Of Foster Homes and Flies by Lutzke Chad

Author:Lutzke, Chad
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scary Carpet
Published: 2016-07-22T04:00:00+00:00

Monday

3:40 a.m.

I wake up suffocating. I’d been holding my breath in a dream. Mom had crept up the stairs, the sheet still over her, arms fixed in their armchair position. She took each stair unusually slow, her feet pounding harder than they should have, rattling my bedroom window. It seemed to go on for hours. As she climbed the stairs she screamed about Ingrid.

Where’s my baby? What did you do with my baby? You killed my baby!

When she finally reached my room, the sheet had fallen from her, and her nightgown was lit up bright as though a lamp were stuffed underneath. Every contour of her body, every hair, bit of flab, sag, and wrinkle could be seen through it. She reeked horribly. But not of feces or urine, not of infectious bacteria and rot, but of alcohol. It burned my throat, my eyes watered. It was as though I were swimming in it. Mom stumbled to the bed, feet pounding, window rattling. She attempted to get in bed with me but every time she tried part of her would fall off. One of her arms, her nose, a foot. Her teeth dropped from her mouth and crashed onto the floor, scattering under the bed like a shattered plate.

When I wake, I shoot up in bed and catch my breath. The smell of Mom has grown worse. Even with my door shut it penetrates my safe haven. I can’t get back to sleep and I remember the book that Sam had given me. I grab it from my bag and open the cover. There on the first page, written in red ink, it says: “Denny, I believe in you. Love, Sam,” followed by a ten-digit number–her number in Ventura. I can feel tears coming and I fight them back. I read what Sam wrote over and over again. I dissect each word.

Believe.

Love.

I’ve studied words upon words, easy words, difficult words. But these two seem foreign to me. I try and start the book and keep reverting back to the profound red ink. Finally, I close the book and cry until I fall back asleep.

7:20 a.m.

My school bag is packed and my bed made. While brushing my teeth I feel like I can’t get my teeth clean, like having my mouth open in the house is just filling it with the thick reek of death. I’ve smelled death once before. It was a swan that Carter and I came across near Kemper Park. The poor thing still had most of its linen-white feathers intact, its feet still bright orange, yet death had taken it–the opposite of my mother in every way. And the smell was of old wet, rotten cardboard with an underlying sweetness. The smell now that threatens to stain my teeth and soak my tongue reeks of the plaque from used floss and the unflushed toilets of a million beaches, yet somehow still carries that tinge of sweetness.

I plan out my every next move before heading downstairs, and with bag in hand I take a deep breath and head down.

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