July.
It was a pretty place once. As pretty as any on Gunsmoke can be. But like any place on Gunsmoke, the beauty still hid an underbelly of sin. A wallowing pit of drugs, sex, and murder. The wallowing pit that my teacher pulled me out of.
It was a pretty place once.
But that was quite some time ago. That was before Vash the Stampede came and blew everything to hell. The Humanoid Typhoon. The Sixty Billion Double Dollar Man. Mankind's First Localized Disaster. He rolled into town and destroyed everything, under somewhat mysterious circumstances from what I understand.
I can't say I'm to broke up about it.
But after the Humanoid Typhoon had left people started coming back. Slowly at first, only one or two lowlifes at a time. Then after a while they started coming in droves. Four or five families a week would show up and pitch tents and start to work on little wooden houses and little general store and the like.
I figured that my mother was incinerated in whatever he used to wipe this place off the map. But just for my own personal satisfaction I decided to do some checking around. I went to the people would know for sure where to find her, assuming she was still somewhere to be found.
I went to the dealers and the pushers.
I didn't know her name which isn't that much of a surprise, I didn't even know my own name until a few days ago. The only thing I had to go one was her physical appearance, and even that was hard for me because she was around so little. It took me a little while, and even though I wasn't expecting my search to yield any results, I was quite happy when one of the dealers knew where I could find her.
She was living in a small shack behind a whore house, and from what the dealer had told me about her, it didn't sound as if she was working there. I walked around the back of the saloon and entered the small wooden lean-to. That a human being could actually live in such a place was beyond my comprehension. It smelled of something. Something I couldn't quite identify. Like a mix of feces and despair. I found a nice dark corner and I sat.
And I waited.
Towards the end of the day she finally came home. The years had not been kind to my mother. Nor had the drugs. One of her legs was paralyzed, she dragged it behind her like a gimp. And her face was aged beyond recognition. But even behind the wrinkles, behind the scars, behind all of it, you could tell that she had been beautiful once.
She had been beautiful once.
"Who's there?"
It was only then did I get a look at her eyes. They were glazed over with a white film. She was blind.
"I can hear you God damn it. Now out with it! Who's there?"
"It's me."
"Me? I don't know any me's. Now listen, the whores are around the front. I just scrub floors. Get the hell out of my house."
"You had a boy once. Didn't you? A son."
I saw the tears well up in her eyes. She wrung her hands like the nervous old woman she was. There was something in her eyes, but I couldn't tell what it was. Fear? Regret? Grief? I couldn't tell.
"You…you know of my son. Of my boy? You have news of my little…"
"Yes. He wanted to let you know what had become of him."
"What then. Please, please sir! Please tell me."
"You little boy was saved. He was dragged out of that hell hole you left him to die in. Dragged out by a teacher. And that man would teach him things you can not even begin to understand."
"He has a good life then? He is good?"
"As good as can be expected here on Gunsmoke."
The old woman had tears rolling down her face now. And a smile that reached from ear to ear. She walked forward and grasped my hands. She smelt like alcohol. And death.
"Where? Where is my son?"
"He is here. In July."
Then she let go of my hands. She stared at my face, or at least her eye were pointed that direction. She backed away and started to wring her hands again. Then she stepped back towards me and put her hands on my face. As she ran her fingers across it she let out a low guttural noise before dropping to her knees. She grabbed at my ankles and brought me down with her.
"My boy! Oh my boy you've come back. You've come back."
"Yes mother. I had to you see. I had to see you one more time. One last time."
She wrapped her arms around me and buried her head in my chest.
"Please son. Please forgive me. Please forgive me my boy. You don't know how hard it was for me."
"No mother I don't. But it's ok now. Everything is going to be alright."
I wrapped my arms around her. I stroked her hair, what little was left, and hummed slowly to her. I put my hands around her head and pulled her in close. I held her head tight against my chest. I held it there as hard as I could.
"Shh now mother. It's ok now. Everything is going to be alright."
She tried to struggle. She feebly scratched at my face and kicked her scrawny little legs. It one like took a few minutes. Then she was gone.
July.
It was a pretty place once.