The Subject of Desire Chapter 9
By Paula Andrea Pyle MA, 23rd Feb 2011 | Follow this author
| RSS Feed | Short URL http://nut.bz/19hf15qs/
Posted in WikinutWritingShort Stories
Background
What in the world has Charlie Braxton McRoy gotten himself into? And, more importantly, how will he ever get out of the paradoxical misfortune and back in charge of his familiar day-to-day life? Everything has gone completely insane! No...
Chapter 9: WE Never See Who We Are Looking At
Charlie instantly dropped the porcelain cat on the mattress of the iron poster bed. He ran back to the kitchen expecting his mother to be preparing dinner; yet, all he discovered was THAT same strange melody blasting. No food out on the counters, no pots on the stove, no bags of groceries, and no yellow squash or onions. But, more significantly, nowhere was Charlie's mama to be seen.
Charlie snatched open the back door and yelled, "MAMA! MAMA! Where are you?"
No response.
"Where is she," Charlie pleaded. "Where on earth did she go? Did she have to go pick up the girls? IF she did, where would that be? Why didn't I find out when she was here? What is wrong with me?" Charlie continued the crazed mumbling as he hunted in the back yard.
"How can I get a hold on myself? I need to get back in my life. What time of day is it? I need some real help. I feel like I'm losing it, totally. I know; I'll call my Dad at work. He will be able to tell me what's going on."
Charlie dashed from out of the back yard into the kitchen, right straight to the telephone on the kitchen wall. Praying the answers would be found on the other end of the olive green receiver; he dialed his Dad's work number: 545-3208. A continual ringing buzzed away in Charlie's ear.
No one answered.
"Why not," he thought, "Is the place closed or what?" Charlie had momentarily begun to panic when he distinguished the sound of his Dad's big-wheeled Chevy truck spin gravel up onto the driveway. Plunging the telephone receiver against the white egg-shell painted kitchen wall, Charlie raced out into the backyard onto the driveway.
"Hi! Champ." Charlie's dad had always referred to Charlie as Champ. Never before did the words so delight Charlie's ears.
"Daddy! Am I ever glad to see you! Where have you been? Where's mama and the girls?"
"How's school?"
"School was fine, Daddy. It's just what happened after school that you won't believe. Nothing hasn't been right since. But, first tell me where everybody else is at." Charlie's father stared at Charlie with a look of disturbed amusement, as if he had pie on his face.
Charlie looked down at his body, discovering the source of his father's slight rippled humor. He stood in broad daylight with nothing on but his navy blue underwear, probably the first for a kid who would be fourteen in less than a month.
"I can explain Dad, I promise. It's all part of what happened today."
"What's for dinner, do you know?"
"Not really. Well, I kinda know; Mama was fixing squash. I don't know what else, when I went to lie down on my bed. When I got up, she was gone. I was hoping you could tell me where she went. Everything's freakin' crazy around here. I really don't have a clue to what's going on, Daddy. Something ain't right, I’m telling you."
Charlie's daddy hastily ushered Charlie back into the kitchen lightly shoving him, closing the door behind. "Everybody's business ain't nobody's business, son," his father stated aloud.
"But, Dad like I was saying, me not having any clothes on, is all part of what happened today." Charlie tried hard to explain but it was apparent that his father had formed his own disapproving opinion.
"Would you go and get me the paper, son?"
"Yes, Dad." Charlie walked out of the kitchen into the den where the afternoon newspapers were kept. He gathered up the scattered edition and slowly toggled back into the kitchen, halfway dazed, where his father was patiently waiting.
"Daddy, I need to talk to you about today. Will you please wait on reading your paper until I tell you what happened?"
"I could probably hear better if you'd put some clothes on. I don't make a habit of talking to people who have nothing on but their drawers." His pencil-thin lips crunched to one side as bunchy eyebrows met together in the center of his wide face; a deep-set wrinkled "V" formed above the bridge of his bulbous nose, displaying familiar signs of disapproval.
"Okay. I'll go get dressed, then, can we talk?"
Not one audible flicker emerged from his father's lips; penetration of intense impatient eye contact prompted Charlie to slip further away. Once again he headed in the direction of his bedroom which was beginning to feel as if he were running circles.
Uneasy and terribly uncomfortable with the lack of communicating skills, he had never developed with his father during the course of his short life; he cringed at the idea of having to explain the absurd episodes of this particular day.
There had been countless times, his father's preoccupied mind was anywhere but WHERE Charlie would be. He always seemed to be too busy, buried knee deep in the problems, he brought home from work. But, this hour appeared far worse than all of those times put together. He could tell right off his father was not in the mood for foolish stories.
He desperately wanted to explain the events of the day, but nobody seemed to care, much less listen, to what he had to say. Charlie did not dare look in the direction of the beige telephone, on his way to his bedroom. He was not interested in the 'supposed' apparition of his sisters.
"I can't deal with you two; it's too far out-there for me to think about."
He navigated cautiously past them (if they were in fact still there) without a head twitch.
Unexpectedly Charlie discovered Prissy breathing, purring lying on his bed.
"No, Prissy what are you doing real again? Just where I dropped you?" He crushed the words.
Not wanting to move any closer, for fear of the anxiety associated with her returning to a glass figurine, Charlie edged around the walls of his room smattering little acknowledgment toward Prissy. With ghost-like movements, he didn't utter a peep.
Prissy traced every motion Charlie made. Without warning, she sprang into his exposed bare chest brutally clawing six deep scraping marks which stopped just short of his navel before she skated to the floor.
"AAHH!!" Charlie screamed partway out of unexplainable fear and partway out of fire-lit pain. He grabbed the end of his sheets to wipe the drizzling blood.
"Who are YOU, you vicious demonic beast??? Where did you come from? Where is MY Prissy?"
She yawned indifferently, curiously satisfied.
Charlie screeched, flailing with tormenting bleeding skin abrasions.
"I would kill you IF I could get my hands on you! I mean, YOU are not MY Prissy! What happened to the other cat, the glass cat? And, how did you get in here? MY Prissy would never claw me like this."
Prissy, certain she had no earthly idea what Charlie was referring to, pounced back onto the windowsill in exactly the same spot, the identical posed position as before. Charlie watched vigilantly, to see, if she, in fact was going to hideously transform, again. She did not. Instead, she lay down, curling indulgently into a semi-circle.
Charlie migrated carefully on the balls of his feet toward the dresser, not desiring to disturb the hostile Prissy. With due precautions, he tugged on the maple chest of drawers to retrieve a pair of red shorts and plaid shirt. By the convenient reflective advantage of the mirror, he never took his eyes off the cat.
Hurried and confused he dressed himself, not wanting to stay in the bedroom one second longer. Charlie glanced around to see if Prissy had changed her position in any way before exiting the bedroom. She had not. She still lay curled in the most 'natural and convenient' of cat's fashion, apparently fast asleep. Apparently, seemed to be the term that fit a lot of things around Charlie's house this afternoon.
The badly scarred young boy lingered down the hall one more time passing by the beige telephone; he had solicitously declared he would not investigate until later. Halfway wanting to peer over in its direction, he reminded himself his main concern was to talk to his father.
From around the corner, he could see Charles Braxton McRoy, Sr., better known as 'Big Charlie', rustling through the sports section of the newspaper. He watched his father, nervously, wanting to ask him to put the paper down in favor of giving him his undivided attention. He decided not to. Charlie sat down quietly without speaking. The shuffling of his feet resounded the uneasiness, the inability to quiet restless impatience.
"Pirates lost again last night. Don't know if they'll be able to pull this one out. Last season they had a fightin' chance but since, John Graves and Buddy Bradshaw left the team, ain't got much hope."
Charlie didn't say a word.
"Think the Braves gotta a good chance of going to the World Series this year, though. I believe they're going to pull it off. Ain't that the craziest thing you ever heard tell of? A team come from nowhere and top out. Damnedest thing to be sure! Just means, you don't ever know the ending to nothin'. Things look one way, and then bam they turn round just like that!"
Charlie remained still.
"Somebody said they caught Tom Roggins using cocaine. Now, why do you reckon a young man such as himself, with all that money, would want to blow his entire future up his nose? I just don't understand it. A boy making a million dollars a year and throw it all away for a fast shot up the old snowzer. Just plain crazy. I wish I had the opportunity to get a shot at a million bucks a year! Can you imagine what we could do with a million bucks?" Charlie's father gleamed over in Charlie's direction, "No, don't reckon you do. I can't either. All I know is doing without, and doing HARD without. If it wasn't for your mother taking on that job of hers, I don't know what we would have done."
"Job? What job?" Charlie's mother didn't work, not this morning, when Charlie left for school. Or at least she didn't have a job outside the home that he knew of. She had her hands full just caring for the girls.
"When did she get a job?" he mumbled silently. Maybe that's where she was when he got home today. And, the girls must be at the baby-sitter's, somewhere.
Charlie relieved to hear that bit of information. At least he could rest better knowing the problem, of where everybody was at, was settled and no longer bothering his mind.
"Daddy when did Mama get a job?" Charlie blurted out deciding to go ahead and ask his father.
"The paper says supposed to be 100 degrees tomorrow." Charlie's father totally ignored Charlie's question.
Charlie not sure whether to re-ask him or not, decided against it.
"Been too damn hot for this time of year. We usually don't get this kind of heat till mid-July."
Charlie wondered what time of year it might be. When he left for school this morning it was early May but his father's tone indicated that it was much later in the year. How could that possibly be? Charlie remained quiet a wee bit longer observing his father's unusual expressions.
"Don't know if the rain will come like they promised. Sure hope so. The farmers really need it, if they're to get the corn in on time. At the rate of this here heat spell though, the crop may burn up before they can get it out of the fields."
As Charlie carefully examined the movement of his father's eyes and the way he phrased his sentences, Charlie wasn't altogether sure that the man who was sitting at the kitchen table was in fact his real father. Yeah, he LOOKED enough like him, and sounded enough like him, and even smelled sorta like him, but there was just some little something that was off.
Charlie couldn't exactly put his finger on what that thing was, but he just KNEW that the man he was listening to was not the father he had grown accustomed to. He dared not speak for fear of giving himself away. Or rather letting on to the stranger's fantasy game, of hide and seek, Charlie had stumbled into somehow without his knowledge or consent. He sat motionless as the burley loud-mouthed man continued blabbing.
"Yep, ain't nothing like a good woman and lovin' family to come home to. It's the only thing in the world that can make a man get up in the morning and go to work. Something to get up for and come home to makes this here life worth livin'. Know what I mean, son? If'n I had to worry about your mother runnin' the roads, I wouldn't be able to leave the house."
Charlie superficially nodded his blond head in agreement.
Chapter 10
Chapter 8
Comments
27th Mar 2011 (#)
You can almost feel your heart go out to this poor lad....Great write, Paula...
Reply to this comment
27th Mar 2011 (#)
You possess such incredible sensitivity. When a person can connect with Charlie Braxton McRoy as you have, it says so much about constitutes your particular character. You have made such an impression on me with your devotion to the story. Thanks.
Reply to this comment
17th Jul 2011 (#)
Very nice writing madam, I admire this one. Thank you for the sharing.
Reply to this comment
17th Jul 2011 (#)
I am certainly honored that you enjoyed it. I enjoyed writing it.
Reply to this comment