"Loves me? He's only lived with us for a week."
This was in Phoenix, Arizona. In the early 1980s.
"Don't ruin this for me," my mom said, telling me to get her another pain pill. Then she told me she couldn't thaw any dinner because her arthritis was killing her, that she'd tried to play her Casio keyboard and now she suffered the consequences. She said sometimes her hands hurt so bad they felt like she had poison oak under the skin. She'd had rheumatoid since I was born. In her wrists, her jaw, her knees. She was always taking pills to murder the throbbing in her joints. She was always washing the pills down with box wine. Chablis. She pronounced it phonetically, tcha-bliss.
As I shut the door to their room and walked toward the kitchen, there was a noise like the loudest yawn in the world. The house creaked and moaned. The walls shook. At first, I thought we were having an earthquake, but instead of things falling to the ground, the house stretched. I could see the carpet rip in places, desert sand slipping into the house. The window in the hallway cracked down the middle.
"What did you do now?" my mom yelled.
People could stand right out front of the house and not see anything unusual, but if they took the time to walk in the front door, they'd have seen that as the rooms dislocated, the hallways stretched to connect them. The desert infiltrated the long halls. Sand continued to wiggle its way through the cracks in the floor and walls. At first, there were only handfuls of sand here and there, but it wasn't long before I couldn't even see the carpet anymore. Each day, too, cacti sprouted, pushing their spiked heads up through the sand, growing a little higher as the months droned on.
During the day, the violent rays of southwestern sunshine blazed in the house's hallways, but at night the temperature fell to freezing. Desert predators — rattle snakes, scorpions, tarantulas, Gila monsters — lived in the house. I learned to coexist with them, to avoid provoking their wraths. Soon I didn't fear the scorpion's stinger or the way a spider's legs felt traipsing on my skin. And the snakes, especially the sidewinders, became my friends: I'd stand still and they'd slither up my leg and coil around my neck or perch on my shoulder. Their tails purred a warning, but the rattle wasn't scary. They'd never bared fangs in my direction.
Letch hunted all over the house for me. Late at night. Lumbering through the freezing desert. While my mom was on another disappearing act or after she'd passed out from a relentless suckling of tcha-bliss.
Only six months after the house's first fracturing, there were already miles between the rooms. I'd timed myself, running from their bedroom door to mine. Nine minutes in a full sprint. I timed myself running between my different hiding places. I learned to be invisible.
But one day when I expected him to be at work still, I walked into the kitchen and there he was, watching "The Facts of Life" on TV and cramming full moons of bologna in his mouth.
"Where have you been?" Letch said.
"Have you seen my mom?" I was starving, but I didn't want to stay in the kitchen, in case he was in one of his moods.
He waved a piece of bologna in my face. "Where were you, Rhonda?"
I thought about trying to run, but he was too close, would have caught me in no time and been extra mad for having to hurry. His breath was going to taste terrible.
"We need to talk," he said.
I set up a series of small bunkers, holes I'd dug up in the house's sand where I could hide without being seen. Both Letch and my mom had walked right past spots in the sand where I'd concealed myself and they hadn't noticed me.
From these safe places, I tried to talk to my mom. Like a mysterious voice. Like her conscience.
I said, "Why are you always leaving me alone with him?"
I said, "Do you know what he does while you're gone?"
"Stop it!" she said, turning in circles in the hallway, searching for me, but any man-made light was miles away and finding one of my bunkers in the dark was impossible.
"I can tell you every little thing," I said, and she tried to run away, stumbling in the sand, falling over, standing up, staggering away.
I hid for so long that my health started to fail. I lost too much weight. Dehydrated and sleeping most of the day, the sidewinders protecting me from him during these long naps.
I knew that my mom wasn't going to save me. All she did was play dumb and defend him and thaw frozen food and drink tcha-bliss. But one freezing night she was on another disappearing act, and Letch went too far with me, and I knew I had to take care of myself.
My best friend's name was Skyler. He and his mom, Madeline, lived a few blocks away. About a week before Letch went too far, I was over at their house, and Madeline complained that she thought their neighbor had poisoned their dog with antifreeze.
"Antifreeze?" I asked, and she told me that all you had to do was mix some antifreeze in with water and once the dog drank it, that was that, no more canine. Skvler and his mom had been fighting about it, because he wanted to get a new dog, but she kept saying what was the point, their neighbor would only do it again and deny the whole thing with an awful smile on his face. And Letch had just gone too far and we were home alone, I don't know where my mom was, don't know where she ever was, and Letch said, "Make me another Bloody Maria," and I limped into the kitchen. The kitchen was next to the garage. There was antifreeze in the garage. Antifreeze could kill a dog if you mixed it with water and the dog drank it. That was that. I made his Bloody Maria. I left a few inches of room at the top of the glass. He hollered at me to hurry up, he was thirsty, god damnit! I opened the garage door. The antifreeze was under Letch's workbench. The workbench used to be right next to the door, but the garage had stretched with the rest of the house. It was dark. It was freezing. I limped through the desert, through the sand. Not many people know how cold the desert is at night. Or how quiet. I struggled to get there and grabbed the antifreeze and made my way back toward the kitchen. I poured it into his Bloody Maria. I poured it in because antifreeze could kill a dog if you mixed it with water and the dog drank it. I stirred it with a spoon, worried he'd be able to taste it, that he wouldn't drink it, and there wouldn't be any that nanas that, and I wouldn't get to look at him like Madeline's and Skyler's neighbor, wouldn't get to deny the whole thing with an awful smile on my face. Letch yelled again for his drink. I stirred it some more. I put in extra Tabasco and pepper to try and hide the taste of the antifreeze.
I made my way through the desert, back to their bedroom, walking past some sidewinders who purred and purred and purred. When I opened the door, Letch said, "Did you put your balls into it?"
I handed him the drink. That was that.
Dive
I lowered myself through the dumpster's trapdoor and snaked my way down the ladder. It was humid, smelled like tuna fish. There weren't any lights but the farther down I descended, dropping into that galaxy of blackness, the less I was scared. I was used to the infinity of Damascus' all-black paint job.
A voice came from beneath me. "You coming or what?"
I looked down and saw the light coming from little-Rhonda's helmet. Like a hotheaded coach, he clapped his hands and told me to hurry up.
"How'd you get down there?" I said.
"Climb faster."
"What is this place?"
"Come on. Chop, chop."
I made my way down. My arms ached. I should have been counting the ladder's rungs, so I'd know how far I'd dropped, but it was too late now
"Finally," little-Rhonda said, as my feet hit the floor.