purplerabbit

(If you're new to my writing, please go back to the index page. These last two have been pretty damn dark. All the Bruce stories are.)


"Who are you?

"What do you want?

"Why can't you get what you want?"

- from a story prompter


My name is Bruce. I want to be safe when awake, sleep peacefully, get enough to eat, and learn enough about this world to survive in it.

Why can't I get any of that?

Parents.

Well, shit.

Let's break this down, young man.

When I'm alone in the house, I'm safe. That's between when middle school gets out at 3ish, and when my stepmother comes home around 6 PM.

But I have other things to do with that time. That's also my hustle window. Library, collecting cans, mapping out the world in which I must live.

I've tried so many methods to sleep peacefully.

The privacy lock that interior doors have is worthless. Most can be popped with a paper clip. The one on my door can be opened with a flat head screwdriver.

Very convenient, but not for me.

I'm not allowed to have a lock on the door. I installed a surface mount lock, just like the one on my parent's bedroom, and my stepmother wordlessly went out to the garage, got the sledge, and broke it off with the sledge. I thought she was going to sledge _me_ there for a minute.

I then got in trouble for breaking the door. It's still scarred on that edge. Like me.

My father and stepmother have a simple relationship. He spends 99% of his time on the road traveling, sales for something or another. When he comes home, he has a warm hot meal waiting, the two of them coo over that dinner, exchange admiring glances, and go to the master bedroom and lock the door.

If it weren't for the sounds of the fucking, I'd get a good night's sleep, because at least I am left alone when he is here.

When he is not here. As a certain Spartan said, that's when there is a problem.

Don't think don't think don't think.

Well, kid, suck it ... shit. Flashback. Oh Goddamn it fucking hell pus nuts limp dick shit.

Deep breath. I think this is private and I've hidden it well enough. A book from the library on espionage, an entire chapter on concealment of objects in public places. This is in a pouch held by magnets concealed under a wrought iron fence left over when a wooden fence was put up, a little void space only accessible from our side yard. My stepmother doesn't like to get her hands dirty and I don't think my father's been in the back yard for years. I do what yardwork is needed to make it look presentable out the back bedroom window.

Perhaps the homicide detectives will find it, one way or the other. Haven't made up my mind yet.

So yeah, I can't lock the door and.

Maybe if I write real fast I can get it out.

she sits on my face and hits me in the head until shes done

Can't scream. But the page is wet now, from my tears.

When I am awake I can fight back. Constantly manage my personal space. Avoid being cornered. If necessary just leave the house and walk around the street all night. Done it enough that the cops stop me whenever they see me.

But if I "lay a hand" on her, it's a die roll whether I get to deal with her armed with a weapon, the cops again, or just the one time, my father with a 2x4. But that was enough. I didn't think I was going to walk again.

If I do decide to kill her, I have to do it when he is out of town. Then spend the rest of my life running. To quote yet another book, "I'll only die tired."

I'm already tired.

I've tried napping in the safety window. Two issues. I can't then sleep that night. I'm blown out for the next day. And there's always some sort of interruption which my hyperaware brain interprets as an attack. Even if I barricade my bedroom door shut with furniture. Another thing I'm not allowed to do.

My room is messy. Damn right my room is messy. I leave shit all over the floor so I get a chance to wake up and maybe not.

Another flashback. This is really hard.

Legos were good. Until I had to stay late at school one evening for a mandatory play attendance, and she threw all of them out. Three letter sized cardboard boxes, accumulated gifts from distant relatives. Far too expensive for me to replace when every penny I can lay hands on has to go to food.

There's a kitchen. There's food in it. At least I'm told that.

I can usually rely on there to be milk and to be orange juice. My father threw such a fit the one time there wasn't milk for his coffee, she keeps it stocked, and grudgingly buys a few gallons at a time.

I don't touch the orange juice. The smell of it makes me want to throw up. Having some poured down your throat because you won't

Another flashback. Jesus H. Motherfucking Christ on a Goddamn pogo

I don't have a mother. She died. I don't remember her.

What I do have is this level faced lying manipulative bitch who is so good at charming everyone. She doesn't bother with me. She shows her true self. And she cackles about it.

Another quote. "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?"

I've thought about it. I've dreamed about it, which is a pleasant change from nightmares.

But making it an accident. Especially because I couldn't make it five minutes through an interview with a psychologist, let alone a police detective.

I've thought about running away. Where would I go?

I would end up selling newspaper subscriptions with a gang of several other kids, being driven from town to town in a cheap motel room, occasionally getting fast food and trading sex for pocket change.

I know because one knocked on the door and we talked.

I signed up my father for every subscription she was selling, with his credit card number. We never got any, but he never said anything. Probably didn't notice the charges.

I gave her all the cash I had, which was $9. I even gave her the stash of crackers I'd been hiding behind the dusty shelf of encyclopedias. Talked to her through the closed door while she showered in the guest bath. First shower she'd had in two weeks. Spent five minutes trying to comb out the snarls in her hair, until she _had_ to get to the next house. Had to make quota.

Despite my kindness, she had the resentment that a stray cat has for a housecat. Or what Malcolm X calls a field N-word for a house N-word.

I much preferred one customer, however, cruel, to a stable interspersed by door to door sales on little food and no sleep.

Ramen and Vienna sausages. Tuna and macaroni and cheese. I keep trying to cook rice on the stove, and fucking it up. When I saved up to buy a rice cooker, she broke it.

Of course, if I killed her, I could look forward to being made some older boy's bitch, and prison for the rest of my life, if I survived to be arrested and then survived that arrest. If I did get out in a few decades, I would have to spend 14 hour days working at the car wash for $3 an hour. I'd found out about that when I'd tried to get a job there.

"I can't trust a kid like you to work cashier, which is the only skill you might have. On the line they'd beat the snot out of you when I wasn't looking and I don't want the drama."

Even $12 a day would be a life changing amount for me.

That's why I recycle the cans. Nickels add up.

A neat and clean appearance helps. I'd learned that from the subscriptions girl.

So that three hours between end of school and her, that's when I do my laundry and shower and mend what clothes I have. I'm not good with a needle but practice makes perfect. I guess?

She gets home. Eats food she brought on the way home from work. Sometimes there's a little extra for me, but usually not. She will pour it down the drain so I don't get it, if she's irritated. And no matter how nice and polite and well behaved I try to be, sometimes for the hell of it.

She knows how to cook. She'll cook when my father's home. Not the entire rest of the time. And God help me if one dish is out of place or any slight touch of grime is on the stove or there is any evidence that the kitchen was used while she was out.

Finally figured out, again with the help of espionage books, that she was leaving literal tell-tales - hairs - on objects to see if I had used or touched them.

Wait a second.

I'm living in a prisoner of war camp.

And it's worse because a prisoner can hope to escape and evade and get back to his side.

I have nowhere to go. I am my own jailor.

Mission objective: survive

I'm trying.

I'm trying.

I'M TRYING!