Crazy Horse's Girlfriend (9781940430447) (15 page)

Mom and Dad bickered and Jake and me tried to talk about school shit, but neither of us gave enough of a fuck about school to really make much of a conversation. It was the only half safe subject matter we had to talk about in front of my parents, not that they were listening. I wondered how had they gotten to this place, where there was no love, no seeing the other. Only anger, pain; the unfulfillable desire to win. I knew that I would kill myself if I ended up in a place like that. My stomach was in knots.

Jake added to the tension but I was glad he was around. I looked over at his long, dark, muscular body and felt sad. It wasn't his job to protect us. He was only a kid. A big tough kid, but a kid.

By the time we got the bill Dad was drunk as fuck and the twins were squirming out of their chairs every few seconds. As we walked back outside, and into the darkness, it began to thunder.

“Oh for God's sake,” Mom said, closing her eyes briefly and then pausing to look up at the sky.

Dad mercilessly barreled through the rain, and Jake and I quickly scooped the twins up and began after him, Mom trailing behind and complaining the whole way.

“Move it!” Dad said, nearly disappearing around a corner. My arms were already killing me and Carrie was weeping and tearing her claws into me. I didn't even have the energy to tell her to stop and hoped she would wear herself out.

We made it to the car mainly through memory, as Dad finally managed to move too quickly around one too many corners, and lose us.

“Goddamn him,” Mom said before she opened the door.

We filed in. By this time, the rain was pouring in sheets. Mom and Dad began to argue in earnest.

“Why do you do that!”

“I was just trying to get through the rain, Christine, if you'd only move it.”

“We're not as fast as you are, and we had the twins.”

Dad pulled sharply out of the parking spot, barely checking on his left to see if there were any incoming cars. I winced. Jake patted my shoulder.

“It's going to be OK,” he whispered. I nodded and my eyes began to well up.

“Doug! You're going to kill us. Watch where you're going.”

“Shut up Christine and let me drive.”

“Doug, please. It's raining and you need to watch where you're going. And you had so many scotches—”

“I'm fine Christine! What the hell is wrong with you? I have one little drink, so that I can put up with your incessant bitching, and you make an issue out of it!” He pumped the wheel with his left fist, to make his point. The car moved jerkily with each stomp of his fist and on the last one, skidded a little in the rain, which was now coming down much more wildly than it had when we left the restaurant.

I grabbed Jake's arm and squeezed. I closed my eyes. “Do something,” I whispered.

“Auntie Christine and Uncle Doug, maybe you guys could talk about this once we get home,” Jake said, and I opened my eyes. I had a pretty good idea this wasn't going to go over well. I wish I hadn't asked Jake to do anything.

Both of them were silent for a little while and I thought they might just let it go.

“Shut up!” Dad screamed. “Just shut up!” He began to move his arms up and down violently, keeping his hands on the wheel but causing the car to skid around in the rain with each pulse of his elbows.

“Dad! Calm down!”

“You calm down! I'm fine!” The twins began to cry in the back again, and I turned around and tried to comfort them as best I could.

“I'm just sick of putting up with a family that won't take responsibility!”

Mom snorted at this.

“You fucking bitch,” Dad said in low, grumbling voice.

“Don't you dare talk that way in front of the kids,” she said, crossing her arms and shaking her head. “Don't you dare.”

“Don't you
dare
talk to me like that!”

“Shut up.”

Dad's fist shot out from his right side and connected sloppily to the right side of Mom's face.

“You bastard!” she said, putting her hand up to the side of her face. “You goddamn bastard!”

“Maybe now you'll shut the fuck up and let me drive!”

Mom began to cry.

“You need to learn to respect me!” Dad said, hitting the wheel with his left hand.

“This is not how you get respect Doug, from bullying and drinking and hitting. What is wrong with you? You used to be reasonable, kind.”

“That was before I knew you were a bitch.”

“You bastard,” Mom murmured again and Dad's hand shot out once more, but this time, Jake caught it.

“You need to stop,” Jake said. Dad looked at his arm, taking his eyes off the road. He began to shake at Jake's hand violently, and the car started to swerve. Jake let go of his arm, but it was too late, we were already headed for the side of the road. We hit the ditch and started to go down a hill and the last thing I remember before I passed out was the sound of crying from all sides.

I woke to sirens outside the car and voices seeming to come from a great distance. The twins were wailing and I lifted and then shook my head. We were at an angle. The car had gone into a large ditch and it looked as if we'd slid until we hit the bottom of it. And although the voices had sounded distant, they were not. There were men outside of our car, prying doors open, asking if we were all right.

“Is everyone OK?”

“We're OK, I think!” Mom yelled.

“Try not to move,” one of the men outside the car said.

I felt a faint throbbing in my left thigh and looked down. Some kind of piece of metal had lodged itself in my thigh, though it didn't look very deep. I looked over at Jake and he was just waking up.

“Margaritte, are the twins OK? Can you see them?” Mom asked.

“I… I can't get out of my seatbelt without falling forward but I think if they're crying, they're OK.”

“Carrie! Mary! Are you OK?” she asked, and I could hear the anguish in her voice.

“Moommmyy,” Carrie wailed.

“It's OK, it's gonna be OK,” she said, and Carrie and Mary began to cry harder.

I looked over at Jake. He was awake. “Did you pass out?”

“No. We both swung forward when the car hit the bottom of the ditch, but I stayed conscious.”

“Mom, are you OK?”

“Yes,” she said, her hand coming back into the space between the seats. I grabbed her hand and we squeezed briefly.

“Dad?”

“He's out. His head hit the steering wheel. I think he's alright though. I hear him breathing.”

The men outside were finally successful in prying our doors open. They got us out one by one, Dad coming to during the process. We were all examined. I was the only one that they decided had to go to the hospital, though I'd seen Dad failing his breathalyzer on my way out. I knew Mom would have to bail him out. Again. On the way to Saint Lutheran's, I listened to the men talking in the front of the ambulance, Metallica blaring from the speakers. One of them was talking about a woman he had fucked and both of them were laughing. His story went on and on with details that made my stomach turn. I briefly considered pushing the thing sticking into my thigh further in just so I might pass out.

I had to have the metal removed from my thigh under local anesthetic, and then needed to be watched for a day. I was given a tetanus shot, and antibiotics intravenously. Then I received stiches. I was pissed. I wanted to go home and sleep in my own bed. And I was worried about Jake. I knew that Dad wouldn't want him near the house for a good long time, if ever again. He would have to start fully sneaking in through the window. And then there was the baby. I wondered if it was OK, though it felt strange wondering that.

I couldn't sleep for a long time. It was very dark outside. I had the TV on, like my mom did at night, but it wasn't helping. The TV rarely helped me sleep but I didn't have a book here, and the place smelled of pain, rubbing alcohol and underneath everything, an almost rotting flesh smell. A nurse came in every few hours to check on me and take my blood. I turned the channels and found an old episode of
The Jeffersons
. I loved that show. The housekeeper always reminded me of my auntie and Weezy was like my mom, always taking George's bullshit.

I wasn't in any real pain. The wound had been pretty minor, but they had given me some painkillers, and they were adding to the strange, sleepless state I was in. I wished my dad was like the next door neighbor in
The Jeffersons
, big and friendly and kinda dumb, but nice. I wondered what it was like to have a dad who drank a couple of beers here and there and gave you good advice. Even George, though an asshole in a lot of ways, at least didn't drink, and eventually listened to Weezy. George reminded me of my uncles, the kind of ego that has had to fight for everything to survive and is all puffed up but could be deflated at any moment, especially when women were involved. My dad was more like a big, angry brick wall, one that you could never reason with, one that grew the more you tried to get around it, like a maze where there was no exit. He'd gotten to the point where nothing you said would be met with anything but some fantastically twisted, paranoid reaction.

“Why won't she just leave him?” I whispered to myself, watching a tiny TV George jump around his apartment building, Weezy standing off at the side in a silky red dress, an expression of amusement on her face. I thought about Mike. I thought about the baby inside me. I thought about Mom. I thought about what it had been like for her when she got pregnant the first time. I put my hands on my stomach and wondered. Felt strange, sure of nothing. I looked outside at the dark. I slept before I knew that I was closing my eyes.

I woke up surprised that I had gone to sleep. Mom was sitting in a chair next to the bed.

“Hi,” I said, and stretched and then sat up. “Can I get outta here?”

“Yes, soon. The doctor has to come and check you out and that could take a while, but they tell me you're fine. And you can order breakfast.”

“I'm sure that's deeeelicious in this joint,” I said, adjusting my thin white blanket and thinking about the fact that this was the second set of stitches I'd had in two months. The other wound had healed, the stitches taken out, and the whole thing was nothing but a brownish scar on my side and a shitty memory. But it did strike me that one way or another, I really was sick of hospitals, stitches, and the cause of said things.

“Oh, Margaritte, just order something.”

I looked at the menu and ordered cereal. When I finished and the orderly had gone, I looked up at Mom.

“Is everyone OK?”

“Yes.”

“And Dad? And Jake?”

“Dad got a DUI and this morning, I had to go and bail him out. Jake is missing and your dad has already started drinking.”

“Oh, God,” I said and drank out of the Styrofoam cup of coffee in front of me. Mom must have brought it in for me. I shook my head. “Well, Jake has friends. Not great friends, but places he can stay, at least for a while. But damn Mom, it's eleven in the morning.” There was a clock on the nightstand next to the bed. “Not that Dad has many borders but he usually at least waits until four. And doesn't he work today?” I sighed and ran my hand down my hair. I couldn't wait to shower the stink of this place off me.

“I called and told them about the accident and then dropped the twins off at Auntie Justine's before I came here. I had to. The minute he got home, he headed for his office. I could hear him laughing in there, and crying and mumbling. I thought he'd come after me but he didn't.”

“Mom… ”

“Don't say it.”

“Why don't we just leave him?” I couldn't help it. I guess it was the lack of sleep, and the accident and the late night TV and this place. This white, sterile place that smelled of alcohol and death.

“If I leave him, he'll die, Margaritte. We don't have the money for rehab and he won't admit he has a problem.”

“He's going to kill us someday, Mom. He almost did last night.”

Mom took a breath. “That's not true. That was also Jake's fault.”

I looked at her incredulously. “Are you crazy? He was trying to get Dad to stop hitting you! And he was driving all of us around totally drunk, as usual!”

“He's a good driver, Margaritte. And before tonight, he was doing better.”

“I don't want to talk about this anymore. I can't.”

I turned my head away from her and started crying, silently. She tried to come around to me after a few minutes, tell me to stop, but I just put my arm over my eyes to block her out. She whispered my name. She began crying too. I almost wanted to tell her, confess everything, tell her that I had a child inside of me, feel her long brown arms around me, because I was her child. Tell her that I didn't know what to do. Ask her, because she was my mother, what I should do. Because I always had asked her. But I couldn't. I just couldn't. I stopped crying. I began to feel hard, cold as the steel armrests beneath me.