A pre-schedule post for your Sunday reading as I’m on a writing hiatus, gracefully returning next week to your inbox. I’m part of Farrah Storr’s writing group and our first piece was to tackle some creative non-fiction. Naturally, I started with one topic, completely derailed and wrote an entirely fiction piece. Enjoy.
all the light in the dark
As I pulled into the driveway the lights were off in the house; just the wavering glow of the television could be glimpsed from the street. Jeopardy was on tonight, every Wednesday at eleven o’clock. I could hear Ken Jennings loud and clear, a bit too loud.
I kick off my work shoes in the hallway; a small hole was beginning to tear through where my big toe is. My goddamn big toe, always jutting out a bit too much. I’m going to have to get a new pair otherwise Martha will tear me a new one again. I can hear her screeching voice already: “You have to dress to impress. This is a refined restaurant establishment. We aren’t selling to the homeless.” We are a bar on the outside where our main customer support was truckers, weird tourists and obese families. Maybe we have different definitions on what a ‘refined establishment’ was.
In the dim hallway light I glance at my face in the mirror. My skin was beginning to grey with dark bags hanging beneath sunken eyes. My hair once glossy, now sits flat and stringy against my cheek. I can see that I’m balding too - the aggressive high pony tails coming back to bite me. I straighten my back a bit, trying to hold a decent posture but I deflate quickly. There’s no use in trying to look better, who am I trying to look good for anyways?
I sigh. “Milo?”
The dog didn’t come to greet me this time, he usually bounds over on his three stubby legs. He’s the only real delight in this house. He probably had four legs at one point, but when I adopted him he already had the three. A Labrador, obese and blind in one eye. His BO is atrocious, the vet says it’s his age and that he’s got yeasty ears. I want to feel annoyed at him, he’s fairly useless in all categories as a dog. But he looks at me with such joy, making any bad feelings towards him melt away.
I put my shoes in the cupboard and head into the living room. I almost didn’t see her on the sofa. The curtains are drawn shut and the only light in the room comes from the TV. A two litre bottle of coke lies empty on its side beside the coffee table.
“Hey Ma,” I say as I walk in, dumping my bag by the stairs.
A low groan comes from beneath a pile of blankets. “Did you go to work today?” I ask, collecting a sandwich packet, used napkins and a chocolate wrapper off the floor. The Jamaican figurine ashtray is filled with camel cigarettes all standing with their butts in the air, a few embers glow. Another packet is open, half empty on the coffee table.
“I wasn’t well today so I called in sick,” she responds, her voice coarse.
A matted head of hair pulled back slightly by a claw clip slowly emerges, her body is twisted beneath the blanket. Her eyes are glossy. She doesn’t acknowledge me. Her feet, red and engorged from the swelling jut out from the blanket. It’s a symptom of diabetes, but she keeps refusing to take medication for it. She smacks her lips a bit then leans forward for a cigarette.
Milo is fast asleep beside her. His head also poking out from the blanket.
“The damn dog has been farting all day. It’s disgusting. I really wish you would get rid of him,” she says between lips closed around a fresh cigarette. She flicks the lighter a few times, nothing. “Fuck,” she grumbles “Give me your lighter will you.”
I dig through my coat pockets and hand her one. “Thanks, baby,” she doesn’t make eye contact. A few pulls of the lighter and she takes a deep inhale, blowing smoke towards the ceiling as she settles in among the blankets pillows.
“How was work?” Her eyes stayed glued to the TV.
“It was alright,” I shrug. “Martha’s giving the promotion to Jason, and Mollie quit today so we’re short staffed again.”
“Jason Katz? The fat pig that used to eat marshmallows from the bag? That Jason?” She asks, I nodded. Jason wasn’t fat anymore, but he definitely still eats marshmallows from the bag. I’ve seen him stuffing his face in the staff room at work when he thinks nobody is watching.
“Ugh, Martha. She’s a cunt,” She mutters and takes another drag. My mother only ever describes women as cunts and men as pigs.
I sigh. It’s become my main feature, sighing.
She taps the ash into a paper cup beside her. It’s her other ashtray. There’s ashtrays littered all around the house. I tried to get rid of a few in an attempt to tidy the house up and she threw one at me in a fit of rage. It caught me above my eyebrow before smashing into pieces against the wall. Her boyfriend Mickey left her that day. I should’ve known. She burst into tears and collapsed against the kitchen cabinets screaming while I cleaned up glass with blood coming from the cut. We never discussed the incident. We never discuss anything, actually.
I glance over at the table, her orange medication bottle still full and in the same position I had left them in this morning.
“You need to take your medication so you can go to work. I can’t support us both on my shitty pay, you know that,” I say as I collapse into the tattered arm chair. I peel away at the old leather, pieces of it coming off like dead skin. I found it on the roadside after work one evening and brought it home. Most of the furniture in this house is second-hand crap.
She snorted, then looks at me, her eyes struggling to focus. “Why don’t you find a better job to support me?”
I lean forward in my chair and press my palms to my eyes till I saw stars. Our conversations are like a broken record, the same shit over and over again. Milo hops off the couch with a whine, hopping towards the backdoor. He wants to be let out.
“We’ve had this discussion before,” I say, ushering the dog out the door before closing it. “There are not a lot of places in this town that will take someone without a high school diploma. I’m trying, but I need you to try to or we’ll be stuck in this house forever. Don’t you want to move out of town, to a better location?”
She tries to sit up, propping her elbow up against the armrest.
“I don’t fuckin’ care. I’ve had my share of work in this life and I’m not doing it again. I worked two jobs and I cared for you when you were ill. Now it’s your turn to pay me back.” She jabs her fingers at me, there was yellowing around the nails and edges from the years of nicotine usage. The doctors told her that the more she smoked the harder it was to manage her diabetes. She didn’t care. Maybe she wanted to die, it would be easier if she did. I don’t know.
I stand up to block her view of the TV, as if to make myself bigger, maybe to scare her into believing what I’ve got to say. I’m hoping it comes off as brave, courageous. In a moment of panic, I grab the remote from beside her and mute the TV.
“You’re not listening to me. We will get kicked out if we miss the rent again. I’ve maxed out my credit cards, I have nobody to borrow from. Mrs. Sudekis said this is the last time and she meant it,” I inhale. Then exhale. My hands shake a little so I fold them across my chest.
At first, her eyes don't budge from the TV. The silence unnerves me. I move to anxiously tug at my shirt sleeves, but resist - trying desperately to hold my nerve. Then, slowly, she turns her head to face me. When she’s angry, her nostrils flare, opening and shutting in rapid succession. Her eyes sharpen, pupils contracting as if locking onto her target. She goes very quiet.
She takes another puff, sucking her lips into a thin line before blowing a billow of smoke at me. Even in the dark, I can see the deep wrinkles that have set in around her mouth. The smoking has aged her; the skin sagging around her jawline and neck gives her a turkey wattle. She used to tell me how beautiful she was, how men wanted her and women wanted to be her. I’ve never seen evidence. She hides all her old photos.
“LISTEN! I won’t say it again,I’m not moving. I’m not working. I don’t care what the fuck you have to do for this roof to stay over our heads.” For each sentence she says she thrusts her fingers at me into my face. Her voice was low and slow, but sharp with each word.
“I don’t care if you need to rob somebody to do it, figure it out! It’s not my problem.” She turns her head away from and locked eyes with the TV. It was her signal to tell me that the conversation was over.
Tears burned in the corner of my eyes. I unmuted the TV and tossed the remote onto the arm chair, just out of reach. A petty move that I’m sure I’ll come to regret later on. She reaches over and snatches it, glaring at me while she does it. She turns the volume up until it’s almost blaring. I know she does it to spite me.
I shake my head and turn to the kitchen. I pull on the single string light bulb that dangles from the ceiling above our round dinner table. The light flickers a few times before illuminating the room in a bath of yellow. Stacks of newspaper sit in the middle of the table, a worn woollen jacket hangs off one of the chairs, half dragging on the floor.
Quietly, there’s the hum of the fridge and the chugging of the dishwasher. She could’ve washed the dishes, but she won’t. I bet there’s only a handful of plates in there, but at least she managed to turn it on. Another argument that we’ve had repeatedly. In the right hand corner, the garbage piles up. The stench of it filling the room.
I pull each of the corners of the bin bag, being careful not to spill anything. There’s the distinct clink of liquor bottles rubbing against each other. I yank open the backdoor, stumbling down the wooden steps in the dark, using my hand to feel my way around. The garbage goes into the big set of bins with a loud thud. We never fixed the porch lights. Too ashamed to view our shambles of a garden with overgrown weeds, a rusting barbecue set and a collapsed shed in daylight let alone in the night time. Milo sniffs around a bit.
The air smells damp and it’s gotten colder. A storm is brewing overhead, I can hear the stirring of thunder in the distance. I pull my coat closer to my body and look up at the sky. It’s dark out but I can see the clouds moving east quickly.
“Come on Milo, let’s go inside.” He hops up each of the steps slowly, waiting at the top for me to open the door with that same joyful look on his face. “Good dog,” I pat his head, a tear falling onto my hand. I wipe my nose with my sleeve.
We hurry back inside as the chill begins to bite. The door sits at a slight angle so I’ve got to lift and push to get it into place. From the living room, I hear her snoring, the volume on the TV lower, a cigarette dangling from her fingers.
Absolutely heart-breaking detail.