It had taken him an hour to clean up the puke and dispose of the squirrel carcass, All the while he endured vicious barbs and nasty giggling from the two females who had decided to “supervise” rather than help. The dead animal was all but forgotten now, only hate rattled around his brain.
If that stupid bitch wants me dead then she should just shoot me, but that would mean she would have to get off her lazy ass and do something besides whining out of her cunt. She can’t do anything but complain that’s why she never gets anything done. She just complains and waits for someone else to fix it because she’s such a lazy whore.
This was one of his escapes. Not the big one, but a minor oasis to deal with the garbage of life. A place to expel the venom from his soul. With each word he tossed out, he felt a cathartic warmth, a rush of pleasure, which stabilized his mood. Pressure slowly decreased.
And it’s only ME! She doesn’t treat Michelle or Catherine bad. And it’s not just because I’m a boy. She has some special hate in her heart for my presence. She won’t talk like that to Father. Or anyone else! Bitch is always looking for some excuse to attack, like I’m ruining the house that’ll be mine.
He paused. Technically, Mother was right. The place probably would go to him as the only male heir. Michelle was older, but considering her toxic waste lifestyle, it would be turned into a crack den five minutes after her claws snatched up the deed. Father would never let that happen. The house’s legacy was very important to him.
Their home had been in the St. Fond family ever since Jon’s great-great-grandfather ordered the two-story house out of the Sears Roebuck catalogue in 1922—The Puritan, model no. 3190—paying the princely sum of $1,947 for the whole thing. Once the thirty thousand pieces had been shipped down the Erie Canal, the old patriarch had the dwelling installed over a pre-existing cellar. He must have been a cheap bastard because he refused to shell out for frills like plumbing, electricity, or a boiler. The old time ways were the best to him apparently, including having to wipe your asshole with your own hand. All of the staples of modern life had been added later by less sturdy descendants.
While being forced to write some stupid essay about his family, Jon had stumbled on a whole box of old papers detailing his great-great-grandfather’s legal troubles over the construction. The old man would hire a crew for a day, fire them without paying, and then hire a different crew for the next day. He kept this up until the house was finished. Eventually, the various crews banded together and sued for their wages. The old man refused to settle and strung the proceedings out for six years before finally settling on a quarter of what they were owed. The land appeared to have belonged to the family for longer than the house stood, though most of the records had been destroyed by some flash flood in 1959.
And even if I will inherit it, there’s some horrible thing just waiting underneath. I know it. They always half-ass it with me. Like there’s a lot of taxes owed on the house or it’s on a sinkhole or something like that. That’s how they work. Catherine gets all the latest Barbie crap, but when I ask for that new VHS copy of Star Wars, they get me some knock-off episodes of Jason of Star Command, the shittiest of shitty sci-fi shows.
The phone rang. Someone else answered, then his mother squawked up the stairs that the call was for him and he needed to hurry the hell up. Jon stashed the book in its hiding place under a small black and white TV on his desk. That was another way his parents screwed him. Michelle had a massive twenty-five-inch Zenith television with cable hookup—the little snot got thirteen whole channels right to her room—while he had been given this crappy ten-inch Mexican knock-off with rabbit ear antenna that he had to wrap half a yard of tinfoil around to get even the lousy PBS channel.
He snatched up the receiver and waited for the other extension to click off. It didn’t. Jon breathed heavy and waited, and waited, and waited some more. God damn it . . .
“Mom, can you hang up?”
“I don’t think so. If you need to talk, go ahead. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t listen in. I mean, are you talking about drugs or robbing a bank? No? Well then it doesn’t matter if I hear.”
“It’s okay, dude,” the caller chimed in.
Michael Dutch was on the other end. Jon’s oldest friend. His non-biological brother. Michael also had the distinction of being one of the few people with a worse home life than Jon. His parents were self-absorbed assholes just like Jon’s, but they also had the added handicap of being poor. A hand-to-mouth existence had been Michael’s entire life. He needed an escape as much as Jon did.
“Are we still on?”
“Definitely.”
“All right, I’ll meet you in a bit.”
“Remember, you have to do all your chores first,” butted in Mother. “I’ll be double-checking and reporting to Father. Anything not done well and you’re not going anywhere, mister.”
Jon slammed down the phone and panted a while in near-rabid frenzy. Fuck her! This was one of her little games. No matter how much he scrubbed the floor or how long he vacuumed the rug, there would always be a problem, real or imagined. It didn’t matter.
He was going out and she could shove the chores. If she did tell Father . . . a cold dread seized him . . . it was a problem to deal with later. Right now, Jon needed to get away.
He gathered up a number of hardbound books with bits of loose-leaf paper sticking haphazardly between the pages and put them carefully into a backpack. These were precious objects, holier than any ancient script. They were the tools and keys with which Jon escaped the world. They were how he kept his sanity and maintained stability in his soul. They let him be . . . something else.
He donned a baseball cap and sauntered down the stairs. The Girl Scout gear stowed away, Catherine was now decked-out in a brightly colored leotard. She pranced around the living room with the best ballerina flats money could buy adorning her feet. As she spun, an infectious grin of true joy broke out over her face. Mother clapped, pure maternal love leaking from her smile.
“Beautiful. Just beautiful,” she muttered.
And it was. For a split second, he forgot all about the horrible snitching and lies Catherine had made up about him and took in her happiness. There wasn’t much grace, but her laughter made up for all that. It was a side of his sister that only occasionally snuck out. Then she saw him and evil reclaimed her face.
Mother joined her in the stare. “Are you going to make a stand or something?” she mocked Jon.
“Nope, I’m just going.” He strode past them.
“Fine,” Mother said, shaking her head, “you’re the one who’ll deal with Father, not me.”
He slammed the screen door behind him and yanked his Huffy from the garage. There was still a smear of blood down the center of his front wheel. The guilt stabbed him again. Just an accident, he reminded himself. Jon gave a brief salute to the trash can which was the animal’s final resting place. Then hesitated, thinking there should be more that he could do.
Inside, Mother heaped praise on Catherine. “When we go, you’re gonna be number one. Oh, I know it! You’ll be the prettiest girl there. Everyone will be jealous.”
Mother and daughter spent a lot of time touring the child pageant circuit. The pair primped and preened, teased up hair, rubbed Vaseline on teeth, danced, and sang. Many times Jon had come home to see Catherine standing on the kitchen table practicing cute quips to say to the judges or reciting rote speeches on how much she loved herself some Jesus. Catherine did fairly well, too. A shelf on the upper walkway was loaded with ribbons and trophies. Rather than be jealous, Jon was all for it. It got them out of his hair.