RE Bunch

The By-Blow Promise Land

The water in the bathroom never got hot. It ran for minutes growing colder. The mud in Truett’s hair circled down the drain, but the water left behind the film of anxiety. He shivered as he scrubbed himself. His shoulders pinned up to his ears to preserve the lingering warmth dripping down his body. As Truett toweled off the floor under the damp mat was softer. It sprang back from his feet and slipped under his soles.

The bathmat more like gossamer moss under his dripping feet. The towel wrapped around his body like plush down. It matched in a way that everything clashed for attention. Eclectic, abandoned, found. Three different mouth washes lined the shelf above the mirror, with a dozen assorted colored razors, and knickknacks from every corner of the earth that transformed the room into a magic eye. There was a small alien figurine from Roswell, poker chips from Las Vegas, a boomerang from Alice Springs, and trinkets from some exotic location in languages he thought he would never experience for himself. Everything brought here from another place. A reflexive smirk crossed his lips for a small plastic Homies standing on the corner of sink next to a Cecil Hotel room card. All these items traveling from far away, striking out from each other, to be abandoned here. Their dissimilarities too frequent as his eyes scanned around the cramped cold room. Truett’s eyes grew tired and his mind exhausted. It was all out of place, but in order here.

Nothing was as it should have been. Nothing was what took over Truett as the stolen appeal of rustic charm made it hard to take himself seriously.

Nothing had happened to him. Truett was not hurt. He was even feeling better now that the gritty muck was off him. The shirt and shorts were clean for being found on the floor. They were soft against his skin and smelled like soap still. He expected something to smell of mold or drip with slick mildew in this house but had yet to find it. His stomach growled as the smell from the kitchen wafted under the door. He was hungry, soon to be fed. Leticia had been sweet, even if it sent his skin crawling. Bolin’s presence was jarring at first, but nothing had happened then either. Truett heard the booming laughter of Felix’s voice. Felix was carrying on down the hall in a different room. Felix was laughing at something he said, because only he was genuinely laughing at it. Truett heard high barks and hoots but not laughter or joy. The music box tone responding back felt out of tune with Felix. Like it was slowly winding to a stop.

“Christ, I could drink.” Drinking would probably not help, but it could not hurt at this point in his night. He was looking forward to the dreamless sleep ahead of him. Some alcohol on an empty stomach would expedite that quiet slumber.

Truett felt the lightness of his choices suffocate him. The bathroom did not feel any more secure than the rest of the house. He had nowhere to go. Peeking through the bathroom window’s closed curtain he saw rain rolling down like black ink. The storm outside imperceptible in its waning or waxing fury against the night. There was nothing left to do at this moment. Nothing had happened. He was not hurt. Felix was not dead. Truett was suspicious still of the piles of clothing on the ground but Leticia and Bolin had yet to show him any but standoffish hospitality. Everything in this place was most likely a trinkets that washed up from tourist. Fun litter that drifted ashore.

People come, people leave, but people always leave apart of themselves behind. Their stuff gets taken in again, new places, new purposes. Truett saw his and Felix’s muddy clothes piled in the corner. When they would leave in the morning, they would leave those clothes. Truett’s shoes belonged to the mud under the house now, and Felix’s car had to be a loss now. Leticia would probably wash the clothes, line dry it by the pinched marks in the corners of his shirt, and they would be part of the piles of other abandoned articles of clothing in Bolin’s room. If there was anything remaining in those pockets, it was too waterlogged to worry about now. The pile in the corner perfumed the bathroom of swampy mud and decay that left a bitter taste in the back of Truett’s mouth.

The only choice left for Truett was the hardest to accept. He had done all he could but it still felt undone. The only thing to do was nothing. As he drifted towards the door he felt like a jellyfish.

A knock came from the other side of the door. Truett heard a muffled monotone state, “Supper’s ready.”

The current in the house was demanding he leave the bathroom and drift on to the kitchen. Quietly, without a true direction of his own, he drifted along with it.

Truett feeling both useless and spineless, yawned to release the tension building in his throat. It did not scratch the itch that something more harsh and dire would have. It would do for now. Like everything else here would.

The warm glow of the living room bled into the bright kitchen at the back of the house. Bright enough to feel warm, but not too bright to sting. It was inviting, a polite illumination. The aroma filling the house was robust and hearty. The cold dampness stuck in his lungs made space for the warm smell of fresh baked biscuits and the herbaceous meatiness that made his mouth water. Truett’s stomach growled, not remembering fully when the last time he ate was. Even removed grief makes someone feel less hungry. His tongue telling his brain to quiet for a moment as Truett made his way to the table.

The kitchen and dining table were just as cozy the entryway of the house. It was eclectic but possessed of purpose. It was clean. Cleanliness felt important in all the rooms, but this room was spotless. The stove was still radiating an inviting heat towards the white wooden table. The counter tops gleamed like polished ivory of the worn copper pans and pots hanging above them. By the drawn windows in the room, Truett noticed a small deer figurine peeking out from behind them. A shy fawn head ever so slightly peering out in the kitchen from its concealed perch behind the last open chair at the table.

“I was worried you had gone down the drain.” Felix laughed as he patted the spot beside him.

Truett sheepishly tightened his lips as he took his spot in front of Bolin. “Sorry to keep you all waiting.”

“Oh! Never mind that,” Leticia said while taking up the last bowl. She filled Truett’s bowl with two ladleful’s of red meaty soup, placing it gently before Truett. She flashed a toothy grin at him as she took her seat again. “Soup stays the hottest when it’s storming outside. You boys are in for a real treat. Nothing sticks to you like homemade soup, and good things are worth the wait. Right Bolin?”

Bolin’s eye twitched upward for a moment as he ate. The primal rage Truett felt brewing earlier in Bolin seemed to be satisfied now. Bolin seemingly unaware to the conversation happening around him. The silver spoon cartoonishly small in his massive hand. The way Bolin threw his head back to swallow while chomping his teeth creased across Truett’s face. The thick stock stained the corners of his mouth as it dripped down his chin. It was uncomfortable to watch. Like watching an reptile eat. Truett fretted over remembering how to help someone chocking as he dropped his eyes down to his own food. Being accused of starring was not something he felt prepared to handle either.

“Bolin be polite. Don’t play with your food. Chew with your mouth shut. Felix, now what were you on about?” Leticia’s face tired from smiling when she looked back to Felix.

“Oh, party accidents!” Felix cheered. “I was just telling her about that time I threw a drink on a girl during her birthday party.”

Truett’s rolled his eyes as he bit into a warm flaky biscuit. The crumbles melted in his mouth as the warmth pulled back his exhaustion from Felix. “What? Was I there for that?”

Felix smirked, “Yea you were. It was Whitney’s 22^nd birthday party.”

“Why would you ever do that to a poor girl?” Leticia leaned in closer to Felix.

“Well, it was a complete accident. Whitney had pulled out all the stops for the party. She was all dolled up. She was already pretty but damn! She was really hoping the guy she had been crushing on would show up. We were drinking, playing beer pong in her kitchen. She had thrown down these towels earlier to catch the spills. So there I am, with Truett, playing the game, when I tripped on the towels. I go down hard. Whitney was standing to my side, and the full beer in my hand went right into her face. The beer already smearing her eye makeup into raccoon eyes and ruined her white dress.”

Truett frowned as Leticia’s eyes widen. Leticia gasped as she nodded Felix on. Bolin’s ignorance to Felix was something Truett was starting to envy about him. That’s not how that happened.

“That white dress was stained, see-through. Well, I picked myself off the ground, and saw her looking down. Just frozen. I remember she was looking down at me, her eyes were glittering with black tears. Whitney often was not a fussy girl, guy’s girl, but tonight was special for her. She was all fixed up to flirt with some guy, some guy who wasn’t even there yet. God I can’t remember—”

“It was Allen,” Truett stirred the soup around the bowl, inspecting the brownish-gray meat. It was different in texture than he had expected, not fully knowing what to expect. It was spiced, smelling like the sea but looked more like pork. Truett could not place the cuts of meat inside the tomatoey soup.

“That’s right.” Felix wiped the red streaks from the corners of his mouth as he continued, “So anyways, I pick myself up and put my hoodie over her shoulders. I whispered I was sorry. Whitney said it was fine, knowing it was an accident, but she just wanted to be alone. But that didn’t sit right with me. I wanted, and knew I could help. So, I left. I went out to the 7-11 on the corner and found some of those chocolate roses. I got that and a birthday card. I then got on my phone and called Allen. I told him I was picking him up in 10 minutes. He was on the fence, but I told him it would be doing me a huge favor. So, he agreed. We got back about 30 minutes later, and I shove the candy and card into his hand. I told Allen all he needed to do was knock on Whitney’s door and give her the stuff.”

“Did he do it?” Leticia leaned forward in suspense.

Truett thought she was being too polite of a listener to a mediocre storyteller. Whatever the strange meat was it the soup was good. He worked it around his mouth, picking out its own clam-like taste and meaty texture from the bits of vegetables. He felt the warmth of the meal reinflate his spirit. It was comforting to listen to Felix get high on his own supply of bullshit. It was like being back at home. Seeing Leticia’s get tired of her own charm made him feel more at ease.

“They started dating that night,” Felix’s smug satisfaction reassured by Leticia’s hooting laughter.

Bolin set down his spoon inside of his empty bowl. The ringing signaling the end of supper. “Leticia, we got 2 last chores to do tonight.”

Leticia looked over to him in a huff, “Is it that time already?”

“Can I help with something?” Felix jumped up to his feet.

Bolin’s mountainous face creased in child-like amusement. One being offered one last game before bed. “More hands make light work. The storm is calming. You know anything about livestock?”

“I grew up on a farm! I’d love to help.” Felix said dashing off to find his muddy loafers. The closest Felix and Truett had ever been to farm were the County Fair petting zoo. Truett felt his toes growing cold on the floor matching his iced patience.

“I’m going to clean up and turn down the sitting room for you both.” Leticia’s smile was cracking on her porcelain face as she started stacking the dishes. Her smooth skin wrinkled with creases around her pursing lips.

“I can help you with that,” Truett shrugged as he started to gather the leftover silverware from the table. He picked up the mismatched patterned handles and tarnished silver butter knife. The butterknife had taken his eye due to the unusual quality of the knife. Next to the spoons, this knife was heavy with a broad curved edge. The pattern was almost into the blade with wheat and prairie flowers stamped into the silver handle. It felt too formal to be mixed with the rest of the scratched and dented cutlery.

“That’s a Victoria butter spreader.” Leticia’s voice cracked with a harsh cough. The music that was trapped in her throat was niente as a low rumble began to raise on top of it. “It’s pretty, but ain’t worth anything. You can have it. Something to remember us by.”

It was more a command than a gift of hospitality. Truett smiled half-heartedly at her as he wiped down the greasy edge before shoving it into his pocket.

Truett watched Bolin slowly walk out of the kitchen, then lead Felix back out the front door. As the door slammed behind Bolin, Truett felt fear twist over inside his gut, as his mind tried to smooth it out. Felix would come back soon enough to lick his wounds. Truett smirked to himself thinking of Felix getting kicked in the rear by a goat, and then Bolin losing his patience with his fast-talking ways. A tongue lashing for the ages that Truett wanted to be nowhere nearby when it happened.

“That boy of yours can work a nerve,” Leticia yawned stretching her jaw impossibly wide. Her voice had slipped into a high monotone. Her words more of a rolling-rumble trapped in the back of her throat. “Not sorry, but how did you manage that car ride without leaving him behind?”

Truett laughed and shook his head, “It’s his car.”

“Has that boy said anything that was true?”

“Half-truths mostly. I don’t know. Felix means well most of the time. Mostly he doesn’t mean anything by those stories. I think the only honest part about him came out with his baby. You should hear how he talks to his son. Some real big fish are swimming in his bedtime stories.”

Leticia’s eyes grew wide for moment before they began to glitter around the rims, “That boy has a baby? That boy wasn’t promised the same sense God promised a bullfrog. Both of you must think we’s simple. Callin’ alligators lizards to my face.”

Like all things in life, it started as a consequence to an innocent mistake. “I wouldn’t lie like that. Jesse’s about three years. If I could find my phone, I’d show you some pictures.”

Leticia had been running the sink for the dishes. The steam swirling up to the bottom of the drawn curtains. She slapped some stained zip lock bags onto the tabletop, as she motioned for Truett to come closer to her, “Mind lending your hands so I can freeze this?”

Truett obliged her, holding the well-used bag open as Leticia ladled the soup inside. The plastic of the bags almost felt pre-greased as soup steamed up the sides.

“What was in the soup?” Truett eyed each ladle full as it slipped down inside with a heavy plop.

“Family recipe.”

“Ah, I see.” Truett examined the next ladle full to see if he could find the secret for himself. “Is it goat?”

“What? Why would it be goat?” Leticia’s patience had crossed the border from annoyed to hostile.

“Sorry. Well, you said you were looking for your buck earlier. And Bolin said he got the buck back. Boy goats are bucks, right? How do you keep them?” Truett cut his eyes to Leticia’s face, and noticed her eyes had changed. They were glassy and radiating ancient rage. Glowing with a bright blue anger as tears streamed down her face. Tears trickling down her cheeks to the bottom of her chin. Her voice was growled, but it lacked something. It lacked the resonance of pain to match the furious wave of tears falling from her eyes. The pain he was used to seeing with tears.

“Aw Hell with you! You’ve been acting like cat stuck in a burning house all night. You don’t like me and my brother? After all we’s done for you and your mean friend. You have the nerve.” She barked at Truett. It was not a warning as her lips receded. It was a promise.

Truett was locked into her horrible gaze. Leticia’s eyes were narrowed in, reptilian in their examination of him. Her chest rose and fell in a resting rhythm. A cold thought traveled down his spine, punctuating in his trembling hands. The hairs bristled on his arms as the bag full of warm soup splattered to the ground. His feet slick in the red liquid that splattered up Leticia’s bare mottled legs. Your future is at a crossroads of patience, floating in a flooded ditch. Leticia was never in danger back on the flooded road. With the patience of an ancient predator, she had held her breathe in wait for someone unsuspecting to come across her.

Leticia threw the ladle back into the pot. The metal handle ringing around the edges of the heavy stock pot as a guttural hiss escaped her lips. The corners of her mouth stretched beyond the outer edges of her eyes in a broad grimace. Her teeth looking less like polished gravestones and more like arrowheads. Her pin-point pupil quivered into a fine razor’s edge down the center of her pale blue eyes. Her tears continued like broken levees down the cracking porcelain of her face.

Leticia’s scream sledged like an iron bell around his head. They ricocheted around edges of his skull, blurring his vision with each painful resonance. Truett winced as a cold sweat overtook him with a trembling weak spine.

“I’m sorry! I can—” His words cut short by terror growing inside that clawed up his throat. Truett turned his head to escape her gaze as he frantically looked around the room. He focused on an exit, but was overcome with the horrible eyes looking inside him. Leticia’s ghastly transformation like a forest fire. The smell of smoke was a promise to the flames lurking just beyond his comprehension. The enlacing flames of fear Truett felt were nothing to the deluge of cruelty he saw coming out from her eyes.

Truett’s bare feet slipping in the soup in his mad dash towards the front door. His body losing momentum as his heart pounding like a war drum in his chest. His arms outstretched to catch his fall that never came. Sharp nails gripped into the back of his head. Digging in like razor blades down to the bone. A warm gush of blood ran down his neck.

Truett screamed, gnashing his teeth against the soft muscle of his tongue. His mouth filling with both of the taste of copper and a rising bile. White hot pain seared through his body, blinding him as he was caught like a rag doll mid fall. He reached behind him and gripped on to the wrist slicing into his skull.

He heard a clicking of sharp nails against hard bone echo around his ears. The skin of Leticia was not soft like a woman’s should be. It was hard, rigid like scales in his hands. His knees feeling weak as he was bent backwards as she forced him to look at her.

Leticia’s black hair fell like a veil over Truett’s face. His twisted in agony and helpless fear, his nails slipping against the metallic scales as he held on tightly. His scalp more like tissue paper to her new powerfully sharp nails. Leticia’s face greeted his with a gruesome half mask of reptilian inhospitality and placid china doll amusement.

“What?” Her words were guttural rumbling. “Never seen a real woman before?”

Truett wriggled his bend body under her gaze, he gasped and spat his blood into her face. Her blue eyes erupted into a pale blue fire. Her fingers twisted harder into his skull like fine screws drilling. With one swing of her arm his, body turned into that of a ragdoll. Moving faster and wildly beyond his control. Leticia swung him by his head, Truett’s forehead kissing, splitting onto the lip of the kitchen table.

The first time was a taste of her brutality as it sent a warning flare of anguish throughout his body. The second one Truett felt his weeping forehead seep into his eyes. His own blood blinding him from the swinging fury he was powerless to twist out of. The third one was the kindest. Truett slipped into a dreamless slumber as Leticia let his limp body slip from her blood-soaked claws.