Fiction on Lit Up
Somewhere Far from Here
Dad can’t walk anymore. Well, he doesn’t have legs anymore. I guess that’s a better way to put it… if I had to put it a certain way… for a certain someone. Maybe someone like you. But that’s beside the point. Did it make me cry? When he lost both his legs to diabetes? I was actually a little excited about it at first. Now don’t scoff at me without hearing the reason why. He used to beat me until he exhausted himself. Literally gasping for air. I’m pretty sure that’s how he got to bed most nights. It was his version of a sleeping pill. Beat me like his fist was a brick… or a club… or something other than a man’s hand. Broke it over my head so many times I could never really tell who was in more pain. It used to hurt. Really, it did. Bad. I was terrified of him for a long time. Not so much now.
He took a lot of his frustrations out on me since my birth took his only love from him. Nothing feels more pressuring in life as your mom having to die to give it to you. A person had to die for me to be here. Sobering as hell, isn’t it? Too sobering in fact. It was too much weight for my little shoulders to handle. He would say I took his best friend from him. I would say I didn’t do it on purpose and that would get me a backhand for my troubles. Then he’d read from his Bible and tell me of all the love he was missing out on; the love I stole from him. Said God must have been punishing him, but he couldn’t figure out what for.
He said he always thought God was on his side as long as he did good. Did right by him. Even as a kid, I knew something wasn’t right about that. I guess he really didn’t care much for sons. His or God’s.
But anyway, even before the diabetes humbled him, he started to lose the gumption for it. Hitting me, that is. He couldn’t drop his weight into the punches like he used to. I noticed his hips weren’t in it anymore. Neither was his heart.
I even faked it a few times. Being in pain. I know, I know. You’ll think I’m crazy. But I actually felt bad enough for him that I would pretend he was really getting me good. I’d wince and make guttural noises like I couldn’t catch my breath after he buried his fist in my stomach. But really, I was just busy noticing the patch of hair missing from his old scalp. I was getting too old, and he was definitely getting too old. We were losing what little connection we had. I’ll be a little more honest with you: it all felt deserved. I killed his best friend after all. And I certainly wasn’t going to fight back. The idea of fighting Dad made my heart sick.
His punches should have hurt for decades. Forever. Really. I needed punishment. Maybe we’re the same, me and him.
Now he just sits there. Lifeless. Doesn’t read his Bible anymore. Watching reruns of M.A.S.H instead like something may change this time around. It makes me feel alone. That whole thing, about feeling some sort of sick, twisted kind of love when someone is actually passionate enough to hit you… it’s so true it’s not even funny. If you really didn’t care about the person, you wouldn’t keep breaking your hand over them. At least, that’s the kind of stuff I told myself late at night when I couldn’t sleep. Love and hate are all entangled in passion and obsession. The real killer is complete and utter… indifference. Right? Please tell me I’m right.
I have a few friends if you’re curious. I do. Mark and Jay. Their dads don’t beat them at all. They have typical moms, too. You know… alive and well. Jay’s dad works on an oil rig so he hardly sees him. Mark’s dad isn’t even around anymore. He’s dead… I guess that’s a better way to put it. Car crash on his graduation night. Mark was rushing him. He feels some pretty ridiculous guilt over the whole thing. I can’t even imagine. Well, actually, I can. Mark would probably take a beating from his dad right now and cry in joy over it… you know… because he’d be alive again. I don’t know if you’re really getting any of this. I really don’t. Please don’t hate me.
I’m just smoking a joint on the porch while I wait for Mark and Jay to take me to some abandoned house out in the woods behind our town’s only supermarket. Apparently, it’s haunted or something. Maybe not haunted. People say weird things happen there. There’s a lot of strange stories. I don’t even know what they mean by “weird things”. I didn’t even ask. I don’t ask for much. Puts too much emphasis on myself — people start staring at me, realizing I’m alive, just standing there, breathing, asking for things — it can be a bit overwhelming. Undeserving. Plus, if it’s a reason to get out, I just get out. I don’t ask why I’m going.
So, it is just a house. Standing erect in these woods like there would be houses on either side of it. It’s just sitting there all nonchalant like it’s not surrounded by tons of trees and animals. It feels like it’s hiding from all the other houses because it couldn’t fit in. It’s really weird. It’s a two-story house… bigger than my own. Mark and Jay’s too. Maybe bigger than the one you grew up in. Of course, it’s all damaged and worn with vines and crap growing all over it. Looks scary, I’m not gonna lie.
“My older brother said a kid went in and never came out,” Mark says through puffs of an e-cig. It sends a lemony aroma out around us and mixes with the smell of the woods in this interesting way. I guess it’s not really that interesting, honestly. Just a lemony smell.
Jay has his weed pen that’s a different version every time we see him. And he never shares it, either. So, who cares.
I still smoke real cigarettes and real joints like a real boy. They always take offense when I say stuff like that. I’m sure you don’t like hearing it either.
“Never came out? I heard kids in school saying if you made it up to the room in the very back, the kid’s room, something happens to you,” Jay says. Of course, he leaves it off there without adding anything else. But, you know me… I wasn’t gonna ask anything.
“Something happens to you?” Mark kind of laughs. “What does that even mean? Something happens to you.” He repeats it like it’s even dumber the second time he says it.
“Well, remember when Alysha’s mom was really sick? Coughing up blood and all that? Alysha went right up into the room. And BAM!” Jay smacks his hands together for whatever reason. “Her mom was better. Just like that. She walked out of the house without a word. Just a tear in her eye.”
“What the hell?” Mark laughs again. “How did she know she was better?”
“She said she just knew. Had no doubt in her mind.”
We’re all just standing around looking up at the house. All this vapor just wafting around in the air between us. I got real cigarettes on me… but I forgot my lighter.
“The thing is…” Jay pauses for emphasis. “Alysha’s mom was healed. Totally better. She was up and making dinner that night.”
“Did Alysha explain what happened in the room?” Mark asks.
“She did.” Jay’s amazing at suspense. I half expected him to walk off after saying it.
“And?”
“She said she just walked in the room and felt this ridiculous warmth around her.”
“Probably some sort of witchcraft,” Mark interrupts and nods at me like I’m supposed to agree. I don’t. Proud of me?
“No, she said it was a loving warmth. Like a hug. She said she had never once in her life felt as loved as she did when she entered that kid’s room. There was a bed and some kid toys and a little rocking horse to ride on. She said she just got this sudden urge to ride the horse. So she did. As she rode it, she said she just knew in her heart her mom was going to be okay.”
“Are you serious? She rode a horse and that was it? She knew her mom was better? A little rocking horse?”
“Yeah, she rode the little horse and felt like everything was going to be alright.”
Mark’s just staring into his e-cig now, trying to get it to unclog, acting like he didn’t hear him.
Jay hits his weed pen quickly and shoves it back into his pocket like we didn’t just see him hit it three times in a row.
I think I’m gonna say something now. I clear my throat because I haven’t spoken in days it feels like. Maybe weeks. I may just be seeing if my voice still works… if I still sound the same.
“Who’s going first?”
Was that me? Did I just ask a question?
“Not me,” Mark blurts out, still almost interrupting the only three words I say all night.
“Why not?” Jay asks, all disappointed. “Scared of all that love? Scared something good might happen?”
I don’t think any of us are prepared to feel a love like that. It makes my spine crawl. I’d rather a punch square to the jaw. Maybe a swift kick to the liver while I’m down.
“Hell no. I don’t believe it. Alysha probably already knew her mom was doing better before even showing up. Everyone just lies.”
“What about the kid disappearing? You said that one,” Jay reminds him.
“Still probably lies. Even if not. You think someone disappearing makes me feel better? If you’re so gung-ho about it… you go.”
“Nah, I’m good. Life ain’t bad. I don’t want anything to change. Why don’t you go?” Jay gestures to me accidentally with his weed pen. He looks worried I may think he is offering it.
I think about it for a minute. I really do. Dad needs a new pair of legs. Or a new heart. Maybe I do too, honestly. Maybe I’d walk in that room and want to ride the little horse just like Alysha. Feel all that beautiful warmth she was talking about. Get a feeling that everything was going to be okay. Maybe I’d get to walk home, all teary-eyed, knowing Dad was back to full strength. Maybe even without his anger issues this time around. God and him best friends again, you know, since he’d give his son a chance this time. Or maybe I’d disappear like the other kid. Just completely vanish into the walls or wherever vanished people go.
Maybe if I disappeared, it’d bring you back, you know? It would be a great way to leave this place, if something like that could happen. I don’t know which one of those options would be better, really. Or if nothing would happen at all. Which is probably the case. All I know is the three of us are just standing here looking at the house, not moving an inch. Just statues in the dark. Not ready for anything. We all look like we’ve been standing here for a hundred years. Vines should be growing on us by now. I don’t think any of us could move even if we wanted to. Could you… if you were still alive?
