Twin Crucibles - Part I
Amy Cantrell drove from an unrelenting past into an unknown future, and neither the rain on the windshield nor the tears running from her eyes showed signs of letting up any time soon. Her bags were piled on the back seat, if two broken down suitcases, an old guitar case and a small box of books could be said to be a pile. It wasn’t much of a trove of worldly possessions, but then Amy had never considered herself much a part of this world.
She knew she was running away, but somehow it felt more like she was finally running toward something, even though she had no idea what that something might be. Anything would be better than staying even one more night under her step-father’s roof. “His-house, his-rules” had been the code she and her brother had lived under for the last seven years. Brandon had made it easier for her. He had always been the one to step in and protect her. Until the accident, that was.
That night still hurt too much to think about, so Amy reached over and turned up the music. Maybe some rock and roll could do for her memory what the miles were doing for her body. Providing an escape from the hell that was still back there waiting for her to give in and turn around.
She no longer even felt the streaks of mascara that were etched in drying lines down her cheeks. She knew that the 3/4 of a tank of gas that was left in the car wouldn’t get her far enough away, but she had $350.00 in her pocket and she could always make money by playing her guitar somewhere, in whatever city she made it to.
That guitar was all she had left of Brandon, and she was going to make her twin brother proud of her, even if he had to watch her do it from Heaven.
#
Mike Adams turned off his desk lamp and stood. The bones in his back gave out small ratcheting sounds as he stretched. He had spent far too many hours slouching over his keyboard as if he were made of wood, and his body let him know it wasn’t happy about it.
Mr. Murdock didn’t care about overtime, which made working late good; Mike didn’t have anywhere to be except his lonely apartment anyway, which made extra hours here even better. When he was at work, he felt like he belonged somewhere. His coworkers may not have been actual friends, but at least he could hear their voices as they talked to each other.
There were times, sitting at home staring at the TV or eating yet another microwave dinner, that he felt like he was the only human left in the world. It was depressing when he thought about it, so he tried not to.
He donned his coat, and left the building.
The wind bit into his cheeks as he walked, and he turned his collar up to block out the worst of it. He made his way as he did every evening, through the small park that marked the border between uptown and downtown. This no-man’s land was usually quiet by the time he came through, and tonight was no exception. Mike’s apartment building was two blocks further toward the low-rent district, and he paused outside the tavern that was the only place along his path with any life, this time of evening. The sounds of laughter and karaoke from within made him nostalgic for the days when he had been at home with his mom. She had loved to sing, and he never realized just how much he would grow to miss her off-key crooning.
With a heavy sigh he turned away from the lights and music, and made his way through the cold wind toward his empty rooms.
#
The sunshine streaming in the window forced Amy’s eyes open. For a moment, she thought she was still back there, and her heart started thumping in fear that she had overslept again. As her head flew up off the seat, the realization of where she was flooded in and she laid back, closing her eyes against the sun in her face.
She picked up the folding travel clock on the floorboard, but after a single look she held it to her ear. Dead.
Shit!
Obviously she had forgotten to wind it last night. There was no way it was 3:30, a.m. or p.m.
The temperature in the car was just beginning to climb toward the morning heat, and the sun was still low enough in the sky that Amy figured it must be no later than 8:30. Maybe 9:00. Her stomach rumbled it’s argument for noon, but she knew it was still morning.
Climbing out of the back seat, the sound of birds in the trees of the rest area echoed back their opinion that it was a wonderful morning. Amy wasn’t sure how wonderful it was. In fact, the only thing she was certain of was that she could never remember having to pee so bad in her entire life. She felt quickly to confirm her keys were in her pocket, then pushed down the lock on the open back door, and slammed it. She turned and hurried toward the bathrooms, performing the universally recognizable speed-walk of those whose bladders are beyond the capacity to run.
In her haste, she failed to notice the eyes of the truck driver watching her. He was too far away for her to see his smile become a leer, as he sat back into the shadowy cab of his Peterbilt.
#
Saturdays sucked.
When Mike was a kid, Saturday had always been his favorite day of the week. He would get up and wrap his robe around his Superman pajamas. Next would come a big bowl of cereal and his favorite cartoons. Then he had the whole morning free to read, or explore the rock formations in the Nevada sun. Saturdays meant no having to hide from the bullies at school. No pretending he wasn’t smarter than all the other kids, so they wouldn’t make him feel like more of a freak than he already did. He looked forward to Saturday all week long.
That had been in the before.
Mike stood and carried his bowl to the sink. Cereal used to taste better, but some habits it seemed were lifelong. Too bad his appetite for cartoons and fun had both been replaced by never ending feelings of loss, despair, loneliness and worst of all, apathy. He found it harder and harder every day to care about much of anything, now that Mama had joined Papa and Emily in the ground, out at Mount Palisades.
It had been on a Saturday his sister Emily left. He had only been 8, and she was 12 on that last day of normal. He held her hand while Mama cried in the front room and talked to Papa’s picture--she had never gotten over Papa’s death.
Emily had always been the strong one, but on that Saturday, she had given up the last of her strength, and her final words had been for Mike. “I love you, Booger.” Then she had died.
He had sat there and silently held her hand as tears flowed down his face. He had been hoping and praying she would wake up, but in his heart he’d known. Even before her hand had grown cold and gray... even before the paramedics had come and taken her away.
His sister had left him behind, and Saturdays would never again be the same.
#
Four states between them now, but Amy could still feel his presence. Howard Milligan. The man her mother had chosen to be her step-father before she had died.
His true nature had surfaced soon after her mother’s funeral. Howard had decided that since she was now the “woman” of the house, it was her responsibility to make sure that his house was spotless, his clothes were cleaned and his dinner ready when he got home from work. She and her twin brother had become his servants. Brandon was gardener, plumber and pool-boy; God forbid the garage floor wasn’t oiled and swept with wood shavings every day.
They had both learned early to fear his “reprimands.” The two of them were eleven when they were left with him. Howard had decided they needed discipline, and for seven long years, the two of them had survived together.
Brandon had wanted to kill Howard for the last few years. Their step-father was too big to fight off, and too mean to reason with. Often, he was also too drunk to be awake for long after dinner.
Brandon had gotten a gun someplace, and Amy desperately wished that he never had.
The accident had been two months ago, but the pain was still as fresh and as sharp as the day she heard that gunshot. The day she had found her twin brother lying in a pool of blood, and her step-father gone in his truck, the garage door still open.
It had been ruled an accident, but in her heart Amy was sure that it had been Howard’s fault. Two days after Brandon’s funeral, Howard had come into her room at night and forced her to do something. She couldn’t remember exactly what he had said or done; she had gone somewhere else in her head.
The next day—a week ago now—she had grabbed what she could carry, and left. The car was legally Brandon’s still, so at least Howard couldn’t accuse her of stealing it. The sign on the side of the road read ‘Stanville 3’ and her gas gauge was approaching the red line that meant it was time for more. She hit her blinker and moved onto the exit ramp.
Three vehicles behind her, the green Peterbilt followed suit.
#
Mike sat on the picnic bench and watched as the orange sun lit the beach in a warm glow. He watched a pretty girl walking along the shore as the waves slowly bid goodnight to the land. Now that he had made his decision, his mind was calm. He wondered if that was normal for someone in his position, and then realized that nothing was normal about his existence.
Hell, no one would even miss him.
Sure, old man Murdock would be in a bind for a little while, trying to find someone to replace him, but there were lots of computer programmers in the world. There were probably five or six with their resumes in the old man’s desk drawer already.
Mike knew how he would do it. He had always been afraid of pain, but he read somewhere that drowning wasn’t painful. He was going to do it right over there, on the breakwater jetty. At low tide, the rocks of the jetty were exposed to the sun and salt air, but at high tide the water covered all but the top couple feet. He knew that there was a big rock along the water at low tide, that would make a great nap spot - and a permanent one as well.
The bottle of sleeping pills with Mama’s name on them was sitting in his bathroom medicine cabinet, and the warning on the side couldn’t have been any clearer. DO NOT TAKE WITH ALCOHOL. A bottle of Vodka would mix well with orange juice, and after a snack of pills and firewater, he would come down here and take himself a nap on that rock. With any luck, they’d never even find his body, although there would be no one to identify him anyway.
When high tide would happen in the sunshine was an easy thing to find out, easier in fact than spending another week alone in his apartment.
© 2017 - dustygrein
** (Part 2: https://theprose.com/post/155121/twin-crucibles-part-ii )