Vein Fire (15 page)

CHAPTER  22

Locks

There was freedom and there was free dumb. The group home had little of the first and an excess of the second. The time Jared spent there was not by his choice. He either wanted to be with Hannah, or to be sorting through her belongings. That wasn’t possible at the moment. He was sitting on the couch, waiting for the mandatory weekly house meeting to begin. On the cushion to his right, he placed his backpack so none of the other residents would sit next to him. There was a giant pear-shaped woman named Dana who often sat too close to him. She was in her sixties, sported a grayish-white flat-top hairstyle, and she wore a diaper for a ‘nervous bowel’. The first time Jared heard her empty herself into her diaper with splurts and sighs, he screamed at her for being too lazy to get up and run to the bathroom. Her only reply was an emotionless, “Hehheh.”

Dana was a disgusting housemate, but the rest were of the same variety which he grew up with in
the state hospital. Many of their fingers were stained yellow from excessive chain smoking. They gathered on the front porch, sitting in plastic chairs, going through a constant rotation of cigarettes. Davey looked like a Bolshevik. His staunch face and curled moustache only needed a fur hat with earflaps to complete the look. Davey never had money for cigarettes, so he smoked other people’s butts out of the ashtray.

The other female residents were middle-aged women with severe depression. They avoided everyone, as if they were busy planning their next suicide attempt. At least once a week, one would agree to do Jared’s chore so he could be away from the house longer. The residents were expected to take turns cooking the dinner each night and to keep the house clean. The older women didn’t trust someone as young as Jared to cook anything edible and were happy to take on his cooking chore. No one had the extra money to spend on food, so they made sure whatever was cooked would be something they’d eat.

The staff ran the house meetings and wanted them to end as quickly as the residents did. They passed out menus so the grocery list could be planned, and they listened to complaints they did nothing about. Asking for things to change, or confronting a housemate was disregarded and discouraged.

Sandwiched between dinner and curfew, a house meeting deftly ruined everyone’s evening. A thunderstorm shook the house, and rain pounded the panes. Jared decided that rather than arrive soaking wet at Hannah’s house, he would stay at home for the evening. The meeting ended and he retreated
to his bedroom. His roommate stayed downstairs to watch television, so he shut the door and sat on his bed. He pulled a wooden box from his backpack. Inside were the things he had taken from Hannah—pictures, the hair clipping, two pages carefully torn out of her diary, and a clean pair of her underwear.

He ran his fingers over the piece of hair, twirling it and rubbing it. The softness was as compelling as the sheen. Holding it under his nose, he tried to smell the last remnants of her shampoo from the strand. He returned the lock of hair to his box and gathered his items to shower.

Normally he’d masturbate in the shower, but because he believed Hannah was so close to being his, he resisted—saving it all for her. Due to the lack of privacy, after his shower, he dressed fully, and finished by putting on his shoes. A nice breeze blew through the partially ajar window, and he opened it fully to let the steam escape. Taking paper towels, he dried off the mirror so he could see himself. His blonde hair looked almost brown when it was wet. Blue eyes accentuated his good looks. Turning one way, then the other, Jared examined himself. He was impressed with how good looking he was. His pointed face reminded him of the French explorers he’d seen pictures of in his history books in school. Even though he wasn’t French, he told people he was. He collected his shower items and returned to his room across the hallway.

His body seized and halted when he saw Dana sitting on his bed, looking through his box of things he’d collected from Hannah. Between her fingers, she examined the lock of hair.

“WHAT are you doing?” Jared bellowed. Dana flinched from being startled and she jumped at the same time, releasing the hair as it sprinkled into the air, falling to the floor.

“No!” Jared dropped his shower items and dove at the falling hair. He grabbed the wooden box and held it above his head, as though he were about to bludgeon Dana with it.

Dana smiled and nervously laughed her flat “Heheh.” Just as she did in all bad situations, Dana’s intestines began gurgling into her adult diaper.

Jared lowered the box and yelled, “Get the fuck out of my room. Get out you stupid fucking cow. Get. Out. Now.” He followed her, yelling, as she waddled out quickly. One kick with his foot and the door slammed shut. He rushed over to the fallen hair, trying to pick it up. It was useless. His insides were like a lit cremation oven. Panic seared his bones. He needed to get another piece of hair—what was sprinkled on the floor was lost.

Carla came into his room without knocking, as the staff often did. “Did you threaten to hit Dana?”

“She was in my room going through my stuff.” His voice was deep and growling.

“And did you have your door locked like you’re supposed to?”

“I was in the bathroom.” His tone was fierce but calm. It seemed to startle Carla.

“Well, try to remember to lock it so we don’t have any more incidents and I’ll talk to Dana about going into other people’s rooms.”

Jared knew his mood made her uncomfortable and he used it to his advantage. “All these talks about locks, Carla, but what good are they if the staff have the key and come in whenever they want to?”

Carla dropped her hands as though she was exasperated. “Jared, I’m not arguing with you. You cannot threaten other housemates, no matter what they do to you, and the best way to prevent this from happening again is for you to lock your door. Can you agree to that?”

Jared did not speak to Carla; he slowly approached her, starring at her until she started backing out of his room. When she was in the hallway, he slammed the door and locked i
t
.

CHAPTER  23

Walk

Iris was a tall, thin woman with a bayou twang. She looked like a classic movie star from the 1920’s with a wispy short hair cut and gorgeous creamy skin. Casual clothes draped softly over her frame and seemed to emulate the Leonard Cohen that caressed from her stereo. After she briefly introduced herself, she told Hannah to just relax and that there was no time limit—they could stay there until she was done talking. She skipped the usual get-to-know-you questions and breezed into the conversation.

“I want to hear you talk about what you’ve gone through, how you feel, and what’s your take on your situation and behaviors.”

Hannah chose to sit on an enormous, poofed white leather chair. It almost felt like it was holding her. “Where should I start?”

“When things started to go wrong.”

Hannah’s buzz hadn’t worn off from the heroin she smoked earlier in the day. She took half of a day off of work so she could smoke, relax, and then go to the appointment. She felt like she was weaving in and out—frayed fibers and loose strings between lucidity and awareness. Once she started talking, she didn’t stop for neither breath nor tears:

I can’t tell you if I was happy before it happened. I’m not sure what happiness is, really. I think, if anything, I was just okay. I don’t remember hating myself, but I did wish I was different—better. Every girl wants to be prettier, right?

And my parents—it’s not their fault. They did a good job; I was the one who messed it all up. I know everyone likes to think it might have been how I was raised, but it wasn’t…it wasn’t.

That’s when it happened—in the summer—the bad things, or when things started to go wrong. Wait. What if I was born wrong and it was my destiny to be like this no matter if something had happened to me or not? Hmm.

There was a group of us that were friends. We all lived on the dead end street. Olivia was my best friend. Well, she was the only other girl, and she played with me when we were kids and as we got older, I was convenient—just down the street. I guess you could say I was the outcast of the group, but still in the group, if that makes sense. Olivia was the pretty one. All of the boys wanted to go out with her. And rightly so—she was perfect, really.

Matt wanted her the most. He lived across the street from me. He was poor. I mean like more poor than regular poor people. There were so many kids, I’m not sure how they fed them all, but then again, I guess they didn’t. His mother lived with her boyfriend and that’s who made things worse. I could always hear the yelling—everyone in my house could. A couple of times my mother wanted to call the police—she said it sounded like one of the kids was getting killed, but she never did. I’d see Matt getting beat. I saw it a lot of times. It made me feel bad for him and I liked him. He didn’t like me though. He called me names—fat, ugly, stupid—it was the only constant between us.

Olivia went away on vacation. Matt was really mad at me because he had asked Olivia out and she turned him down. She told him things I had told her—things I had witnessed happen in his house. He thought it was my fault because she mentioned that he made fun of me and she didn’t like it. Ha. Little did he know, Olivia didn’t really give a shit about me. At first, I stayed away from all of them. They all treated me nicer when Olivia was around—but with her gone, I also saw an opportunity to get some of the attention they usually gave to her. It was my fault for wanting attention.

I rode my bike up to the end of the road—that’s where we all gathered. We played this game—the fainting game—where you hold your breath until you pass out. We were stupid kids…and bored—we were really bored. But when it was my turn and I passed out, I remember waking up and all of the pain. My body was bouncing with each hit. I didn’t even realize what was happening at first. Matt was standing over me with a cinder block—over and over again; he smashed it down on my legs.

I couldn’t see anything. It was like I had lost my vision—everything turned white and I was screaming. I know they tried to help me—the other boys that were there, but there was nothing they could do. The ambulance came and I was fighting them. I kept pulling the mask off and they kept putting it back on. Have you ever tried to scream with a mask on? It’s hard.

They took very good care of me at the Children’s Hospital. Everyone was so kind to me and my mom stayed with me almost all of the time. It almost seems odd now that I was at a Children’s Hospital, but I guess I was—a child, I mean.

I missed that entire school year—between the surgeries and therapy. And Matt. Matt went away.

When I went back to school, I was even more of an outcast. I got a boost of attention when I first returned, but after that, I was a freak. The kids said horrible things to me—asking me if Matt had smashed my face because I was so ugly—and they called me fat. It’s not easy being a fat kid.

But, I graduated and got a job as a clerk as City Hall. I make decent enough money and was able to move out of my parents’ house within a few months. I work with a woman named Donna. She’s always acted like a good friend to me. I guess I should tell you, when she was out of town a couple of weeks ago, I gave her husband head. I didn’t want to; I didn’t know how to say no. I think that’s one of my problems—I don’t know how to say no to people. I just did it and now I wish I hadn’t. I don’t think she’ll find out, but I hope she doesn’t.

And there’s another problem. Matt works with Donna’s husband. Yeah, I know—what’s the chance of that? So I ran into Matt at this party Donna had. I was scared. He still scares me. But I wanted him to like me. And you know, I’m nice to everyone, really. He asked me for a ride home—we don’t live that far apart now. And I took him home. I passed out and I think he had sex with me. I wasn’t sure. I know you’re wondering how can you not know, but I didn’t.

So now Matt and I hang out sometimes—well, he used to hang out with me—he has a girlfriend now, so he doesn’t really spend much time with me. But he showed me things. Sometimes we do drugs together. Not that I’m an addict or anything, just smoking weed and other stuff here and there. But there was this other night, I’m sure of it—I was nearly passed out and he had sex with me. It’s not rape. I didn’t tell him no. I wanted it. I wanted Matt to like me—finally. I mean, I know it’s fucked up, and if my parents even knew I talked to him—they’d freak out. I don’t tell them anything. I guess I don’t tell anyone anything. Well, I’m telling you now.

Matt has this friend—Marcus he would stop by sometime
s when we were hanging out. I dropped by Matt’s house one night and I was standing on his porch and I could hear him fucking his girlfriend. I could hear things I don’t even want to think about. I didn’t knock—I mean, who would? I left and went to the convenience store. Marcus was there. He asked me for a ride. That’s it. And why wouldn’t I give him a ride? So, I did.

A ride started all of this. No. My stupidity did. Honestly, I was high, so I don’t really remember it. Maybe that’s the worst part—not knowing, so I imagine the worst. I can’t tell you much about it. Did you ever go to the ocean and get pulled under by the rip tide? That happened to me once, when I was a kid. I ended up a few miles down the shore. It was like that. I woke up on a different patch of sand. I didn’t know what had happened—exactly, but I figured it out. You can forget the questions, I won’t answer them. I’ll never go to the police—I know that. I’ll be okay—if okay is a destination. It would be nice if I could walk down the shore instead of almost drowning to get there. Maybe that’s why I’m here. I want to learn how to walk instead of drown.