-matching chair, small TV and a tree wrapped in a white sheet. Odd.

They entered what seemed to be the kitchen next. “Izzzzzyyyy,” a semi-old man said from the head of the table in the center of the small room.

“Old Man Ghospired!” Isadore gushed. “How are you?”

The man stood and she rushed to hug him. Ruin noticed his attire, really short blue jeaned shorts, cut off, a see-through-thin shirt that snapped up the front, only he didn’t snap it, he tied it at the bottom of his big tanned hairy belly. On his head he wore a black head band, and on his face he wore a puffy black beard that had grayed near his mouth. 

“Saaaay, who we got here?” The man sat and Isadore did too, indicating for Ruin to sit next to her while Sam thankfully sat across from him.

“This is JD. JD, this is Old Man Ghospired.”

“You can call me Bill,” he said, laughing loudly like it was a great joke.

“I’m Ruin,” he said, locking eyes with the old man now.

The man’s chocolate eyes widened under hectic brows. “
Ruuuuiiiin!
That’s your
real name?
”

It was hard to know if he was being serious. “Yes.”

The old man’s laughter rang out with those same bright eyes that he kept nailed on him. “Sounds like a great Villain name. Hey, you wanna hear my latest masterpiece?” He raised those bushy brows at him.

“Yes,” Isadore gushed, sounding thrilled. “Let’s hear your latest masterpiece.” Her hand wrapped around Ruin’s fingers under the table and he stared at her. “Would you like to hear it JD?” she squeezed his fingers hard and gave him those wide eyes. Right.

Ruin regarded the old man’s expectant raised brows, like the only right response was yes. “Read us your latest masterpiece.” It was as good as he could do, because he sure couldn’t say he
wanted
to hear it.

Two things became apparent in the literal second the man began to read. He genuinely believed it was a masterpiece. And the piece was a poem. The man read, his voice booming and lashing with dramatic inflections in perfect place, his body becoming a spasm of drama. The poem was as wretched as any. About a Bastard and a Harlot with a side-kick named Stupid. Ruin strived to get at the meaning of what he heard but instead got at the reason why he hated poetry. It was absurd shit. A weave of lies, sometimes elegant and clever and sometimes just straight forward shit. If there was any truth in any of it, it was designed that the reader must unravel it with their own interpretation, making the truth subject to the reader. How utterly pointless and backwards. Like using shit to trap pesky flies instead of removing the shit so they’d never come.  

At the end of the piece, the old man’s eyes were more lit than ever with excitement. He slowly pushed his tablet away from him in hushed awe as though he’d just divulged divine mysteries of the universe.

Isadore clapped and bounced in her chair. “Oh my God! That was wicked
excellent
Bill!”

Finally, something he could agree with. “Yes, wicked excellent.”

You knew Bill grinned beneath his beard only by the squint of his eyes and the spread of the poofy facial hair at his mouth and the rapid nod of his head in factual agreement. “Wrote that one this mornin’.”

“It was one of your best, dad” Sam said.

“Thank you, thank you. Hey,” he said to Ruin, “I got fresh coffee, you want some?”

“Ohh, I am so ready for a cup.” Isadore turned and put her other hand on Ruin’s arm. “Would you like one? I’ll get us one.” More hand squeezing under the table.

He wasn’t really wanting coffee. He’d had three cups already and water might be in order. “I’ll take water.” Ruin said.

Bill’s brown eyes lit up. “I got Kool-aid, and Kool-aid
cubes.”
Quick huge grin and more brow bouncing.

“Dad fills the ice-trays with Kool-aid,” Sam added. “Helps us to stay cool in the hot summer.”

“Well, I’m having coffee,” Isadore shot up. “Are you two still playing chess while you suntan?” Isadore looked at Sam from the coffee pot.

“Yes and I beat dad two rounds,” Sam said.

“He sure did,” Bill said. “It was close. Next time, dear boy, next time.” The jolly way he said it made Ruin sure the man didn’t really care one way or another who won. It was the playing he enjoyed, not the end result.

“I’ll take the Kool-aid,” Ruin said to Isadore.

“I’ll get it.” Sam hopped up now. “By the way,” he paused next to Isadore. “When are you coming to sunbathe with me again?”

“Ohhh, soon, I’m still handling up on those bait wars.”

Ruin watched Sam next to her, eyeing the way Isadore touched him on his arm like she’d done with him. The idea infuriated Ruin. The memory of how her fingers felt made him sure of one thing. That wasn’t for Sam to feel. 

Sam leaned against the counter next to her, completely forgetting Ruin’s drink. “I told you I would be happy to come by and help with that.”

Sam put his mouth to Isadore’s ear and whatever he said made her eyes widened and hit him lightly. The playful act caused the fire and ice to become alarmingly aggressive.

“So, what brings you by, Izzy?” Bill asked.

She returned to her spot at the table, stirring her coffee too quickly. “Well, JD here had some questions. Of the…spiritual kind.”

“Ohhhh,” Bill sat back, eyes wide now in curiosity. “What kind of questions?” The man’s eagerness matched his masterpiece performance but Ruin couldn’t seem to take his eyes from Sam. 

Isadore was back to squeezing his hand under the table, and her touch helped bring the power under more control. Ruin fought to think of what question he needed to ask, and a sudden irresistible one leapt on his tongue. “Can you explain to me why you’re happy when you live such a wretched life?”

The old man’s loud raucous laughter came along with an angry glare from Sam and much finger crushing from Isadore.

“JD has no filter what-so-ever Bill, forgive him.”

Ruin was beginning to think that the man would never stop laughing before he barely managed, “Now… that’s a very interesting question coming from a man named
Ruuuuiiiin!
”

Another round of laughter ensued with his companions joining him and Sam muttering something about Isadore being stuck.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” Ruin said to Sam.

He raised his brows. “I thought I was the only deaf person here. I said I feel sorry for Isadore and I hope she isn’t stuck with you.”

“Alright now,” Bill said, “let’s not get all sensitive, everybody here is family.”

“Isadore isn’t stuck with me.” Ruin didn’t understand how he might mean that.

“Noooo, I’m not stuck, we’re just friends,” she assured.

For some reason, the lie out of her mouth bothered Ruin more than ever. He was sure they were more than friends, but just not quite how much more, so he held his tongue.

“So, he’s blind too,” Sam said, grinning boldly at him.

“I can see fine.” Ruin fought to get a grip on the power that was back to swirling inside him, intent on Sam again.

“Well for somebody of such great sight and hearing, you are pretty dense.” He touched his temple.

“Alright Sam,” Bill’s voice bit with warning.

“What?” he said to Bill. “He’s a rude prick, saying you have a wretched life, he wouldn’t know good if it sat next to him with the name Isadore.”

“Awwwww, Sam,” Isadore cried, “That is so sweet!”

“Which part?” Ruin looked at her now, his anger officially out of control. “That I’m a prick or that you’re good?”

Isadore regarded him. “Well it
was
kind of prickish to say, JD, but I don’t hold it against you.” She put a hand out toward Sam. “He’s just learning things, I think he had amnesia and is having to relearn everything.”

“I don’t have amnesia,” Ruin corrected. “And don’t lie anymore.” It was a warning, because the power inside him was gearing up to act and he wasn’t really sure where it would act and what it would do.

“Don’t talk to her like you own her, you don’t
own
her,” Sam said.

“I know I don’t,” Ruin said. “And neither do you.”

“You both need to calm down,” Bill said.

Isadore made it all worse with her sweet, “JD, Sam is just looking out for me, now calm down.”

“Is he? I think he’s doing a lot more than looking out for you.”

“Oh my God,” Isadore muttered.

“Says the man named
Ruin,
” this from a glaring Sam.

“I would stop now if you don’t want to be hurt.” Ruin needed to leave but the power was erratic and he was afraid to make a sudden move.

“Now you are threatening me?” Sam stood.

Ruin stood, then Isadore stood, grabbing his arm. “Stop it!” she hissed.

“I can’t.” It came as a warning. “He needs to stop.”

“I think you are the one that needs to stop,” Sam jabbed a finger at him. “I think you need to get the fuck out of this house!”

Ruin wanted to leave but he was caught in a cyclone of power. “Isadore,” he gasped, fighting for control, terrified she’d get hurt. The power shot into his arm and he swung it like a hammer, slamming it onto the table.

Red flames shot from his fist and Ruin fought to constrain its path.
Only the table, only the table!
A loud
boom
came with the instant consumption of particles. Ruin fell to a knee, trembling from the power.

“Hoooooly shit,” Bill muttered while Sam and Isadore gasped.

The fire consumed every bit of the table and smoke hovered in the air.

“I think we’ll be going now,” Isadore whispered, pulling him up.

Bill and Sam stared at him with huge eyes now and Ruin headed for the door at feeling it. The power wasn’t done but gaining momentum, reloading.

“I’ll get you another table, Bill,” Isadore called from just behind him, “I’m so sorry.”

Ruin was relieved she followed, he didn’t know what would happen if she hadn’t and didn’t want to know. By the time he reached the steps, the power was rearing again. Ruin paused at the dogs and obeyed the urge to judge something. “Sleep,” he said to them. Power shot into the dogs and arrested their hearts. And they slept. Soundly and without corrupted breathing.

He hurried to the truck, feeling like the power still wasn’t satisfied, that it was again gearing up. “Let’s hurry up and get out of here before I do something else.”