Three neighborhood
children dressed in yellow hooded slicks scampered through the puddles in the
street below making the best of a dreary late Saturday afternoon. The gusty
winds dampened the playful noise of the children’s melodic laughter. A door
slammed below. Mary’s mother
stepped out into the street and opened her black umbrella before she ducked
into the wood paneled station wagon parked on the opposite side of the curb. She
fumbled with the keys until she found the one that opened the car door. The car
engine turned over with a slight hesitation and idled roughly for several
minutes until it warmed up. The headlights beamed against the stop sign posted
on the corner of Willow Street and Fifth Avenue before the wagon spun out and
splashed through the puddles as it turned up the street. Mary’s red spider
webbed eyes rolled back and forth in their sockets as she caught the final
glimpse of her mother disappearing into the thickening fog three blocks away.
Mary continued
to methodically rock back and forth. A drop of water dripped from the leaky
roof and spattered on her raspberry skinned knee cap. She looked down slowly at
the water and rested her head back. As she softly closed her eyes, a surreal numbness
overtook her body as the flashes of her life passed through her mind like a
super 8 movie reel running in reverse.
Gerald, the boy
from Fairview, never arrived to escort her to the St. Martin’s High School Senior
Prom. Mary stood on her porch for over an hour anxiously waiting for Gerald to
arrive. A smile came to her face when Gerald finally arrived with a friend in his father’s little
red sports car, a little after nine. Mary let out a sign of relief until she
heard the boys snickering. Instead of the bouquet of flowers she was expecting,
a burning bag of dog shit landed at her feet before she was barraged by dozen
rotten eggs. Her hair and powder blue gown were coated with the yellow yolks
and the sticky white shells. The mocking and the laughter echoed over and over in
her head like an endless maddening circus nickelodeon. She could still smell
the stench of the rotten eggs on her skin and in her hair. Monday morning she
would be the subject of the Nancy George’s vicious gossip chain at St. Martin’s
High school. Every day was hell but she could not handle it, not this time.
She heard a scratching under the attic
steps. A tiny paw reached under the locked door below. “Misty.” Mary whispered
to herself as she smiled. The longhaired Persian cat has been her only true
friend. The only living creature that understood her; the real Mary not the
clay sculpture her obsessive-compulsive mother molded her to be. She had to
walk the halls of her school as a stiff puppet with her mother controlling the strings.
Each morning her hair was tightly pulled back into a bun, her face powdered pale
white because she was forbidden to wear makeup, and her beautiful ice blue eyes
hidden behind a pair of high myopic horn-rimmed glasses. She dressed in a
matronly blouse, buttoned all the way to the top, under her school uniform and
her figure was flattened by the breast confining slip her mother encased her in
each morning. No phone calls after six. No rock music just children’s records
and the soundtrack to “The Sound of Music” followed by the music of “Fiddler on
the Roof.” It was enough to drive any teen to insanity. Was she insane or was
it the world around her?
“I have no one, not
one living soul.” Mary contemplated as she tightly tied a knot using the
extension cord she cut from the old Kirby Vacuum.
Mary stared at the
peeling varnish that coated the cracked wooden window stool. It reminded her of
her imperfect life. There weren’t many fond memories to go over as the super 8
movie reel in her head flickered again but stopped as she heard Misty’s gentle
meow. A hint of a smile came to Mary’s flat lips as she fondly recalled her and
Misty telling each other secrets in their own language under. They would hide
under her brother’s bed or in the storage closet under the stairs, her only
sanctuary from her mother’s weekly manic episodes and neurotic breakdowns.
She
closed her eyes as the super 8 movie projected the image of her father. He was
the loving holy deacon of St Andrews Church until his dark secret was
discovered in the abyss of the church basement. She recalled the day he was
expelled from the church after he was discovered molesting a young teenage girl
after Sunday mass. A recollection all too familiar, she recalled the many
nights his filthy hands groped her body before he tucked her in. He ended his
own life by putting a gun to his temple and splattering his soft brain matter
all over the basement shower. He glared at her from under the grimy
floorboards. “Are you still daddy’s little girl?” She could still hear his
haunting voice echo.
“I hope
you are burning in hell you bastard.” She mumbled as tears flowed from her
bulging blood shot eyes.
Her chest became
tight and the stagnant air of the musty attic air thickened. She could smell
the dust and the fiberglass insulation. Memories of her sick demented life and
her suburban hypocritical family gone sour twisted through the archives of her
porcelain shattered mind. She felt her body become numb as a dead chill
radiated through her bones.
Anthony, her
baby brother, died when he was only three, he was the lucky one not to put up
with this wicked world that cares for no one. She remembers being told that Satan
lives in each and everyone but only controls the weak but what defines the
weak, surely not our twisted society of hypocrites who hide behind their religions?
She wanted to say a prayer but nothing came from her lips. She questioned the
existence of a God. How could a loving God let all this happen? The movie reel
played on. There was the unforgettable scream of little Jenny Crane after Mr.
Kendall hit him with his car at the corner of Maple Street and Elm. The blood
from his tiny head flowed down the blacktop and into the sewer drain. Mr.
Kendall was drunk but never was convicted and Anthony’s death was ruled an
accident by Sheriff Brown his brother in law. She remembered kissing his
miniature ice cold hand before they shut the lid of his pint sized coffin.
She could see Anthony
smiling above the attic light hanging from the cord wrapped in silver duct tape
around the rafter. Mary bowed her head as her glasses hit the attic floor and
shattered. She raised her head once more and smiled.
“Oh God let me be at
your side in heaven.” Mary prayed as she gasped her last breath and reached out
to touch her brother’s little hand once again.
Mary’s body dangled
from the extension cord and twisted around the center-beam of the attic. Her lifeless
pencil thin arms rested at her side and her tiny toes barely gently brushed the
planks of the attic floor. Her face was purple and her body lifeless, as it swung
like a peaceful pendulum. Finally Mary’s tormented soul was at peace. She
looked down at herself as she exited her body into the vortex bright light. She
smiled with a mystic tranquility she had never felt before. Anthony’s angelic
face radiated from the golden rays of paradise. She drifted effortlessly
reaching for his hand. Then she stopped. An evil force came upon her and pulled
her away from the angelic light. She screamed but there was no sound. A sudden
darkness overtook her soul. She looked down and saw her father’s arms reaching
out, welcoming her to the inferno.
....
Photo credits:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/thesoupboy/
....
Photo credits:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/thesoupboy/
