American River Review 2022 - copy - Flipbook - Page 41
A snap come from somewhere deep
inside, like a bone done shifted under
my skin. I think I was crying because
he started yelling about me being a
pussy and that’s when I saw it. His
eyes. He wasn’t angry. No, it was
something else, like he was dazed,
like he was fighting in his sleep, like
he wasn’t Ryker no more.
Things was getting dark around
the edges, the whole room wavy and
tilting to one side. Ryker turned away,
started walking toward the hall. I
knew I was fixing to throw up, everything in my mouth tasting like metal.
My tongue started working one of my
teeth back and forth, trying not to
loosen it more than it was.
Somewhere inside me, I heard
them footsteps. Somewhere inside
me, I knew what was coming. But all
I felt was the blow. My neck shifting
off my shoulders. An echo ricocheting in my head. The dark that came
on hard.
I woke up to Ma lying next to me,
whimpers and tears coming out of
her that I ain’t never heard.
“Ma? You okay?” I said, but my
words come out swollen and slower
than was normal. Everything was
fuzzy and it took me a bit to remember how I come to be on the floor.
I tried to get up, but a fierce pain
stabbed me in my side.
“Oh, thank God,” she said, crying
like I ain’t never seen her cry before.
There was blood all over her face
and a goose egg starting to swell over
her left eye. She wiped tears and snot
and blood from her nose with the
back of her hand and leaned down
to kiss my forehead. “Bug, baby. My
sweet, sweet boy.”
My body started to come alive in
fits and starts. My bottom lip and
right ear seemed to have a heartbeat
of their own, and a ringing inside my
head started humming like them telephone wires on a hot day. I worked
my way to sitting up, but each breath
felt like somebody was poking fiery
needles in my ribs.
“Told you the boy’d be okay,” Ryker
said, but his voice was different.
Shaky. Scared.
Ma got up and come back with a
cool warshcloth and a glass of water.
She dabbed at my ear and mouth and
I was surprised at how much blood
there was.
“Here, honey. Take these. Take
‘em and I’ll make you some of those
mashed taters you like.”
I took the two white pills from her
palm and put them on my tongue,
one of the pills grazing the swell on
my lip, making my eyes sting. She
held the cup, like she must’ve done
when I was young, just learning
about drinking. The water felt cool
on the back of my throat, but the pills
went down hard.
We stayed on the floor a long time,
me and Ma. Ryker was in Blaze’s old
room, slamming things against the
wall. I knew he was looking for the
money. I knew he wouldn’t find it.
“That cop is bullshitting us, Mar.
Your pa didn’t have no money,” Ryker
said, sweat stains the size of dinner plates under each pit. His eyes
narrowed in my direction, “You. You
know anything about that money,
boy?”
Ma bristled and Ryker got that steel
in his eyes. Even so, he pulled his bad
hand close to his chest.
“Shit,” Ryker said, stretching the
word out like he was spreading it
around the room. “If you had any
money, you’d be down at Bella’s Diner
ordering meat loaf and apple pie.”
I bit my tongue hard. I can still
hear Gram saying if somebody give
Ryker two nickels for a dime, he’d
think he was rich. Last time money
come his way, he and Ma blew it on
beer and matching tattoos. And when
the landlord come around, knocking
on our door, he told Ma to flat out
grow a pair and deal with it, while he
disappeared like some yellow-bellied
lizard.
Ma said, “Don’t you listen to him,
Bug. I’ll get you those taters I promised.”
I stared at Ryker, man to man. I
can still see him, blaming Ma for
what he done. I thought then that I’d
come up with a way to get Ma away
from Ryker. But now things was
different. I had to figure how to get
Ryker away from us. “I ain’t hungry.”
“Well, that’s a first,” Ryker said.
Ain’t nobody but Blaze I hated
more in my life than him. Some
of those wild waters was churning
inside me now. Seething and frothing
and stirring something awake in me
in a way that I ain’t felt before, and I
worked to take hold of it. Those
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