[Fiction] Once Saved, Always Saved

 

“Who wants to go for a walk?” my dad asks, leaning back in his chair as my mom clears the plates. She glances at him and then very quickly at me, then says she’s too tired to come along, but that we should go without her. My sister says she has homework and needs to go to her room, but I know she’s going to call Brandt, her new boyfriend. I stick my tongue out at her. She rolls her eyes at me, but I’m pretty sure she smirked, too.

“Aren’t you studious lately!” my father says, and I wonder if he’s impressed with Shelly’s supposed study habits, or if he’s onto her. God, I hope he’s onto her.

My mother sighs through her nose and purses her lips. She’s definitely onto her. The face Mom makes is exactly the same one she makes when mocking her own mother. I wonder if she knows she’s doing it, or if she’s subconsciously channeling Gamgam. I wonder if I’ll end up making that same face too, one day.

“How about you, kitten?” my dad turns to me. “You wanna go for a walk?”

He says it in the same too loud, jovial way he talks to Mr. Winchester, our old yellow lab mix. Mr. Win even notices, and gets halfway up, tail thump-thump-thumping for a few beats before he realizes no one is talking to him and turns his back to us with a sigh and lies down again.

“Daddy, stop calling me kitten, I’m too old for that,” I say, but I realize I’ve slipped up and called him Daddy, not Dad, so my point is moot. Shelly and I decided that once we were in middle school, Daddy sounded too babyish. She’s done a better job of sticking to Dad than I have, but I’ve only just started sixth grade, and she’s almost in high school. Still, I’ve got to work on it.

Dad smiles at my slip-up, but he doesn’t mention it. Instead, he tousles my hair and says, “Sorry, I keep forgetting you and Shelly are young ladies now,” with a stress on the young ladies part that I can’t quite decipher.  Then he immediately makes an exaggerated goofy face and starts smoothing my hair back down. “Oops, sorry. Young ladies don’t like their hair being ruffled, do they?”

“So, you guys gonna go for a walk or what?” my mom interrupts. “Stay here any longer and you’ll have to do the dishes.” Dad and I jump up, grab Mr. Win’s leash, and the three of us rush out the door in a giggling barking flurry, Dad shouting something about escaping our slavish overlords.

Outside, the night is crisp and clear, and Daddy points out the constellations as we walk. He only knows Orion and the Dippers, but I don’t know any other ones, either, so I just go with it. Mr. Win poops, and I pretend to be looking at something else so Dad will pick it up. I hate how it feels through the baggy, warm and too soft, and I hate having to wait to get home before scrubbing my hands. I know picking up after your dog is part of being a Responsible Dog Owner, but if I don’t see him poop, I can’t be held responsible, right?

Dad asks if I want to walk to the old golf course. I haven’t been in years. It was abandoned after the storm; they built a new one further into the park, and the old one became a sort of common area. Some of the more crunchy types, as mom calls them, have planted vegetable gardens there with little signs saying “Victory Gardens Are Back!” but mostly it’s used as a dog park now. Mr. Win likes to swim in the old water hazards.

I used to love it, but since the monster showed up, I haven’t been back. It’s not a real monster, of course. (Come on, I may be young, but I’m not that young.) No, it’s a huge spray painted mural on one of the bathroom buildings. It’s blue and yellow, mostly, and exceptionally well done. It looks like an almost human face, coming out of the earth, mouth open and not entirely emerged. It has huge teeth, but the mouth itself is painted with so much skill in the shading that it looks like an actual hole was knocked out of the wall to make it. Like someone could walk right through it, or fall in. You can’t tell if it’s open ‘cause it’s screaming, or ‘cause it’s hungry, or just ‘cause it’s stretching out of the earth, but whatever it is, I hate it. The yellow eyes follow you around like an old painting in a Scooby Doo cartoon, and it’s horrible.

“Sure,” I say, “we can go to the golf course.”

I have no idea why that came out. I’d meant to suggest going the other way, towards the levee, but now that I said it, I think, maybe this will be good. Maybe if Dad is with me, the monster might not look so scary, and then I can get over it, and go back to walking Mr. Winchester there by myself. It’s easy to not see him poop when he’s running off-leash.

We walk towards the course. Dad says how he likes it so much better now, since there aren’t any streetlights and we can see all the stars. I’m not sure how I feel about the lack of light. It’s true that the moon looks brighter, and after a while, my eyes seem to adjust and I can make out shapes in the moonlight. Trees, bushes, parked cars. But still, it’s pretty dark, and I shudder a bit when I think about what the monster will look like now. Or will we even be able to see him?

“So, tell me about school,” Dad starts.

“Dad, no, it’s fine, school’s fine, I don’t want to talk about it, please,” I groan. “Why do grownups always ask about school? I don’t ask you about work.”

“OK, OK,” he throws up his hands, swinging the baggy of Mr. Win’s poop as he does. “So what do you want to talk about, then?” he asks.

I pause. What do I want to talk about? Suddenly I feel suspicious, remembering Mom’s glance at me after dinner, when Dad first suggested a walk.

“Why?” I ask him, and I feel my eyes narrowing and my hands going to my hips, my elbows pointing out like little wings. “Why do you want to know what I want to talk about?” I realize if this were Mom and me talking like this right now, she’d say something about my defensive stance, and then I’d feel even more defensive, maybe say something about her offensive stance, and then we’d argue, which would turn into a fight immediately, and I’d have to scream and slam a door and play loud music.

I don’t want to have that fight with Dad, I can’t. I try to relax my arms, draw in the dual points of my elbows, but I can’t seem to bring them down entirely.

Dad laughs. “Look at you, bristling and ready to fight. Settle down, kitt–oh sorry, right, not kitten. Settle down, sweetheart, it’s OK.”  He puts his arm, the one not holding the poop, on my shoulder, turning me a bit to face him.

“Hey. It’s okay,” he says again. “We don’t even have to talk. We can just walk quietly. I just thought, we never get a chance to talk, just you and me. Your sister and mother are always around, and I thought it might be nice to have a little moment, is all. OK?”

“Okay.”

We walk in the quiet for a bit, Mr. Win starting to pant, the jingling of his collar keeping time with us. I know what I want to ask. I’ve wanted to for a while, but now I know I have to ask, I have to know.

“Daddy? Why did you stop coming to church with us? Don’t you believe in God anymore?”

Dad laughs, a short bark, not his usual full guffaw.

“Pulling out the big guns already, huh? Okay, alright. Why did I stop going to church. Well.”

Two bikers pass us, ringing a little chiming bell as they do. DRRRRIIIIIING, drrrrriinnng. It sounds so tinny and cheap, like a toy you wouldn’t even want on a trike. It seems wrong that these grownups are using a rejected toddler toy on their bikes. But grownups on bikes seem wrong anyway. I know they’re the crunchy granola types my mom bitches about sometimes. I can tell from the strong smell they trail, like dirt and raw onions and the reptile house at the zoo. It’s a smell I associate with grownups, that reptile house smell. Grownups doing grownup things, behind closed doors, sounds of skin slapping, giggles, moans. I don’t like it.

“Glaring at the hippies, just like your mom, aren’t you?” Daddy says, sounding amused.

“No,” I snap, “I just don’t like them riding so close to us is all.” Why does it annoy me so much to be compared to Mom? I think about her making Gamgam’s pinchy face, and feel my own face get hot. “Don’t try to change the subject on me.”

“Right. Sorry, sweetheart.” He takes a deep breath, then starts again, “I never liked church. I’m not saying I don’t believe in God, or that I do, but it’s sort of irrelevant to me, and going to church never felt right. Why am I going inside to worship a deity who is supposed to be everywhere? Why would I want to stare at the back of some guy’s head when I can be out here, with my daughter, staring out into the depths of space, pondering God, and aliens, and stars, and weather?” He bends down and unhooks Mr. Winchester, who bounds off across the empty old golf course like he isn’t 11 years old and arthritic.

“Miss Beth at church says only the true believers will ascend to the Kingdom of Heaven, but Miss Gracie told her that once saved, always saved.” I reply. Then, “Were you once saved, Daddy?”

“Yes, sweetheart, I was once saved. In front of God and everyone, when I was nine, at First Baptist Holly Oak. So by Miss Gracie’s logic, I’m always saved. But look, don’t listen to Miss Beth or Miss Gracie too much, OK? They don’t know everything. None of us do.”

I look across the field, towards where the bathroom and the monster are. I can’t make anything out. There may be a dark shape, but I can’t be sure, and I’m not even sure that’s the right part of the field, now that I think about it.

I want to ask Daddy what he means about my Sunday School teacher, but something he said earlier is bugging at me, like it’s tapping on the back of my brain.

“Where’s Mr. Win?” I ask instead.

“Mr. Winchester! Here boy! Here, Win Win Win!” Daddy calls. We hear a splash, and then ducks quacking angrily, and Mr. Win’s happy puppy bark. “Come on back, buddy, and leave them ducks alone!”

I take Daddy’s hand as we walk towards the splashing.

“What about aliens, Daddy? Do you believe in them?” I finally feel brave enough to ask.

“Sure, why not?” he answers, and I can feel him shrugging. “Why would we be the only ones here?”

“Do you think they believe in us?”

“Probably. Even if they don’t know exactly what we are. We don’t really know what they are, either.”

“Do you think they’d ever come here, though?” I wonder.

“Why not? Maybe they already have. Maybe they’re here right now,” he says. I don’t like this idea at all. “What do you mean, like they’re here here? Like on the golf course?”

I look around. It’s so dark, and I realize I can’t see the edges of the course, just blackness that gets blacker, all around us. I’m suddenly reminded of a scene in a movie about shark attacks I saw once, where the couple looks up from snorkeling and they realize the boat is gone, and the camera starts panning around slowly, and she kept yelling “which way is land?” but there was no land anywhere, just water stretching out, out, out, until it met sky, and then down, down, down…

I squeeze Daddy’s hand.

“Sure,” he answers again, too casually, but he sounds far away now, like he’s drifting in water or there’s something in my ears. “Why not? They could be right here, all around us, right now, invisible to us, listening, taking notes, who knows?”

He keeps walking, but I’ve stopped.

I see a shape that looks huge towards my right, it’s taller and blacker than the other blackness, and there are no stars there. I stop moving, I can’t look, I can’t tell if I’ve closed my eyes or if I’ve gone blind or if the blackness has consumed everything. I try to call for my dad, try to say Daddy, but I’m so scared if I open my mouth the dark will get in it, and into my eyes, and I think, “what if I’m looking into an alien’s eyes right now and I just can’t tell?” and then I feel something cold and wet touch my leg, and now I can scream. I scream and scream, and I’m not sure what’s grabbing me, or why I’m wet, or why I’m flying, not sure if I’ve been lifted or if the ground opened. I’m aware only of my own scream in my ears and a horrible tightness in my chest like I can’t breathe and the certainty that the darkness got into my mouth and my eyes and that I might never see or hear anything else again.

“OK, OK, down boy, calm down, knock it off, Winchester, goddammit.” Daddy’s voice cuts through, and slowly I recognize the wetness on me is Mr. Win, soaked from the duck pond and rubbing against me. I’m in my dad’s arms, we’re back on the street, and Mr. Win is very excited. He keeps jumping up on us, making my dad angry.

“Daddy? Are you OK?”

“Hey sugar, yeah, I’m OK, are you OK?”

“I think so. Did … did I pass out?” I ask. The street is getting brighter and better lit as we get closer to the house.

“I’m not sure, baby, I think Mr. Win knocked the wind out of you when he came bounding up like that. He–god DAMMIT, Winchester, knock it OFF!” he yells, and gives Mr. Win a hard swat across the nose.

The lab settles down with a whine and stops jumping on me.

“He’s probably worried that I’m not walking,” I say, a little worried about it myself, “so maybe you should put me back down.”

Dad hesitates, then lets me slide gently down and releases me. He looks down at me. “Sure you’re OK, then, Kitten?”

“Yes, Daddy. I’m fine,” I say, and I take his hand and walk with him the rest of the way back home.

Katrinaversary Number 9

August 29, 2014

Nine years ago.
My car had been totaled days before, so I was going to stay. Thankfully, my dad decided they didn’t want me to, and drove from Alabama to get me. It took 13 hours to make the 160 mile drive back to Mobile.
I left the cat behind, because she was terrified of car trips and I didn’t figure I’d be gone more than a few days. She was mostly an outdoor cat, she’d weathered hurricanes before, she didn’t like being inside much.
My parents’ house lost power and water for weeks.
I watched CNN from under a blanket at a friend’s house. Watched my city flood and burn, watched Anderson Cooper plead with the world for help, watched George W. Bush tell Brownie he was doing a heckuva job while the bodies of those who couldn’t afford to leave bloated, rotted, floated down streets. I watched as white folks “survived by scavenging” and black folks “looted.”
I watched as an overblown egomaniacal pop star was the only one who dared to speak the truth about our despicable president.
I couldn’t come home for 8 months, and when I did, my home had been looted too.
I spent that spring and summer gutting houses full of sludge and rotten meat and ruined lives and the all too tangible filth of government failure.
I never saw my cat again.
Nine years ago.

Celebrity, Death, Mourning

August 11, 2014

Robin Williams

RANT WARNING: I am tired and I am cranky and I am sad. Long grumpy rambling to follow.

And so, as with every celebrity death, out come the trolls. You might even have one in your  Facebook feed now, some eye-rolling turdbucket who likes to sneer and act superior and say something like, “Sorry, I don’t have time to feel sad about some actor guy I never met. The Real Tragedy (TM) here is Syria/Gaza/Michael Brown/global warming/abortion.” And then you might feel a little bit foolish because you had a feeling for a minute about some dude you never met who voiced a cartoon genie once, when clearly you should be sad about other more important things.

No, no, no. Hold up. This smug fucker only has the ability to have one sympathy a day and he acts like YOU’RE the dick? No. Absolutely no.
First of all, it is entirely possible to have more than one emotion at a time. You can even feel similar emotions about different things, at the same time, or throughout the day. In fact, it’s a little abnormal to only have the one sympathy, and once you’ve spent it, oops, you’re all out of sympathies!
“Sorry, I poured myself a bowl of cereal before I knew the milk was bad this morning and it made me sad, so I don’t have any sympathy left to offer for the loss of your grandmother. Next time you have a family tragedy, please let me know first thing in the morning, so I can properly apply my one sympathy. Next!”
And why are people only like that about tragedies? That there can only be One Real Tragedy per allotted time. Why not with happiness? If you were to say, “Yay, I’m super excited about Guardians of the Galaxy coming out this weekend,” would they sneer at you and say, “Sorry, I’m too happy about those girls escaping from Boko Haram to care about some silly Hollywood flick,” and roll their eyes? Of course not. That would be silly and rude. Well, so is this shit.
Go ahead and be sad about Ferguson and also get choked up thinking about the “Oh Captain, my Captain” scene. It’s fine. It’s normal. It’s human.

Secondly, celebrities, especially actors and writers, do affect our lives, like it or not. They are often stand-ins for our own issues, selves, and real lives. They specifically play to our emotions. It’s sort of their schtick, you know, making us feel things. In this case, Robin Williams touched many, maybe even most of us, throughout our entire lives. He was funny, yes, and making people laugh means quite literally bringing people joy. That is important. But his roles in many dramatic films were often tinged with a deep sadness; many of his characters, such as in Good Will Hunting, were people who were doing all they could to fight the darkness. This touches people. It affects them. It affects us. Often, it affects us because we can relate, because we too, are trying not to succumb to the darkness. I think it’s clear Robin Williams wasn’t just acting. He was a man who struggled his entire life against unimaginable darkness and pain, and humor was his strongest weapon.
If only it had been enough.

Thirdly. The mental illness. When someone succumbs to their mental illness and kills themselves, you often see people start saying that suicide is the most selfish act possible. Is it? Really? I’m gonna nominate rape and murder for that distinction, yeah?
Yes, suicide affects the victims’ families in one of the most painful ways possible. Absolutely. But it is not an act of selfishness, or of cowardice, or of bravery, for that matter. It is an act of desperation by someone in extreme pain. And dismissing it as cowardly or selfish doesn’t help ANYONE. It doesn’t lessen the family’s pain, and it doesn’t help those who are still struggling with their own self-destructive thoughts. It does not help. So knock it off.

Fourth. I fear somewhere in the back of my mind that I may be guilty of having done this, or something similar. I am sorry. Sometimes, I too am an asshole. We contain multitudes.

There is a lot to be sad about. There is also a lot to rejoice in. We should all try to keep those scales tipped at least slightly towards the joyful.
And when you’re having trouble with that balance, please talk to someone. Me, another friend, or even someone you’ve never met. Remember the effect that just a stranger can have on someone else’s life.
1-800-273-8255 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Katrinaversary Number 8

August 29, 2013

Eight years ago today, I was stuck in Mobile, watching my beloved New Orleans drown. I’d never felt so helpless, huddled around a TV at a friend’s house, sleeping on a futon, not yet realizing that nothing would ever again be the same. I was regretting having left, as if somehow my being here would have helped.

I told a friend I was coming back that Wednesday. Ha. It took me 8 months to come home for good. Wednesday indeed.
But come home I did. I’d been looted, but that was OK. Those who took what they did clearly needed it more than I. My home was still standing, not too hurt. It’s still standing, and I’m still in it!

My first trip back was in November, for my birthday. It was my 29th, and I was damn sure I wasn’t going to usher in the last year of my 20s in Houston, where I’d ended up. I packed my dogs, we came home, and I lit candles and inspected damage. The city was post-apocalyptic, there’s no other word for it. It was desolate, destroyed, guarded by heavily armed men in uniform. It was awful, but it was also wonderful just to be back.
I had my dogs, I had a bottle of champagne or bourbon, and I had an unbreakable spirit. It’s the first time I really tapped into that sort of determination. I was home.

We came back, we rebuilt, we never stopped loving you, New Orleans. And we never will.

Broom and Murderspray

Remember the old urban myth with the babysitter and the phone calls that were coming FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE?
I just had my own wee version of that.

I heard a skittering on the wall behind me. Y’all know what that means by now, of course. Roachbeast. Big ol’ nasty winged demonic monster, roughly the size of a small nightmare. He’s on the less desirable side of the kitchen door. Between us, there’s a broom and a can of Murderspray.
Keeping an eye on the demon, I grab the broom, get a good grip, swingandahit!

Roachbeast disappears. Bloody hell. I inch towards the spray can. He pops his little horns (antenna, whatever, don’t get all semantics on me, he’s a demon, they’re horns) up from the top of the doorframe, I spraaaaaay and scream, usually a pretty effective move.

I wait.

And wait.

He doesn’t pop back up. I’m staring hard at the frame, I know the second I look away he will fly at my face (a huge reason I’m an atheist is the fact I cannot believe a loving god would give these things wings), so I’m patient. Staring. Waiting. Minutes tick past. I stare.

Now mind, the entire time, I’ve still been holding the broom. I lean my chin on the handle, the bristly whack-a-bug end down by my feet. My sandal-clad feet. My almost bare, practically naked, exposed feet.

Have I done enough foreshadowing?

I finally look away from the doorframe and down towards my poor dear feet…to see the goddamn thing holding onto the bristles and looking up at me from THISCLOSE to my own bare toes!
HE WAS ON THE BROOM THE WHOLE TIME!! The same broom I’d swung over my head, then down to my feet, that I was leaning against, that I held with bare hands…he was on it.

I think I screamed “Sorcery!” or “Get thee the fuck away from me, Satan,” or maybe just the classic “aaaaiighhrgh!” before whacking him all the shit to pieces.

The whole damn time, y’all. He was on the broom the whole damn time.