This is Volume Eight of the story “Crooked Creek Cut the Valley So Deep”. If you haven’t read the previous seven issues, we suggest you click the “Crooked Creek: A Continuing Story” tab above. Let us know what you think in the comments! – Kyle and Kent
Time: 11 months before the Buddy Anderson incident/accident.
Scene: The Christopher Household near the Even Woods.
It is early evening. November has come and the sun is down.
Inside the Christopher’s house it is dark, except for the ugly yellow light coming from the ceiling above the dining room table. The rest of the house, hallways that lead to bedrooms, the kitchen, and a living room in the background, are in deep shadows. All is still, or seems to be.
As you we creep closer to the dining room, through frosted windows, we see the calm is misleading; there was a storm here. A fork and knife are scattered on the floor, and a plate has been tipped over, spilling carrots, peas and potatoes across the table. The tablecloth is soiled and wrinkled in waves, falling towards the ground and soaking in a puddle of spilt milk.
On the ground, curled into a ball and shivering is Conrad Christopher. His arms cover his face as he scratches his fingers into his scalp. There is blood on the fingernails and the floor. The denim jeans he wears create a dull sort of background noise in the room as his legs shake, making repeated staccato movement across the cold wood floor, scraping their fabric against it. Every few seconds he takes in sharp, loud breaths and exhales with a hiss.
Leaning her hip into the kitchen counter, Judith Christopher, his mother, taps her un-weighted foot nervously on the floor. The light from the adjacent dining area cuts her in half, leaving her upper torso and head shrouded in darkness. If she were a smoker she would be holding a cigarette between the skinny index and middle fingers of her right hand. Instead her arms are folded over her stomach and across a spotless white apron. She is shaking too, but the only evidence of this is the light yellow cloth napkin in her left hand, which is constantly quivering below her waistline. There is a fresh bloodstain spotting the otherwise happy napkin.
As she shifts her weight to her other leg, she looks at the napkin. She stares into the red and yellow, speaking slowly.
Judith: I didn’t mean to hurt you, Conrad.
Her voice is swallowed by her apron and the floor. Conrad continues to shake.
Judith: You needed to stop. You needed to stop that before your father comes home. Do you want him to see you like that? Is that what you want?
The space between Conrad’s breathing grows, and the scraping of his jeans stopped, unnoticed until now, at the mention of his father.
Judith begins to walk to her trembling son, but cannot bear to look at him. She strides along the hardwood floor, passing through the mess that is the wake of her son’s destructive outburst.
Judith: Are you hurt? Do we need to clean you up?
Head resting on his forearm now, Conrad has buried his face in his hands, but can see his mother’s shoes in the slits between his fingers. She is standing over him, still staring at the napkin, which she suddenly folds into a perfect triangle, and stuffs into the large front pocket of her apron.
She clears an area on the floor next to her son and sits down. Her hair drifts in front of her soft face; the skin creased around her mouth and below her eyes from emotional contortions during the years of raising two children. Under the harsh light she is brighter than Conrad has ever seen her before; she appears as an angel. The plume of the apron surrounds her, giving the illusion that her upper body floats off the ground. She kisses her palm and places it on her son’s forehead.
Judith: It was for your own good, Conrad, my little bunny rabbit.
She begins to stroke his head and make loud, deliberate breaths.
Conrad begins to do the same.
Judith: That’s right; deep breaths. Good, bunny. Mommy would never hurt you. It was for your own good.
Moving his hands from his face, Conrad fixes his cool eyes on his mother’s glowing visage. We can now see the fresh blood still running from his nose, and the unmistakable mark of a new bruise beneath his left eye.
Judith sees her work and defiantly looks toward the ceiling.
Drops of blood fall from Conrad’s upper lip to the floor. He notices its puddle and straightens upright.
He speaks with a quavering whisper. It is evident that he does not speak often.
Conrad: Mama.
She does not react to her son’s call.
Conrad: Mama, there’s a stain on the floor. It’s from me. The blood is from my nose and we can’t let father see it. He’ll know I stained the floor!
She keeps on staring at the ceiling.
Conrad: What should I do? Mama? Am I gonna get taken away? Are they gonna take me to the place?
Judith: Just go to your room. Do Mama a favor and check on Kaleb – make sure his covers are tight under him. It’s gonna be a cold night.
For the slightest moment that she can bear, Judith Christopher looks down at her smallish son, lips puffed and quivering in a frown, eyes wide with questions of love inside them, and cracks a teary smile. She reaches into her apron pocket, returning with the napkin that goes straight to Conrad’s face and wipes what is left of the trickling nose blood. He inhales a big gulp of air to clear his nostrils, takes a good look at his mother, and scampers off down the hallway.
With Conrad in his room, Judith lets her mind go numb and works away at the blood stain with the napkin. She is there, but she is not there. The action of scrubbing the floor is violent, but she is off somewhere peaceful, attempting to forget the series of events that brought the blood from her little boy’s nose to the floor in the first place. As she reconciles her behavior she notices a bouncing light coming through the window. She freezes.
The front door swings open and Walter Christopher tramps in, flashlight in hand, and dirt on his boots. He wears a brown leather hunting hat with flaps that cover his ears. An unkempt black beard grabs his tight face and surrounds an ugly mouth lined with frothy spit. Clouds of moisture appear and disappear from his heavy breathing in the cold air that entered the house with him. Immediately he notices his wife, the blood, and the mess.
His booming voice fires saliva and thick fog into space.
Walter: Again? Doesn’t that boy know he’s on his last length of line here?
Judith shudders.
Walter stomps toward the hallway, his feet sounding more massive with each angry step. He is a terrifying steam engine, heat rising from his bulky body, and piercing the air with his growling horn.
Walter: That’s the last time! You know where they send boys like you, don’t you? Stupid little ape-boys like you go where they never can come back from, Conrad. You’re goin’ there now, boy. They are on their way.
—–
On his belly, eying the blood and pebbles in his hands, Conrad Christopher hated himself for how he’d gotten there. Fleeing from from the old man in the delivery truck, he had glanced backwards to his assailant and tripped over a mossy rock, smashing to the ground, and skidding headlong towards Crooked Creek. As he got to his feet, he was snatched up from behind by his shirt, pulling tight against his heaving chest.
The old man bellowed, “You know where you’re goin’, don’tcha, boy?”
Stumble It!
