Spitting Image

“Charles, get your butt over here!” Linda Mason yelled from the gazebo in her backyard. The gazebo was hanging on by nothing more than a prayer, but Linda still sat inside of it every afternoon. In front of her was a worn out copy of V. C. Andrews Flowers in the Attic, which she’d read a dozen times. The pages had yellowed from coffee stains and smudged cigarette ash, which made sense because Linda Mason never walked into the gazebo without a coffee and a pack of Lucky’s.

Charles was her son. A 12-year-old boy who was autistic and mute. He hadn’t said a word since his fifth birthday, when he asked, “Where is daddy?” And Linda Mason promptly replied, “Hopefully halfway to hell by now.”

The truth was that Charlie Sr. had died in 1974 in Vietnam. The soldiers that came knocking on the screen door of their small trailer in Knoxville told them he’d died protecting Saigon. Linda had scoffed as Charlie stared at the man intently. “Protecting some slant eyes who don’t give a flying shit about us. What a waste of a goddamn life.” She said and tousled Charlie’s hair. “Listen Charlie, you’re gonna stay here with momma for as long as momma needs you, alright?” Charlie nodded his head, and she told the men in green to get off her property. She was done with men. She was done with the army.

And although Linda Mason never loved Charlie Sr, she’d be a liar if she said she didn’t miss the old dangling appendage between his legs. Boy, could that man get her going, and keep her coming. He was like a bull. There were some nights she remembered having sex until the sun came up and still wanting for more. But Charlie Sr worked down at the textile plant and always had early shifts.

Then she got pregnant and old Charlie Sr. didn’t care much for the baby bump, nor the morning sickness, or vicious mood swings. He spent most of his time at work, then the bar, and often in the beds of women which he paid for. Spending money that was desperately needed at home.

When Linda was about at her wits end, (one evening she stood over the bed with a kitchen knife, staring at him for an hour), she saw a letter from the U.S Army, old Charlie Sr had been drafted when the war was at its least popular, and Linda laughed. She held that letter, smoking cigarettes and reading in the gazebo, that Charlie swore he’d fix, and she laughed.

During his two tours, he wrote occasionally. But never asked about Charlie much, because he didn’t care. Whether he lived or died, Linda made peace with the fact that he wasn’t returning to their little shithole in Knoxville. He was never coming back.

And as Charlie got older, she started to notice things that were off about him. Blank stares to nowhere, and often she’d catch him watching her change or get out of the shower. “Charlie, you goddamn pervert, stop looking at me.”

But as the years went on, he grew tall for his age. Almost as tall as his father, and Linda noticed she didn’t care as much about the staring. In fact, her body tingled when he did.

“Boy, did I ever tell you how much you look like your father?” She said, and Charlie just stared. “Boy, you’re a spitting image.” And she’d smile. And slowly wrap the towel around her breasts and tie it in the front.

Eventually, the staring lost its excitement and Linda wanted more. She hadn’t been with a man since Charlie Sr, and though she tried it with a woman one night outside of a downtown pub against a brick wall, it hadn’t been the same. She just didn’t swing that way, she supposed. Although she wanted to, because like she said, she had no use for men. Except for one.

One evening, Linda drifted off to sleep with a book in one hand and a glass of red wine in the other, which spilled on the carpet next to bed. She woke to a scratching noise. The room was black and her head was spinning.

She said, “Who’s there, Charlie? Is that you?”

The scratching continued. So Linda turned on the light next to bed and saw Charlie down on all fours, trying to clean the wine out of the carpet.

“Charlie, what in God’s name are you doing?” She said, but of course there was no answer.

As Linda stared intently at her boy, who looked much like her old husband, she noticed that the stain on the carpet wasn’t being cleaned. In fact, it looked like the opposite. Blood was forming on the carpet, and she went down and grabbed Charlie’s hands.

They were rug burnt, the worse she’d ever seen. His hands were peeling and bleeding. She held his hands in hers and cried. “Charlie, why would you do this? What are you doing? What is wrong with you?”

Again, he stared.

“Charlie, do you understand me? I know you won’t talk, but do you understand me? Can you nod your head if you do, baby? Please? For mommy?”

Nothing.

“I’m sorry about what I said about your daddy, Charlie. Momma’s sorry.”

Nothing.

“I shouldn’t have said those things about your daddy. He died in a war, baby. He died a long time ago. He wasn’t no great man, but I shouldn’t have said bad things about him, baby, I’m sorry. Let me go grab some ice for your hands. Wait here, alright?”

Linda placed him on the bed, then she took off his shirt, which was covered in blood, and went to the freezer where she grabbed some ice cubes and wrapped them in a cloth. She brought them back to the bedroom. “Here, hold on to these baby, okay?”

She leaned over him, wrapping her arm around his shoulder as he massaged the ice cubes. Linda told herself to stop, but she felt warm. Charlie’s back looked like his father’s. She rubbed down his spine and then made the T and thought about the stations of the cross. Specifically, the fifth station where Simon helps Jesus carry the cross, and hoped that she was helping her son carry his own cross.

Charlie even had the same succession of birthmarks that crawled perpendicular down his back. She traced her fingers in them like a connect the dots and kissed his neck. “It’s okay, hunny. Remember when I told you that you need to take care of your momma? This is how you need to take care of momma and how momma needs to take care of you, alright? Just lay down. Momma will take care of you.”

And that evening, Linda Mason decided that she could have the best of both worlds. A man to make love to and a son to raise. As Charlie slept that evening, Linda smoked cigarettes and stared at the ceiling. Smiling.

———————————

“Get your butt over here, right now, Charles!” Linda called as she put down Flowers in the Attic, and ashed out her cigarette.

Charlie came over, dragging his feet, and she grabbed him by the ear. “Charlie, what did I say about staring at that little slut next door, eh? What did I say?”

The little stretch of land that Linda Mason owned on Cinnamon Lane had been deserted for a little while, leaving Linda and Charlie alone, which suited Linda just fine. Right before Charlie Sr. had gone away, there was another trailer along a thin stretch of dirt road, where Remus lived before he died.

Remus was an old man who was a cook during the second world war. Came home, got diabetes and lost his right leg up to his knee. He’d sit outside in the wheelchair, drinking brown liquor and singing old cowboy tunes.

She missed the old fella, but had enjoyed the solitude. But a few weeks ago, a single mother and her fifteen-year-old daughter had come barreling down that road like every State Trooper in Tennessee was hot on their tails, and moved right into Remus’s trailer.

Linda had let it go for a few days, but noticed that Charlie wasn’t around as much. She caught him wandering up the dirt road frequently, yelling for him to get his ass back to the trailer.

Then Charlie got caught, staring at Julie Thorne through her bedroom window as she got dressed in the morning.

Julie’s mother’s name was Verna, and Verna walked over one Sunday morning with Julie and knocked lightly on Linda Mason’s door. Linda answered, knowing full well why they were here.

“How can I help you?”

“Uh, hi ma’am, my daughter here says that your boy was peeking through her window as she was getting changed earlier, and he just gave her a spook is all.”

Linda laughed, “Oh Charlie, don’t mean nothing by it, miss uh?

“Verna Thorne, and this is my daughter Julie.”

“Well Miss Thorne, my boy here is a few cards short of a full deck, if you know what I mean? He wanders, but he don’t know any better. He’s a sweet kid.”

“He’s a fucking pervert” Julie said, and then widened her eyes, shocked at her own outburst.

“Julie Anne Thorne. I did not raise you to use that kind of language.”

“It’s okay, miss Thorne. She ain’t the first to say that about old Charlie. Hell, I’ve said it myself on occasion.

Linda Mason told the Thorne girls that she’d watch Charlie and put him on a leash if she had to. They smiled awkwardly and went on down the road. Linda saw Verne slap her daughter upside the head for her cursing earlier, and Linda laughed.

A few days later, as Linda read V. C. Andrews again, she thought she’d bake one of her famous rhubarb pies and bring it down the road to the Thorne girls. She wanted to dislike them because she enjoyed being alone, and she’d enjoyed Remus’s company before he died. But she knew what it was like to raise a kid alone in this Godforsaken land, and thought having someone to talk about V. C. Andrews with and have a drink with might be fun, might be liberating. Of course, she wouldn’t tell her the entire story that she’d take to the grave.

When Verna heard a knock on the door, she was washing dishes and told Jules to go to her room and hide under the bed. That maybe daddy found them.

But it was just Linda still wearing her apron with a big cheshire cat smile, holding a freshly baked pie. “Rhubarb pie, fresh out of the oven.”

“Why thank you!” Verna said, taking the pie from Linda. “Come on in. Would you like a glass of lemonade?”

“If it won’t put you out, I’d surely like some.”

That afternoon they drank lemonade, smoked cigarettes and laughed about stories of how stupid men were. Linda told Verna about Charlie Sr, and his propensity for gambling, and call girls. How if it weren’t for his king sized cobra, she’d have no use for him at all.

Verna laughed so hard, lemonade came out of her nose. And continued to laugh after that.

Linda was curious about Verne’s man troubles and tried not to pry, so she loosened her up with stories of her own troubles and hoped that would guide her into telling Linda about her man. Which eventually it did, once the lemonade turned into cocktails.

“I was a bartender down at the Dixieland,” Verna said. “You had all sorts of assholes coming in, so it wasn’t a matter of finding a nice guy, it was just finding a smaller piece of shit.”

Linda laughed at this, knowing all too well that reality.

“I had this guy used to come in and just stare at me. Just blindly stare and smile. Used to give me the creeps. Anyway, one night another stranger named Dixon is sitting by himself humming along to the jukebox, and drinking whiskey when he sees me looking uncomfortable. He says, what’s wrong, miss? You look like you’ve seen a ghost?” And I tell em it’s nothing, just some creep staring at me and smiling. And so he says, that guy over there? And points to where he’s sitting and I nod my head. He says, well why didn’t you just say so, ma’am? And just like that, he walks over and gives him the worst beating I’d ever seen in my life.”

“And you just dropped your panties, didn’t you?” Linda asked.

“Pretty much” And they laughed again. It was a perfect afternoon until Verna looked up at the window behind Linda and screamed. Linda jumped at the sheer terror of Verne’s scream and looked behind her to see Charlie standing there, both arms covered in blood. Just staring.

Linda ran outside, scanning her boy’s arms. “What in God’s name did you do, Charlie?”

He walked back down the road, and Linda followed closely behind. They went inside the trailer, and Linda saw it was the wine stain on the carpet again. His arms had rug burns all over them.

“Oh Charlie, leave the stain you foolish, foolish boy. Leave the stain would you?

Like she’d done before, Linda went to the freezer to grab some ice cubes, wrapped them up and told Charlie to hold them as she grabbed a wet cloth and cleaned his arms.

Did you do this because you want to take care of momma?” Linda asked. “Is that why?”

“Take care,” Charlie mumbled, and Linda couldn’t believe it. “Did you just talk? Charlie, did you just talk?”

———————————-

Jules came to the kitchen not long after hearing her mother scream. She was reading a book when she heard the commotion, and when she came out she saw Linda talking to her creepy pervert son in front of the house.

“There is something deeply troubling about that boy,” Verna said, and Jules, of course, agreed. “He was covered in blood and just staring. Goodness, sending shivers up my spine.”

“Linda seems like a nice lady. Honey, get the First Aid Kit in the spare room, would you? I’ll bring it over and see if they need any help.”

Verna walked down the road and knocked on the screen door of Linda Mason’s home. Nobody answered. So she let herself in. And when she reached the bedroom, she screamed and ran out.

“Goddamnit, Charlie. Lock the damn door, would ya?” Linda said, climbing off of him. She reached under the bed, grabbed Charlie Sr’s old hunting rifle. “Here, go take care of it, baby.”

Charlie walked down the dirt road as Linda watched.

“Goddamnit, Charlie. I was beginning to like those folks."