Milk-Blood (11 page)

“
Get me up. It’s pulling on me, pulling on me, it’s ripping my brain out.”

Ever
y word was getting sharper. The high pitch shrieks started to stab into his stomach. It wasn’t really
ripping her brain out,
he knew that. Mom had exaggerated everything since he was a little boy. She used to tell him to be ready for her funeral. That she was sick and dying. That she had a disease from all the hurt inside. He got used to acting like he believed her. And still today people in his life are always saying they were going to die, always saying they needed a doctor or a hospital. He knew what death looked like better than the doctors did. He’d had as many people die at his hands as the damn doctors. Mom wasn’t dying in this tub. She was still trying to be a puppet master and control people, but not anymore. Latrice was a puppet master, too. Oh, God could she get in people’s heads, until he put her down.

He left his mom alone
but kept the door open a crack. Her murmurs faded and lightly echoed like they were far away. He peeked into Lilly’s room. She was awake. Muttering things, but okay and in bed. His life was full of cracked doors. He needed a shot. He cracked open his second bottle of chilled, 100 proof vodka. First shot out of a bottle is always the strongest, and it burned like gasoline in his throat.

He went downstairs to the basement and the smell of sewage
and mold hit him. The air was humid, and scents stuck to his skin. Dirty laundry was piled in one corner, and the furnace seemed to ignite as a greeting. It rattled like a drunk man in armor.

He stepped over
the piles and stood below the bathtub. A bucket remained on the ground from times before when he had to unscrew the pipes, scrape away at the hair, and unclog the drain from the hairy gook. It still leaked. He looked up at the bathtub pipes, and was surprised he couldn’t hear his mom. At least not her words. She was splashing about in the water but the screaming had stopped.

She would be mellow soon. The Xanax wasn’t for lightweights. He’d done as much himself
, and it froze his brain and all the nerves in his body.
Except if you drink on it, you stay awake and lose control. You black out and firebomb houses and little kids die.

Get this done, then
lie in bed, he told himself. He wasn’t going to fuck this up. He had to do things perfect this week.

At
least it was quiet down here, underneath the earth. Up above they waited for him to take care of things. His two girls, one who was family, and the other who he agreed to father ever since he put her mother down. He’d signed up that day to do everything for her, but now they said it wasn’t enough.

Fuck it.
He should just stay here in the quiet underworld. This is where his brother Nelson came to escape sometimes and fix up with his dope. Used syringes in shoeboxes were left behind like animal tracks.

But he acted, like he always did, and reached
up to unscrew the elbow that lead to the bathtub drain and always leaked.

The elbow
was an old, plastic-to-galvanized-steel connector. He had to stand on a block of wood and stretch up as high as he could to reach it. He felt his arms ache. They were aging arms, like this damn pipe. Everything was getting older and the rust was showing.

He twisted it open and
got ready for a splash of water to drip into the bucket, but none came. The drain was still closed. Clogged. A bunch of hair and dirt and soapy grime was now filling the pipe. He grabbed a metal clothes hanger, straightened out the tip, and poked upward.

He hit something, he felt it, not something solid,
but something squishy. The clothes hanger got stuck in the muck. He pulled back on it, and a darky gooey liquid trickled down the pipe. Tiny drops hit the bucket.

A
scream echoed from upstairs. No words, just something yelling in pain. He was not even sure if it was his mother. The pitch was way outside her range. What the fuck? He didn’t poke her, did he? There was something squishy blocking the pipe.

“Daddy, daddy, where are you? Come here, come here fast.”

L
illy. Goddamn it, she was awake. His face burned with heat. His body raged against the house, this street, this universe. He couldn’t take it. He needed help. Get me a damn home health care nurse or nanny and fuck the insurance company bullshit. He rehearsed his talk with all of them in his head—Medicaid, protective service, social security disability, and all the rest as he dashed up the stairs, taking them two at a time. The booze and Xanax fueled him.

Upstairs in the hallway, he sa
w both Lilly’s door and the bathroom door were wide open. He turned the corner and there was Lilly kneeling down by the tub. Her pajamas were wet and her face was full of tears. Her sobs whined in a helpless plea.

She was
trying to pull her Grandma out of the bath, or at least what was left of her Grandma. Inside the bath was something Zach couldn’t recognize.

Sludge and gunk had wrapped itself all around his mother’s head. The hair from the drain had moved and was now all over her face. It had gotten into her mouth, into her nostrils, covered up most of her cheeks. She was still and lifeless, but the whites of her eyes peeked out. The eyes were blank, but she was alive and breathing. Just giving the Xanax stare.

Zach moved Lilly aside with force and reached into the tub. He yanked this time at his
mother’s head with all his might, and right away her head was lifting up. The hair was stretching like taffy. He grasped his mom’s head as if it were a barbell and he was doing a curl. He grunted and felt his whole bicep engage.

Lilly
stepped back, sat in the corner, but was watching. He needed to make this right. Oh fuck, why is she stuck and he needed to call 911. But then cops would come and protective service would know and he was already drunk with a swirling head that was about to blow.

But it was giving. Long
stretches of hair that weren’t even hers were being pulled from the drain. His mom’s body was nearly fully sitting up, and her neck tilted forward but still attached to the sludge. Was she breathing? Was her heart beating? Was it just the Xanax that put her out?

One more tug and it would
break free. The whole big patch of it seemed to be sliding up the pipes. It wouldn’t be much longer. His mom would be free and he’d clean her up and put her down to bed.

More tugs and
grunts and
SPLOT
—the whole thing popped from the drain.

His mom was
out and free. The gunk of hair was in his fist, and out of the sewer line attached to the handful of hair he held so tight was the head of Latrice. His infection. Lilly’s mother, was back.

Zach
looked down at her face. Her flesh was like a corpse that had been in water and nibbled at by fish. Her cheek had melted away revealing her jaw, but her deep eyes and infectious glance was still present. The earrings he gave her twelve years ago were still attached—fake diamond studs. The lips he kissed were there but had shriveled, unmistakably hers. The same mouth he had put a pillow over until she died was moving.

Then the mouth spoke
.

“Stop being so rotten Zachary. Why are you so
rotten?”

The words mocked, they enraged
. He felt steam shooting through him and with one hand grabbed the rusty scissors off the sink. He held Latrice’s head up by a handful of her hair, and began puncturing.

“
Stop being so rotten Zachary, stop being so rotten.”

T
he words kept coming and echoed like a wicked parrot, and each time he heard it he stabbed the tiny pair of scissors into her head. He sliced her cheeks, the sides of her neck, into her eyes especially—he needed to dot out those eyes. The last time he saw them was at her death, and this time he poked them right out until they were mush. The rusty metal scissors sliced and diced.

When his roars of rage died down,
Lilly was in the corner of the bathroom, rolled up into a ball with her hands over her eyes.

And in the tub was
her Grandma. Her body was limp. Her hair swayed in the water that had now turned red as if tomato paste. And her face was pecked apart like a scarecrow that the birds no longer feared. Her eyes were fully gone, having been punctured a dozen or more times, and much of the flesh had been ripped off her face. Stabs into her neck made blood flow like a waterfall into the bath water.

There wa
s no sign of anything else. No Latrice. No dismembered head—only a dead, old woman bathing in her own blood.

What happened?

“
You seen that? You seen that? You seen that right Lilly? You seen what I seen?”

Chapter Thirteen
: Lilly and the Day Everything Changed

“
You seen that? You seen that? You seen that right, Lilly? You seen what I seen?”

His voice had that rage which dared
me to even think different. I needed to stay still and agree or he’d be angry and hurt someone else. I could feel it. Don’t say much, don’t admit any truths. And don’t look down and to the left when you talk. I did not see whatever it was he was talking about.

“Yes
, Poppa, I saw it.”

Poppa.
I said Poppa. I hadn’t said Poppa in years, but why did I say that? And what did he see that I hadn’t? I had covered my eyes with my hands as soon as I saw him swing the scissors at Grandma. When I had opened them, I wished I hadn’t. My grandma was in a bath of her own blood, and her eyes were still open and staring at the ceiling. Her mouth was open, too, like it was stuck in a scream. And my dad had killed her.

“
It was her, Lilly. It was your momma. Your momma was here. In the bath”

All
I could see was mushy stuff all over Grandma’s face. Her body was floating in the bloody mess of the bathtub and her skin was changing colors.

My
dad put his hands in the bath searching frantically under the water. Her body moved about, dead as a floating log, and tiny waves of blood bounced against the side of the tub.

“
You saw her, you saw it. You did, right? Where did it go? Where did it go?”

Dead.
He murdered her, and he was my crazy dad now. I hated when he talked like this. When he smelled like this. Like he was full of drunkenness and anger. The craziness spun around him, and his words starting spinning in a whirl that I was getting caught up in. Everything was changing for good tonight. I wrapped my arms around my gut, clenched each muscle, and waited for it to end.

“The head. It’s here. In this house. What’s happening? I have to see. You have to see. You don’t know how this works. You burn and bury but maybe not. Maybe I did it wrong. Maybe she got out.”

His words smelled of his insides.
Grandma was dead and my insides were dying too. If I could see them, I am sure my insides would look like the bathtub looked.

“I got to find it. I didn’t do this. This isn’t real. Space is lost, time will come back. You stay here. Stay right here. Stay here. Stay.”

I sat perfectly still, and looked up at him with an obedient nod. He darted out the door and I was left alone. His words hung in the air but his craziness left with him. I heard him rummaging through the garage and the clang of tools and clamoring of metal. This was bad.

Everything was falling apart.

I sat in stillness with Grandma. Not a sound, just my heart thudding, and once in a while a drop of water from the faucet. Drip, drop, with long pauses in between. Grandma’s body changed, greyed, and seemed gentle in the bath. It was sweet, even, the way her body floated in the tub. I felt like there was a peace right now that was better than what had just happened, and better than what was about to come. I was nestled small but secure in-between the wall and the toilet, just a turtle inside its shell.

Grandma
needed me there with her, I think. Like one of those funeral homes were people go to see the body, but it was just me. Like I was the new woman of this block. I thought of reaching out to touch her, to try and hold her, but it would have felt wrong. She was so still. Perfect. Peaceful. Grandma had lived a long time, and to do that on this street meant she won. The street didn’t get her. People here die all the time from guns when they are 20, or they go to jail for 30 days or to the hospital to get their legs amputated. Grandma has been through all that with her kids, her sons, and she survived.

Until now.

If
Dad can do this to his own mom, what might he do to me? Whatever he did, I would take it like Grandma did. I was tired of my body and wanted it to change. I looked at the way the blood swirled out of her neck and made circles in the water, little traces, like watercolor paints. I didn’t want that, but what was left for me here?

I sat and listened for
an answer in the drips. They dripped like a clock that ticked too slow and didn’t tell me much. Just a high-pitched dripping sound that filled my head and then echoed through my aching body before disappearing. Time ticked on that way. I was waiting for something to happen next, felt like I should get up and get help, but I couldn’t. Nobody else can know my business. I can’t tell them. If they try to take me away, it will be somewhere bad. And if they do it is my fault.

I don’t know how long I waited, only that every other plan of doing something other than waiting was not going to work.
With no H
to make me feel love inside, with no real protective service, with nothing but my dad, I was here until he came back.

Finally,
there was a whooshing sound from the front door opening, and then the pounding of my dad’s feet rushing back to me. Something important was being delivered. His panting breath arrived before he did.

When
he rounded the corner and stood at the door, I saw him with a shovel in one hand and his pants covered in mud. A trail of dirt followed him. He dropped the shovel, which clanked to the floor.

In
his other hand was a round, grey rock, that he palmed like it was a basketball. He was too tired to speak, so both of us waited for him to catch his breath. I pulled my legs up into my chest and put my hands on my face. I was ready to cover my eyes again soon.

“
You see this?” he yelled, and held up the rock. “I got it. It is here. We need to unburn the house and unbury the truth. It starts with the head.”

He tossed the grey ball
into the bathtub and it splashed near Grandma’s feet, making waves in the red water.

My hands
went over my eyes at first, afraid to see the truth he was telling me, but I spread my fingers apart and saw what it was. A skull. There was a skull floating in the bathtub, bobbing a bit, almost ready to come to rest.

I
t was not like one of those clean skulls you see for doctors to study, but an ashy grey one that looked part burnt up, part torn apart. Vacant eye sockets looked sideways and right at me.

“Lilly. Th
at is your mother. I got her for you. See?” He pointed to the bathtub. “She’s been dead. I can’t tell you why. You don’t need to know that. You only need to know she can’t hurt you anymore. She wanted me to kill you,
to take care of you like I do
. Well, I did take care of you.”

I tore off some toilet paper to rub the mucus and tears from my face, and I looked up at him.
His voice sounded scared, loving, almost sweet, and unlike what I had ever heard. It was like I was looking at him as a five-year-old child, even though the lines on his face were deep and tired. There was danger in his eyes, but they weren’t scary to me, they just looked damaged. I put a hand on his cheek. He was warm and clammy. Sweaty. Defective.

“
She can’t hurt you, see? If I had a mommy, I would take care of her like you do.”

Dad was repeating what I
had said to him in my bedroom. He remembered it. We stared at each other in the corner of the bathroom still thinking on these words when I heard someone else in the house. Someone with boots, and the steps got closer. Somebody was here and coming towards us, but my dad didn’t seem to care, he stayed there kneeling in front of me, hypnotized or frozen. His sweat smelled of alcohol, but cold, like the outside air was still on him.

The noise of stomping boots got closer, and around the corner, I saw who it was
. The Red-Man. He was here.

“
You got things that are mine.”

Dad’s
head turned, and he started to leap up, but the Red-Man was on the attack. He was holding a big piece of led pipe, and swung it with two hands at my dad in a baseball swing. By the time it crunched on my dad’s head, I was back in my dark world behind my hands and fingers, not seeing but hearing the thwack.

“You got things that are mine
.” Another whack followed, but this one sounded like it hit his gut. “You ain’t no Daddy, you see, and you got things that are mine.”

My dad cursed, a long angry one, but it was cut short
by a mushy thwack sound, and another, and another, until Daddy cursed no more. I heard a splash from the bath water and the Red-Man grunted and howled like a beast. I peeked between my fingers and there he was, my dad in the bath. His face was a mangled, purple mess and blood was gushing from his nose into the bath.

I couldn’t hold back the tears at all this time. My eyes were puddles of
mud.