Behind the Glass
***
The metal door clinked loudly as the officer shut it
behind me.
“Follow me.”
He led me across a sterile room to a plastic and metal
chair positioned in front of a booth, grabbed the back of the chair and
motioned silently for me to sit. I sat down and looked ahead through a sheet of
thick plexiglass to the opposite side. My mother stared back at me.
“Hi, mom.”
“Hi, sweetie.”
Small, dark specks of blood remained on her nose and
chin. All the blood on the front side of her white sweater had crusted into a deep
crimson from the chest down.
“Mom, why are you in here and not him? It’s not fair.”
“It was an outstanding warrant from a while ago.
Nothing serious. They want to keep me overnight, that’s all.”
“Overnight? It’s not fair!" I stood up and pounded the plexiglass hard with my fist. "You came here to charge him! It’s not fucking fair!”
The officer stepped towards me. “Settle down or we’ll
throw you in, too.”
“Fuck you.”
I sat down again and slumped in my chair. Looked at my
mother. Saw my own angry face staring back at me in the glass.
****
I fled through the front door of our duplex into the
cool dark of early morning at 3 a.m. The traffic light at the intersection cast green on
my striped pajamas as I ran up the driveway. Deserted streets in either
direction. The neighborhood houses were grey, inanimate facades of their former
selves. No signs of life but my own ragged breath.
A few blocks down, my old elementary school cast thick
shadows as I lumbered by. Gravel punctured my bare feet as I passed beneath the
humming streetlight. I had left there only a year ago for junior high. My first
kiss right in that parking lot. His big teeth, my small mouth. Passing notes in
class. Will you go out with me, yes or no
(circle one). The thought of it stung my eyes.
I was never a runner, even before the asthma. By the
time I turned onto my uncle’s block I was staggering. My bloody feet smudged rickety
wooden steps as I climbed to his front door. The house was dark. I rapped my
knuckles against the hard door several times. A light went on in the foyer. A
click of the locks and the door opened. My uncle stood squinting against the
light in his housecoat.
“What the hell?” He swung open the screen door to let
me in. “Did you come all the way from your house like that?”
“He ripped the phone out of the wall. I couldn’t call.
You need to come.” I swallowed hard and waited like all the other times. He
stared back at me, silent and wide-eyed. My legs trembled. I wondered if he had
heard what I said.
“For fuck sakes,” he muttered. “Wait right here for a
minute”. He shuffled off towards the bedroom. I heard the muffled exchange of
voices. Then the soft shuffle of clothes, heavy footsteps on the creaking
wooden floor, the jingling of keys. My uncle emerged in jeans and a sweater.
“Okay, let’s go,” he said.
We were there in three minutes. The traffic light was
red as we pulled up to the intersection by my duplex. My uncle’s knuckles
flashed white as he gripped the steering wheel. We both stared straight ahead
in silence.
The lights in my duplex were still on when we arrived
but no shapes were visible behind the curtains. We stood on my doorstep
together as he rang the doorbell. I felt like that kid who had to go get the
teacher. A tattle-tale. He rang the doorbell a second time. Moments later heavy
footsteps moved down the stairs toward us. My mother answered the door.
Her disheveled blonde hair had been pulled back in a
ponytail, betraying a pink and puffy face. One of her eyes looked smaller than
the other. A bead of fresh blood glistened on her cut lip. She nervously wiped
at it with the back of her hand.
She looked upon me with contempt. “Where the hell have
you been?”
“I was–”
“What’s going on?” my uncle cut in.
“Nothing is going on,” she said, matter-of-factly. She
reached over and grabbed my sleeve, yanking me in the house.
“Jesus Christ. Don’t tell me nothing’s wrong. Let me
in for a minute.” His hand pressed against the door.
“Everything’s fine. Go home.” The walls of the duplex
shook as she slammed the door. The deadbolt was clicked in place.
I trudged up the stairs, sunken, defeated. My mother
followed in silence. The truck engine rumbled to life in the driveway, its
departing headlights flashing through my bedroom as I climbed into bed. My
mother closed my bedroom door as she walked by, sealing me in against the
hallway light. All was dark.
******
“Good morning,” my mother said as I entered the
kitchen late the next day. Must have been close to noon. I didn’t answer.
The smell of stale beer and dish soap hung heavy in
the humid kitchen. The windows were steamed up, except for the one with masking
tape on the cracks. Empty bottles and beer cans were neatly piled in the corner
on the linoleum next to the two-seater kitchen table. The broken glass had been
removed from the floor, counters wiped. Clean covers put on bloody pillows. All evidence erased. Nothing had
happened here.
I made myself a coffee and headed into the living
room.
He sat in the recliner, a sprawl of open arms and legs
as he stared at the TV. “Hey, kid,” he said. I said nothing and sat down on the
couch across the room.
Twenty minutes passed before he made a joke about
something on the news. This was his apology to me. I turned to him, looking at
him squarely as if seeing him for the first time since he came into our lives a
year ago. Faded black clothes. Black greasy hair. Pale skin. He let me stare
without looking back.
He used to make me laugh, back in the days when any of
us laughed at all. He always called me ‘kid’.
“Hey kid,” he would say. “Why didn’t the lifeguard
save the hippie?”
“I dunno. Why?”
“Because he was too far out, man”. Then he would
giggle like a tickled boy. That always made me laugh.
“Hey kid, come here for a sec” he said one day. I
would always oblige. He had secrets and stories to tell. He rolled up his
sleeve to reveal a tattooed arm, turned it over so I could see its smooth,
white flesh on the underside. “See that, kid?”
I looked closer. Small pink-brown polka dots lined his
arm. They were everywhere.
“Burns,” he said.
“Burns? Burns from what?”
“My mom. She would put her smoke on my arm. If I could
take it for more than a minute she would give me a beer.”
“Looks like you drank a lot of beer.”
He laughed, reached over and messed my hair. I smiled.
Those were softer times.
By the time my mother was finished cleaning in the
kitchen, he had left the room. She sat on the other end of the couch from me,
groaning as she bent. The sound of brokenness. We sat in silence for a long
time while the TV droned on.
Suddenly I turned to look at her. The pink swells on
her face from the night before had begun to darken. One black eye, maybe two.
Her nose looked more crooked than usual. Only seconds passed before she looked
back at me. She wasn’t a coward like he was. My mother was tough. Sometimes too
tough for my liking.
We met each other’s eyes for a few moments.
“What?” she asked.
“Have you looked at yourself in the mirror today?” The
question hung between us, sucking all the oxygen from the room. I suddenly
wished someone else had said it. Someone far away. I wanted it to stop there
but that person kept right on talking.
“Do you think other people live like this? Why can’t
we just live like everyone else?”
Her eyes began to water but she held my gaze. Her lips
trembled.
“Well are you at least going to press charges?”
She turned away. No one in my family cries. She stared
at an ink stain on the coffee table for a while. My eyes remained locked on her,
waiting. Just when I thought she would speak, she rose, walked to her bedroom,
and shut the door.
****
A door opened on my mother’s side of the visiting
booth. A young male officer emerged.
“Ma’am, time is up,” he said.
I sat up in my seat. I wasn’t ready for this. I
couldn’t bear the thought of her sleeping in a cold, hard cell in that bloody
sweater.
She stood up from her seat. I stood up, too. I leaned
in close to the plexiglass, my breath flashing against it.
“Mom.” I clenched my jaw hard, but the tears came
anyway.
The officer took her gently by the arm to lead her
out. She gave me soft look as she walked away.
“It will be okay, sweetie. I will see you tomorrow. Go
home."
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