Needle Freak, page 13
“I’ll be fine… Okay, I’ll come in with you,” Shane said. He didn’t move for a minute. Then he grabbed the door handle, yanked open the door and hopped out.
“Like ripping off a Band-Aid,” Jack muttered, walking ahead of Shane toward the door.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh. Okay. Jack?”
Jack had reached the door and stopped to look back at him. “Yeah?”
“You remember how Mom was?” Shane asked.
He didn’t know specifically what Shane meant, but most of his memories, the ones that had stuck and rose to the surface when he asked the question, were sour memories. He knew what Shane meant. “Yeah, Shane. I remember.”
Shane nodded and continued walking. “She hasn’t changed much.”
They took the elevator to the second floor and neither of them spoke. It wasn’t the first awkward silence to fall between them, but it was the longest and most awkward. Both of them wanted to get back in the truck, forget about visiting their grandmother and go home. There was always another day. Kate had come all the way from Texas and she would go back to Texas. There would be other days. Safer days. But it was up to Jack, they both understood that without either of them saying it aloud, and Jack wanted to see his grandmother. He had worried himself sick about it and he would be damned if he would turn and run now that they were there.
He wasn’t a little boy anymore.
Shane stood beside him leaning against the handrail along the wall of the elevator. Jack laid his hand over Shane’s. He expected him to flinch like he had before, but he surprised him and turned his hand over to lace their fingers together.
“It’s okay,” Jack said.
Shane nodded.
“We’re not kids anymore.”
“She still makes me feel about a foot tall anyway.”
Their mother had never been a good parent to either of them, but she had always been less kind to Shane than Jack. They didn’t know why. Shane had been a cute kid, a pretty kid and he had been quiet, shy and obedient. It had been a sharp contrast to Jack, who had the face of an angel but none of the rest. He had been loud, demanding, hyper, mischievous, a much more trying child than Shane. Still, Kate had favored him over his older brother from the start. Favoritism toward Jack had not resulted in dismissal or neglect of Shane so much as a strange form of henpecking that as he got older had come close to outright bullying.
That Kate favored Jack was never something that had spared him though, so he found it a perplexing annoyance. If anything, she had seen something in him and capitalized on it, like a goose pleasantly surprised to realize she has laid a golden egg.
“It’s different now,” Jack said, and squeezed Shane’s hand. The elevator stopped and the doors opened. “We’re different now.”
Shane didn’t seem to find this all that reassuring, but he stepped with Jack off the elevator and pointed the way to Grandma Chloe’s apartment. She was on the left at the very end.
Shane lifted his hand to knock and they heard their grandma’s laughter on the other side of the door. He lowered his hand and he and Jack listened.
“Mother, stop it.”
Jack and Shane both recognized their mother’s voice, though she had adopted a new accent. Texas had rubbed off on her, and perhaps a little rich bitch country club superiority.
“Oh, honey, you are too much,” Grandma Chloe said. “You call yourself what you like, but you’re not a Katherine or a Kaitlin. Baby doll, you’re just plain old Kate-Lynn Donovan from the bayou and the dash be silent, but the dash still damn well be there.”
“Mother!”
“That’s right, I’m your mother. If you’ll excuse me, I believe I’m going to step outside and have me a smoke. You finish your tea. I’ll be back in a flash.”
Shane grabbed Jack and pulled him back a few steps just as the door opened and their grandmother started to walk out into the hallway. She halted on the threshold and looked first at Shane then at Jack. At first there was no recognition in her expression when she looked at Jack and her eyes passed over him without interest and returned to Shane. Something caught her attention though and she did a double take.
“My lord,” Grandma Chloe whispered. She glanced at Shane for confirmation and he nodded. “My lord,” she said again. “Jack?”
Jack wanted to hide then. He wanted to step behind Shane and let him be his shield from her searching, penetrating blue eyes. Eyes that saw everything and, like his own, were bright as a clear summer sky.
Then she smiled and he remembered how much he had loved this woman.
“Yes,” he said.
“Well, you come here right now, boy, and give me a hug,” Grandma Chloe demanded, holding out her arms to him.
Jack went, sagging with relief and gratitude into her arms as she embraced him. Her smell was the same; Chanel No. 5 and cinnamon. Her skin was soft and her hugs were still the best, not too tight but not too loose either.
“You are too skinny, child,” Grandma Chloe said, giving him a squeeze. “I’m gonna have to feed you.”
“Oh, my god. Is that Jack?”
They all looked around to find Kate standing a few feet behind Grandma Chloe. She had followed the sound of their voices out to the hallway. She stepped forward, crowding her mother out of the way to get a better look at Jack.
“Oh, my baby, come here,” she said, pulling him into a hug that Jack instantly tried to pull out of. “What’s the matter? Don’t you know your own mother? My god, what have you been doing to yourself? Your grandmother’s right; you’re so thin. I hardly recognized you.”
Jack managed to pull out of her arms, but she caught his face in her hands and held on, turning his head one way then the other, examining him. She tsked and patted his right cheek. “It’s been so long. You’ll have to tell me where you’ve been. I want to hear all about it.”
Jack shook his head and stepped back, her hands falling away. He backed up another step and bumped right into Shane. It drew their mother’s attention to him and she looked him over critically.
“You’re looking well, Shane,” she said.
Shane didn’t say anything, merely shrugged.
“All those tattoos though. I don’t know why anyone would want to do that to themselves,” she said. “Scar themselves like that. That’s all it is, you know. And no one will hire you. You can’t get a decent job looking like some kind of criminal or thug.”
“Kate,” Grandma Chloe said, a note of warning in her voice.
“Well, you know I’m right, mother,” Kate said.
Grandma Chloe sighed and pushed the door open a little wider to invite them inside. “How about we have our visit in the living room instead of out here on my doorstep,” she said.
She ushered them back into the apartment, completely forgetting the cigarette she’d intended to smoke, and offered them all sweet tea. Her apartment was nice and neat. Not all of the residents at Sunset Home were widowers or widows like Grandma Chloe, many of the apartments were home to elderly couples. The apartment was spacious for a single person and not too cramped for two, though three would have been pushing it. There was plenty of natural light from the large windows along the east wall, the carpet was thick, soft blue pile, the walls were painted a neutral cream and framed photographs featuring family members, many of whom Jack did not know, hung throughout.
Jack stood looking at one of Shane with Grandma Chloe and their grandfather. Shane looked much the same then as now, so the picture had been taken not long before Gundry Donovan had passed away.
“I read about Grandpa,” Jack said.
Grandma Chloe had set a tray with cups and a pitcher of tea on the coffee table and when he spoke the dishes clattered faintly. Shane reached over to help steady her.
“Oh, yes?” she said.
“The obituary was on the internet,” Jack said. He turned away from the photograph. “I’m sorry.”
“Yes, well… it was several years ago,” she said. “They say you get used to it. Guess I’m still waiting for that to happen.”
“Come sit by me, baby,” Kate said to Jack, patting the cushion beside her. She was seated on the loveseat across from Grandma Chloe and Shane.
Shane looked miserable. Jack passed behind him as he crossed the room and paused to rest a comforting hand on his shoulder. He leaned down to speak in his ear and said, “I like them. Especially the lion with the bows in its hair.”
It was a tattoo Mark had done on Shane’s left bicep; the cowardly lion from The Wizard of Oz.
Shane smiled and Jack smiled back and went to sit beside their mother. Kate looked between them, frowning over the exchange.
When Jack sat down beside her, she half turned herself toward him, assuming a confidential air that excluded her mother and her eldest son. “Jack, honey, why didn’t you call me? We’re listed. We would have come and got you anywhere and brought you home. You shouldn’t be staying out there in that decrepit house. Not with… Well, it doesn’t matter. You’ll come home to Austin with me and Carl. There’s a guest house. It’s much nicer and—”
Jack took his hands away from her as she tried to hold onto them. It was meant as a comforting, intimate gesture that from her only made him feel confined. “No,” he said. “I’m staying.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kate said. She lifted a manicured hand with a pear shaped diamond the size of a penny on the middle finger and tucked a stray lock of blond hair behind her ear. “Of course you’re not staying.”
Jack remembered his mother with dark hair. Not as dark as his own, but sable brown like Shane’s. Her eyes were blue, like his, like their grandmother’s, but she had never been blonde.
“Why would you want to stay out there in that swamp, and with him,” Kate asked. Her voice had lost some of its soft, dismissive affectation. It became sharp as he remembered it.
She turned her head and pinned Shane with her gaze. He stared down at his lap and fidgeted with the steel ring on his finger, not meeting her eyes. His face became flushed and his breathing got a little deeper.
“After what he did to you—what I caught him doing to you—you want to live with him?” Kate asked Jack. “Sweetheart, you must have been through so much, but you don’t have to do that. There are other people who love you. I love—”
Grandma Chloe reached over and put a hand over Shane’s fidgeting fingers. “Kate-Lynn Marie Donovan, you hush your mouth this—”
Jack cut her off and shot to his feet. He had sat there for a moment in stunned silence as he rolled what his mother was saying, what she was doing, around in his head. When it fell into place, his anger was quick and fearless. “You shut the fuck up,” he snarled.
Kate’s face went blank like Jack had smacked the expression right off of it.
“You brought those men into our lives. You,” Jack said, jabbing a finger at her. “I think you knew what they did to us. I think you knew they were going to do it, but you didn’t care because you couldn’t just be without a man, without a dick in your life to make you feel wanted and special. ‘You’re so pretty, Jack. You’re my special, handsome boy.’”
Kate turned white as curdled milk as Jack made his voice high and mocking.
“Yeah, well, I’m so pretty your boyfriends couldn’t stop fucking me, so thanks for that, Mama,” Jack said, fairly spitting it at her. “Shane never did anything and I told you that, but just like everything else, you wouldn’t listen. You took him away, so fuck you. Leave him alone, you soul-sucking skank.”
She looked like she was about to faint or vomit. Grandma Chloe sat there very still and didn’t say a word, but her eyes had become wet and shiny, shrink-wrapped in tears.
Jack stared at his mother coldly for a couple of seconds. Then he walked over to Shane, reached down and took his shaking hand and gave a gentle tug. “Come on,” he said softly. “Let’s go in the kitchen.”
Shane got up and went with him. In the kitchen, their grandmother had decorated with colors of yellow and green and patterns of sunflowers. The room retained a smell of baking, like fresh bread, that was soothing and slowly Shane began to calm down and breathe regularly. In the living room, Kate began to sob.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” Shane said.
Jack’s heart was racing, his system awash with adrenaline. He hadn’t been afraid to look his mother in the eye as the words left his mouth, but there was a metallic flavor on his tongue that he associated with fear as he stood there remembering it. Only gradually did he understand that it wasn’t fear he was feeling at all; he was slightly aroused. He could have laughed at how absurd that was, but he quashed the inappropriate urge.
Jack leaned against the counter and looked out the window over the breakfast nook. The curtains were in a kitschy tablecloth pattern of yellow and white squares, embroidered with sunflowers and leaves. It was cheerful and contrasted starkly with the little family drama playing out in the next room.
“I’ve wanted to say that for a long time,” Jack said. “I won’t apologize for it.”
Shane looked down at the tile floor between his feet and nodded. “Okay.”
“I hate her,” Jack said.
Shane glanced up at him and their eyes locked. “Me, too,” he confessed. “I always wanted her to love me. She didn’t. I don’t think she ever even tried.”
“Kate-Lynn, I don’t know what you’re crying and carrying on so much for. Ain’t nothing but the God’s honest truth,” Grandma Chloe abruptly said. She was not a mean woman, but there wasn’t an ounce of comfort in her voice when she spoke. “You are not the victim here and I am not about to listen to you feeling sorry for yourself a minute longer. Them boys have been through hell, most all of it your doing, so you go ahead and you cry, but you’re not doing it here. I think you need to go on and leave now.”
“I can’t—I need to speak to Jack,” Kate insisted. “I need to make him understand—”
“You need to go on,” Grandma Chloe said. “I will not have you showing your ass. I’ll call security up here and show mine before I let you start anymore shit with those boys in my house. You understand me? It’s damn disgraceful.”
Jack and Shane shared a smile at that. Their grandmother did not swear very much and when she did it was a bad sign. She was a patient woman, but she didn’t brook much nonsense from anybody including, it would seem, her only daughter.
“He always did have you to take up for him,” Kate said bitterly. “He was your precious little grandson, but I know better. I always saw through that boy. So shy, so quiet, always sneaking around. A mother knows.”
“A mother does, indeed,” Grandma Chloe said calmly. “I know you, darlin’. To my everlasting shame do I know you. There are days I can’t hardly believe you crawled out of my womb. One day, I’m going to meet my maker and the first thing I intend to ask Him is exactly where the hell I went wrong. Now, I’ve heard enough out of you, little girl. You know where the door is.”
Kate’s heels clacked sharply on the wood floor as she stormed out of the apartment. She slammed the door behind her as she left. Then there was dead silence.
Faintly, there came the chiming sound of ice in the bottom of a glass as it was lowered. Grandma Chloe appeared in the doorway. “I think I’ve had just about all the excitement today that a body can handle,” she declared.
She smiled at them both and went to the stove to turn the burner on beneath the coffee pot. She casually reached over and touched a hand gently to Jack’s head as she passed him. “I don’t know where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to, but whatever it is, they sure didn’t feed you much. You’re about the skinniest little thing I ever set eyes on. That’s okay, baby, I’m gonna feed you right. You boys are staying for supper. I got me some fish at the market the other day. How’s fried fish and hushpuppies sound?”
It sounded great. It sounded perfect.
Chapter 10
It was particularly hot that August. They opened the windows at night to allow for air to flow through the house, but that air was still hot and humid. Rain cooled things down, but it hadn’t rained since the end of June. There were fans throughout the house but it was still miserably hot. With the windows open, they lay sweating in their beds on top of the sheets, the warm air cooling them as it puffed over their bodies. The cicadas buzzed and the neighborhood dogs occasionally barked. Jack had never slept better in all his life.
Shane, it seemed, had never slept worse.
It started the night after they returned home from that first visit with Grandma Chloe. Shane didn’t sleep so much as pass out. He got drunk that night, on whiskey rather than beer, then he went to bed early. He got up Monday morning for work the same as usual and didn’t say a word about it, but he was withdrawn. That night there were nightmares and Shane spent most of it sitting in the kitchen at the table with the radio on and the dog dozing on the floor. He did that for the rest of the week. He didn’t scream and make a lot of noise, but he slept only a few broken hours before he’d be up again and Jack knew it because without the drugs to keep him down he was a light sleeper. Shane tried not to drink much during the week because he had to get up and go to work, but a couple of times, Jack smelled marijuana in the house in the night.
At first, Jack stayed in bed to give Shane privacy, but when the behavior continued, he became more bold. He got up and went to sit with him. They didn’t usually speak, but Shane would offer him the bottle or the pipe and Jack would take it and drink or smoke.
Near the end of August, Shane kept them both late at the shop one night after everyone else had gone home. He was working on a truck, but they both knew that was only an excuse. The place was closed, the doors locked, so Shane took off his shirt and tossed it aside. He kept a small refrigerator in the garage for bottled water, soft drinks and the employees kept their lunches in it. Shane also had beer in there, though no one was allowed to drink it when the sign on the door said “open”.
