Friday

I sat in the hallowed out Chevy, wherein only an ashtray and a single front seat remained under a rusted dismantled framing. It sat at the back of our drive way, nearer the barn than the house and the tractor. The ashtray was all filled with cigarette butts, covered in ash and dirt, but I’d cleaned them off, put them to my lips and inhaled stale smoke, time and again, until all that remained was soot and burned up matches and the smoky caramel smell of burning filters.

Of course I inhaled. I might have been a little girl, but that didn’t mean I was so stupid I didn’t know how to smoke. That was the first thing my older brother Charley had taught me about smoking. You breathe in, deep. I didn’t even cough anymore, but I was running out of butts in the Chevy, and in the overflowing ashtrays around the house. Stealing them from Mom was easy, on account of how she passed out, leaving half-smoked cigarettes all around the house. Only I’d not seen her since the night before, and Charley took the few bucks and cigarettes she’d left on the table, and he tore off shortly after she did. He was under strict orders to babysit until she came home, but Charley’s favorite thing is breaking orders.

I wish he would come home.

The summer is dry and the grass is disappearing in some parts, yellowing in others. I am glad for it because it means I can play in the whole yard. In spring, no one had bothered mowing, and the grass got so high that it grazed my calf. Snakes hide in grass that long, and I’m afraid of snakes. Even garden snakes can grow long and hiss and bite if they feel threatened. With summer fully set in, I could mill around the yard without fearing the terrible creatures; I crawled across the rusted front end, and landed with a thud in the gravel drive, and watched as rock dust kicked up around my flip flops.

I wandered in the dry parts of the grass, and hummed to drown out the sounds of my growling stomach.

No one is going to come home and make me lunch.

It would have been nice to have something other than Top Ramen, but there wasn’t much else, and I always mucked up the mac and cheese.

Because the electricity was shut off in the house, I boiled noodles on our only working appliance. The stove is gas. I know what gas can do, so while I waited for the water to boil around my noodles, I played with the other burners. I let the gas build around them and then cranked the ignition, lighting the burner, and watched as blue flames jumped into the air, burning up the gas that filled that spot. It isn’t the fire so much that entertained me; it’s the noise, the burping sound gas makes as it’s burned up. I mimic that noise as I finished mixing the water and flavoring.

“B-plough. B-plough.”

I ate lunch on the back porch, and stared out at the woods beyond; a frightening place my mother and brother had warned me never to go. “The neighbors across the street are devil worshipers.” Charley whispered. “They put on black hoods, and cross onto our property to get back to the woods, and then they sacrifice animals to the devil.” We were watching for them out the window, but they never made an appearance. “What sorts of animals?” I asked. “Cats and dogs; mostly.” He answered. “Sometimes, rabbits and lizards.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The sun frequently entered my eyes, as it hung suspended just above the horizon. I blink, turned away, and then looked out again. Dancing along the edge of the woods was a blurred, white apparition; a fluffy cloud stirring around a hazy tangle of trees. The specter moved slowly in and out; the trees and the creature were blurred and wavy from the heat. It danced with the prospect of our yard, until I set down my empty bowl, which disturbed the unsettled quiet that seemed to be melting my surroundings. The creature stood still, sensing me from over a quarter mile, and I shut my eyes tight begging it to be gone...

Please, please, please come home, Charley.

Upon opening my eyes, the apparition was gone, and yet I was not flooded with a sense of relief. The hairs on my arms stood on end, and the squawk of a turkey vulture sent me flying indoors. My brother said the woods were haunted, but until that moment I didn’t fully believe it.

I wished my mom would come home, but I wished Charley would come home more because Charley would pay attention to me. Charley took care of me better, and both of them knew it, and it had been a source of contention in the past; Charley going toe-to-toe with her before she took off for a bar or a friend’s party. He’d scream that she was a terrible mother, and she’d hurl back an insult or throw her last few bucks at him and storm out. He’d pocket most of the cash, but leave a dollar or two for me on the table. There wasn’t no dollars left behind this time; not that there is a store near enough to walk to anymore. All the businesses seemed to have moved away at once, closing their doors for good and boarding up their shop windows.

I laid down for a nap in her bed. When I woke up, it was dark in the house, and it was so dark outside I couldn’t make out where the windows might be. I had to light a candle, and burnt my thumb against four matches before one stayed burning long enough to transfer flame to wick. The house is still empty; I struggled to remember exactly when they’d left and couldn’t.

Even though I could tell by the house’s complete silence, I still called out for them as I crept down the hallway. I stalked from room to room, standing just outside their bedroom doors and calling in “Charley, are you there? ...Mom?” I was ten years old, and despite being on my own a while, I’d not grown comfortable with the loneliness. I shoveled my fears down deep where they belonged, but on dark summer nights, when the house was so humid it felt as though your insides were frying on a cast iron skillet, fears manifested in the form of fever dreams; monsters hiding in the shadows of a big house with all the bills left unpaid, so there wasn’t a switch to scare away the nightmares.

I wondered if my senses had failed me when I heard a rustling on the back porch. Racing, I threw open the back door, half-expecting to see my mom sitting there among her friends, passing a pipe between them. Or, it could be Charley, watching the few stars that were visible beyond the cloud coverage. It wouldn’t rain, but it wasn’t a blanket of stars either. It wasn’t them; it was fear that confronted me. A menacing white dog had his face stuck in my leftovers, but looked up as I pulled open the front door. His body was a mix of white fur; with black just around his neck and haunches, and his eyes were a panicked yellow. The screen was the only protection between me and his emaciated body; despite his failing health, ribs visible even under a blanket of fur, he was a danger to me; I understood that. He hunkered low to the ground, his eyes like two yellow crescent moons, unblinking and following me as I took a step back. A low growl picked up in his belly.

“Shh…,” I whispered. “You can have that noodle juice. Glad I left it for you. No need to growl. I got more. You can have it.”

He was a fucked up old dog; that’s for sure, but he was the only living creature I’d seen in some time. I felt sorry for him, so I shut the big door, and headed into the kitchen to grab a can of Spam. Upon my return, I found the back porch empty. I was cautious, and thankfully the dog didn’t return to bite the hand that feeds. This gave me a small amount of hope. I left the food, and put out some water before returning to my mother’s bed.