It wouldn’t take a genius to see right away that Jenna’s kid would’ve turned out to be one fucked up adult. Though it always seemed like it could’ve easily taken one brave person to stop all that nonsense. Instead everyone just tried to look the other way. Even I just looked the other way, even when it was right in front of my face.
I found out on the count of grandma getin’ sick. She’d been smellin’ real bad for a week before we noticed the gangrene. It’d always been my duty to do the up keepin’ with her though. So when it came time we realized she was rotting away, it became my job to pay for all the medical expenses.
Me and her shared a room- if you could call it sharin’. In a double wide there’s never much room. Though it ain’t as bad as a trailer I suppose. That’s the big joke ‘round here, everyone says we live in the mansions of the trailer park.
What I remember most since my birth was grandma’s breathin’ machines. They used to pump all night, the canister had a blue box on it with little red and green lights and I’d fall asleep with only that gaspin’ and those tiny red and green lights on my mind.
Ma and dad taught me early on to take care of her, on the count of that they were workin’ all the time and didn’t have the money to take on help. I remember changin’ her diaper for the first time with my ma.
She made it a point to say so sternly: “Jimmy, you can’t get sick and cry ‘cause I aint gonna get sick and I aint gonna cry; we just don’t do that- understand?”
I didn’t know what she meant ‘till she’d already pulled down grandma’s drawers and opened up that shitty diaper. I tried so hard not to run away. Even when the puke started comin’ up my throat. I swallowed it back down cause I knew ma would never let me hear the end of it if I got it on her carpet or bed spreads.
It wasn’t exactly the shit that made me sick, or the piss. I’d seen that stuff before, it wasn’t that. But her crotch looked somethin’ aweful. All shriveled up and dry, stained with her own mess, the thick matted hair all gray and mangey lookin’ between her fat shriveled thighs.
I just figured I didn’t need to see that.
The thing is it got easier to do it. Just sorta grew cold to it after a while. I knew it had to be done, seein’ as me and grandma shared a room and I knew if I didn’t get to doin’ it my parents never would and I’d have to start livin’ in that filth myself.
It went like that for a few years goin’ good and all until one day we realized the stench wasn’t goin’ away with all the changes of diapers. At first I wasn’t gonna say nothin’ cause I figured ma and dad would just lay into me somethin’ fierce about not properly takin’ care of her. But it got bad and after a while there was no hidin’ it.
Ma was the first to notice the stench in the hall. By then I’d almost grown used to it, I was out in the the little lot behind our double wide that was supposed to be our back yard. I was sittin’ in the garden flippin’ through an old national geographic magazine I’d found in the closet. I looked at all those far off place with the people lookin’ so different. It all seemed so far away, so unreal. The thing I hated the most about it was they all seemed so happy in the pictures. Either happy or content, like they knew some meanin’.
That was when I heard ma screamin’ for me at the back door. She’d investigated the stench, but seein’ as I’d already changed the diaper she saw it wasn’t that and looked further. Took the bed sheets off, completely stripped her and that’s when she found the rot.
The doctor said her blood must’ve stopped reachin’ her feet for some time now, or somthin’ like that. He said they’d have to take off the left one up to the knee, the right one at the ankle. Of course it was all my fault as my dad saw it, so I had to start lookin’ for ways to start helpin’ pay for the hospital care. That’s when I started into the baby sittin’ business, the only real thing a boy my age could do ‘round here. That and walkin’ dogs. But most the folks there were old and had small dogs and they didn’t like me walkin’ them.
*
Jenna was my neighbor, she was, “as pretty as they come,” as my dad put it. But she got pregnant right after her dad died from a black widow bite on the count of him not getin’ any treatment for it on the count of them bein’ so broke. Her dad died and she got pregnant by Guss McComb from the other side of the trailer park. He was an alright guy, used to give me these small cigars to smoke sometimes when he and his boys would be sittin’ ‘round his drive way drinkin’ beers. He’d let me sit with them for a while and smoke, lookin’ tough while they talked about a lot of things I’d never heard of.
He and Jenna were a well known item round the park even though she was seventeen and he was twenty-three. She used to sing some song by that dead girl Aaliyah called “age ain’t nothin’ but a number”. She sounded real pretty when she sang and I liked it even though I always figured that age had to be somethin’ more than just a number though, cause why else would we put so much worry into how old we was?
Guss and Jenna started getin’ real close when Jenna’s dad died and her momma was spendin’ a lot of time in the city workin’ long hours at a job no one knew too much about, tryin’ to clean up the money mess her dead dad had left behind. Or so Jenna said. I don’t think she thought too highly of her momma. But she had loved her dad, that’s for sure.
Jenna sure was pretty back then, I figured that if I was older I would’ve wanted her to be my girl. But I knew I was just a shit little kid, so I watched her and Guss and it made me feel a little nice to be close to that kinda thing.
Guss said he took her clothes off. He said he took off her underwear and played with her parts. He asked me if I knew what a pussy was. He said it’s what girls got that we don’t. He said it felt good when we put our dicks in them, all that talk made mine get real stiff.
But all I could think about was that mangey gray matted mess between my grandma’s legs.
Guss said Jenna was a virgin. He said he liked virgins cause they had to be taught everythin’ and he liked teachin’ them. He said doin’ it with them was like tryin’ to hold a fish outta water the way they’d squirm…
*
Jenna cried real hard when she found out she was gonna have a baby. Guss did a lot of screamin’.
I was sittin’ out on the porch with one of Guss’ friends from the city. He gave me one of those cigars and I smoked it but it tasted real funny and made me feel weird. I got real thirsty and dizzy. I choked a bunch and did a whole lot of coughin’. Guss’ friend just laughed out clouds of white smoke that smelled like burnin’ plastic from somethin’ he was breathin’ in from a light bulb.
Guss and Jenna were in the kitchen, I could see them through the torn screen door. They were at each other’s throats. Jenna kept sobbin’ sayin’ she’d get a job but Guss kept sayin’ to just get rid of it.
I wanted to ask Guss’ friend what he meant by that but I was feelin’ too sick to speak.
Guss and Jenna stopped yellin’ and went into one of the back rooms of the double-wide. I figured they were goin’ to Guss’ room so their rucous wouldn’t be heard all around the lot.
Guss’ friend was done with the light bulb and was pickin’ at his face lookin’ at his reflection in the window. I spotted a big plastic soda cup full of water and grabbed it to kill my thirst. Right away, though, I choked and spat out a few cigarette butts and black ashy liquid.
Guss’ friend laughed lookin’ at my reflection next to his, but then he went right back to pickin’ at his face.
I figured that Guss and Jenna must’ve done some fierce fightin’ cause when they came back they looked awfuly tired. Jenna sat down on the ground beside me, she had a red tender spot on the middle of her right arm and she kept itchin’ her nose. She looked awefully worn out.
Guss asked his friend for somthin’ called a spliff, I figure he must’ve been talkin’ about what I had smoked earlier cause he made a motion toward me and Guss just laughed.
“Why you lil’ peckerwood!” he cried with a tired sorta smile, “I’ll need to remember to keep my eye on you.”
He bent over and kissed Jenna on top of her head real gentle. Then as he turned to go back in the double wide he lightly whack her on the back of the head as if to wake her up from her dreamin’ and said:
“Go, on get that boy home, we’ll talk ‘bout this later.”
Jenna lived just down the road from my double wide. As we walked she told me ‘bout when she and her dad used to sit around and listen to the radio. She said his favorite song was “Brown Eyed Girl” by some fella named Van Morrisson that I’d also heard my dad talk ‘bout. She said she used to dance for him all ‘round the livin’ room when that song come on. I think all that talk about her dead dad mad her sad cause she didn’t speak anymore about nothin’ after that until we reached the front of my trailer.
“Guss is just like daddy sometimes,” she said with eyes that looked like they were shinin’ and I wondered if she wasn’t gatherin’ up some tears.
That was the last time I saw her until the baby was born. They brought it home around thanksgivin’ when the leaves were beginnin’ to turn. A lil’ baby boy, they named him Keith. My momma and my dad took me over to Jenna’s house and it was just us, Jenna, Jenna’s momma, and Guss sittin’ ‘round the livin’ room lookin’ at the little thing. It looked real red and weak. It looked like it couldn’t think nothin’, it just glared with empty eyes and it’s tongue hangin’ out a little. It kinda made me think of my grandma…
Guss said I was gonna be the god father and they all laughed- ‘cept I think it was Jenna that had insisted and I think she was serious cause she wasn’t laughin’. Jenna had found a job at the wheat mill and Guss was fixin’ cars on top of doin’ other odd jobs no one got into the specifics about. But he had people stoppin’ in at his house all the time so I supposed he must’ve kept busy.
Either way, on the count of me needin’ the money and me bein’ so close to them I fell into takin’ care of the kid. I’d have to tend to my grandma, changin’ her diaper and makin’ sure she ate; and then go over and change Keith and make sure he was eatin’ too. I’d usually have to stay there with him or take him back to my double wide if grandma needed tendin’ to.
Guss and Jenna weren’t very friendly to each other anymore after Keith came along either. They’d always be fightin’, durin’ the time we did spend sittin’ on Guss’ porch or on his driveway, they’d be tearin’ into each other ‘bout somethin’ new all the time. Guss always had a bunch of different guys hangin’ ‘round there and they would smoke cigarettes or stuff in pipes and laugh and joke. They said the baby was the worst thing that ever happened to Keith and that he should sell it on somethin’ called the black market. I guess he could get a lot of money for it there.
But their fights always ended the same. They’d go in that back room for a while and come out all tired and Guss’d tell Jenna that he talk to her about it later and to take me home.
I figured maybe Guss should’ve sold that kid on the black market. It would’ve saved us all a lot of trouble. But I can’t complain much cause it got me outta the doublewide for most’ve the day, which was good cause grandma’d started actin’ real strange and would let out loud cries in the middle of the night and durin’ most of the day. My dad said it probably meant it was close to the end.
I figured that her life endin’ didn’t sound so bad at all by then.
*
One day I was watchin’ Keith at Jenna’s momma’s doublewide when Jenna stormed in unexpectedly, she walked back to her room and Guss ran in after her. There was an awful lot of commotion and Keith started cryin’ so I took him out on the porch and craddled him tryin’ to get him to stop. I kept sayin’ to him: “You can’t cry cause I can’t cry, we just don’t do that you understand?” but he just kept on cryin’. I was holdin’ him, cradlin’ him but he was screamin’ I kept sayin’: “You can’t cry, we don’t cry here- understand?” but it was doin no good.
Jenna and Guss had stopped screamin’ but doors were slammin’ inside. I heard them go into the bathroom, lock the door and turn the shower on.
Keith just kept screamin’ like if he screamed enough at me I’d make all the bad stuff in this world go away. But I just kept sayin’, “Stop your cryin’ we don’t cry here, understand?
We don’t cry here you fuckin’ baby.”
The shower was mostly what was heard from inside the double wide but my head was in a whirl and Keith wouldn’t let up. I was bitin’ my lip real hard. In my mind I could hear the pumpin’ of the oxygen machine and see the green and red lights shinin’ so bright as I began to scream at the baby to over power his cryin’.
Then some weird cries came pourin’ out under the static of the shower runnin’. They were still havin’ little arguments though they were tryin’ to stop the anger with lust.
And Keith was still cryin’, so I just started shoutin’:
“We don’t fuckin’ cry here! You understand!? WE DON’T FUCKIN’ CRY, WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOUR SO GOD DAMN SPECIAL THINKIN’ YOU CAN COME HERE AND CRY WHEN NONE OF US ARE EVER ALLOWED TO!?”
But I noticed then that I was cryin’ too. And shakin. I was shakin’ the baby. And the cryin’ then that I was hearin’ was mine, not his. When I opened my eyes I saw the limp little body in my hands with drool drippin’ out it’s mouth, snot pourin’ out it’s nose, it’s eyes all wide and black. Lifeless.
I didn’t know what to do. I said his name over and over, tryin to get him to snap outta it, and even though I knew he was dead I couldn’t help but feel like this was all just a joke.
The shower was still sprayin’ inside so I knew I still had time to figure out what I was gonna do. I was surprised at how little I panicked after comin’ down from that freak out and gainin’ my reality back through necessity. I felt real cold and suddenly a lil’ bit alive. Like I’d just been waitin’ for somethin’ that annoyin’ to push me to do somethin’ that wrong and break down my life.
I knew then that I’d have to lie a bunch. I knew I would never get blamed for this and it would be my favorite secret that I’d keep ‘till the end. I knew I couldn’t hide him anywhere, I knew I couldn’t do anything ‘cept to make it look like an accident that I had nothin’ to do with.
I took him inside and put him in his crib. I closed his eyes and straightened his head and covered him with a blanket. He looked just like any other normal sleepin’ baby did. I figured they might even blame it on that crib death I’d read about in the national geographic magazine. I went out on the porch and found a stub of one of them small cigars and lit it up.
Smokin’ those made me feel real grown up. I could feel myself growin cold inside.
After a while the bathroom door opened, Guss went to the bedroom and Jenna came out to the porch in a pink robe with a towel wrapped ‘round her head. She asked me where Keith was and I shushed her and pointed at the crib to say he was sleepin’. She looked awfully tired again, and she was itchin’ her nose somethin’ aweful. She pulled out two cigarettes and lit them both givin’ one to me, so I threw that old cigar stub out onto the lawn.
I rarely got to smoke cigarettes, but I took to it quickly puffin’ to try to forget there was a dead baby inside waitin’ to be found. Jenna looked real drowsy, like she was about to fall asleep sittin’ there smokin’. But she started talkin’, and she seemed to like the sound of herself talkin’ cause she just started outta nowhere and went on ‘bout things we didn’t usually talk about.
“It’s all bad Jimmy,” she said soundin’ sick. “The world’s turned rotten.”
I just sat there quiet thinkin’ about my grandmas rottin’ body. Rottin’ alive. I started thinkin’ about how soon Keith’d be rottin’ too. And the how Guss and Jenna and me and Jenna’s momma and my momma and my dad- we’d all be rottin’ one day.
Jenna started itchin’ her nose. She opened her heavy eyes a little bit and held out her hand with her pinky finger extended.
“I’m gonna tell you somethin’” she said, “but you gotta pinky swear on your balls that you won’t tell no one.”
I wasn’t sure what to do. I knew that whatever she had to tell me couldn’t possibly be as bad as what she’d eventually have to find out. I felt like she had to get somethin’ off her chest, so I hooked her pinky with mine and swore to silence. I figured it’d be the least I could do after accidently killin’ her Keith.
“Keith ain’t Guss’ kid.” She said. “I knew I was pregnant before I ever let Guss touch me.”
Somewhere in the park I heard a bunch of dogs start barking somethin’ vicious, up in the sky the coulds were getting’ real brown and it looked like rain.
“My ma had been hookin’ ever since my pa up and died.” She was leanin’ back in the chair with a tired look of disgust on her face. “Truth is, she brought a man home not too long ago who’d done her up real bad. Had her tide up in the bath tub and stuck shampoo bottles up her ass.
When he was done with her she was unconscious for couple hours. And he camed to my room an’ had his way with me. I was too sick to fight it on the count of the medicine Guss gives me.”
I’d never heard her mention “the medicine” before until that moment, even though it didn’t make sense I didn’t bother askin’ questions.
“Guss’d been tryin’ to get in my pants for two years but I’d always fought off his advances. Thought I was gonna wait ‘till I was eighteen so we could get married, I wanted to get outta here. My momma never said nothin’ to me about that man, I guess she thought he’d just left after havin’ his way with her, and I didn’t want to say nothin’ cause I know how hard momma’s been workin’.”
She took a drag from her cigarette and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke.
“Besides, when I found out I had a bun in the oven I had a plan right away,” she looked at me sinisterly and went on, “I knew Guss wouldn’t’ve had anythin’ to do with me if I wasn’t no virgin, so I told him right after I found out that I was ready. We did it and a few days later I told him the news. Poor guy had no reason to think other wise. I been tryin’ to make it as easy as possible for him, but I just had to find a way to make sure he’d marry me.”
I had been chewin’ on the filter of my cigarette outta fear and it’d turned into a shredded mess in my mouth.
“Truth is I’d thought it’d be fine, but I can’t live like this no more.” She said takin’ a drag from her cigarette, lettin’ the long ash fall onto her robe- she seemed to be fallin’ more and more into dowsiness. “I been spendin’ lots of time tryin’ to find my momma’s money, I finally found out she’s been keepin’ it in the hallowed out bible under her bed. I figure when she has enough I’ll take it and me and Keith could run to California or New Mexico and try to get a new start.”
She started seemin’ real tired, real real tired, she let her head hang a little to the side. “I love keith…he’s such a perfect…..lil’ baby…..boy….” she said in a childish voice that gave me the shivers as she trailed off to sleep.
I snuffed out what was left of my cigarette, walked over to her and shook her gently to see if she would easily wake up but she didn’t. I reached in her robe pockets hopin’ to find anythin’. I felt real sick for some reason, I think all that explainin’ Jenna did made me see things the way they really was and I kinda just realized that everyone was just tryin’ to get by. Everyone had ways to trick others into helpin’ their lives roll along. It was like one big tricky family that I no longer wanted anythin’ to do with.
I a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from one pocket, in the other pocket I found a needle, like the kind they use at the hospitals to give people shots. I guess that’s what she and Guss used to do their medicine. I put it back in her pocket and went inside.
I walked into Jenna’s momma’s bed room where Guss was passed out half naked on the fold out sofa bed. He was snorin’ awefully loud so I just walked right in and didn’t take no time to think about nothin’. I found the bible under the bed and opened it, inside the hallow there was a large stack of bills- mostly hundreds. There was also little pouches of powder and some tary lookin’ stuff wrapped in shrink wrap. I took the money and the powder but left the gooey shit and put the bible back under the bed.
One bag of powder was white and the other was yellow. I didn’t much know ‘bout drugs but I’d seen those crime shows where criminals always put tiny lines on a mirror and breathed it up their noses so I figured I could get the hang of it real quick.
On my way out I stopped and took one last look at Keith. He was getin’ real blue by then and a little bile had come up and started pourin’ out his mouth. I stood over him and thought-
what makes you so special, thinkin’ you could come here and cry when none of us is allowed to? Then I covered him up with the blanket and walked outta the trailer. Jenna was still passed out and her bath robe was comin’ undone, she’d gained a bit of weight while she was holdin’ the baby and the stretch marks were still jagged and purple on her soft while belly. I could just barely see one of her tits hangin’ there, I stroked it for a second and then I kissed her on the lips and said goodbye. That was the first real time I’d ever kissed a girl, and I think it only felt right cause with the towel comin’ undone off her head she looked like she was already dead.
I walked back to my double wide. My parents weren’t gonna be home for a long while so I knew I could take my time to escape.
Somehow, then, the idea of not seein’ them ever again began to sound like somethin’ special to me. I threw some of my old ratty clothes in a napsack, along with some old national geographic magazines. I counted out the money and figured I had to have enough to get me somewhere. Jenna’s momma must’ve worked awefully hard.
Before I left to make my way to the bus station that was three miles down the farm road I took my dads old CD walk man and searched through the dusty stack of CD’s he kept under the work bench out in the small shed behind our double wide. I’d never been one to listen to music but I knew my dad was, and I knew Jenna and her dad was too. I found Van Morrison’s greatest hits and put it in, I had to change the batteries cause they were all white and caked with acid.
Eventually I got it started and put “Brown Eyed Girl” on repeat. I was about to walk out the double wide and leave that park for good, when I thought about somethin’ and turned back. I went into my room and set the napsack down. I took my pillow off my bed and went over to my grandma’s bed. She’d been hooked up to that machine all my life. It felt like I spent my whole like cleanin’ up other people’s messes. I felt real alive then, cause it felt like I was finally makin’ the messes.
It seemed real peaceful then when Van sang: “
Sha la la la la la la la la la la dee dah
Sha la la la la la la la la la la dee dah- La dee dah!”
I took the oxygen mask off grandma’s face and covered it with the pillow. I held it there while the machines started seemin’ to panic. She only twitched weakly, but I could tell that in some way she knew what was up. So I held it there, I didn’t let up till the spasms stopped and everythin’ seemed to go cold. That’s when I lifted up the pillow and smelled the smell that told me she’d shit herself when she died.
But I felt fine, cause I knew I didn’t have to change that diaper no more, or any others for that matter. And I seemed real calm, especially since she didn’t cry. Because I couldn’t cry.
And in my ears Van Morrison sang:
“
Do you remember when, we used to sing-
Sha la la la la la la la la la la dee dah
Sha la la la la la la la la la la dee dah
La dee dah”.
-August 18, 2009
