“That everything’ll
fit?”
“Think so,” Dez
replied. His brother nodded, turned and locked the door. He walked to the
driver’s side and Dez got in the cab beside him. The engine cranked and they
pulled away from the curb.
“One last trip
should do it, don’t you think?” His brother asked.
“Uh huh,” Dez
replied.
“Yeah. One more
trip. We can do that before tomorrow afternoon, right?’
“Sure.”
It was midnight
when they settled, the front wheel against the curb in front of their mother’s
house. One light inside was on, in the den, where they were stacking the
truckloads they brought every few hours. Mom’ll be pretending to sleep, Dez
thought, knowing she wouldn’t come out to watch, couldn’t bare to see it all
carried in.
Dez sat on his old
bed, curling round him—him seeming too heavy now for it—and it too ancient.
Sweat from earlier was drying on his back, but he didn’t want to shower, he was
too tired, almost too tired to even lie down. Somehow too tired to sleep. Last
load tomorrow, he told himself, last load—but then what? He would leave that
last load there, move it all back in. Dez was shivering now, so he pulled his
shirt off, flopped onto his side and pulled his blanket—still the Space Jam
one—over himself.
Back then this
room had been enough— more than enough. And the house had seemed as good as
living could get. Never another thought about it. But now. When he and Ricky moved
in together their mom came to the house, brought them a bottle of vodka, and
drank it with them in the living room. Just one couch in there, but they all
piled on it happily—laughing—he remembered laughing so much that night, and
remembered feeling as if he were shining from so much exposure to lightness.
Later, they said goodbye to her on the stoop, Ricky went back inside, but Dez
stayed and watched her walk to the car and pull away. And he thought—still
shining— this is it.
A knocking on the
door to which his eyes opened. It was light out; he could see it beyond the blinds.
“You up?” his
mother cooed.
“Now.”
“Want coffee?”
“Please.”
His back hurt. The
bed, it had been hard.
“Ricky still
asleep?” he asked, now in the kitchen, sitting at the table.
“No. He left
early, said he had to finish up.” She placed a mug in front of him.
“Without me?”
“Said he didn’t
want to wake you,” she replied, pouring coffee into his mug from the glass
carafe, the numbers of volume demarcation on it long worn away.
Dez stood, “I
should go help him.”
“How you planning
on getting there? Too far to walk.”
Her car had broken
down the week before, he’d forgotten.
He sat back down.
“What should I
do?”
His mother looked
at him for a while. “Drink your coffee. You’ll feel better.”
“Sure.”
She hugged him
suddenly, moving faster than he thought she could to her knees beside him,
throwing her arms around his and pressing her cheek to his shoulder, “Oh my
little man,” she said.
“S’okay mom,” he
replied, but was crying.
It was hard to
look anywhere in the house—reminders of childhood, of how home had been before
he and his brother moved out were on all the walls, all the shelves, the
mantelpiece—a long-broken cup and pictures of both their 6th grade
school photos—the bookshelves still holding their texts next to their mother’s
cookbooks. It was all too much. But still he sat on the sofa and watched tv
with his mom. All the while she kept looking at him and laughing, and he tried
to smile for her.
“That’s funny,
right?” she said.
“Yeah.”
She took his hand
and patted it the way one might burp a small baby.
...
Raymond Gaston lives in Venice, California. He has written three Novels: "It Started Out Silently," "The Bowling Club," and "The Way your Father Dies," as well as numerous short stories. He was the founding editor of "Lunch Ticket," recently presented his work at the Hawaii International Art and Humanities Conference, and is an invitee into the French Government's IHEAP fellowship program for boundary pushing art, in conjunction with the Paris Biennale--but he probably won't attend...
