Wayward Sons
...
Trust I seek and I find in you
1986
The flesh around his eye was beginning to swell and the hooded lid drooped down as if gravity was pulling it shut. He probed the injury with an indelicate index finger, hissing as he jabbed and stretched the skin, studying the spread of the ugly red bruising that was already showing signs of turning a darker colour. It looked worse under the harsh lighting of the family bathroom and it seemed his assailant's victorious gloating hadn't been unfounded after all. A badge of dishonour, a symbol of weakness. It was a gross and bloated - if temporary - disfigurement and he wouldn't be able to hide it from Ma.
The mere thought of her reaction caused Daryl to press the wet cloth firmly against his eye socket and pray that the swelling would go down even just a little bit before she got home. He would melt beneath the intensity of her interrogation and the inevitable confrontation with Billy's folks would only make matters worse for him come Monday morning. He searched through the medicine cabinet for something to fix his eye, fishing out an almost empty tube of arnica lotion from amidst the vast collection of ointments, pills and creams. Daryl dabbed it on liberally, the arnica cooling his tender skin and stinging as it seeped into his pores. He waited and watched but saw no change take place during those few desperately impatient minutes in front of the mirror, defeated by the reality that there wouldn't be any distraction capable of concealing it as he had so hoped.
He left the bathroom in a state of disarray, the mess no longer mattering to him now that his fate was sealed. Shoulders slumped and feet dragging, Daryl by-passed his bedroom and the homework waiting within, preferring instead to take comfort in the cookies he wasn't supposed to eat and what was left of the soda he had shoplifted on the way home from school. The trailer was silent and untidy again. There were magazines and used coffee mugs everywhere, overflowing ashtrays squatting where there was space between empty bottles and crushed beer cans. Ma had been grocery shopping during her lunch break but had forgotten to put it away, the paper bag splitting down one side; canned vegetables and a box of macaroni threatening to spill out onto the counter. He briefly thought about tidying them away for her and earning himself some brownie points before the impending shitstorm, but in the end decided against it. His ears may have stopped ringing but his head still hurt, and Daryl wasn't in the mood to do anything more than what he had to. Homework and diplomatic relations be damned.
From the window above the sink he could see Merle hunched beneath the open hood of his truck. It was a navy and cream Ford, five years older than Daryl with mismatched tires and an engine that sounded like a strangled cat whenever the ignition was turned over. A fine layer of dirt darkened the paintwork and bronze rust decorated the wheel arches and grille. For all his crowing about getting a new ride for a too-good-to-be-true deal, Merle had certainly left out the fact that the truck deserved to be wrecked, not driven. The doors and side panels were pockmarked with dents, the passenger side wing mirror had been smashed, and dead nettles and leaves were tangled in the windshield wipers. The Ford had been sat in a forgotton corner of Clay Benton's farmyard long enough for the tires to sink and Mother Nature to have her way with it. The exhaust pipe was dangling dangerously close to the ground and the stuffing of the seats had been burrowed into and torn to shreds by vermin. Brackish water pooled in the back, and when the truck arrived at their home - towed because the brakes were bad and the timing belt on the verge of rupturing - there had been a putrefying skunk curled up in a corner of the bed. A whole bunch of new parts were needed that Daryl had no clue about but Ma had moaned would cost a fortune.
"Just like ya damned father," she had said, "always lookin' out for a free meal and costin' me twice as much when it all goes to hell."
Daryl hadn't understood what she meant but from the thunderous expression that strained Merle's jaw and narrowed his steel eyes, he certainly did. The statement had hung between all of them for days like a bad stink that they could have done without. Merle wouldn't talk to Ma and Ma wouldn't talk to Merle, both of them as stubborn and insensitive as the other. Daryl had watched the contempt fester - ignorant of it's origins but well aware that it had been born before him - only to dissipate all of a sudden for no reason he could fathom.
He would later learn that it was just the Dixon way.
He peeked out from behind the limp net curtain hung over the bottom half of the window, getting a better look at what Merle was doing. There was an untouched six pack of beer sat beside the right front wheel and another six that had already been finished were scattered in the tufty grass around him. He had stripped down to his sleeveless under shirt, his bare arms smeared with grease and oil and sweat. Whatever he was doing it looked complicated and Daryl wondered if he needed help. He crossed to the front door but hesitated as he reached for the handle. Merle wasn't the Merle that Daryl had expected after all those years. This Merle was unknown, an unpredictable entity that kept him on his toes and contradicted enough of what Ma said to make the boy doubt what she remembered. Even so, he couldn't resist temptation, and his brother was the most tempting thing he had ever known.
The door yielded with a groan and Daryl squinted as he stepped out into the lambent sunlight, bruised eye throbbing harder. Merle took no notice of him, head still bowed, shoulders rising and falling as he tinkered with the dusty engine. Daryl hopped down the porch steps and rounded the back of the truck; counting the dents and leering at the high sides of the bed, wondering if Merle had gotten rid of the skunk yet. Driven by morbid curiosity he climbed up a tyre, the rubber sinking beneath his weight, and leant over the metal siding to look. The water was still there, rusting the grooves in the floor and turning curled oak leaves to mush. The skunk was gone but snatches of black fur and the fading smell of decomposition remained. The stench tickling his nose. There was a brief flicker of disappointment in his gut. He had hoped to be there when Merle disposed of the critter and he wondered what his brother had done with it.
"Whut you got yer nose in, boy?"
Merle's gruff voice rumbled from beneath the hood, and like a panicked deer Daryl flinched, eyes widening. "Nuthin'."
There was a grunt. "Then come 'ere."
He jumped down and warily slunk towards the front of the truck, hands in his pockets and head dipped. Daryl didn't want Merle to see his black eye, he didn't want to admit what had happened and look even more like a baby in front of his brother than he already did. Merle barely looked at him, instead concentrating on what he was doing, leaving Daryl to watch; creeping up onto his tip toes when Merle's muscular shoulder blocked his view.
"Whut're you doin'?" He eventually asked.
With the back of his hand Merle wiped at the sweat building on his top lip, his blue gaze coolly flicking over to his brother. "There's an air leak and as far as I can tell it ain't comin' from the carb. So the bearin's need replacin' and the sleeve likely needs pinchin' too. You know anythin' about that? Has Pa taught ya?"
"No," Daryl said with a shrug. "He ain't been 'round much."
"Figures," Merle spat in reply. "Why're you hidin' yer face like that, huh? Look at me properly when you talk. Ain't Ma teachin' you any manners?"
Daryl swallowed thickly and raised his head, face pinched in a weary grimace that made his eye look even fatter. There was no way Merle could miss it and Daryl cowered, cheeks flushing red with embarrassment when his brother let out a low, impressed whistle followed by a hoot of laughter. He caught Daryl's chin in a rough grasp, tilting his head backwards so he could get a better look. Merle's amusement only made Daryl feel worse.
"Shit, ain't that a beauty! I hope you gave as good as you got."
Daryl squirmed but said nothing.
"Well? Didja?"
It was an explosion, a volcanic eruption that Daryl Dixon didn't have the strength to keep buried inside himself anymore.
"I- I never got a chance, Merle! Billy came outta nowhere and cornered me and he's twice my size and really strong and I didn't get a chance to react or nuthin'! I mean I can fight and all, I'm really good normally. Uncle Kenny says I got a mean right hook and one day I could box if I really wanted to but Billy's thirteen and real big for his age, and he had all his friends with him and I had no one; and I would've run after him but my head was hurtin' bad and Mrs Dooley saw and I -"
Merle interrupted Daryl's frenzied and apologetic babbling, patting his shoulder hard enough for the boy to sway under the strength of his hand.
"Hey, hey. Stop yer damn squawkin'. If you din't get him this time you'll just have to get him twice as bad next time."
"I'm not a pussy, Merle. I'm not, I swear!"
The ardency of Daryl's tone halted Merle, who had been moving to lean back over the engine he was in the process of tearing out. The ex-Marine regarded his younger sibling in stony silence, seeing something in the skinny runt that he hadn't noticed before then. Daryl looked more like Ma - fragile and almost sickly - but deep down he was his father's son, just like Merle, and any doubts Merle had harboured about Daryl's paternity were dashed when he saw the same defiance in the stormy eyes of the boy before him that burned in his father's and his own. Traits like that weren't learned, and not just because Rueben Dixon was never out of prison long enough to teach them. Every Dixon male that Merle knew had that look when things weren't right. He was surely positive that they came out of the womb wearing it.
"I know you ain't, yer a Dixon. Dixon's ain't pussies no matter what folk say. You best remember that."
There was a beat of silence as Daryl nodded mutely and kicked one of the beer bottles through the grass. He watched Merle go back to work from the corner of his eye, hopeful of an invitation to help.
"Has Ma seen that yet?"
Daryl grimaced, a hand subconsciously rising up to touch the inflamed skin of his cheekbone. "No."
"Ooh boy, I do not want to be you when she does!"
Neither did Daryl.
"It's not fair. It weren't even my fault. I didn't do nuthin' to Billy this time."
"Shit happens, brother. Ain't nuthin' you can do about it."
"She won't understand. She never listens to me," Daryl moaned, kicking the bottle again.
"That's 'cause yer ten and she's a woman. Women don't understand men's business, they don't have the thinking for it. That's why we're the ones that go to war and they ain't."
Daryl frowned. "Ma's not stupid, she just don't listen."
"Same damn thing," Merle grunted again, grabbing another beer and popping the cap off. He took a long drink, the brown glass sweating in the muggy afternoon heat. When he was finished he pointed at Daryl and fixed him with a stern look.
"All I can tell you is that they're all the same. They're self-absorbed and money-hungry and lazy. You won't find one different and Ma certainly ain't, that's for sure. All they care about is fancy things and bein' better than their friends, and they'll make you work yer ass to the bone to get what they want. Just remember that no matter what Ma says, yer a man and that means you gotta take care of business how you see fit. She won't agree and she'll give you hell for that shiner but that don't mean she's right. Don't ever let anyone woman tell you what to do, never in yer life - d'you hear me?"
There was a look in Merle's eyes that his little brother didn't understand, but Daryl said nothing about it. He agreed wordlessly to what Merle said and squatted down on the porch steps, observing quietly as the tension that had overtaken Merle dissipated and he returned to work whistling between his teeth. Thunder rolled in distant skies and Daryl watched iron clouds head slowly in their direction. The summer vacation wasn't far off, three months of no math, no dodgeball, no spelling tests and no schoolyard battles to deal with. Three months in which he could spend all his time with Merle. He counted down the days on his fingers, scraping at the black dirt embedded beneath short, bitten down nails.
Ma was due home soon and he wasn't looking forward to it. The woodland looked inviting. He could play in there for hours, lost amongst the thick brush where no one would bother looking for him. The river would be cool, a relief to the premature humidity of the season and if he found himself an empty jar he could catch late spawning tadpoles and keep them in his room. Ma would hate him for that too but he found it hard to care. There were a lot of things that Ma hated but Daryl liked and he was fed up of getting an earful everytime he tried to have fun.
"That's not wise, boy. You best be here when she gets home, runnin' off won't save you none."
Merle's deep voiced advice shook Daryl out of his reverie and he realised he was creeping off towards the woods; moving on instinct away from the conflict he anticipated for that evening. He halted and turned to his brother, observing as Merle wiped a wrench clean on his jeans and stared at him solemnly, eventually gesturing with his head for Daryl to join him.
"Come and make yerself useful, would ya? Maybe if yer lucky I'll help you handle Ma, but first you gotta pass me that wrench..."
...
"How could you do this to me, Daryl? How am I supposed to take you to Church on Sunday lookin' as if you've done three rounds with Satan hisself? Jesus Christ, why can't you just stay out of trouble? Is it too much to ask? Well, is it?"
The moment Ma barrelled through the front door, it began. She had taken one look at his bruised face and started ranting, banging saucepans around as she made a martyrs attempt at dinner whilst dealing with him at the same time. He sat at the table unable to look her in the eye, hunched over and silent; not bothering to answer because she didn't stop talking long enough for him to open his mouth. She was in a foul mood already after a bad day at the laundrette, proven by the way she chain-smoked the last of her packs of Pall Malls and fumbled with the matches each time she needed a light.
"You know, Mrs Dooley told me she'd seen you brawlin' this afternoon and I had the stupidity to defend you from the woman. Do you realise how foolish I look now? When I see her next I'll have to apologise, and God help you if I see her on Sunday because the last place I want to be apologisin' to that woman is at Church in front of her all busybody friends!"
Ma collapsed down into the chair opposite his, stubbing out her finished cigarette; grinding away the ash until the filter fell apart between her fingers. She pulled out the last cigarette but couldn't get it lit, instead throwing the match box across the kitchenette in anger when things wouldn't work her way. It bounced off the refrigerator, the remaining contents spilling out onto the dirty floor. The cigarette was stuffed none too carefully back into its carton. Ma sat back in her chair and crossed her arms over her sagging chest.
"Who were you pickin' on after school today?"
"No one," He muttered with a belligerent shrug. It weren't me that started it.
She narrowed her eyes, shaking her head in disappointment.
"I woulda thought you'd know better than to lie to me, Daryl Dixon," She sighed sadly. "But maybe I was wrong about you, maybe you're just like your poor excuse for a father after all!"
He bit his tongue and stared at a crack in the linoleum, concentrating on the jagged edges and shallow scratches; noticing sock fluff and black dirt stuck in them as well as the insulated trailer floor that peeked up from below. The words hurt, stung him harder than any wasp could. He blinked back tears he was desperate not to acknowledge and forced himself not to pout and let her see how he felt. A part of him desperately wanted to tell her the truth; that she was one of the reasons kids picked on him at school, that Pa was another and that he only got into fights because he wanted to stand up to kids like Billy Doss and Jimmy Tate just like she told him to. Ma would cry if she knew that, he didn't want to make her cry so it was easier to just let her be angry, and maybe later when he was in bed, cry and be angry himself.
"Why don't you just leave the boy alone. It ain't none of Dooley's damn business how he got that black eye, and it sure as hell ain't nuthin' for you to get tied up over."
A roar of applause crackled through the television in response to Merle's slurred proclamation. He was sat in an armchair, laid over it in a nonchalant slump; a bottle of beer in one hand and the TV remote in the other. It was the first time he had said anything since Ma walked through the door, and he did so without looking away from the fuzzy screen; without stopping his constant search through the channels for something entertaining to watch.
Ma's head snapped up. "What did you say to me?"
Merle turned his head just enough to look at her. "You heard. Stop hollerin' and git on with dinner."
She didn't take kindly to that. Her face slowly turned an ugly shade of puce and her lips went white from how tightly she clamped them together. The chair she sat on screeched over the linoleum as she rose, hands in fists.
"Last time I checked I weren't talkin' to you," She spat. "This is between me and Daryl, you drunken prick, so why don't you shut your trap and get outta here!"
Merle muttered inaudibly beneath his breath, stood up also and slapped the remote down onto the seat of the chair he had been sitting in. He advanced on her, at least a foot taller, glaring down at Ma with his top lip curled in a sneer. Ma had to crane her head to meet his gaze, her chin almost hitting his chest they stood so close together.
"I ain't goin' nowhere and this is about me just as much as it is the kid. I was the one that gave him that black eye, so your uppity Mrs Dooley can suck my dick for all I care."
"But Mrs Dooley said-"
"She's mistaken. He came straight home from school and helped me with the rig. Ain't that right, little brother?"
The look Merle sent him told Daryl not to argue. He nodded mutely in response. Ma glared between them and pointed accusingly at Daryl's black eye.
"If that's so, how'd he get that, hmm?"
Merle's sneer twitched and for a moment Daryl thought she had caught them out. If she had, they were done for and the punishment would be twice as bad than it would have been before Merle stepped in. But his big brother schooled a look of lazy indifference onto his tanned face.
"Thought I'd teach him some wrestlin' moves and elbowed him in the eye," he shrugged. "I forget what a little chickenshit he is."
She was torn between believing him and being suspicious. It was all too easy, no matter how unrehearsed and credible it sounded, she knew her boys too well. Rueben Dixon was an incorrigible liar and shameless charmer, traits that she was sure had been passed on to his offspring just to make her life all the more difficult. But the defiant expression Merle wore, his loyalty to a little boy he barely knew, and the fact that for some unfathomable reason she loved him more than anything else on God's Earth meant that her resolve wavered; her anger crumbling. Merle wouldn't lie to her, not his mother.
"Is this true, Daryl?" Ma asked him, turning to him for the first time since her argument with Merle had started. She was wild-eyed and flushed, indignant and unsure.
"Yeah," He mumbled.
She retreated back into her chair with a shaky sigh, hiding her head in her hands for a long, unnerving amount of time. She was always bleaching her hair blonde, hiding the premature grey with unnatural colours that stemmed from her naive youth and her dreams of looking like a glamorous movie star. Daryl stared at the peppery grey and brown roots that sprouted from the crown of her skull, her hair thinning out with age and vice. She deflated like a beach ball, silent and contemplative, lost to her secret thoughts as she rubbed her eyes with her finger tips - smudging her mascara - and then proceeded to massage her forehead with the palms of her hands. Merle observed her with perverse fascination, waiting, like Daryl, to see what would come next.
Daryl hated how her moods changed, how she seemed to live on the edge of some kind of emotional tightrope - one that she never tried to stop herself falling off. The doctors wanted to fix it but Ma wouldn't let them.
She looked up at him then, eyes bloodshot, offering him a wobbly grimace. "Daryl, baby, will you light your mommy a cigarette, please?"
It wasn't really a question and he didn't take it as any thing less than an order. He jumped out of his chair, picking up the matches and hurriedly forcing them back into their box. He couldn't say he liked the taste of tobacco but he'd learnt to ignore it long enough to get the things lit and handed over. Balancing that last cigarette between his lips, he struggled to strike the match but finally got it to spark. It took all he had not to cough on the smoke that tickled his throat and he could feel Merle's eyes burning into him as he handed the cigarette over to Ma.
"Thank you, my baby." She took a long drag, eye closed and raised towards the ceiling, letting out a blissful sigh when she finally exhaled. "Gosh, I'm just bone weary tonight. What a day..."
She reached for him, clawing at the empty air between them with long, bony fingers and a desperate, pleading stare. She wanted to hold him, and he'd let her. He'd let her hold him so tightly that he couldn't breathe and spend however long she needed him like that, suffocating on her heavy perfume, until she was acting normal again. Reluctantly, Daryl moved towards her, noticing Merle slink back to his armchair without another word. Her perfume smelled as bad as always and he was growing too tall to embrace her how she liked; yet as uncomfortable as it was he didn't try to pull away. Suddenly she began to sob, her head buried in the side of his neck. She tickled his collar bone with her ragged breaths and whether meaning to or not, sunk her nails into the tender flesh of his back. Daryl winced and glanced over his shoulder. Merle shifted uneasily in his chair looking ready to bolt out the door and into the night.
Did Merle even know this side of Ma? Or had she been different back before their sister died? Daryl couldn't remember, he had been too young.
"I'm sorry, Daryl. I'm so sorry."
He wasn't entirely sure he knew what she was apologising for. With Ma, there was always so many things. But at least now he had Merle and if things got bad again then he could protect them.
Maybe, he could even make Ma get better. 'Cause isn't that what big brothers do?