20
Driving in his truck at night, thinking about treating Remy with more kindness, don’t be so short with her, she’s just a girl, you understand how hard she has it, she can name her dog whatever he hits something that crumples the hood into a pile of tents.
The sound of the accident can be heard in the city and some run to The Bend with their binoculars.
His body hugs the steering wheel. His head touches the windshield which is the hood. Smoke rises from the headlights and the engine hisses. The tires on the left side go flat and Dad leans. When his arms slide off the steering wheel he jolts up with a loud gasp.
Hands on his chest, he exhales and coughs blue slush. Dad inspects his arms, chest, stomach, and thighs. No sign of blood or crystals leaking out from these parts, but from inside, yes, some organ split open. On the rearview mirror is a honeycomb hexagon in thin black marker with the words THIS IS WHAT OUR FAMILY IS LIKE written across it. Remy how dare you what’s the matter with you. She’s been acting strange, someone not Remy moving inside Remy, someone not the same daughter he sat with wearing floppy robes, talking his heart out.
He rolls his neck and practices breathing. His ribs are sore at each inhale and he’s reminded of the last time the wind was knocked out of him — in the only fight of his life — by a kid in The Sky Father Gang. Dad wanted to talk to his son before he went into the city. Dad wanted to tell him not to go, maybe it was his fault he was acting this way, how about we try talking this out. The kid with the black crystallized facial scar in the shape of a key said his son didn’t want to talk and aimed his fist for the backside of Dad’s heart and landed.
When he opens the door, his knees and hands hit the ground. He crawls to the front of the truck. What he drove into is a table with dinner plates, melted candles, and a turkey leg with little meat. Dad massages his calves. His jeans are covered in dirt and some YCL from a mason jar that was to be added to the home generator. They’ve been running low lately and Dad is worried they will run out. It takes him ten minutes to stand.
“Hey, you. What you doing out here?” says a girl, a runaway, in purple spiked shoes. She smokes a cigarette awkwardly, her T-shirt looks shredded, and she stands in the glow of a break light.
“What am I doing out here?” says Dad. “What are YOU doing out here?” He spits up more blue slush and the girl steps back. “GET. NOW. OUT OF HERE.”
The girl runs toward the fence, back to the city.
“NO ONE FROM THE CITY BELONGS IN THE VILLAGE,” shouts Dad. “STAY AWAY.” Then, even though he knows it’s impossible, “I’M TELLING YOUR PARENTS ABOUT THIS.” His chest hurts from the words coming out and he imagines a jagged crystal now lodged across his lungs.
He leans inside the truck and turns the key, his breathing sharp and painful. Nothing. Key frozen. His hand slips in blue slush covering the key. The mason jar with the YCL is empty and shattered and he notices another patch of blue slush where he sat. He calculates he probably lost several. For a few minutes he sits sideways in the truck, his legs dangling out, not sure what to do, how to explain this, how to lie. Maybe just be honest with her. What was he thinking. He could run into the city, it’s so close, but the accident is a red flag indicator of worse things to come. Besides, now he’s remembering the history of those who have entered the city, all those consequences, that prison. What was he thinking. That he could seriously drive in, sleep in his truck, eventually sell it, and start over as a man who wore a suit? He stands up and slams the door closed but it doesn’t fit anymore, appears to be the door to a much smaller vehicle, and bounces right back into his hand.
Dad looks for the moon as he walks home but sees only a massive black circle with a thin white border.
You can’t help someone who is too sick for help. There is no meaning in the offer when you should have done something before. You should worry about yourself and Remy now.
He walks into his wife’s room. She sits on the floor holding a red box.
“I had an accident taking a drive,” he says, undressing. “A table, in the street. I’m okay. I’m not hurt, so no need to worry, no need to get worked up.”
Mom stands and needles pour down her legs (Chapter 3, Death Movement, Book 8). She rubs his arms. She appears shorter. The bedroom has taken on more of a grave-yellow hue, like the bathroom, from the heat.
“Why were you out so late?”
A black smudge left by the steering wheel horizons his forehead. She touches it and he moves her hand away. She goes back again and he lets her.
“Wanted to clear my head. Isn’t it strange that a table, a table, was in the middle of the street? I’m not talking about a piece of junk someone threw out. I’m talking about a full size dining room table. Kids. Brothers Feast. Black Mask. Royal Bob.”
“You ever talk to Maggie next door? She told me the buildings are moving closer with the sun and it’s the end of times. I know, she’s old, don’t listen to her with that voice of hers. But everything moves inward. We okay?”
“I’m fine. What’s in the box?”
“Where were you driving?”
“A really big table.”
“You were driving to where you could see the prison, weren’t you,” says Mom, stepping closer, voice lowering a little, forcing eye contact. “Like we used to do. Don’t look at me like that. Don’t be the hard you, you were so gentle with me before, be like that. Remember sitting in the truck and watching the lights turn on at the prison and imagining that our thoughts were matching up with his thoughts? I do.”
He looks at his boots dotted with specks of blue. He immediately becomes worried that he’s lost more than just a few. He immediately becomes conscious that he’s moving toward zero, and as fast as the thought arrives, he rejects it. “Truck is wrecked.”
“I remember thinking I was kissing his forehead and hoped he was thinking of me kissing his forehead.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Nothing has changed.” He studies the gauntness of her face and tries to locate the past her with his finger.
“Nothing has changed,” she repeats and shakes her head away from his hand. Outside there’s that sound bugs make when it’s too hot and another building burning. The firemen wear pearl-colored heat-resistant suits and shine like soap bubbles as they fire hopeless streams of water from long hoses kids stomp on. “Can you say how you’re feeling? Why has it been like this for years and years and years and I just put up with it? I know that look, you don’t want to get into this. And don’t tell me it’s because of the separate beds thing. It’s always been this way. We’d drive out and look at the prison and I cried and said everything I felt but you never said anything. You just kind of sat there. Numb and cold.”
Then Dad blurts out, “Okay, I considered leaving.”
It’s difficult for her to stand without the black crystal fully in her bloodstream. Her legs are stilts. She’s taken more of it, but it’s leaving her system again and she’s losing the energy for everything. She’s not fully shocked by what he says, but it still hurts.
“I was going to drive as far away as possible. I wanted out. I couldn’t take it anymore. Sometimes it all feels so unlivable.”
“Would have been easier to leave than watch me die. Where’s my cloth? I have the worst dreams now.”