On this page we will compile the additions to the ongoing story “Crooked Creek Cut the Valley So Deep”.
Crooked Creek Cut the Valley So Deep
Written by Kyle Dickinson
Illustrated by Kent St. John
Chapter 1: Conrad
The road goes on forever. It’s all gravel and sidewinders, with trees jumping up every which way to the hills. There is a creek to the right, and it has some rocks in it – a couple of boulders that came down when the earth was moving a-this-way and a-that. The creek gets murky and sunken about where it comes down from the hills; cutting through the ground it makes the earth bleed and causes the clouds that reflect to float on a peculiar sky.
The fish don’t see the sky, and swim on toward the slow patches where the mosquitoes lay their eggs. Here they fill their bellies, and spook the crawdads who hold tight to the creek bed. A crawdad will never see the sun unless they are snatched out from among the rocks, and held high to the clouds by a dirty-kneed mischief-maker.
And that’s where our story begins. The first and only time a Crooked Creek crawdad ever saw the light of the sky was also the last time for little Buddy Anderson. The two traded places: the crawdad, snapping his claws defiantly in the grass; and Buddy face-down on the creek bed, his blood mixing with the earth’s.
Conrad Christopher was not one for making decisions. He could spend an afternoon deciding which hill to climb, and just as he’d made up his mind the sun would disappear behind it. It never posed much of a problem; his mother saw her boy in thought and thanked the good Lord he had a working brain. However, this disability would prove most inappropriate as Buddy Anderson settled to the bottom of Crooked Creek.
As Conrad paced the shoreline – wondering whether he should fish Buddy off the bottom himself, or run into town to find someone stronger – Buddy Anderson was unconsciously swallowing enough water to drown. After several minutes of debating the pros and cons of each he decided he could still be the hero. He was too late. Plopping to the ground with the body at his side, Conrad could think of only one person: himself.
Sitting there, unable to commit to any of his new choices, Conrad Christopher’s mind wandered off into his immediate future. Mostly he thought of the bruises he would receive from his father, but he also pictured the shame that would walk with him through town. He thought of these things as Buddy Anderson’s future fled from the world.
If Conrad knew what it was to feel regret, he might have been sick to his stomach. It is a common thing among young boys to forget (or to have never had it dawn upon them) that their actions may bring unwanted consequences. Had he seen the rock, lying just below the surface, waiting for that very moment when it would cease to be a rock and become a killer, he might have stopped mid-shove. In this imaginary hesitation, Buddy, still on dry land, might have suffered a pinch of the crawdad’s claw, thrown it back into the creek, and ran home clutching his bleeding index finger.
The thought of what might have been was too much for Conrad Christopher. Instead of letting his own future be determined by someone else, he made a quick decision; the first of his young life.
If you had ever seen Conrad Christopher run, you probably cringed. His bowlegged strides looked more like a newborn foal than a 12-year old boy; 12-year old boys are supposed to run like silverfoxes over dirt roads, speeding past imaginary linebackers or scalp-hungry Indians. This is not to say that Conrad could not run – he was just an ungraceful-looking tornado of limbs. After finding himself next to the cold, blue body of Buddy Anderson, Conrad Christopher decided he’d better run like there was no tomorrow.
He didn’t have a plan. Thinking too much had gotten him into this situation, so he figured the exact opposite could get him out. That’s the trouble with young boys (and most people that find themselves in a lurch); it’s never about finding the best way to solve the problem, it’s about the quickest way. The pressure of the problem squeezes so tight that the first solution to squirt out is the only solution. It’s only later that the person finds themselves sitting in a ditch, surrounded by the better ways they could have handled the hard times. That’s all beside the point, though. In this case, Conrad Christopher’s life would change whether he found himself in a ditch, on the side of the road, or on his own doorstep. People have a way of treating you different when you might have killed someone.
Before he ran off, Conrad was treated just like the other boys in the town of Even. This was a mistake; a mistake in the sense that he was not like the other boys, and should have been cared for in a special way. You could tell from the glazed-over look in his eyes, and the way he would hum to himself. The world was too big for him, and he would just stare at it, trying to make sense out of all the colors and shapes. He had taught himself over the years to bring it in to focus, slowing everything down and deciding just how to go about living in that world.
Some people are just wired differently, but the folks in the town of Even decided to call Conrad inbred and stupid instead of letting him feel okay being who he was. These words weren’t beyond his understanding, and when he could hear the whispers (and shouts) he would get angry and close his eyes. He closed his eyes a lot around Buddy Anderson. It’s hard to say if Conrad’s eyes were closed when he shoved Buddy into Crooked Creek. Sometimes, in a matter of force, a person will close their eyes without knowing it, in a sort of automatic reaction. Either way it could be said that Buddy Anderson deserved a knock-down; he’d had it coming in a balance-of-the-universe way of things. However, no one would argue that Buddy deserved to die.
After running, straight-out for three miles, Conrad stopped to catch his ever-escaping breath. He had passed a line of trees and he could no longer see the outline of his home. He smiled to himself; for the moment he had forgotten exactly why he was running, and was excited by how far he’d made it without stopping. He hunched over with his hands on his knees, winded.
Inches from his face, protruding from the ground was an ant-hill, whirling with the tiny footsteps of its inhabitants. His smile grew wider. A line of ants carrying pieces of a fallen apple were making their way to the gaping entrance to the hive. He let out a laugh – the ants were so tiny; how could they carry these chunks of apple that were bigger than they were? As they disappeared into their home, Conrad’s eyes darted to the bottom of the hill again. This time, there were two large ants carrying another ant. They moved slowly – with a careful stride that their apple-moving peers had lacked. He saw that the transported ant was dead, with a gash in his thorax and missing two legs. His ant-brothers in arms were bringing him home in solemnity it seemed; perhaps reciting silent prayers, or constructing Formicidae eulogies in their heads. Conrad smashed the three with his boot, and set off running again.
Back at the bend of Crooked Creek where Buddy Anderson’s dead body lay, nothing was happening. The birds still chirped, the wind was blowing, and the insects weren’t on him yet. His parents would look for him soon, but until then his body would be kept fresh by the breeze. The blood in his arms was still fluid, but unmoving.
As the day began to grow dark, Conrad Christopher was looking over his shoulder roughly every other step. He had convinced himself now that he was being chased or hunted. Although no one had seen what happened to Buddy Anderson, in Conrad’s mind everyone would know. He had not yet come to realize that his thoughts were confined to his head, and not broadcast on a signal that was picked up by radio stations. He assumed his mother could read his mind, but he was just a terrible liar – his ticks and sweaty palms gave him away.
It wasn’t long before he came to a fence. It was a climbable fence, with an electric wire, but nevertheless a climbable fence. Conrad was familiar with electric fences. He had been tricked into grabbing ahold of the charged wire on the Anderson’s property a few years before, and he felt that same sting as he stared down this new fence. He cringed and paced with an anger that had surprisingly only just now entered his body. The weight of his situation had finally found him, and he was overwhelmed. The energy flowing through him was a pure rush of frustration – the sort of thing that a caged animal resorts to when it realizes the walls around it are real and immovable.
Conrad began his fit.
He raged and swung his arms like out of control bullwhips, slashing at the air. He pulled at his hair and screamed, muffling his cries as he shoved a fist into his mouth and bit down, blood trickling from the backs of his hands. In an instant he was on the ground, pulling at the grass and weeds, slapping at the dirt, and pounding his spit and tears into it. He slapped himself in the face, and gritted, pulsing, fuming “why, you stupid fuck? You fucking retard.” His chest was a malfunctioning puffer-fish; inflating and deflating almost instantaneously. The sounds coming from his throat were raspy and grating; a mucus fueled gravel that had scared his mother in similar episodes. On the ground, out of adrenaline and gasping for breath, he stared at the fence. Behind it the moon was a see-through white disc on the hazy horizon. Conrad Christopher picked himself up off the ground he had attempted to destroy, and, shaking his foal legs, coiling them for release, he sprinted towards the fence in a glide, using his left foot as a spring board he leapt for the second rung of the wooden boards, just above his electric enemy, and as he found his footing he swung his other leg to the top and bounded over to the other side. It was a distinctly new form of grace, but he did not dwell on it. His eyes on the horizon, he ran towards the moon.
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Chapter 2: Kaleb
Waves crashed on the jetty, and from his bed Kaleb could hear their violent splashing. He had come to the coast for many reasons, but the only one that came to satisfy him was the consistent ebb and flow of the tide. Even in its most violent moments, the water calmed him, and washed over the burn of life. Lying, alone in his bed, with woolen sheets pulled tight to his chin, he broke the sound of the waves with a bloody, hacking cough, and deep, wheezing, basement-furnace breaths. As he choked on his own air he gazed though his dirty bedroom window upon the same moon his younger brother was running towards.
Autumn had set in, and the storm that socked the coast was the first sign that it was going to be a cold, careless winter. Things weren’t looking good for Kaleb, who was barely able to keep himself from shivering to death with what blankets he had to cover his tree branch body. When you sneak out of your parents’ home in the middle of the night, you pack lightly, leaving the extra blankets in their closets and cupboards.
He thought a little about his mother. Back in Even he would have had someone to fix him a bowl of soup, to hold his hand as he spit his mucous into its bowl, and to kiss his forehead goodnight. That was long-gone now. And perhaps on this night, he would have been left alone as his parents began to realize that darkness had come and Conrad had not.
With another body-shock cough, the pain searing in his lungs, through his spine, and into the soles of his feet, Kaleb feebly lifted his covers, craned his neck as far as he could, and looked down at his knees shaking. Laughing at him from their untouchable distance, he felt their humiliation and angrily shouted for them to fall in line. He could not stop their constant side-to-side. He concentrated hard, wishing he could will his knees back under his control. Harder still. Closing his eyes, he squeezed his fingers into fists, holding his breath to force out any strength he’d kept in reserves.
Come on.
His pale face began to flush red and the veins that showed through pulsed, but barely.
Stop shaking.
He squeezed his fists tighter and his whole body shook.
COME ON. PLEASE. GOD.
His lips parted into a jaw of clenched teeth and he squealed with pain that shoved itself into every part of him, but when he opened his eyes again his knees were still shaking – a train coming off its tracks. Again. He’d been this shaking conductor many times before.
Exhale.
Air fleeing to the ceiling, all the jumbled energy in Kaleb’s stretched and tightened parts disappeared as his bones fell back into their mattress depressions. He did not close his eyes, but they fell shut anyways. Whatever strength he’d had wouldn’t be back for at least another week. That’s how he’d come to know his sickness. He knew it well, and he followed its rules.
When he opened his eyes again, he stared down towards his feet; the covers still trembling where his knees hid underneath.
Chapter 3: Dreams
Pitch black. The space surrounding Conrad Christopher was pitch black. It was the kind of darkness that you needn’t close your eyes to have a nightmare. No matter, he needed sleep, and the trauma he’d brought into his life – into the world – was buried so deep that the nightmares would not come. The results of his playful push were inside his guts, tangled in his muscles, but not yet processed in his brain.
He dreamed, though. Oh, did he ever dream. His dreams were extraordinary. They kept him safe; they kept him alive.
In his first dream, Conrad was running through the tall grass next to the Crooked Cliffs, only its jagged rocks were vibrant blues and greens, jutting straight up to the sky, to outer space. And so he started climbing, his hands tinted turquoise, towards the Moon. With each movement upwards he grew. He was a giant when he passed Everest, and he could see the earth below as a map that he would never need again. He would live out his years in space, where no one could ever find him, because he didn’t need those other people. They were nothing to him. And when he got to the moon he could not stand on it, because his feet had outgrown it, so he floated between Venus and Mercury, using the sun as a lighter for a comet-sized cigarette, that he puffed on to his massive heart’s content, because no one could tell him not to. He was the master of his own universe. And just as he was about to flick the Earth into another galaxy he thought that maybe he might go explore – that maybe it was a better idea. So off he set into his great unknown, hoping to find more giant cigarettes, a baseball field where he would hit the highest, hardest, longest home runs, and hopefully a planet full of naked women. He would go there first, just so he could say he’d been.
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—
Curled up, cushioning himself with what little forearms he had, Conrad drooled. The wet mouth of his dream was reality. In a nook of the real Crooked Cliffs, brownish and mossy, Conrad was able to sleep with a roughshod ceiling over his head. As he wandered through the valley in the hours after defeating the electric fence, he’d had only this one preference for his sleeping arrangement. With walls to his back, and a roof overhead, he was able to rest assured. And rest assured he did. To anyone, animal, human, or otherwise, he was a small boulder, an extension of the floor itself.
He cycled through sleep and dream with envious ease, exhausted from the unexpected exploration of his homeland. The one thing that was missing was a torment on his mind: perhaps, an image of Buddy Anderson lying face down, blood trickling from his forehead and staining the creek bed. It was inside him somewhere, the documentary footage of it all, but it wasn’t playing on any screens that Conrad could see. There were too many other important things right now to let those thoughts awake.
Sleep.
—
In another simply brilliant dream, Conrad was the size of an ant. No longer a giant, he rode down Crooked Creek on a fallen leaf. Grabbing on to its stem, he held tight through the torrent of white-water and waves the size of buildings, buildings that Conrad had heard of but never seen; any of which, in their hurried up and down, could have capsized his frail vessel and sent him tumbling into their freezing waters. But he wasn’t scared. No. Conrad was a beaming captain, seeking danger, cheating death, and sucking down the finest skull-marked pirate’s booze. He gulped it down with glee, unsure of its taste, but sure that it was his. And in his surprisingly sober state he looked to land just as the waters were calming. He’d come to a slow patch of the creek, near the tree where he and Buddy Anderson began this story.
On that patch of land, Conrad saw himself, the real him, the life-sized regular boy, crouching down near another skinny boy, but taller, with raven black, stringy hair. Ant-Conrad gasped, the memory punching him hard in the gut: this was the day that Kaleb had run away. The boy whispering to his dream-shadow was Kaleb, sharing secrets of his days ahead; to the coast, to the ocean, he would journey. From his floating leaf Conrad watched his older brother put an arm around him, and he could feel it on his shoulder, reddening his face, and relaxing his thoughts. Kaleb looked him dead in the face, and made him promise that these secrets would never leave his lips. Not to no one. Never Mom and never Dad. Never a soul. Never tell them where he was heading. It was the only way he’d live. His new life would start that night, away from Even, breathing the salt-air into his fading lungs, and swimming. Swimming in water that went past his knees, unlike the soiled, pathetic waters of Crooked Creek. The Coastline would go as far as his eyes could see, no longer trapped in this shithole Valley, this bumfuck town. I’ll see you in your dreams, Brother.
The make-believe brain of his miniature self sparked with inspiration. There was no use captaining a ship, even a fallen leaf, back and forth on Crooked Creek; there was no danger, no reward, in that. What a captain needed was the fuming, frothing sea, and the challenge of open water beckoning death and riches for all who heard its call. With a swig of liquor and a cocksure puff of his chest, Conrad Christopher strapped his boots tight and headed for the Wide-Mouthed River and onwards towards the Ocean.
—
Brightness. Sunlight streamed into his nook, its heat stirring Conrad from the dream. Far away from his parents’ home, from his own warm bed, Conrad’s dream echoed in his head, and it made sense. He would run away, too. To the only place he knew to run to.
From his place near the cliffs he could see the entire Valley, but it meant nothing to him. He stretched his growing arms and legs; the aches of a rock-hard sleep torturing his muscles. And with his mind on a dream, Conrad jolted up with a bolt of lightning, running back towards Crooked Creek, hoping it would lead him to wherever the Coastline kept going as far as he could see.
Chapter 4: The Day After
It was still early morning, but the sun had already crested over the Crooked Valley walls. A constant buzz and whistle was in the air. Wild inhabitants and their foreign conversations were bouncing off the steep rock, and flying low over the creek.
Conrad kept himself in the shade. He walked along a line of trees, crunching their fallen leaves under his boots. Hands in his pockets, eyes watching every step, he ignored the spectacle of colors providing his canopy and cover, whistling to himself, adding his own instrument to the orchestra of the valley; a spit-inhibited, breathy clarinet, never quite played properly, but to a beginner, a first-timer, it was passable, even satisfying. From time to time the whistle would shrill high and short, ringing proudly, causing enough excitement to continue puckering his purpled lips for a few more feet until, ultimately, he became tired of the effort, looking for apples or mushrooms to stomp instead. Trudging forth the only sound he made was a low rustle-woosh rustle-woosh as his jeans brushed the golden grass, waist-high to a cold boy.
To his left, past the trees that blocked him from view, was the only road in and out of Even, and it ran parallel to Crooked Creek. As long as the two ran together Conrad would be able to make his way out of the valley, and into…into…what? He didn’t know exactly. Was there an end to the rocks and canyons of this valley? He’d only lived just beyond his front porch. Kaleb was certain that Even was just the beginning, the smallest drop of water in whatever an ocean might look like. It was best to not think of anything. Just keep moving.
Walking and walking and walking…the monotony of it all was weighing on him; the view ahead was the same bobbing horizon with each step. Alongside him the trees were becoming steel bars lining a narrow, hollowed out prison hallway. He shook his head of the image, but it quickly returned, readjusted for his failure. Now it was intense, more focused, more real. Looking down at his boots, he saw ankle-cuffs and chains; he could hear them rattling, changing his gangly stride into short shuffles. Shamefully he carried onward, hearing the crows and crickets as catcalls and insults from the hell bound and the unforgiven, fellow souls who shared his prison walls.
Impulsively he shook his head. Back and forth, side to side, up and down. He was violence, frenetically quaking like an exorcism. When he slowed to a stop his path had shifted to the bank of Crooked Creek; a thin layer of fog hovering as it drifted slowly beneath. The sounds of the prison and the valley joined, filling Conrad’s head space, rocketing around inside his eardrums, deafening any sort of peace that he’d found in the solitude of his early morning dreams. Shivering now, Conrad caught some movement on the windowpane creek surface from the corner of his eye.
Buddy, laying, dead. His ghost eyes opened, and the sick symphony, now blaring and bursting Conrad’s ear cells, rocked him off balance, and sent him tumbling into the creek; no push necessary.
He came to as he hit the freezing water. Up he shot, swinging his head backwards, flinging the hair and water out of his eyes. Grabbing a hold of himself, he found his insides and tried to block out the cacophony he’d created.
Sudden silence.
Sharp and concentrated, Conrad stared at the glassy, tablecloth-delicate image of Buddy Anderson with his blinking eyes – open and shut, open and shut – a gash on his right temple that trickeld blood down his cheek and matted hair to his forehead. He stopped blinking. Bright blue eyes made muddy by dirty water. Taking in a deep bubble-breath of creek, Buddy held it in for effect, and then let out a cackling laugh, pointing at Conrad’s chest and hurling insults that Conrad had heard a million times.
Retard. Laugh. Inbred. Howl. Mistake. Vicious smile.
A second went by. Knees shook. Another second. Hands became fists. Another sec-
THRASH! An eruption SPLASH! of water sent into the air as SMASH! Conrad swung his arms at the fleeing figure of Buddy Anderson, and sucked in sobbing breaths, crying loudly to block out any other goddamned noise – be it crickets, or murderers, or laughing ghosts – that might try to break him. His head throbbed, dizzy with confusion. Concepts he didn’t understand bent themselves into ideas he could not comprehend, warping and breaking, shoving themselves into any part of him where they might become lodged. Nothing made sense. He shut them out. And that’s when he heard the brakes squeal.
Snapping out of his fit, he jumped for dry land, hoping the tall grass would shield him from any eyes on the road. Out of sight he scanned the gravel lanes and found where the screeching had stopped. It was the Delivery Truck, the one he’d seen so many times outside of Mr. Planter’s store, about 15 yards back up the road towards Even. Had the driver seen him? Is that why he braked?
The driver’s side door slammed shut, and a straw-hat wearing older gentleman walked to the backside of the truck. He paused for a moment and sighed. With a few more steps behind the vehicle he bent over, picked up a large rock from the middle of the road and threw it down into the grass below. “Another flat out here and Planter would be drivin’ to me,” he mumbled. Taking one last look at the truck, satisfied that it would not fall apart, the driver made his way to the front, and climbed into the cab.
At the sound of ignition, Conrad peeked his head up and began crawling towards the road. The truck idled in place. Instinct pulled him nearer as the driver found his gears. He ducked below the road’s ledge and the truck lurched forward, taking a second to gather its momentum and move towards him. As the truck picked up speed the moment of opportunity came and Conrad did not hesitate. His running legs were back underneath him, pumping and churning; adrenaline kicked his twitching calves into a jump that sent him hurdling to the bumper and vice-gripping the tailgate. His presence was announced by a slight bump to the truck’s shocks, which the driver took for another pothole on a forsaken stretch of road.
Success! Wind cascaded through his dark brown locks, and Conrad whistled again, aware only of the fact that this was a shortcut of sorts; no more walking for a while at least. Oh, and he was impressed with his spectacular jumping abilities. Man, could he jump! Maybe these new found talents would be of use when he lived at the Coast, bringing him money by way of performing his jumps for people. Or maybe he’d be a jumping teacher, a teacher who instructed people on the right techniques for quick jumps, or how to prepare for high jumps, when to use two feet versus one foot, etc. Jumping had to be worth something to someone, right?
And so he rode for what seemed like forever on a truck that barreled down the road that swayed with the bends that gave Crooked Creek its name. There was a pain in his hands after the first few miles, and it was growing worse with each bump. The truck was moving along at around 30 miles an hour, so Conrad decided to try his hand at moving from the bumper to the bed. He pictured himself lying down, falling fast asleep, and waking up somewhere beyond the expansive walls that seemed to hem the valley in on both sides of him.
There wasn’t much to it, no jump necessary, but as Conrad rolled over the top of the tailgate he left his foot in the air for just a second too long…and he caught the wandering eye of the driver. A familiar squeal of the brakes sent Conrad springing back over the tailgate and once again running for the open valley floor.
Only this time, someone was running after him.
Chapter 5
Life Before the Accident: Interlude #1
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?”
Chapter 6: Change is Everything
“These dreams we have are thin and easily wrecked. Build them up with stone. Burn into them strength. But be careful with your nightmares. They may become reality without you even knowing.”
- Anonymous
The deliveryman’s breath was warm on Conrad’s neck, the feeling of which made him shudder and slither curses off his tongue. With a jerk he was pulled to his feet, and swung around to face his captor. He did not make eye contact with the man; shame pulling his gaze to the rocks at his feet. This was failure. He felt stupid. Worthless. The boiling started in his stomach.
“What do you think you were doin’, boy?” the deliveryman scolded.
He had felt the shame before, many times in his own kitchen or bedroom. Living room. Porch. Toilet. This was only the farthest from home he’d felt it.
***
Conrad was smiling. He was alone with his mother who was hot and cold, hot and cold, but now she was just warm. He wished to keep it that way.
In front of him was a plate of carrots, peas and potatoes. It wasn’t often that Conrad had the table to all himself. But what he really wanted was for his mother to sit down and share the moment with him.
In his head his mother would tell him what a wonderful son he had been, for this day and for all. There would be singing in his voice, and he would run to his brother and sing for him. His singing would be miraculous and he would swirl new life into those damned lungs and Kaleb would join them at the table. The family he dreamed of. They would be merry. Empty bowls would fill themselves and the three of them would sit satisfied.
Just the contentment of sitting at the dinner table, alone and smiling, made Conrad believe these things could happen.
But they did not.
***
The boy started to twitch, not speaking.
“You running away? Oh, somebody’s looking for trouble,” the deliveryman warned.
No response. Conrad kept mute, the strings in his muscles beginning to tighten; a feral cat backed into a corner.
“You won’t talk? You’re a little off, ain’t ya? Get on now, you’re riding in the cab this time”. Gripping him by the left shirtsleeve the deliveryman began to pull Conrad back towards the truck and the road.
The tug of his shirt ignited Conrad, and the rage he began to feel was this time controllable, tied to his survival. This was his realization that failure was not an option; the sensation was brimming with self-hate, a skill he’d been taught by his parents.
Coughing started from the rear of the house. Traveling down from the hallway it grew louder with each hacking expulsion. Then the air in the house changed all at once, like a sparkling blue ocean swallowing thick black oil in itself. Conrad froze with a fork in his hand, and even though he felt the room change he held on to the hope that his daydream might come true.
Without a word, Judith stepped deliberately to Kaleb’s room. She would be gone for a long time. The love she once felt for her children was now no more than a fading image to uphold.
At the table Conrad was still. Motionless he kept the image steady in his mind, so that it would not leave his sights. If he could just hold onto it the world would change around him. His mother would return to the table and the dream would begin again. He decided that he would not eat until she was with him. And so he waited.
He waited for a long time, a long time for a young boy. The food got cold, and yet he sat there. This is what his mother would want. She would love him for waiting, and that was most important. He would be a good boy for once; the boy he was always trying to be. Waiting showed patience and maturity; he knew she would be proud.
When the coughing ceased he perked up, holding his fork at the ready, eyeing the hallway for his mother’s shadow. He felt as if he held the key to an always-sunny alternate universe in his small fingers. There was unabashed love in his cheeks.
She turned the corner into the kitchen and he smiled, whispering, “I waited for you, Mom”.
And the world changed.
His world changed.
***
Surely the world was going to change – he’d put that in to motion – but this time he sensed the winds shifting. Planting his feet in the pebbles he began to skid. His face grew red and heated, the sensation somehow calming. He wasn’t going anywhere.
The deliveryman stopped and turned around to face the dragging boy who was now foaming a bit from the mouth, his eyes solid in the tops of their holes, staring ugly at the man.
“Knock that off boy. Christ, you are a weird little sonofabitch”. The deliveryman sighed and shook his head. Conrad was used to this. Facing the road he started at the pulling again, but Conrad would not budge.
The deliveryman switched his grip from Conrad’s sleeve to his twiggish wrists, determined to cause pain. Conrad winced and rasped his hollow throat. He could feel a prickly sort of dancing in his fingers, and they splayed and fixed-straight off his hand. There were impulses in his head that he was beginning to like. Things that he wanted to take advantage of in ways that weren’t there before. He threw his right foot back in a kick, and attempted to breath smoke through his nostrils.
The deliveryman snorted, “Don’t make this harder than it has to be you little freak”.
He clicked his free wrist like a switchblade, and swooping low to the ground, almost sliding out of his shirt, Conrad stole a jagged fist-sized rock from the dirt and swung towards the deliveryman. The rock and his underwhelming hand crushing into plaque-ridden teeth and a spotted nose. Chipped calcium and blood spewed from the deliveryman’s rotten mouth and his hand shot open freeing Conrad from his grasp. An oily clod of hair hung over his eyes and dripped sweat and blurred his vision.
“I’ll do what I want!” he screamed, running towards the truck.
***
“I waited for you, so that we could eat together, and maybe sing,” Conrad whistled.
She lifted a hand to her forehead and sighed, rubbing the wrinkles above her eyebrows. Whichever world Conrad lived in was not the same for her. The reality she inhabited was a dull plastic sheeting, thin and cracking. Her cup was already running over with dirty water, and her youngest son’s presence was a boiling pot of water pouring in without regard, burning her raw fingertips red.
With a foot stomp she emitted, “Why haven’t you eaten?!”
Conrad’s heart sank – his head, too.
“I can’t leave you alone and expect anything, can I?”
Her words were confusing. This was not the happy thing he had imagined. “I thought you would like it if I waited,” he trailed off, the words coming unsure from his mouth and muted into his jeans.
“What am I supposed to do with you, Conrad? I make you dinner and you wait for it to get cold. Are you stupid? You’re supposed to finish your potatoes and clean your room and check on your brother. That’s the way the night is planned. If you can’t even eat your goddamn dinner, then what are you going to do? Do I have to do everything for you? ”
A more perfect son: this is what they needed, and he could never be. The world in his head against the real world of his parents and the electric lightning in between. Navigating that battlefield left Conrad a crooked mess. His fits, those uncontrollable and kinetic shocks to his system, were his body reacting to the torture played on his mind. The outward expression of an inner torment, like an exorcism patient only the devil was rejecting the human soul.
The fits, oh, the fits she abhorred.
She watched his contortions; the spitting, the way his throat sounded as if throttled and stuffed with pine needles made her nostrils flare. Why did she have to have a boy like this?
And before she hit her little boy across the face, shocking him out of his disgusting display, a little voice in the back of her head said, “You made him this way”.