Teaching Willow: Session Three (6 page)

TWELVE- EBON

I didn’t think it was possible for my parents to ever live in a shit hole that truly reflected the kind of people they are.

I was wrong.

The dilapidated house the cab pulls up to somehow perfectly suits the memory I have of my family—sketchy, seedy, scum on the foot of society. 

The tiny square structure sits in the center of an overgrown lot, sporting mostly knee-high weeds and abandoned cinderblocks rather than grass.  The once-white clapboard siding is stained brown and green.  A few pieces here and there are rotted away, like missing teeth in a grotesque smile.  There’s a big blue tarp covering one half of the roof.  My guess is that there’s a hole beneath it.  That sounds like the kind of logic that my mother would use to fix a problem rather than simply calling a roofer.

The thing is, unless a lot has changed, lack of money isn’t the issue.  If they’re still dealing in the kinds of things that they were when I was growing up, money is probably plentiful.  But just as they did then, they never put any into their life, only into their body.  I think their business model was to put a third of their income up their nose, a third back into the business and a third into a safe buried in the back yard.  They would consider creature comforts, like a roof without a hole in it, a waste of money.  I guess that’s what happens when what time you
do
spend at home you’re jacked out of your skull.

It wasn’t always quite this bad when I was growing up.  They did a better job of hiding it from me before I hit high school.  But still, I knew.  We lived in a part of town where you could find anything you wanted just by walking down our street—drugs, hookers, places to gamble, enforcers to make people pay if they screwed you over.  For the right price, you could buy anything.  Anything except dignity and decency.

For the most part, my family wasn’t that much different than a lot of the kids at my school.  It wasn’t until shit went down with Talia that I realized where my situation departed from the “norm”—scruples.  Most people have them.  My parents do not.

I swallow the dread that burns in my throat like battery acid.  Reaching forward, I hand the cabby fare plus tip and turn to get out. 

“Want me to wait?” he asks.

My first inclination is to tell him no, but then I think better of it.

“Would you mind?”

He shrugs.

“I won’t be more than fifteen minutes,” I tell him, getting out and closing the door behind me.  “And if I am, call the cops.”  I don’t say the last loud enough for him to hear.  He’d bolt for sure.  As it is, he’s probably uncomfortable enough in this neighborhood.  This isn’t the kind of place where you just hang around outside or the kind of place where you can walk to a pay phone if you get a flat tire.  Well, not unless you’re concealing a weapon, that is.

I make my way up the barely-discernible sidewalk to the front door.  A square of plywood is nailed to the outside, presumably to cover a hole. Or
holes
, maybe. Plural.  Like bullet holes.  Knowing my parents, who the hell can tell?

I knock.  Not too hard. I don’t want the whole damn thing falling off the hinges.

I wait, but I get no answer, so I knock again.  Still no answer.

He can’t be far.  He’s not stupid enough to flee. 

At this time of day, he’s probably still sleeping off his drunk. Or high. Or whatever.  It’s an endless cycle of getting wasted every night and sleeping it off all day.  At least it
was
and, according to his colorful arrest record, it doubt much has changed.

I raise my hand and bang harder, this time with the side of my fist.  Finally, I hear a scuffling sound followed by the rattle of a can, like someone kicked any empty across the floor. 

Nearly a full minute later, I hear a thump and then the throwing of a completely pointless lock (what the hell do you need a lock for if you’ve got a hole in your roof?) before the door is jerked open.  There, standing before me, bare-chested and bleary-eyed, is a man I haven’t seen or heard from in twelve years.  One that I never intended to see again.

Jeffrey Snell.  My father. 

He blinks and holds up his hand to shield his eyes from the light as though he hasn’t seen the sun in days.  And, honestly, it’s quite possible that he hasn’t.

“Who the hell ar—”

He stops suddenly. I’m guessing that his vision has adjusted enough that he recognizes me. That or he’s wondering why I look familiar.  Or maybe he’s not.  Maybe he’s holding a gun in the hand that’s still behind the door.  Maybe he’s pointing it at me, ready to fire if I don’t convince him that I’m not here to do him harm.

 “Dad,” I say, deadpan.

After a long pause, his cracked lips split into a yellow-stained grin.  “Well, look what the cat dragged in.  Where the hell you been, boy?”

He reaches out to slap me on the shoulder.  He acts like he used to coach me in Little League or something, like he had no part in nearly ruining my life.  And the lives of others. 

I fight back a snarl.  I hate this place.  I hate this man.

I resist the urge to punch him in the face, get right back in the cab and get the fuck out of here.  Instead, I focus. “Where’s Mom?”

His eyes narrow and he glances behind me.  “Why don’t you come inside?” He seems leery of the cab.  “Send him on.  Stay a while.”

“I don’t want to stay. I came here for a reason.”

“Well, you can tell me all about it from inside.”  He gives me no other option this time. He simply turns around and walks back into the house, leaving the door wide open with me on the outside of it, staring after him.

I glance longingly back at the cab, the driver bobbing his head to music that I can’t hear with his windows rolled up.  As much as I’d like to leave, I’ve come too far to turn back now.  And this is important.  Very important.

Reluctantly, I follow my father inside.

I don’t shut the door completely.  It’s so dark inside that I need the extra light to see.  But when my eyes adjust, I wish that I’d shut it and spared my memory this image, which is sure to be etched in my mind for all eternity. 

The inside of the house is as neglected as the outside.  The carpets are stained, the windows are partially covered with sheets and there’s a stench that hangs in the air, like stale urine and spoiled food.  None of this really surprises me.  Even at the age of sixteen, I knew that things were taking a turn for the worse.  I knew that this was the kind of life they were destined for.  People like my parents are bottom feeders.  Bottom feeders of the worst kind. And they live like it.

Right down to the parasites with whom they keep company.

Case in point:  Passed out on the dusty old couch is a girl.  She is wearing only a bra, one broken strap dangling over the edge of the cushion.  Her otherwise naked body is scattered with bruises and splotched with red lines, like the ones you might expect to see from imprints of fingers.  Her hair is a matted, bleached blonde mess. 

She’s perfectly still.  She doesn’t even twitch when my father moves past her.  I watch her chest for a few seconds to make sure she’s even breathing.  When I see it rise and fall in one short, shaky breath, I let out a sigh of relief.

Fuck.

My eyes leave her and go in search of my father.  He’s now sitting in a recliner, illuminated by a single shaft of setting sun that shines between the two boards that criss cross the window.  I can see that he’s loading a spoon with coke.

“You’re seriously gonna do that
right here?  Now?”

He looks up at me, puzzled.

“Why the fuck not?”

I grit my teeth.  I can at least be thankful that things weren’t this bad, this
blatant,
when I was at home.

“Look, I’m just going to cut to the chase.  Where is my mother?”

I watch my father as, with shaking hands, he drops a piece of cotton into the spoon and sticks a syringe in it to draw up the liquid. After he discards the spoon, he gives the back of his hand a hard slap. He doesn’t even need to tie off anymore.  My guess is that he has every vein memorized.

Expertly, he shoots up, rocking back in the recliner, his jaw clenching for a few seconds.

“God
damn!”

As if the scene weren’t surreal enough, something from a shitty B flick, the girl on the couch rouses enough to lift her head and look at the recliner.  It’s like the drugs themselves called to her.  Limply, she slithers off the sofa and crawls over to him, kneeling between his feet and reaching inside his boxers for his dick.

She starts blowing him right in front of me.  In fact, I’m not sure she even realizes I’m here. Not that it would matter. I don’t think she notices that his dick is limp either.

The whole situation makes my skin crawl.  It brings back too many bad memories and too many old wounds.  Even now, standing in a different house with a different girl, facing the same man with the same sicknesses, I feel like that trapped teenage boy again.

Only this time I’m not a boy. And I’m not trapped.

After several long minutes of silence, my father dumps more coke out into his spoon then puts a bump on his thigh for the girl.  She quickly snorts it up and goes back to blowing him while he adds water to the spoon.

“Where is she?” I ask one last time, my patience nearing an end. 

He ignores me to finish what he’s doing and shoot up his next fix.  His buzz will only last a few minutes before he’s craving more. He’ll slam at least three hits before he goes out for the night.  It’s as much his routine as mine is to wake up and make a pot of coffee.

“Dad, where is she?  I’m not gonna ask you again.”

When he opens his eyes to look at me, I see a little anger, but more than that, I see something shady, something that seems darkly pleased with my question, like he’s just dying to tell me some horrific tale.

A chill runs down my spine. I know just how horrific the tales of my mother and father can be.  They can be ruin-your-life terrifying.

“She went to find you.” 

“Why?  What does she want after all this time?”

Behind his three or four day-old scruff, the corners of his lips curl.  “Same thing she wanted before you left the last time.”  I feel the blood leave my face at his insinuation.  Something told me when I read his arrest report that this is what she wanted.  Again. “I raised you.  You share my blood.  We’re family.  Sometimes we have to make sacrifices for family.”

My voice is quiet.  “I’ve already made the only sacrifice I’ll ever make for you.  I gave you more than enough.  It’s over.  Whatever else you need is on you.”

“Is that what you think?  That it’s so easy to just walk away from family?  You just up and move, change your name, and bam!  It’s all over?”

“That’s exactly what the fuck I think!”

 “See, that’s where you’re wrong.  You can’t outrun family.”

“Maybe not, but I can sure as hell have you arrested if either of you come near me again.  Does that give you a better idea of what I mean when I say it’s over?”

He laughs. It’s a wicked, hollow sound that raises red flags.  It sounds satisfied.  Confident.  Certain, even.  “So there’s nothing we could use to…persuade you?”

“Persuade me?  Hell no!”

“No
one
we could use to help…convince you to help your family?”

The evil sparkle in his eyes…the sinister twist to his lips…the air of victory that laces his every word….

He knows the answer to his question.  And, now, so do I.

Willow.  Holy fucking shit, he means Willow.

I see this man sitting before me—a shitty father and husband; a drug abuser; a pimp; a rapist; a felon; a waste of oxygen—and I snap. I snap like I never had the chance to snap when he ruined my life.  When he took so much from me.  When he took everything from Talia.

I know this scene. I know his plan.  This has happened before. And I remember it all too clearly.

Emotions come rushing back to the surface, along with images that I’ve worked a lifetime to forget.  They flash through my mind, through my soul like horrific strobes of light. 

Seeing Talia lying in my bedroom.

Confusion.

Hearing my mother explain why she was there.

Anger.

Seeing what she’d done to her.

More confusion.  More anger.

Listening to my mother’s demands, demands that would irrevocably change my life.

Betrayal. 

Realizing that I had no choice.  Realizing that a life depended on me.

Hopelessness.

And then…
fury.

Seconds seem like hours.  In the blink of an eye, I’ve relived one of the worst nights of my entire life.  And, if I don’t do something about it this time, there’s a great likelihood that I won’t be able to stop it from happening again.

Options, options, options.  What are my options?  My mind races, considering and discarding a thousand scenarios, all in record time.

I know I have only one choice, one avenue that will bring this all to an end.  And if I don’t take it, this will haunt me for the rest of my life.  This time, it has to be over. For good. It has to stop.  Or it never will. I’ll never be safe.  And neither will the people I love.