CJ, get outside!”
“CJ, get a toy and get outside! It’s been three days since school let out and you haven’t been out of the house since then. Now GO!” the intercom squealed.
“Wha … mom? I didn’t hear you, I was just getting to the good part on the game…”
“Damn it, CJ! Get outside. GO! GO! Get the hell out of this house and into the back yard for a while, and I don’t want to see your face until at least dinner time. You hear me!?"
“Yeah! Okay! Sure! I’m going, just let me finish saving this one move..”
“NOW!"
“What?? Oh, OKAY! OKAY! I’m going.”
And so seven year old Charles James Michael Harbaugh left the sanctity of his room and vanished into that ambiguous realm of the unknown called the urban myth. But before he went, he stopped in the kitchen long enough to grab a box of grapes from the pantry and a bottle of apple juice from the fridge. The last sound his mother heard from him was the screen door slamming as he flew through it.
********************************************************
“What in the hell are you doing?”
“Hum? Oh, I’m just aw…just…”
“You stupid shit. What, you thing you’re some kind of super writer or something? You’re a dumb ass. A big, fat, stupid dumb ass. You aren’t worth a shit, stupid or otherwise.”
“Ah shut up. You know I just like to sit here and type a stream-of-consciousness-type thing. I don’t even know what I’m typing half the time.”
“Hey! What the hell is your problem? Huh! Don’t you listen? You stupid shit. FAT, UGLY SHIT! You don’t know what you doing any of the time. You’re just a lazy, good-for-nothing. All you do is sit in front of the computer and play poker..”
“Solitaire.”
“What. . .?! GAMBLING is what it is! It’s cards ain’t it! CARDS! POKER! HEATHIN! You ain’t nothing but a big pile of lazy shit!”
Harold sat, his head drooped down onto his not quite svelte chest. He slowly rolled his eyes so he could look back and glimpse his wife standing behind him to his right. Where she always stood, hands on hips, mouth curled down in a perpetual snarl. Her eyes blazed with the fury of hell itself.
She hadn’t always been this way. When they had first met and were dating, she had been the ‘good girl’ of his dreams. Oh, he had ran around like boys are likely to do. Chasing every skirt and pom-pom in high school, panty raids in college. It was as if every girl he had ever met was willing to put out if asked – most asked him first. That was, until he met her.
She was the oldest sibling of three. The two brothers, although younger than her, always there to protect her. They had met in church and for the three years they dated, he never touched her – never even tried. Who could with those two brothers always hovering overhead like some vultures waiting to land and start tearing you apart. She was his goddess and he put her high on a pedestal. To him, she was pure, as pure as anyone could possibly get in this life anyway. He’d had enough of ‘easy’ girls and wanted her because he could not have her. When he asked her to marry him, she said ‘Yes’, but it took two years for her to do it.
He should have known something was not quite right when, on their wedding night, she giggled and giggled so much that she refused to let him touch her until she could stop. He ended up getting such a case of epididymitis that he could hardly walk. Yet she continued to laugh and point so much that the whole night soon became the morning after and nothing had been done.
That had been twenty-seven years ago. The laughing had stopped - now she just cursed and accused.
********************************************************
Jeez.
Oh, God...
It's hard to type...
I don't know what to do ...
My fingers keep sticking to the keys ... her blood is drying on my hands ...
No matter how many times I watched CSI Miami or the Forensic Files I still can't get it right ...
********************************************************
"I read your stupid story. Are you going to kill me now, you dumb-ass?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You've threatened to break my arms, punch my lights out, bury me in the crawl-space and have pushed me around ... why shouldn't I think the stupid shit you write isn't about me? Do you really think I care about what you write? People will know the truth..."
"I certainly hope so. When you kept setting the thermostat to 62 and freezing the hotel room, I told you after the 6th time that I was going to break your arm if you did it again - which you took as a challenge and promptly did it again and again. Your arm still looks in one piece to me.
When you said what you did to your own son and have him so angry that he punches holes in doors instead of hitting you, I told you that someone should punch your lights out - but it wasn't me - and no one has. Whereas I just away away from your tirades, I'm afraid he cannot control himself and may actually hurt you. You may deserve it, but he doesn't deserve any punishment for it.
In one breath you rant about how you leaving. In the next how you're never leaving. You keep alluding to some mysterious medical condition you may have - as if it's life-threatening and you only have so long to life. I said bull-shit. I said that if you ever die, you'd probably want to be buried in the crawl-space just to spite us."
"You're a sick son-of-a-bitch. I would never have said that."
"But you did."
"You're going to pay. Paybacks are hell, and you are going to get yours."
"I know. That's your mantra. I'm going to pay. And pay... and pay..."
