Saints+Sinners by Paul Willis

Author:Paul Willis [Evans, Amie M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781635553529
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2018-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

When We Get Home

Dante Fuoco

When we get inside, the first fucking thing she does is ask me to tie up the garbage and take it to the curb. For ten years I’ve been gone-baby-gone, and already we’re back at it: Mommy Dearest turns Dyke Daughter into House Bitch. I’m back only because Jacob, my brother, died three days ago. He’s dead. So here I am to bury him or honor him or forget him or do a solid murder-suicide so that his funeral marks the occasion we all wind up dead. I stand by the door, the defiant cunt I am.

“Sit down,” she says, shuffling toward the fridge before peering inside.

In the kitchen’s dark the fridge exposes her, the formaldehyde witch she is. Her wrinkles, fucking craters now, collect all the crumbly concealer she’s used forever.

In my pocket I feel the crumpled napkin note I tried writing to Jacob on the plane. I squeeze it like a fucking talisman, the sad soggy thing, then shove it down, underneath my cigarettes, as deep as it’ll go.

On the dining room table she sets down a casserole dish, green with lima beans before she clicks on the light. Shit hasn’t changed here. The beige wallpaper patterned with tiny, dumb diamonds. The ugly cedar cross. The family portrait, painted in light pastels. We all smile the same, as if the artist assumed our family derived happiness from the same fucking place.

“I’ll warm up some ham in the microwave,” she says. “But the garbage, I…”

“I don’t want any food.”

She cocks her head from the fridge, stares at me with her mean grey eyes. “You’re hungry. You live far away, pick the latest flight. You’re feeling…”

“I don’t want anything.” Truth is my stomach moans for food—McDonald’s or barbecue wings or frozen meals or anything really, anything beside her shit.

She returns for the lima beans. Grabbing the dish, she winces then, fucking drama queen, drops it back on the table.

“My back,” she whines. “My back. The garbage. Please.”

I tie the damned bag, tug it hard, and drag it into the cold, down the stairs, marching like a fucking soldier along the driveway slant. Maybe there’s ice. I don’t fucking care. I slog to a bragging rhythm: I. Am. Brave. Hear. Me. Roar. I laugh. I’m still a little drunk from all the in-flight mini bottles—red wine, white wine, whiskey.

I see a chair at the bottom of the driveway. I drop the garbage before I study the thing. JS is scratched on the back. It grips me like a fucking ulcer.

Inside I slam down Jacob’s chair, all loud and shit. She whips around. Her face is still as death. When I pull out my cigarettes she says my name—fucking sighs it like I’m the problem. I walk to the stove, pull out a cig, and try lighting a burner. It click click clicks.

“That burner, it. Stop. It…”

The spark catches, blue and big. Dangerous. I laugh then lean down, lighting my cigarette. How many clicks would it take to burn down the whole place?

“It’s getting late,” she says.

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