Dust in the Blood
SHAWN FINLEY
I am again crammed into the back of my parents’ van; the smell of electrical grease and the streaming sagebrush are not helping my mood. My favorite part of our yearly pilgrimage to Midland is leaving.
“John, stop frowning. It won’t be that bad,” Mom says.
“It’s always worse,” I say. “Do we really have to go see them every year?”
“Yes. They’re family. Now, I expect you to be on your best behavior,” Mom says. “You too, Allen.”
“We’ll be on ours as long as they are,” Allen says.
“I know you don’t like them and they can sometimes be draining, but we’ll just have to deal with it,” Mom says. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
We had already passed the Red River and most of the signs selling pornography, much to my mother’s relief. She would always avert her eyes and tell us to do the same, like Allen and I had never seen porn before. Outside of Fort Worth, we passed the Arby’s where I lost a tooth every summer for three years. I wish Texas had claimed only my teeth and not a child’s wonder or my mother’s happiness.
South of Midland, we pass forests of pump jacks and wagon wheel gates before pulling in front of George’s barn. We never park in the crescent drive with the green grass and shading pecan trees. The trees are fluttering with pigeons, doves, and grackles. The green is out of place in this blasted waste of sand, heat, and twanging accents. The water bill must be huge. We walk through the blistering shade and past the wrought iron gate with its dried lotus pods like wasps’ nests.
George always takes his sweet time answering the door, and of course, he will not let anyone else do it either. All he ever does is complain about the heat, the dust, and that we never call. He never calls. George is approaching obesity from the other side, not through any hard work on his part, but through the cocktail of drugs he is on—all failing to stop his cancer. I think he is addicted to annoying me. He always asks questions like why I do not have a girlfriend or if my moustache makes me a pedo.
“Maddi, James,” George says, opening the door. “You’re late.”
“We’re a day early,” Dad says. “You know that.”
“Panda, you glue a dead rat to your face?” George says.
“Ha ha, very funny, Grandpa. I’ve never heard that one before. And please don’t call me panda.” I wore a shirt with a panda on it when I was nine, and he still calls me panda nine years later. He called Mom bird turd until she was in kindergarten.
“Hippie, why don’t you get a job?” George says. Allen ignores him.
We walk into the house where my mother lived some thirty years ago. Not much has changed. The house is frigid as always; George keeps the temperature at sixty-two and mutters about the cold. Only the tinge of urine among the potpourri is new. Mom had said in the car that grandpa was suffering from incontinence, and now it seemed we would all suffer as well. Mom also said that George had refused rubber sheets as they would “flood the room.” Like a soggy, stinking mattress is any better.
Allen and I take our bags to the sunroom, an enclosed patio filled with sunflowers: thousand piece puzzles, pictures, dried flowers, plastic petals, and the wallpaper to match. As usual, the floor is largely invisible underneath plastic tubs filled with worthless crap. My aunts and uncles broke anything of value long ago with their bickering. Allen and I move the tubs filled with broken toasters and boxes with big “As Seen on TV” logos. Grandpa must have done the Christmas shopping early.
“Don’t we already have a Slap Chop?” Allen says, carrying a stack of boxes to the back.
“Yeah, and enough ShamWows to make a quilt.”
We take the air mattress and begin to inflate it in the clearing. The thing is a queen size and stands a foot and a half off the ground when full. It is too soft and any movements will continuously reverberate, but it beats the folding couch. The mattress inflates; we head back to the living room. George watches CNN and argues with the news casters. Tonight might not be that bad.
The door from the garage opens and Aunt Michelle comes in, Mason trailing behind. Michelle is a few years younger than Mom, but with her smoking it is hard to tell. Michelle is so un-like Mom. She’s more like George, short and round with sunken brown eyes. Mom may have tattooed lip liner and soft eye shadow, but Michelle has “Chris” in curvy letters, flanked by butterflies on the small of her back; a “tramp stamp” of her ex-pro-wrestler ex-husband and Mason’s father.
“Oh hey, I didn’t know y’all were coming down,” Michelle says.
“We called you last week about it,” Mom says.
“Yeah, but you didn’t tell me.”
Allen and I look at each other before heading back into the sunroom. Mom can hold her own. Allen moves more boxes to clear a space in front of a small TV, one of those with the VCR built into it. TV time. The sound of footsteps on the plywood ramp pushes that idea away. Mason follows us into the sunroom. Mason is nine or ten, I do not really care which, and he looks more like his father than Michelle—lucky bastard.
Mason goes over to the TV and turns it on, flipping through channels until it lands on Comedy Central. The show is some stand up by Jeff Dunham, his endlessly reiterated routines and puppets blending seamlessly together in a swirl of stereotypes.
“Hey, Mason, John and I were going to watch Adult Swim,” Allen says.
“Too bad, this is my TV,” Mason says.
“Don’t you have a TV in your room back at your house though?” I say.
“So? You expect me to walk all the way back there?”
“Yeah, like fifty yards is all that far,” Allen says. Spoiled brat.
Allen takes out his Zune and starts watching a movie. I take out my laptop and let the opening of “Losing My Religion” wash away the inane laughter.
The day starts an hour before dawn as the grackles chatter in the backyard, their calls like the whistling Jupiter rockets we shot off one Fourth of July. I check my sandals for scorpions and head to one of the French style doors that open onto the back patio. Turning off the door alarm, I pull on the door that doesn’t stick as much. The air outside is already hot, but feels refreshing before the heat soaks into my skin. The back patio is paving stones; thin weeds sprouting between the cracks. Several chairs are arranged around a cracked glass table, every inch crusted in bird droppings. Two large pecan trees grow in the yard. The trees used to shade an above-ground pool when I was younger. When George got fed up with fishing pecans out, he had it removed. That was when I started hating Midland.
I walk off to where Great-Grandpa’s house stood until a month ago. The house where George’s father lived had been set on fire and bulldozed, a series of actions intended to prevent another fight. A few years back, my parents salvaged Great-Grandpa’s weather-worn antique ice chest from the dilapidated home and, after asking if any one objected (there were no objections), took it back with us. Mom and Dad spent something like three months in the garage refinishing the ice chest and building a shadow box for the ice tongs, ticket, and pick, sending pictures of it when they were done. Michelle immediately accused Mom of stealing away the inheritance.
In the early light, I pick over the foundation and twisted char, picking up old brown glass medicine bottles and wire insulators, the reflections of glass and ceramic giving them away. Something large glitters under splintered wood: a pineapple marmalade jar full of silver dollars. I guess Great-Grandpa never trusted banks. The jar is in fairly good shape. The label is even legible; one of the few benefits of living where it never rains.
Setting the jar down carefully, I pore over the pile, my collection steadily growing: six brown bottles, a dozen or so small white ceramic insulators, a large blue-green insulator, and an old fashioned RC bottle with a painted label. With so many treasures, I start sequestering them away. I stash the RC, marmalade jar, and large insulator in a rusted out combine harvester, one of many such monuments to tetanus that had belonged to Great-Grandpa. I carry the medicine bottles and the small insulators in my shirt to the back door. It is locked. I knock on the door with my elbow in an attempt to wake Allen and not summon George.
I watch as Allen rolls over and looks to me. He swings his legs over and plods to the door. As he unlocks it, I jerk my head up to where the small beeper alarm is, no doubt turned on again by George. Allen turns it off and opens the door.
“Bottles?” Allen says, his voice groggy. It is before noon after all.
I nod yes and carefully unload the clinking bottles and insulators while Allen walks back to bed. I stash the treasures in a small Styrofoam cooler, one of dozens discarded back here when Grandpa gets his insulin. Using plastic bags, I cushion my prizes like eggs. The container hidden, I head to the kitchen, creeping carefully, watching for the scorpions that love to hide in the brown shag carpet of the living room. The kitchen pantry is loaded with cans of green beans, corn, pickles, applesauce, and out of date cereal. I pour myself a bowl of stale Crispix with one percent milk. I do not like white calcium water. Dad comes into the kitchen.
“Wouldn’t you rather have an omelet?”
“I would if the only eggs they have weren’t those Egg Beaters crap.”
“Language.”
Dad looks in the fridge for a moment. “How about we wake Allen and go get donuts?”
I pour the milk down the sink, using my spoon to sieve out the soggy cereal.
Allen and I sit in the sunroom, quietly eating apple fritters while watching Cartoon Network. Dad has taken the van and gone to his job site. A day of climbing around in the hot confined spaces of a substation transformer is like paradise compared to staying here. On TV, some annoying sailor fails to do anything entertaining. I go into the living room and open the entertainment center. Dozens of dusty VHS tapes are stacked here. Home recordings of A Goof Troop Christmas and Merlin are stacked alphabetically among others. I find a tape labeled “Popeye” and head back to the room. If I am going to watch a sailor, it will be funny.
The sounds and smells of cooking come from the kitchen as Pop Eye fights Sinbad in Arabia. Allen has dozed off again and I go see if Mom needs any help. Mom is in the kitchen prepping breakfast: French toast for her and George.
“Grandpa has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow to follow up on some blood work,” Mom says. “It would be nice if you helped out with the laundry today.”
“It would be, wouldn’t it?”
“John,” Mom says, looking at me while beating egg stuff with milk.
“Fine,” I say, getting out plates and silverware.
George comes into the kitchen.
“You got my coffee yet Maddi?” George says.
“Yes, your decaf is in the pot.”
“I don’t want decaf,” George says. “I want coffee.”
“You know you can’t have caffeine, George,” Mom says. “The doctor said it’s not good for your heart.”
“I’ve been drinking coffee since I was twelve. It gives you grit.”
George has enough grit to sand wood.
“Okay, okay. I’ll brew you another pot.” Mom says. George does not know that I helped Mom put decaf in the regular canister.
Mom is vacuuming the living room and Allen is doing the dishes. George has gone out to the barn, probably to fiddle with the scroll saw. I walk down the hall to my grandparents’ room, the smell of urine growing stronger. The bed is a disheveled mess, a white humidifier and a breathing thing for sleep apnea sit atop the low dresser, the remaining space covered with pill calendars and prescription bottles. The stench and dampness make me gag as I pull off the sheets and carry them to the laundry room. I shove the filthy bundle into the washer. Shower time.
The warm water and lavender soap are relaxing, the water running down my back and the smell driving away the lingering acrid scent of urine. A loud thud jars me from the moment. I rinse out the last of the shampoo and turn off the water. I pull a towel through the curtain as the drizzle stops. The water here sucks. The water softener makes me feel soapy. As I get dressed, someone knocks on the bathroom door.
“Panda, get the mop. You’ve got a mess to clean up, boy,” George says. “The detergent fell.”
“Just give me a minute,” I say as I dry off.
“Now, young man.”
In the laundry room I see the puddle of creeping blue soap and small blobs of the stuff all over the base board. George could not even be bothered to start cleaning. The strong smell of fertilizer in the garage makes my nose burn as I look for the mop amongst cases of peach Fresca and freezers full of bitter pecans.
Allen and I sit in the sunroom watching Samurai Jack on Boomerang. I feel old; the show came out like only a decade ago. Mason comes into the sunroom, grabs the remote off the top of the TV and starts flicking through channels.
“We were watching that,” Allen says.
“That show is old.”
“So? Jack is voiced by Phil LaMarr,” I say.
“I’ve never heard of him. Anyway, the show’s on Boomerang and all they show is old crap,” Mason says, stopping the channel on Cartoon Network. “Now this is a good show.” The blurb in the bottom corner says Total Drama Island.
“John, let’s go outside,” Allen says. I get up and follow Allen through the back door and outside again. “It’s like he does that on purpose.”
“I’m pretty sure he does,” I say. “Remember how he always invites us to play video games only to sit there playing single player and never handing off the controller?”
We walk along the dirt road next to the barn and follow the property line where the fences of a new housing development stand. We pass by the place where Great-Grandpa’s car was stuck in the sand and Dad, Allen, and I used shovels and paving stones to get it loose. A concrete retaining cistern sits next to the rusted housing of an irrigation pump. Allen and I climb up the low wall and sit on the edge, feet dangling inside. The outlet is clogged with sand and a couple of tumbleweeds stand to one side.
Allen and I watch as a lizard scurries about in the bottom, unable to get any grip on the relative smoothness of the walls.
“This cistern is kind of like that idea of the small world from that book I had to read,” Allen says.
“A microcosm?” I say.
“Yeah. That lizard is like Piggy, trapped in a kind of hell with no escape.”
“I don’t really think so Allen. Piggy was trying to maintain order and goodness. That lizard is just stuck.” Allen drops down onto the sand and sets about catching the lizard. Moments later, Allen lifts the lizard in his cupped hands before releasing it into the desert. A lizard-less tail wiggles in Allen’s hand, flecks of dust in the blood.
I climb a small dune in the back lot. There used to be nothing behind Grandpa’s house except flat heat from here to the horizon, not these endless cookie-cutter houses and stunted trees. Something hits my shin: a dirt clod. I look down to see Mason with another clod in his fist.
“Don’t throw things at me. You could hurt someone,” I say.
“You’re not special,” Mason says. “This is my back yard. You don’t live here.”
“Neither do you,” Allen says, coming from behind the dune. “You live next door.”
Mason throws his dirt clod at me; dirt explodes over my shirt.
“I’ll get you for that,” I say, picking a clod.
“He’s not worth it, Allen says.”
I drop the clod; Allen is right.
“I’m telling,” Mason shouts, turning to run to his house.
Aunt Michelle comes out of the garage and launches into her tirade like one of the news reporters George watches. I catch something about knowing better and Mason is only a child. Michelle does not like me pointing out that Mason hit me with a dirt clod; I should not lie. Allen steps in, says he saw Mason hit me. Michelle ignores him.
“Apologize,” Michelle says.
“Fine.”
I’m sitting in the kitchen at the computer, checking my e-mail. Dishes of spaghetti and French bread with too much butter and salt stand uncovered on the island even though we finished dinner hours ago. Food poisoning waiting to happen. Michelle enters from the living room.
“Does your Mom know you’re on the internet?” Michelle says.
“Yes, Aunt Michelle.”
Michelle goes into the living room. I hit the start button and begin shutting the computer down. I wish they had Wi-Fi so I could just connect with my laptop. I head to the sunroom.
“Does John have permission to go on the internet?” Michelle calls to Mom.
“Of course I do. I’m eighteen,” I say.
“I asked your mom, and besides you could be looking at obscene material,” Michelle says.
“Yes, because that’s the kind of thing I’d do in my grandparent’s kitchen,” I say.
“Don’t sass me,” Michelle says. “I’m older. You have to respect me, I don’t care what shit Maddi filled you with.”
“I’m sick of your fucking bullshit Aunt Michelle. While you go out and get smashed on box wine, Mom’s here cooking, cleaning, and taking care of your father. And you feel entitled to my respect?”
Michelle sneers and leaves through the garage; the house shakes with her exit. Mom comes into the kitchen and opens one of the canned strawberry margaritas Dad brought back the other night. Mom waves me over to the table.
“Can I have one of those?” I say hesitatingly, trying to lighten my punishment for swearing, and at my aunt no less.
“Sure,” Mom says, surprisingly. I open a can and take a sip, the sweetness cut a little by the alcohol. “It’s weird. I used to pray every night.”
“For Grandpa’s health?” I say.
“No. As a kid I didn’t get to spend time with friends or have a life really. I was always here taking care of the house,” Mom says, taking a drink. “James doesn’t understand. He didn’t miss out on going to prom just because he didn’t have a date. He didn’t have to be home by seven on weeknights or nine on weekends. He never fought with his brother. It was miserable.
“I guess it still is. Dad’s cancer is getting worse. As a kid I used to pray that The Lord would take me away and end my suffering.” We sit quietly at the table. Mom crumples her can and puts it in the recycling bag.
“You said yourself that the Lord works in mysterious ways.” I say, looking at my can on the table.
“I don’t know what to do. James is distant when it comes to things like this. I’m not even sure why I’m telling you all this.”
“Probably the alcohol,” I say. Mom looks at me sharply. “And because I’m here. You have spent many nights up listening to my problems, like when Dad and I don’t get along or when I’m feeling down. Besides, what kind of family would we be if you couldn’t share a drunken confession with us? Everyone’s a product of their upbringing and you did a pretty good job with Allen and me.”
“I guess you’re right. I don’t know what to do about Michelle though.”
“I don’t either. We’ll just have to deal with it,” I say. Mom stands up and walks down the hall toward Grandpa’s room. I drink the rest of the margarita; my head feels fuzzy and not from underage drinking.
The van is packed, the bottles, insulators, RC, and marmalade jar securely wrapped in my duffel bag in the back with everyone else’s luggage, most of a case of strawberry margaritas, and a dozen Ziploc bags of pecans. Michelle is not standing in the driveway with Grandpa George; she went to drop off Mason for Chris’s weekend of custody. We pull out of the driveway, waving at Grandpa.
“Be stranger,” Grandpa George says, waving at us.
We turn onto Rankin Highway, white wagon wheel gates standing brightly in the morning sun. Allen is snoring, his head on a pillow against the window. Dad is driving, a cup of decaf in his hand while Mom looks back at the house. I sit in the back of the van and watch the streaming sagebrush as we leave Midland.
SHAWN FINLEY
I am again crammed into the back of my parents’ van; the smell of electrical grease and the streaming sagebrush are not helping my mood. My favorite part of our yearly pilgrimage to Midland is leaving.
“John, stop frowning. It won’t be that bad,” Mom says.
“It’s always worse,” I say. “Do we really have to go see them every year?”
“Yes. They’re family. Now, I expect you to be on your best behavior,” Mom says. “You too, Allen.”
“We’ll be on ours as long as they are,” Allen says.
“I know you don’t like them and they can sometimes be draining, but we’ll just have to deal with it,” Mom says. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
We had already passed the Red River and most of the signs selling pornography, much to my mother’s relief. She would always avert her eyes and tell us to do the same, like Allen and I had never seen porn before. Outside of Fort Worth, we passed the Arby’s where I lost a tooth every summer for three years. I wish Texas had claimed only my teeth and not a child’s wonder or my mother’s happiness.
South of Midland, we pass forests of pump jacks and wagon wheel gates before pulling in front of George’s barn. We never park in the crescent drive with the green grass and shading pecan trees. The trees are fluttering with pigeons, doves, and grackles. The green is out of place in this blasted waste of sand, heat, and twanging accents. The water bill must be huge. We walk through the blistering shade and past the wrought iron gate with its dried lotus pods like wasps’ nests.
George always takes his sweet time answering the door, and of course, he will not let anyone else do it either. All he ever does is complain about the heat, the dust, and that we never call. He never calls. George is approaching obesity from the other side, not through any hard work on his part, but through the cocktail of drugs he is on—all failing to stop his cancer. I think he is addicted to annoying me. He always asks questions like why I do not have a girlfriend or if my moustache makes me a pedo.
“Maddi, James,” George says, opening the door. “You’re late.”
“We’re a day early,” Dad says. “You know that.”
“Panda, you glue a dead rat to your face?” George says.
“Ha ha, very funny, Grandpa. I’ve never heard that one before. And please don’t call me panda.” I wore a shirt with a panda on it when I was nine, and he still calls me panda nine years later. He called Mom bird turd until she was in kindergarten.
“Hippie, why don’t you get a job?” George says. Allen ignores him.
We walk into the house where my mother lived some thirty years ago. Not much has changed. The house is frigid as always; George keeps the temperature at sixty-two and mutters about the cold. Only the tinge of urine among the potpourri is new. Mom had said in the car that grandpa was suffering from incontinence, and now it seemed we would all suffer as well. Mom also said that George had refused rubber sheets as they would “flood the room.” Like a soggy, stinking mattress is any better.
Allen and I take our bags to the sunroom, an enclosed patio filled with sunflowers: thousand piece puzzles, pictures, dried flowers, plastic petals, and the wallpaper to match. As usual, the floor is largely invisible underneath plastic tubs filled with worthless crap. My aunts and uncles broke anything of value long ago with their bickering. Allen and I move the tubs filled with broken toasters and boxes with big “As Seen on TV” logos. Grandpa must have done the Christmas shopping early.
“Don’t we already have a Slap Chop?” Allen says, carrying a stack of boxes to the back.
“Yeah, and enough ShamWows to make a quilt.”
We take the air mattress and begin to inflate it in the clearing. The thing is a queen size and stands a foot and a half off the ground when full. It is too soft and any movements will continuously reverberate, but it beats the folding couch. The mattress inflates; we head back to the living room. George watches CNN and argues with the news casters. Tonight might not be that bad.
The door from the garage opens and Aunt Michelle comes in, Mason trailing behind. Michelle is a few years younger than Mom, but with her smoking it is hard to tell. Michelle is so un-like Mom. She’s more like George, short and round with sunken brown eyes. Mom may have tattooed lip liner and soft eye shadow, but Michelle has “Chris” in curvy letters, flanked by butterflies on the small of her back; a “tramp stamp” of her ex-pro-wrestler ex-husband and Mason’s father.
“Oh hey, I didn’t know y’all were coming down,” Michelle says.
“We called you last week about it,” Mom says.
“Yeah, but you didn’t tell me.”
Allen and I look at each other before heading back into the sunroom. Mom can hold her own. Allen moves more boxes to clear a space in front of a small TV, one of those with the VCR built into it. TV time. The sound of footsteps on the plywood ramp pushes that idea away. Mason follows us into the sunroom. Mason is nine or ten, I do not really care which, and he looks more like his father than Michelle—lucky bastard.
Mason goes over to the TV and turns it on, flipping through channels until it lands on Comedy Central. The show is some stand up by Jeff Dunham, his endlessly reiterated routines and puppets blending seamlessly together in a swirl of stereotypes.
“Hey, Mason, John and I were going to watch Adult Swim,” Allen says.
“Too bad, this is my TV,” Mason says.
“Don’t you have a TV in your room back at your house though?” I say.
“So? You expect me to walk all the way back there?”
“Yeah, like fifty yards is all that far,” Allen says. Spoiled brat.
Allen takes out his Zune and starts watching a movie. I take out my laptop and let the opening of “Losing My Religion” wash away the inane laughter.
The day starts an hour before dawn as the grackles chatter in the backyard, their calls like the whistling Jupiter rockets we shot off one Fourth of July. I check my sandals for scorpions and head to one of the French style doors that open onto the back patio. Turning off the door alarm, I pull on the door that doesn’t stick as much. The air outside is already hot, but feels refreshing before the heat soaks into my skin. The back patio is paving stones; thin weeds sprouting between the cracks. Several chairs are arranged around a cracked glass table, every inch crusted in bird droppings. Two large pecan trees grow in the yard. The trees used to shade an above-ground pool when I was younger. When George got fed up with fishing pecans out, he had it removed. That was when I started hating Midland.
I walk off to where Great-Grandpa’s house stood until a month ago. The house where George’s father lived had been set on fire and bulldozed, a series of actions intended to prevent another fight. A few years back, my parents salvaged Great-Grandpa’s weather-worn antique ice chest from the dilapidated home and, after asking if any one objected (there were no objections), took it back with us. Mom and Dad spent something like three months in the garage refinishing the ice chest and building a shadow box for the ice tongs, ticket, and pick, sending pictures of it when they were done. Michelle immediately accused Mom of stealing away the inheritance.
In the early light, I pick over the foundation and twisted char, picking up old brown glass medicine bottles and wire insulators, the reflections of glass and ceramic giving them away. Something large glitters under splintered wood: a pineapple marmalade jar full of silver dollars. I guess Great-Grandpa never trusted banks. The jar is in fairly good shape. The label is even legible; one of the few benefits of living where it never rains.
Setting the jar down carefully, I pore over the pile, my collection steadily growing: six brown bottles, a dozen or so small white ceramic insulators, a large blue-green insulator, and an old fashioned RC bottle with a painted label. With so many treasures, I start sequestering them away. I stash the RC, marmalade jar, and large insulator in a rusted out combine harvester, one of many such monuments to tetanus that had belonged to Great-Grandpa. I carry the medicine bottles and the small insulators in my shirt to the back door. It is locked. I knock on the door with my elbow in an attempt to wake Allen and not summon George.
I watch as Allen rolls over and looks to me. He swings his legs over and plods to the door. As he unlocks it, I jerk my head up to where the small beeper alarm is, no doubt turned on again by George. Allen turns it off and opens the door.
“Bottles?” Allen says, his voice groggy. It is before noon after all.
I nod yes and carefully unload the clinking bottles and insulators while Allen walks back to bed. I stash the treasures in a small Styrofoam cooler, one of dozens discarded back here when Grandpa gets his insulin. Using plastic bags, I cushion my prizes like eggs. The container hidden, I head to the kitchen, creeping carefully, watching for the scorpions that love to hide in the brown shag carpet of the living room. The kitchen pantry is loaded with cans of green beans, corn, pickles, applesauce, and out of date cereal. I pour myself a bowl of stale Crispix with one percent milk. I do not like white calcium water. Dad comes into the kitchen.
“Wouldn’t you rather have an omelet?”
“I would if the only eggs they have weren’t those Egg Beaters crap.”
“Language.”
Dad looks in the fridge for a moment. “How about we wake Allen and go get donuts?”
I pour the milk down the sink, using my spoon to sieve out the soggy cereal.
Allen and I sit in the sunroom, quietly eating apple fritters while watching Cartoon Network. Dad has taken the van and gone to his job site. A day of climbing around in the hot confined spaces of a substation transformer is like paradise compared to staying here. On TV, some annoying sailor fails to do anything entertaining. I go into the living room and open the entertainment center. Dozens of dusty VHS tapes are stacked here. Home recordings of A Goof Troop Christmas and Merlin are stacked alphabetically among others. I find a tape labeled “Popeye” and head back to the room. If I am going to watch a sailor, it will be funny.
The sounds and smells of cooking come from the kitchen as Pop Eye fights Sinbad in Arabia. Allen has dozed off again and I go see if Mom needs any help. Mom is in the kitchen prepping breakfast: French toast for her and George.
“Grandpa has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow to follow up on some blood work,” Mom says. “It would be nice if you helped out with the laundry today.”
“It would be, wouldn’t it?”
“John,” Mom says, looking at me while beating egg stuff with milk.
“Fine,” I say, getting out plates and silverware.
George comes into the kitchen.
“You got my coffee yet Maddi?” George says.
“Yes, your decaf is in the pot.”
“I don’t want decaf,” George says. “I want coffee.”
“You know you can’t have caffeine, George,” Mom says. “The doctor said it’s not good for your heart.”
“I’ve been drinking coffee since I was twelve. It gives you grit.”
George has enough grit to sand wood.
“Okay, okay. I’ll brew you another pot.” Mom says. George does not know that I helped Mom put decaf in the regular canister.
Mom is vacuuming the living room and Allen is doing the dishes. George has gone out to the barn, probably to fiddle with the scroll saw. I walk down the hall to my grandparents’ room, the smell of urine growing stronger. The bed is a disheveled mess, a white humidifier and a breathing thing for sleep apnea sit atop the low dresser, the remaining space covered with pill calendars and prescription bottles. The stench and dampness make me gag as I pull off the sheets and carry them to the laundry room. I shove the filthy bundle into the washer. Shower time.
The warm water and lavender soap are relaxing, the water running down my back and the smell driving away the lingering acrid scent of urine. A loud thud jars me from the moment. I rinse out the last of the shampoo and turn off the water. I pull a towel through the curtain as the drizzle stops. The water here sucks. The water softener makes me feel soapy. As I get dressed, someone knocks on the bathroom door.
“Panda, get the mop. You’ve got a mess to clean up, boy,” George says. “The detergent fell.”
“Just give me a minute,” I say as I dry off.
“Now, young man.”
In the laundry room I see the puddle of creeping blue soap and small blobs of the stuff all over the base board. George could not even be bothered to start cleaning. The strong smell of fertilizer in the garage makes my nose burn as I look for the mop amongst cases of peach Fresca and freezers full of bitter pecans.
Allen and I sit in the sunroom watching Samurai Jack on Boomerang. I feel old; the show came out like only a decade ago. Mason comes into the sunroom, grabs the remote off the top of the TV and starts flicking through channels.
“We were watching that,” Allen says.
“That show is old.”
“So? Jack is voiced by Phil LaMarr,” I say.
“I’ve never heard of him. Anyway, the show’s on Boomerang and all they show is old crap,” Mason says, stopping the channel on Cartoon Network. “Now this is a good show.” The blurb in the bottom corner says Total Drama Island.
“John, let’s go outside,” Allen says. I get up and follow Allen through the back door and outside again. “It’s like he does that on purpose.”
“I’m pretty sure he does,” I say. “Remember how he always invites us to play video games only to sit there playing single player and never handing off the controller?”
We walk along the dirt road next to the barn and follow the property line where the fences of a new housing development stand. We pass by the place where Great-Grandpa’s car was stuck in the sand and Dad, Allen, and I used shovels and paving stones to get it loose. A concrete retaining cistern sits next to the rusted housing of an irrigation pump. Allen and I climb up the low wall and sit on the edge, feet dangling inside. The outlet is clogged with sand and a couple of tumbleweeds stand to one side.
Allen and I watch as a lizard scurries about in the bottom, unable to get any grip on the relative smoothness of the walls.
“This cistern is kind of like that idea of the small world from that book I had to read,” Allen says.
“A microcosm?” I say.
“Yeah. That lizard is like Piggy, trapped in a kind of hell with no escape.”
“I don’t really think so Allen. Piggy was trying to maintain order and goodness. That lizard is just stuck.” Allen drops down onto the sand and sets about catching the lizard. Moments later, Allen lifts the lizard in his cupped hands before releasing it into the desert. A lizard-less tail wiggles in Allen’s hand, flecks of dust in the blood.
I climb a small dune in the back lot. There used to be nothing behind Grandpa’s house except flat heat from here to the horizon, not these endless cookie-cutter houses and stunted trees. Something hits my shin: a dirt clod. I look down to see Mason with another clod in his fist.
“Don’t throw things at me. You could hurt someone,” I say.
“You’re not special,” Mason says. “This is my back yard. You don’t live here.”
“Neither do you,” Allen says, coming from behind the dune. “You live next door.”
Mason throws his dirt clod at me; dirt explodes over my shirt.
“I’ll get you for that,” I say, picking a clod.
“He’s not worth it, Allen says.”
I drop the clod; Allen is right.
“I’m telling,” Mason shouts, turning to run to his house.
Aunt Michelle comes out of the garage and launches into her tirade like one of the news reporters George watches. I catch something about knowing better and Mason is only a child. Michelle does not like me pointing out that Mason hit me with a dirt clod; I should not lie. Allen steps in, says he saw Mason hit me. Michelle ignores him.
“Apologize,” Michelle says.
“Fine.”
I’m sitting in the kitchen at the computer, checking my e-mail. Dishes of spaghetti and French bread with too much butter and salt stand uncovered on the island even though we finished dinner hours ago. Food poisoning waiting to happen. Michelle enters from the living room.
“Does your Mom know you’re on the internet?” Michelle says.
“Yes, Aunt Michelle.”
Michelle goes into the living room. I hit the start button and begin shutting the computer down. I wish they had Wi-Fi so I could just connect with my laptop. I head to the sunroom.
“Does John have permission to go on the internet?” Michelle calls to Mom.
“Of course I do. I’m eighteen,” I say.
“I asked your mom, and besides you could be looking at obscene material,” Michelle says.
“Yes, because that’s the kind of thing I’d do in my grandparent’s kitchen,” I say.
“Don’t sass me,” Michelle says. “I’m older. You have to respect me, I don’t care what shit Maddi filled you with.”
“I’m sick of your fucking bullshit Aunt Michelle. While you go out and get smashed on box wine, Mom’s here cooking, cleaning, and taking care of your father. And you feel entitled to my respect?”
Michelle sneers and leaves through the garage; the house shakes with her exit. Mom comes into the kitchen and opens one of the canned strawberry margaritas Dad brought back the other night. Mom waves me over to the table.
“Can I have one of those?” I say hesitatingly, trying to lighten my punishment for swearing, and at my aunt no less.
“Sure,” Mom says, surprisingly. I open a can and take a sip, the sweetness cut a little by the alcohol. “It’s weird. I used to pray every night.”
“For Grandpa’s health?” I say.
“No. As a kid I didn’t get to spend time with friends or have a life really. I was always here taking care of the house,” Mom says, taking a drink. “James doesn’t understand. He didn’t miss out on going to prom just because he didn’t have a date. He didn’t have to be home by seven on weeknights or nine on weekends. He never fought with his brother. It was miserable.
“I guess it still is. Dad’s cancer is getting worse. As a kid I used to pray that The Lord would take me away and end my suffering.” We sit quietly at the table. Mom crumples her can and puts it in the recycling bag.
“You said yourself that the Lord works in mysterious ways.” I say, looking at my can on the table.
“I don’t know what to do. James is distant when it comes to things like this. I’m not even sure why I’m telling you all this.”
“Probably the alcohol,” I say. Mom looks at me sharply. “And because I’m here. You have spent many nights up listening to my problems, like when Dad and I don’t get along or when I’m feeling down. Besides, what kind of family would we be if you couldn’t share a drunken confession with us? Everyone’s a product of their upbringing and you did a pretty good job with Allen and me.”
“I guess you’re right. I don’t know what to do about Michelle though.”
“I don’t either. We’ll just have to deal with it,” I say. Mom stands up and walks down the hall toward Grandpa’s room. I drink the rest of the margarita; my head feels fuzzy and not from underage drinking.
The van is packed, the bottles, insulators, RC, and marmalade jar securely wrapped in my duffel bag in the back with everyone else’s luggage, most of a case of strawberry margaritas, and a dozen Ziploc bags of pecans. Michelle is not standing in the driveway with Grandpa George; she went to drop off Mason for Chris’s weekend of custody. We pull out of the driveway, waving at Grandpa.
“Be stranger,” Grandpa George says, waving at us.
We turn onto Rankin Highway, white wagon wheel gates standing brightly in the morning sun. Allen is snoring, his head on a pillow against the window. Dad is driving, a cup of decaf in his hand while Mom looks back at the house. I sit in the back of the van and watch the streaming sagebrush as we leave Midland.
