Sorry to Disrupt the Peace: A Novel by Patty Yumi Cottrell

Author:Patty Yumi Cottrell [Cottrell, Patty Yumi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Cultural Heritage, Family Life
ISBN: 9781944211318
Google: _u8oDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: McSweeney's
Published: 2017-06-23T21:00:00+00:00

21

They told me nothing. I hadn’t imagined anything, so it was nearly impossible to be disappointed, but still they told me nothing to help my investigation. I wandered through the cemetery, which put me in a philosophical mood, then took the bus, a foul-smelling vehicle, back to my childhood neighborhood. As I approached the house, I noticed the garage door was open. I smoked a cigarette, almost hoping my adoptive parents would come out and ask me what I was doing, what was wrong with me.

Inside the garage, I noticed something out of the ordinary. There was a car, my adoptive brother’s car, a cheap black Honda with the 666 license plate that my adoptive mother considered paying an exorbitant sum to have changed, the devil’s car, she shuddered, a Satan mobile. I looked at it for a while. What was so out of the ordinary was that it was parked in the garage at all, as the garage was for my adoptive parents’ cars, the children’s cars were always parked in the driveway, now his car was parked in the garage. The car’s exterior, freshly washed and gleaming like something out of THE BOOK OF CARS, reflected my disgusting appearance, my eyes looked wide and frightened. The car was unlocked, and as soon as I opened the passenger door, my nose was assaulted by the smell of cleaning disinfectant. For a few minutes, I sat in the front seat, dizzy from the fumes. There was a travel-sized pack of tissues on the floor and several quarters in the cup holder. Other than that, it was in immaculate condition. I got out and slammed shut the door. Looking at his car almost brought a tear to my eye. They’ll have to sell it, I said to no one. My adoptive father bought it for him when he graduated high school. There was a lot of tension over whether he would graduate on time. My adoptive father used the car as a way to motivate him to finish high school. It was always like that with my adoptive father. There were always bribes and rewards, even when we were little children, we would make deals with him to get things we wanted. With my adoptive mother we prayed for the things we wanted, and with my adoptive father we bartered. Before I left the garage, I found a spray can of insecticide.

I went into the house and brought the can up to my childhood bedroom, where I sprayed the flowerpot with the red dots. Before I sprayed them, the red dots moved very quickly. It was pleasant to see the spray turn into a white foam that froze the squiggling red dots. I pressed pause on their squiggling; then I ended their lives. It was so enjoyable to have an immediate and visible effect on something, I used up the entire can. All of the flowerpots on the sill were coated in a thick white foam like a man’s shaving cream.

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