Michael Leever
Out

Your ex-girl Kyls picks you up at the prison gate, and she's not excited to see you. You climb into her Pontiac Sunfire with the plastic over the passenger side window, and she's pulling out onto the road before you can even say hi. She says something, but you can't hear it over the muffler, over the lack of a muffler, over the roar of what the muffler is supposed to muffle.

"What?" You say.

"Nothing," she says.

"No, really, what?"

"I said I hate this place, okay? I been here too many times, okay?"

"Tell me about it."

You ride in silence-well, you can't really call it silence as loud as the car is-but you don't talk for awhile. If she's been there too many times, what does that say about you? That gets you thinking about what you're going to do differently this time, how you're going to stay out, how you're going to get money, where you're going to live, how you're going to stay clean. Your heart starts beating faster, and you try to slow it down with your breathing exercises, by remembering your goals, by going over your Do Not Touch list. You just got out. That's a good thing. You should enjoy it. You start to talk, so you don't have to think.

"How's Kayla?" you say.

"Fine."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, she's fine. You don't believe me?"

Kyls is sitting there sexy as hell in low-cut jean shorts, a halter top, and an expression that says she's disappointed, not just in you, but in the whole goddamn world. You wish she was in a better mood. You wish she'd laugh and flirt with you, invite you over to her place, suck your dick. You've been thinking about that for about five years now, her mouth, your penis, in and out, all that. The pieces are there, only a few feet away, no guards with guns keeping them apart, but there might as well be, for all the good it's going to do you, Kyls in a mood like this.

"I'm sure Kayla's fine," You say. "I was just hunting for some details, killa."

"I've been stressed, Derek," she says, and it's the first time anyone's said your first name in a long time. Not D. Not 5150. Not D-bag, Deez Nuts, not Hensley. Derek. You love the way she says your name.

"What's been stressing you out?" you say.

"What hasn't?"

You pull up to a stoplight, and she leans across you, and you feel her against your leg, feel her shirt touching you, think she's going for it, think Yes, Yes, Yes, then she pops open the glove box, pulls out a little baggy, and drops it in your lap.

"Welcome home," she says. "Welcome fucking home."

You try telling her it's not like that anymore. You're going to stay clean this time. Get a job with Feldner at his garage. You met his brother inside, and he said he'd put in a good word for you. Things are going to be different. You saw a counselor. You're going to do it right.

Kyls gives you that look that shoots through you like a needle through skin. She looks away just before the light changes, and you look at the baggy in your lap. It's confusing for Kyls to give it to you, very unlike her, and you feel like it's a test. You can feel your hands almost shaking they want it so bad, but you know you have to resist if you want anything to do with Kyls and Kayla, so you focus on your breathing exercises, your goals, your Do Not Touch list.

"You don't even know how to change oil," Kyls says to the windshield.

All the air rushes out of your body when she says that, but you don't look at her. You look at the baggie instead. You take out the pipe instead. You put in the crystal instead. You light the bottom of the bowl and you inhale that strong chemical taste that fills up everything Kyls just emptied out of you like only crystal meth can, instead.

That didn't take long.

* * *

After about ten knocks, right when you're about to give up, your mom comes to the door. You hear the deadbolt sliding out, the door pulling open, and then there she is, all seventy pounds of wrinkles and stringy hair of her, wearing a nightgown that's not nearly long enough.

"Hey, Ma," you say.

"What the fuck do you want?" she says.

You hear cursing inside. A man's voice.

"Bad time?" you say.

"Ain't it always?"

You stand there looking at each other in silence, you with your plastic bags holding your toothbrush, your flip-flops, a couple pairs of socks, underwear, a clean shirt; her with a cigarette ashing out the corner of her mouth.

"You gonna invite me in, Ma?"

"Fuck," she says.

"I know, Ma."

"Kyls?"

"No, Ma. She barely gave me a ride."

"Fuck."

She closes the door, and you hear shouting on the other side. You can't make out the words, but you know the drill. She's telling her new friend that her piece of shit son's home from the House, he ain't got nowhere to go, he's going to be staying for awhile. Her friends don't appreciate that. You're not as friendly as she is, not as accepting of free-loading assholes that knock old ladies around and steal from them. They seem to understand this without even knowing you. Funny how that works.

After a few minutes, the door opens again and a scrawny, bleary-eyed little fucker pops out the door and bumps into you intentionally with his shoulder. Instinct kicks in, and you lay the fucker out. Immediately you know you shouldn't have, but if you don't come out swinging inside, you don't come out. Or you come out walking bowlegged needing stitches in your asshole

The little fucker didn't take the punch well, and you can't tell if it's because he's so fucked up, or because he's so scrawny, or because you put everything you had into it. It's probably all three, and it's not good. He's laying there in the front yard, at the foot of the steps, twitching and making weird noises. You try to help him up by pulling on his arm, but he twitches away from you like he's break dancing. You think about your goal list, your breathing exercises, your Do Not Touch list.

Goddamnit.

Hell, who really gives a fuck, you ask yourself. These things happen, like Clint your counselor said. There will be setbacks. Just because you fall, doesn't mean you can't get up. You pat the little fucker's shoulder again and tell him you hope his day improves, the piece of shit, and then you go inside and close the door behind you.

Inside smells like stale urine, burnt hair, and wet dog. All the windows have dark curtains over them, and you can hardly make out shapes. You feel around on the wall for the light switch, but instead your hand finds something sticky. You pull it away and hold it up to your face. It's covered in some kind of paste, like somebody threw a bowl of spaghetti against the wall, and you're grossed out, but as you move your hand closer, it gets worse. Something is moving in the paste. Little white things. Fruit fly larvae or some shit. They're writhing around on you hand, and you can't shake them off.

"Jesus fucking Christ," you say. "Home sweet fucking home."

* * *

You've gotten good at passing time in small spaces, and that's what you do the next morning, sitting in your childhood bedroom until about one in the afternoon. You tell yourself you're sleeping in, but you know that's not what you're doing. You've been awake for hours.

The room's about the same size as your cell, but here you have a window, and you keep getting up to look out it. The view is of the backyard and an alley where there are falling down garages and piles of trash, and behind those, houses that look like your mom's house, wood-frame houses with peeling paint and peeling roofs, leaning one way or another like they've been waiting too long at the bus stop of home repair.

An old lady with a hell of a scowl stumbles out the back door of the house behind yours wearing only a long t-shirt, and you see she's chasing a pit-bull, trying to get it to come inside. The dog thinks it's a game, and he keeps lowering his head and letting her get close, then springing away when she does. He's young and lively, you see, but dumb, too, because even from the window you can tell this lady isn't playing.

When she picks up a stick, you and the dog both know what's about to go down, and it ain't a game of fetch. His ears flop down, and your heart speeds up. You want him to keep running, but he hunkers down and lets her get close. When she's right on top of him she starts swinging the stick-a good sized stick, like the small end of a baseball bat-and she doesn't stop until she's too tired to keep going. Breathing heavy, she drops the stick, and puts her hands on her knees. The dog lies at her feet twitching, like the scrawny fucker you laid out yesterday, and you think she might have killed it. After awhile you lay back down, and when you get up later, the lady and the dog are both gone.

Once you're up, you can't sit still. You know you should go out, look for a job, see some people, take a walk at least-you're a free man now-but you get anxious just thinking about leaving your room, much less the house. You steel yourself and go downstairs, flipping on the light in the hall, and carrying on into the kitchen, where fortunately this time a light is already on.

As you walk through the doorway, you freeze. At first you think there's a dead child lying on the table, but then you realize it's your mom, dressed in a different raggedy nightgown, passed out with a bottle of vodka cradled in the crook of her arm. A package of raw hamburger sits open on the table in front of her, and her hair hangs into it, and you smell something burning. You look at the stove and see the front burner's on high, frying the shit out of the empty cast-iron skillet. You turn off the stove, and burn the fuck out of your hand when you grab the handle of the skillet.

>> click to read: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

>> back to Issue 22, 2019