Ash Eater Page 4

  A field stretches before me, opening to a wide plain.

  The mountains are thick in the distance. Thick with snow and ice and all varieties of perils. Yet I know that just beyond that mountain range there are riches beyond my wildest imaginings. But those mountains are so high and imposing.

  “Miya, are you awake?” Nate asks.

  I push my back away from the wall and steady my feet, looking at the sleeping baby in my arms. “Yeah, I didn’t sleep.”

  “Service is over. And the baby’s mom is here.”

  I don’t want to lose the warmth and connection with this sweet baby, but he’s not mine and I crave a cigarette like crazy.

  By the time I make it outside, Ryan’s around the corner of the church, smoking a cigarette and lighting one for the woman in the puffy red coat. She hugs him once more and shuffles across the downtown green.

  “Yo, you got another one of those, Ryan?” I ask.

  “Yup. Here you go.” He lights it for me.

  “Is she going to be okay?”

  He shook his head. “She just learned she has full blown AIDS.”

  The news hits me like a punch to the gut. A tear drips off my cheek as I pull a drag. “How long does she have to live?”

  “A few weeks, maybe, a few months at best. Not long when she’s living on the streets, that’s for sure.”

  “Damn, that sucks.” I wipe away a second tear. “What’s her name?”

  “Lacey.”

  “Do you—do you know how?”

  “Heroin, most likely. She showed me her arm—full of track marks.”

  “Oh.”

  “It sucks even when you bring it on yourself. You know?”

  “Yeah. I’m glad—I’m glad she had you today. I wouldn’t have known what to do.”

  He shrugs as he exhales a stream of smoke. “You gotta do what you gotta do, you know?”

  “Ryan!” Mom calls. “Miya!”

  I drop the half smoked cigarette at my foot and crush it under the sole of my Converse high top.

  “Ryan, you’ve got to go in and wash your hands. Make sure you wash them well.”

  He flicks his cigarette onto an old snowdrift. “Yeah, you’re right. Here I come.”

  “Why?” I ask Mom as Ryan disappears inside the church.

  “Did he tell you?”

  “Yeah, that she has AIDS.”

  “I’m proud of him for showing her love when she needed it. But people with AIDS have unique diseases they can pass on. Your brother will be fine after he washes his hands.”

  How does she know? Then I remember that Mom works at the homeless shelter and she knows most of the homeless in our city. “It’s so awful.”

  “I know, sweetie.” She pulls me close. She must smell the smoke on me, but I need her hug and I need to hug her. How many others does she know who have AIDS?

  I want to be brave like Ryan, brave like Mom, able to face real life.

  But I can’t even face my own darkness. I can’t even keep my food down anymore.

  Do not take me away, my God, in the midst of my days…

  ~ Psalm 102:24

  Chapter 8

  Little Drummer Boy, part 1

  As I walk toward the stage carrying a Marshall amplifier, I grow keenly aware of the fact that I’m a twelve-year-old in a bar. A seedy bar at that. I’ll be thirteen in a few weeks, but tonight I’m still twelve.

  No one has to tell me to be careful here. That’s a given in this neighborhood.

  At least I have Tiny to watch my back as well. Since I’m eye level with his belly button, I’m glad he’s one of the good guys. And the only sober one on the block aside from my brothers’ band and me. And Daryl’s parents. They never drink.

  I hope Mom and Abbie come soon.

  The wide wooden dance floor is hopelessly empty. I know it’s early, but I yearn for crowds to flock and hear my brothers’ band play. I yearn for my brothers to know I wish for this.

  I march across the empty dance floor back to the van that holds the band’s equipment. The cold air steals my breath after the exceedingly warm bar.

  At the van, Daryl’s dad hands me a guitar. I take hold, drawing the instrument close, remembering the last time I had a chance to play. The day I floated into a beautiful daydream and didn’t come out for nearly an hour.

  “I’ll take that.” Ryan’s hand reaches toward the guitar as if he doesn’t trust me with it.

  I extend it toward him. “Here. Take it.” I don’t wait for his thanks. I know it won’t come.

  Turning back to the van, I prepare to receive the next piece of equipment. When I look up, Daryl hands me a tom from his drum set. His blue eyes and smile make me forget the cold.

  “Back of the stage,” he tells me.

  “Got it.” I have to pretend I can walk now. I’ve never had a boy I like smile at me like that.

  I swim inside the memory of those eyes all the way to the bar and the stage. I place his drum piece delicately on the stage. I’ve heard stories about Daryl and his drums. He won’t let anyone touch them. Including his dad and my brothers.

  “He let you touch that?” Nate remarks, setting up his guitar stand. “Weird.”

  I help unload the rest of the drum set. It’s strange to be liked. I don’t know how I feel about it.

  Energized. Shy.

  I make my way toward a table.

  “You want a Shirley Temple?” Daryl’s standing beside me.

  “A what?”

  “It’s a drink. My sister likes them.” He shrugs. “Maybe you will. They’re good.”

  “Okay.” I step away from the table and look hesitantly toward the bar.

  “No, you can stay here. I’ll get it for you.”

  My sweaty palm balls the dollar bill in my pocket. “But—”

  “My treat.”

  My heart flutters like a hummingbird. “Okay.” How long before he doesn’t want to be around me? I settle into one of the chairs, afraid to look at the bar while I sit alone.

  “Here you go.” When he smiles, his blue eyes sparkle.

  “What’s that red thing on top of the ice?”

  “That’s a cherry. You’ve never had a maraschino cherry before?”

  “I think so, but it was a long time ago.”

  “Try it.” He holds the cherry from his drink between his front teeth a few seconds before chewing it.

  Once I have it in my mouth I remember the taste. Too sweet for a cherry. It tastes almost alcoholic with all this sugar. Last time I ate one of these was on the ice cream sundae with Dad five years ago. Back when he wanted me around.

  Daryl smiles at me. “Good, isn’t it?”

  I nod, afraid to tell him I hate it. Although I might not hate it so much now.

  “Hey, son.”

  Daryl jumps when his dad pats his shoulder.

  “Hadn’t you better set up before someone touches your drums?”

  Daryl pulls his shoulder away from his father’s grasp. “On it.”

  “My boy’s a special kid.” Daryl’s dad sits at my table and glances at the bar where two men sit sipping amber liquid, probably whiskey, and roll their eyes at the activity on the stage.

  “He’s an okay kid, over all. I mean, he has issues, but that can be expected, given his past. He’s a good kid, though.” This last statement’s uttered as if he wants to believe it himself.

  I believe it.

  Daryl tightens a knob on his snare drum, taps the head with the drum stick and tightens again.

  “He’s been better since he has this drum set to take his anger out on,” Daryl’s dad continues. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.” He gets up slowly, pushing his hands against the table as if it hurts to move. Without another word, he wanders off to the other corner of the bar. Ah, his wife is here. I’ve never seen that woman smile. Not even out of obligation. A cold shiver runs through me.

  I wander toward the back stage area where the band, minus drummer, congregates to smoke.
<
br />   “Mom here yet?” Ryan asks.

  I shake my head, staring at his cigarette.

  Robby holds open a pack toward me. “I bet you want one of these.”

  “Yup. Thanks.”

  “You deserve it after talking with Daryl’s dad. No wonder the kid’s so angry all the time. I’d be angry too if I had parents like that.”

  “I bet he breaks two sets of sticks tonight.” Ryan stamps out his cigarette on the tile floor.

  “I bet it’s three,” Robby says.

  “He might get too nervous in this venue and not break any.” Nate hands his half-smoked cigarette to Ryan. “I’m going to tune my guitar.”

  “I bet you’re right, Robby, I bet it’s three.” Ryan searches his back pack and fishes out a tube of lipstick. Black, to match his nail polish. He flashes a glance toward me. “Mom and Abbie are here and I’m about to go on.”

  I stamp out my cigarette on the floor and scoot over to my table for a quick sip of the Shirley Temple. I hope it hides my breath.

  “There you are.” Mom and Abbie sit beside me. They’re sober, unlike the crowd at the bar, and I feel safe again.

  The music starts, so loud it pulses through my muscles, starts to control my heartbeat. I stare at the dance floor. Such a wide dance floor. Perhaps it looks wider because it’s so empty. The crowd huddles at the bar, stares at their drinks, glares at the stage.

  No one’s dancing.

  No one is anywhere near the stage.

  I push away from the table and move my jelly legs to the wide wooden dance floor.

  I pull the music into me, thirsty, yearning for even one song to be about me and about how Ryan would want reconciliation. Does he want the relationship restored to what it was when we were kids? Always playing together, always thinking of one another, always laughing. Smiles. I remember so many smiles. What happened? It’s darkness, all the time between now and then.

  Balling my fists, I plunge into that darkness, dancing all my anger onto some empty dance floor. I hope the men at the bar don’t watch me. I need to dance. I need to lose myself in all of this. Because if I lose myself far enough into this, I just might remember what I did to make Ryan angry at me.

  My heart is blighted and withered like grass;

  I forget to eat my food.

  ~ Psalm 102:4

  Chapter 9

  Little Drummer Boy, Part 2

  It’s cold for the second of May and I can’t sleep. No one sleeps in our house anyway.

  I stare at the wood bottom of the top bunk as Nate’s girlfriend breathes quietly. Mom helped Jenny move in a week ago. Usually by this time she tiptoes into Nate’s room. She’s sleeping in here for once.

  But I can’t sleep, tormented as I am by my own words.

  Never ask for the opinion of a child unless you’re ready for it. The cold, honest opinion of a child is a cruelty that knows no bounds.

  Jenny’s breath quickens, matches the rhythm of my thoughts.

  They asked me my opinion, right? So they should have been prepared for my answers.

  Like the time when I was eight and Mom asked how I felt about Abbie. And I answered her with scriptures about abomination that I dug up from obscure references.

  Did she know how bad it hurt to say it?

  “How about honor your father and mother?” she said. “The bible says that too. Did your father tell you to tell me those scriptures? Because you can tell him you won’t be used to deliver messages anymore.”

  That anchored a barb in my heart, a many spiked thing that stabbed with every beat.

  I had spikes of my own. Words I spoke to my father.

  “I’ll go hysterical if I have to live with you.”

  Out loud. In public. In front of the lawyers.

  And the words I said to my brother. Ryan. One of the best people I ever met. And the one who hurts me more than anyone I’ve ever met. “I won’t tell anyone if you just please stop.”

  But I don’t remember what I asked him to stop doing. All the memories surrounding those words are black holes, as if those words were a singularity, dragging all the light in my life into that dense pinprick of darkness.

  Jenny stirs. She climbs down the ladder from the top bunk. I knew she wouldn’t stay very long in this room. I close my eyes so she won’t know I’m awake. She tiptoes to Nate’s room.

  I open my eyes, afraid of the black hole that begins to engulf me. The stings of my own honest words are like a series of low level electric shocks that propel me further into darkness.

  The night sky out my bedroom window is beautiful, the way the stars all cluster together as if they like one another, as if they slow dance together.

  Space is altogether horrifying, the emptiness, the nothing. So much more nothing than stars. And I drift alone through space. Nothingness squeezes the air out of me.

  I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to throw up again tonight. I swallow rising bile. I’ve got to keep this throwing up to only twice a day. Besides, I don’t have anything in my stomach, and I don’t want to lose any more weight. It’s just hard to not get sick all the time.

  If I tell Mom and Abbie, they’ll say I have bulimia. That can’t be possible, right? I don’t get sick to get skinny. I just get sick. No reason, except that I’m swallowed whole by darkness and I can’t get out.

  Air. I need fresh air.

  I crawl out of bed to the stairs and hug the stucco wall all the way down to the first floor, ignoring the whispers in Nate’s room.

  Out the front door, onto the porch, where the night air calls me.

  I find Abbie’s cigarettes, the half-smoked ones in the ashtray, and collect four of them in my sweaty palm. A few flicks of the lighter and the first lights. Man, these cigarettes are nasty, but sweeter than my thoughts.

  I stare up at the now cloud-locked sky, feeling rather like I’m under the floorboards in that Edgar Allen Poe story—a singular beating heart unable to forget the past, unable to remember details, unwilling to have anything but justice. But I’m terrified of the judge.

  The door behind me squeaks on its hinges. I jump out of my skin and turn to face a sleepy drummer with tousled blond hair. Daryl.

  I try to hide my smile and extend sympathy instead. “Did I wake you?”

  “Jenny did.” He rolls his eyes. “Does anyone sleep in this house?”

  “Not really.” I hold up my lit cigarette. “You want one of these?”

  He sits on the wide rail beside the stairs. Without a word he rolls up his sleeve to mid bicep. His arm fills with goosebumps in the cool spring air. He angles his forearm toward me. A small, perfectly round scar bevels his skin. “That’s why I don’t smoke.”

  I flick my cigarette into the middle of the road. “What happened.”

  He lifts his chin as if he can just pass it off. “Cigarette burn.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Four.”

  I swear out loud. “That’s messed up.”

  He shrugs and rolls up his other sleeve. “It didn’t hurt as bad as this one.”

  I stare at the perfect circle on his upper arm. It’s larger than the cigarette burn. “Cigar?”

  “Bullet.”

  I swear under my breath. “And I thought I had my demons. What did your parents do?”

  “They’re not my parents. I mean, they are, but they’re not. It happened before I was adopted.”

  “How old were you when you were adopted?”

  “Six.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago.” He moves closer to me.

  I’ve been longing for his closeness for years, never mind these past few minutes. “Does it still hurt?”

  “My arm doesn’t hurt.” He rolls down his sleeve again.

  “I know, but you.”

  “You gotta roll with the punches, you know?”

  “Yeah.” That’s something I need to learn—how to roll with the punches.

  “And there are things that make i
t feel better, like good conversation.” He takes my hand in his. “The warmth of a hand. Nice company.”

  No one ever spoke to me like this before. I soak up the warmth radiating from his hand.

  “You’re thirteen now, right?”

  I smile shyly. “I have been for a few months.” My lips feel as if they are inching toward his.

  He leans in toward my lips and plants a kiss. So that’s what someone else’s tongue feels like. Soft. Slippery. Tentative.

  His arms wrap around me and my arms slide around him. We sit there, lip-locked, and the rest of Abbie’s half-smoked cigarettes slip out of my hands and get crushed under foot.

  Dew tickles my arms and dawn’s first light beckons my eyes to open. Have I really been kissing him that long? It seemed like a few seconds, not a few hours.

  “You should go back in. I don’t want your mom to get mad at me.”

  I plant a giggly kiss on his lips. “You’re right. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Today.” His blue eyes sparkle.

  “Later.” I ease hesitantly toward his lips and give them a kiss.

  *

  “What’s that look for?” Gina asks as I sit next to her on the school bus.

  I sigh, trying not to giggle. “I had a good weekend.”

  “Good as in…”

  “Good as in I kissed someone.”

  Gina squeals. “Who? You have to tell me!”

  “Only if you promise not to tell. He’s so afraid of my mom finding out since he’s four years older than me.”

  Her eyes grow wide as a headlight. “He’s how much older than you?”

  “Well, three and a half years, but I’m sure my mom will round it up in this case.”

  “Yeah, but who is it?”

  “Daryl.”

  “You mean your brothers’ drummer?”

  I can’t conceal my smile.

  “He’s cute,” she says as if he’s not her type.

  “I know!” Did I just squeal? I’m not the squealing type. But Daryl’s really cute, so I just go with it.

  Gina bounces in her seat, tucking her feet under her legs. “I want to know every detail.”