Hardcore, KICK You In The Tale Books!
READ ON AND LEAVE ME A COMMENT>>>> GOOD OR BAD.
The ordnance explosions were deafening, relentless. Chunks of muddy hillside flew in every direction. A blast, too close to his right side, erupted in a plume of fire and mud. The intense heat seared the flesh of his forearm like steak on a hot summer grill. Bobby trembled with fear more than pain. The explosions were too random, and always too close. He pushed forward up the hillside because he had nowhere else to go but up. He pushed forward because his fear of the next blast would not let him remain still.
The hillside erupted once more, directly in front of him. The concussion from the blast sent Bobby flying backwards like a movie stuntman. The immediate pain was all too real. The ground he landed on gave very little. The impact was strong. Jagged edges of upturned earth clawed deeply into the soft muscle and sinew of his back. Bobby almost giggled as his vision fogged and his consciousness faded. Through his dirt and blood stained lips he mumbled, “This mountain mud isn’t as soft as I thought.”
He shook awake violently. The beat up old mattress and bed frame squeaked and stretched in protest to his spasms. Bobby’s back arched high off the bed. The spasms were endless. They burned, penetrating deep into his soul. He cried out in pain. He cried out in fear. His childhood bed had become his hell on earth. He could see no way to escape it.
Slowly, the spasms eased. Slowly, the grip on his nerves and muscles relaxed as if guided by a macabre intelligence that thrived on agony. It knew there was a bit more pain to feed on. There was more suffering to delve out to the man-child. It drained away Bobby’s will as it fortified its own.
The seconds ticked away more slowly than outside the drab blue of his childhood bedroom. Time had lost all meaning to Bobby on that South American mountainside. The tears that streaked his vision began to dry away on his red, raw cheeks. The dingy morning light grew brighter. It was not the bright blue and white of a happy morning sky. It was the flat lifeless blue that had covered those plaster walls all of his life. The color had faded greatly since those days. The thick tan shades only let in enough light to show how drab the paint had become.
He struggled to regain his hold on reality. The nightmares were always stronger than he was. Sweat drenched his tee shirt and matted his hair to his forehead. The pain in his back and legs settled to a blissful level of constant agony. As his body relaxed, he scanned the room. Jenny sat in the old wooden chair in the far corner of the room. The chair was farther from his bedside each day. Her face was masked with horror. She had seen him slip into the nightmares many times. They came as often in the daytime as they did in the night. She had watched them from the same chair for months, the same chair that was now angled toward the door…just in case.
Jenny was there to keep an eye on him. She had loved Bobby before he left, and though her feelings had changed since then, it was still a kind of love. She knew there was nothing she could do to help him. But there was nobody else who would care for him the way she had. There was really nobody to care at all.
She watched as he reached to the bottle of whiskey that sat on his nightstand. It was on the left side. His right arm didn’t work like it used to. Tears rolled down her white cheeks, as she watched him gargle with the liquor. He swished it around and spat in the direction of the wastebasket. A little bit of the hard liquor splashed on the rim. Most of it just splattered the side of the nightstand and stained the worn out carpeting. He tilted the bottle up once more and emptied it down his throat. He drank like a man who had not seen water in a year. He dropped the empty bottle from his hand. It tumbled end over end before landing right side up in the garbage.
“Two points.” He croaked while pawing at the nightstand. “Where are my butts?”
“To the left.” The words barely passed her lips. She was not normally meek, but the months in this room had been difficult. This Bobby, who had returned from South America, frightened her. She loved him, but she barely knew him. The combination of guilt and fear kept her by his side during any free moment she could find.
She sat and watched Bobby drown himself in whiskey and nightmares. He lay in his childhood twin bed, elbows propped up. A Marlboro drooped from between two fingers. The smoldering ash grew too long and broke off. Jenny watched the hot ash hit his wrist and roll down his forearm.
“Agghh!” The ash burned a painful trail through the delicate hair. Bobby slapped wildly with his bad arm. It was awkward, but he managed to crush the ember before he burned anything important. The sudden movement of his bad arm was just erratic enough to startle Jenny. She yelped like a hurt puppy and turned her feet toward the bedroom door. Her arms came up instinctively to protect herself from any object that might fly in her direction. Her tears soaked through her collar.
“What the heck is wrong with you?” There was barely any emotion in his voice. His tone was an icy growl. He kept his eyes shut tight. He looked like he was struggling though a migraine. He did have headaches, but right now he just could not bring himself to look at her. He was ashamed of who he had become. He had to push her away to escape the unbearable pity she had for him. Jenny wept openly. How dare she pity him?
“Why don’t you try to…”
“Why don’t I try to what?” Floodgates of tormented emotion erupted. “To what? Get up from this filthy stinking bed? What? You want me to be nicer?”
“Bobby?”
“Bobby, what? Huh? Why can’t you just leave me be for once? What? You want me to go on a walk with you? Smell the flowers, hold your hand?”
The torrent continued, but Jenny’s tears slowed. Her heavy sobs of fear had turned to little drops of anger running down her cheeks. Everyday he would berate her just for caring. He had done it to everyone who bothered to care a little. They cared, and he drove them away. Jenny was the only one left. She had loved the other Bobby once, the ‘before’ Bobby. She hated the ‘after’ Bobby. All that was left were a few tenuous strands of what they once were to each other. The love they had shared. Those strands that remained were weakening quickly.
“Damn it, Bobby. Do you have to do this everyday?” She ran from the bedroom, grabbing at the door behind her. It slammed hard and bounced back open harder, cracking the lifeless blue plaster wall. Then it swung back slowly and closed. The latch caught softly, like a thunder crack in the silence. He was alone except for Jenny’s distant footsteps at the front door. He heard the front door open. Then the door closed normally. Bobby was alone, again.
************
Jenny half sat, half collapsed on the porch steps. She cried into her hands. The tall hedges hid the front porch, and Jenny, from the view of most neighbors. Only the lady walking her dog past the front walkway of the little storybook cottage saw the young girl crying on the steps. The white picket fence completed the façade that hid the pain and torment that was tearing two lives to shreds.
With effort, Jenny shut her emotions deep inside. She dried her swollen eyes with her shirtsleeve. Strands of hair, pulled from her hair ribbon fell and stuck to her damp cheeks in disarray. She smoothed her jeans and sweatshirt as she stood up and walked to the sidewalk bathed in the sobering morning light.
She tried to sort her emotions as she went. They closed in on her from every side. It felt like mental claustrophobia. She was left with little room for her sanity. Sanity was on the other side now. Her hold was precarious. As the sun came full, warming and brightening the morning light, Jenny’s mood grew more distraught. Images of Bobby getting blown up, flashed in her mind. She tried not to imagine those images, but she could not help herself. She wanted it to be different. She wanted Bobby without pain. She wanted him like he was, not emotionally paralyzed. Maybe he just should have died. She regretted the thought immediately. She hated who she was becoming. She just wanted anything, but to see him in pain. If he had to be hurt so badly, why couldn’t he just be paralyzed? It had to be better than the constant spasms. He wouldn’t need the whiskey to ease his mind, and the pills to ease his pain.
The empathy she thought she felt for him had just become a wall of pity protecting her heart and mind from the verbal assaults. That wall did more to lock the malignant pain in than it did to keep the new hurt out. She cried silently as she crossed Maple Street, instead of turning to go to her job. Work would understand. She just wanted to go home and cry into her pillow.
She looked worn out and tired, as she climbed the steps that led to her apartment over the two-car garage. She fumbled for the “gimmick” key, painted with pink hearts, and unlocked the front door. The door eased open slowly. Every few inches revealed more of the brightly decorated studio apartment. The flowers and bright pastels had come from an image in her heart. It did little to lift her mood. The smell of lavender potpourri hung in the air. Even the light scent of lavender seemed to weigh heavily on her lungs. She flopped down on the couch, exhausted. She rubbed her eyes to relieve some of the stress. Between her fingers, she saw Bobby’s next bottle of whiskey.
***********
He felt horrible. It was way deep inside. When you pity yourself, all hope is lost. Bobby was lost. He was never going to be like the guy in the “Born on the 4th of July” flick. How can he do anything to help people? With the searing pain in his back he couldn’t help himself. Bobby was going to rot away in the same twin bed he had grown up in.
The pain droned on like it always did. He washed down another handful of pills with the whiskey. He squirmed and sweated in the worn out little bed. The pity and the drugs, and the liquor tore away at him. He loathed himself for bullying Jenny. The loathing and the pity devoured his mind and soul like a tapeworm. All that was left was the self-pity and resentment for everyone around him. He didn’t need any of them around; gawking at him like a wounded chick, abandoned by his momma bird. The tapeworm of thought ate away at his mind. She was the only one left gawking at him, the only object for his resentment. His perception was twisted. Each time he thought of the self-righteous little tramp, she had to be fooling around with half the guys in town, he despised her even more. The tapeworm was hungry. She was always gawking. She was there in the morning. She was back every afternoon. She probably brought her guys right into his living room. His parents were gone. He couldn’t walk. There was nobody to interrupt her. He thought about his parents, retired in Florida. They had not visited in a while. They were older now, and his mother was not healthy. What did they care about him? They never even bothered to call.
The bed creaked loudly as he squirmed in silent agony. He took another long pull from the whiskey. He didn’t even realize he had opened the new bottle from the drawer of the nightstand. At least she kept his medications stocked. Exactly the way she should!
His pain and fidgeting worsened as his temper became more heated. His thoughts grew more erratic. Tears blurred his vision again. He hated his thoughts. He hated himself for hating Jenny. She was selfless and caring. He loved her so much, that he had to be mean to her. He wanted to push her away to save her from him. He cried openly. Bobby wondered if he could bear her treating him the same if she was hurt and he could walk! She wasn’t hurt though! She could walk just fine! He was the one in pain! Bedridden! The tears kept coming. They changed between tears of sorrow, and tears of resentment.
He reached for the nightstand, fumbling around for his bottle of pills. He flipped open the cap with the tip of his thumb. Bobby had no time for child safety caps. He may be confined to a child’s bed. He may be covered by the same ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ bedspread, he had begged for when he was ten years old. The same drab blue plaster walls that protected him as a child may still surround him. But if he needed his medication, he needed it now.
Bobby tilted the bottle of pills up over his mouth, and shook out what he thought he needed to kill the pain. He tried to count each pill as it hit his tongue. He only took what he needed for the pain, no more. He probably didn’t take enough the last time. It didn’t matter anyway. By now his blood had to be toxic. The whiskey burned his throat as it helped the pills along. It flowed through more of his arteries than his blood did now.
Jenny would be back soon to check on him. She always came back. She would never let anything happen to him. She would come back during her lunch hour. She would bring him food. They would argue, he would yell and she would run away. It was all part of the cycle. She would be back before anything bad happened to Bobby.
************
Jenny sat slumped on her couch. Her eyelids fluttered sleepily. She tried to lift her chin. Her head just bobbed down in anticipation of sleep. The bottle of whiskey was almost empty. An empty bottle of pills was on the floor. Another one lay open and empty beside her on the couch. Jenny’s head slumped lazily to her shoulder. Her eyelids fluttered again. Goodnight sleeping beauty.
