Part One
"Git up boy."
My eyes stayed shut. Still half way between dream and reality. Don't quite know where I am yet, but I can feel the warm light on my skin. I can smell the clean air coming from outside.
"I says git up boy!"
A pain fills my chest and I can't keep my eyes closed anymore. I jumped up and my eyes swing from left to right. The light is no longer warm and peaceful, it is painful and I closed my eyes in pain. After a few seconds I open them back up and look above me.
Pa's towering over me, just like he always did. Suddenly the after affect of the hit begins to take effect and it's getting harder to breath. But I keep my head up and my eyes open. I don't want to get hit again.
Pa normally wakes me up by hitting me with Old Lucky, but I'm just guessing that he hit me with his hand. Just cause he is massaging his right one behind his back. After a few seconds go by, him tending to his wound and me getting over mine, he leans over right into my face.
"Hear me boy. Today, you's gonna fix my clothes. They's gat some bad tears."
I don't say anything, just stare into his mouth. His teeth are all black, many so rotten that my eyes begin to water when he breathes on me. He has a shaggy beard, which he trims every so often. His nose is bigger than mine by at least two times maybe more. His whole face is stern, hard as a rock, maybe even harder. His hair's always a mess, so oily that it lets off its own shine in the light.
I don't mean to, but for some reason I did. I moved my eyes straight into his and before I can realize what I just did, it's too late.
"You hearin' me boy?" he yells as he smacks me across the face with his hand, "Fuc' a'mighty!"
He hit me with his weak right hand. I've gotten used to Old Lucky across the face many a time so I'm used to it. Pa walks up to my wall and kicks it over and over again until he has all of his anger out. When the cursing stops I watch him come back to me.
"Now dun make me do that again boy, or I'll really hurt yer ass. Git me?" I nod and continue to look up.
He reached down and began to untie his boots. Next he took his suspenders half way off, so they just resting on his hips. He took off his shirt and threw it on me, then his overalls. The smell of body order is so bad that I want to cry but I keep myself strong and take them off.
There is a white nude body before me. He's tanned on his arms and his face and neck, but the rest is as white as the day you born, maybe even whiter. Course, it's a little hard to tell how white he is, since his body is covered from head to toe with hair. Violent curly black hair that is completely out of control.
He scratches himself all over with his hand. Staying in the mid section for a good time, then quickly picks his nose. He then takes the green blob and sticks it on his tongue and swallows it. Letting off a small grunt, like he was taking a bite into a perfect steak or somethin.
He turns around, "Now where I leave my drawers?" he is about to walk out the door, but quickly turns and give me a stare, "Git to work skunk, you aint gat all day. Dun wash them, just fix em, I aint got that kinda time."
I quickly nod and get up. He slams the door and walks down the hallway. Putting the clothes down I go and get some thread and a needle.
After about an hour of work, I lifted my head. It's done, well; good as it can be on accounting that I've been fixing his clothes since as early as I can remember. These exact clothes. The faded blue overalls, and the stained blue shirt. I can hear them, laughing at me. Telling me to fix them, make them good again, just as good as new. I have no thoughts, just listen to the clothes tell me what they need. No. I'm not hearing this; I've just been doing this to long.
I get up and stretch out my soar muscles and look around my room to get my mind off the clothes. The walls are black, rotten wood with holes everywhere. The roof is getting closer to me, like it wants to touch me. The one window is dirty and broken in the left bottom corner. The bed is just a mattress with a blanket.
I begin to remember the rats in my room. And how they bite my feet when I'm sleeping. When I wake I can hear them giggle and run off into one of the rotten holes, just waiting for me to go back to sleep so they can get me again and have more fun.
Suddenly I wake up from my day dreaming and my eyes catch a boy standing in front of me. In the cracked mirror. A boy between ten to twelve. Black shaggy hair and torn overalls with no shirt. The overalls are big; they used to be pa's when he was about seven years older than me. I can't stand to look at my face. It's not me, but when I look I see that face. The black eyes, the torn lip, the scared cheek. It's not me!
I can't take it I have to do something, so I grab Pa's clothes and head out the door, which almost falls of the hinges, as I give it a work. The walls in my room are the same as in the hall and the rest of the house. I walk down the stairs, careful not to fall through any of them. Then when I hit the bottom I take a right and I walk into the kitchen. Ma's sitting at the table.
I walk in quietly, like a mouse. She has her head down, foot on the table and she's trying to get stuff out from in her toenail. I'm quiet, I know I am. Yet some how she sees me. Like she senses my fear. Or just knows my smell so well that when it hits her nostrils her eyes jump the horizon and catch me.
She gives me a stare and I walk back a little. A little snort comes out of her nostrils like a wild bull. Then she puts her head back down and continues to pick at her feet.
"Ya finish wit Pa's clothes boy?" her voice is deep and raspy.
I nod and hold out the clothes for her to see. She gives them a quick rundown, then snorts. She points to the left where the door is; Pa must be outside doing something in the yard.
Ma has a clash of gray to brown hair, which naturally keeps itself in curls. Unlike Pa she isn't oily. Her nose is big like Pa's however. She has a mole on her face, right under her left eye. She normally just walks around naked, shaven almost all over her body. Not today though, she is in a stained pink nightgown.
She looked up and noticed me staring at her. Our eyes meet like I did with Pa, and she is set off the same. She reaches for something on the small table. It's Old Lucky. How did he get there? I didn't see him there a second ago. Then I see her hand touch Old Lucky and I can feel Old Lucky come to life.
Ready to pounce on me like he does many times before. Pa can hit me good with Old Lucky, but not like Ma. It's like Old Lucky becomes an extension of her hand and she can control the universe with its power.
I can feel my fear rising into my heart. Closing off my lungs and clogging my throat. I'm guessing Ma can feel it too, she is smiling really big and begins to move Old Lucky off the table. I can't move, my legs are stuck. Ma must have told the floor to hold onto me so she can hit me good. I got to break free. I can't though, and she hits me right on the arm. The pain pushes me out of the hold and I dash out the door.
The warm air touches my skin as I stop running. The sky is blue, with a few clouds dancing in the vast amount of space. The sun is watching everything, the watchful eye. The sun reminds me that of Ma and Pa, if you stare at it, it just sends you pain. Not like the moon though. The moon lets you stare at its power as it moves with the stars. They are so peaceful together, and I wish I could just reach to them and join them in their night dance.
I would never be alone, or hurt. The stars would take care of me. Keep me safe and keep me protected. Hide me in the darkness behind them when danger came around. Listen to me when I need to speak, and love me when I need to cry.
"Skunk!" Pa yelled as he walked to me, "Wha I tell yu about lookin at the sun. Yu gonna ruin yur eyes boy."
Pa takes his clothes and covers his almost bare body. He inspects the repair from head to toe and looks back at me, "Tis is the best yu can do?"
I nod my head softly and continue to look right at his feet.
"Well it good enugh tis time, but boy yu'd better do better next time," he slaps me across the face to make sure I'm listening, "Now git to work pullin weeds. Tey aint gonna pull themselfs," I nod and get to work on a part of the yard a few feet from the house.
A few hours pass by and I need to stand up just for a few minutes. Pa and Ma don't care if I take breaks, just as long as they can't tell I'm doing it. I look out at the farm, nothing there but dead grass and weeds. Even the weeds have a hard time growing, but those that do are mighty strong. Sometimes it takes me thirty minutes just to pull out one of them, cause I have to dig so far down into the earth.
There is a dirt road that goes from the barn way out into the horizon. I don't know what's out there. Never been there, never expect to be. Ma and Pa told me that if I go out to far I will fall off the earth and die a thousands deaths. I don't know what that means but it sounds pretty bad.
I turn myself in a circle slowly and look at things. The barn is old, with covered with red worn out paint. The house is an ugly blue color, which is faded like the barn. There is random objects around the farm, like Pa's old tractor which he said could do anything. Now it just sits there, watching the farm. I wonder if it likes watching the farm.
There is a heavy silence over the area. Broken by an occasional gust of wind. It's okay though because I love the feel of the warm wind on my hot body. Cooling me down from the work.
I figure, that I've been standing and relaxing to long and get back to work on the rest of the weeds. Before I know it it's dark in the evening and I can't see anymore. Pa says that I'm not aloud to go in until he says so, but it's so dark, he must have just forgotten about me.
I slowly walk to the door of the kitchen, but it's locked. Then I walk to the front door. The screen is unlocked but the door itself is shut tight. I can hear Ma and Pa, and I look through the keyhole. I can see them, loving each other on the couch. They love each other anywhere in the house, any time of the day. They probably would do it in my room, but my bed is to small, and they know about the rats.
I go to my third option, there are some vines on the side of our house. They are dead but still strong enough to support me as I climb up them. After a minute of struggle I step foot on the ledge next to my window. I feel myself begin to fall because of how the ledge has been waited down by the rain, and I quickly grab onto the window pane and roll myself into my room, face first onto my bed.
I take a few deep breaths of air, feeling the filth of my mattress fill my lungs. Suddenly I realize that I can hear and I notice that Ma and Pa aren't making anymore noises. They must be done. I keep sitting there, breathing in the filth. Breathing long and hard, feeling myself get more and more tired, till I almost stop breathing.
Just as I'm about to fall asleep, or maybe I've been dreaming, I feel a rat bite my toe. I jump up just in time to see it scurry into one of the holes. The rats are still laughing at me.
