Please log in to recommend or discuss...
Adriana mentally ticked off all the things she’d let herself forget over the last three years. Like the way his lips held a cigarette, limp, until he laughed and it shot straight up, threatening to burn his cheek. Or his dirty crew socks, always frayed around his long second toe. Or just how much he bled when she stuck him.
The tattoo machine buzzed in her right hand while she wiped the blood from Eric’s arm with the oven towel in her left. When it was new, the towel was bright with Once Upon a Time embroidered in fancy script above a sunshine-yellow momma duck and her ducklings. But the years had eaten away at the lettering, so it now read O ce pon Tim .
Adriana desperately wanted to live in one of those O ce pon Tim stories. She slung the towel back over her shoulder and glanced at her crowded kitchen and living room. Eric’s friends had taken over the whole place tonight. She suppressed a sigh, loosened her clenched jaw, and got back to work on his arm.
The laughing, rotting skull tattoo she’d sketched for him wouldn’t have been her first choice. It had been years since she’d last inked Eric, but tonight they fell back into the familiar routine the way once- or twice-upon-a-time couples often do. Regression was quick and easy.
“How much longer?” he said.
“Just sit still.”
She focused on outlining the little strips of torn flesh that hung over the skull’s empty eye sockets, ignoring how Eric leered down her tank top whenever she leaned forward to work.
At the fridge, Gabe asked, “Got any more beer?”
Adriana shrugged. “I guess. Help yourself.”
“Huh?” Gabe was swaying. Most of Eric’s old friends were over the limit already. She’d lost touch with a lot of them over the last few years, but she had hoped some would’ve grown up by now.
Adriana repeated herself louder, but in a nicer tone, over the buzz of the tattoo machine and the stereo in the living room. Gabe nodded his thanks as he rejoined half a dozen Robert Smith lookalikes dancing around the stereo and singing in spurts to The Face in the Window, the new Vestibule album. Vestibule was supposed to be the next Cure, only out of Wisconsin instead of West Sussex. They certainly warmed the black hearts of tonight’s crowd.
“Oh, is there more beer?”
Some girl Adriana didn’t know poked her head into the kitchen. She’d tagged along with Ian, maybe? Adriana couldn’t remember, nor did she care. Everyone Ian dated looked the same—black hair, black eyeliner, black nail polish. The aforementioned black heart.
“In the fridge,” Adriana said.
Eric had only been back in town a few days and already her house was being trashed and her refrigerator emptied. If she hadn’t needed Eric so badly for tomorrow, Adriana would have kicked him and his mooching stoner friends out hours ago.
“I like your house,” the girl said as she walked through the kitchen to the fridge.
“It’s a piece of shit,” Adriana said. She gestured to the card table standing in for a proper dining table set, the mismatched cups and bowls piled up around the sink, and the rusted screen door open to the dark backyard. She did her best with what she had, but the house hadn’t seen any real maintenance in almost two decades.
“No, it’s cool. I love the funky wallpaper.” She glanced at the orange-and-yellow paper covering the walls: illustrated spatulas, mixing bowls, egg cartons, and other kitchen essentials.
“You don’t have to be kind. It’s not mine; it’s my father’s.”
“Really?! See, I knew Ian was lying,” the girl said and grabbed a beer from the fridge.
“Lying about what?” Adriana asked. She turned off the tattoo machine.
“He said your dad’s the mayor. But no way does the mayor, even here in little old Cellar, own a place like this. No offense. I just mean—”
“It’s okay. I get it. But Ian didn’t lie. My dad is the mayor. He inherited this house a long time ago, and now I get to live here.”
“Mr. Mayor is the piece of shit, not this house,” Eric said, sneering. He leaned back, flicked his cigarette, and then brushed away whatever ashes didn’t land in his empty longneck beer bottle. His mood improved after he twisted his arm for a better look at the new tattoo.
“This is awesome. It’s exactly what I pictured in my head. I don’t know how you do that.”
Ian’s new lady friend was impressed too. “Wow. That is scary good. Like something you’d see on a Wes Craven movie poster.”
“Thanks.” Adriana turned. “What’s your name again?”
“Samantha,” she said. She blew her long dark hair out of her pale face.
“Samantha, I appreciate it. Now, if I could only get paid to ink people all day. Then I wouldn’t have to live in this dump with the funky wallpaper. Or deal with all the crap Mr. Mayor gives me about growing up and being responsible.”
Samantha laughed. Adriana smiled, with effort, as she eyed Eric. In that instant she saw everything that he was not: stable, smart, fatherly, off the junk.
“Your dad doesn’t know jack,” he said, watching Samantha as she sauntered back to the living room dance floor. “You’re a kick-ass mom, and Dylan is a rad little dude.” He leaned forward and whispered, “I know I haven’t sent as much from Cleveland as I said I would. You know, for Dylan or whatever. And I know you’re not working right now, but you’re getting food stamps, right? You two are okay?”
“I do what I can,” she said. “But it sucks doing it alone.”
He winced. “I know, I know.”
“No, you don’t!” Adriana snapped, surprising herself. She didn’t want to start a fight, not in front of all his friends, and especially not before tomorrow, but some things she just couldn’t let go. Her mind picked up where her voice left off.
You don’t know about eating cheese sandwiches four days in a row because that’s all the budget allows. You don’t know about Goodwill baby clothes so stained and dingy from their previous owners that I sometimes spill a little of Dylan’s juice on them first, just so I can pretend all the stains are his. You don’t know about skipping dinner at the end of the month so Dylan doesn’t have to. You aren’t here, fucker! So don’t tell me “I know!”
It all hit her hard. But she stayed quiet. She was outnumbered and couldn’t afford to piss off Eric before tomorrow.
Dylan wandered into the kitchen on his hands and knees, pushing a Hot Wheels ambulance across the linoleum floor.
Adriana looked at her son with concern. Her baby was growing up so fast. His blond hair seemed to be getting darker by the day. His wide brown eyes always gulping in the world around him. He didn’t deserve this chaos.
She softened her voice when she spoke again to Eric.
“Look. Thanks for coming back and everything. But tomorrow in court we all have to look like one happy and sane family. Mommy, Daddy, and child. Can you do that for me?”
Her question was drowned out by a vocal surge from the living room. Adriana glanced over as everyone sang along with the Vestibule record. “Help me to see in the dark, to build a fire from a spark…”
When she turned back to Eric, he was standing by the open refrigerator, holding his empty beer bottle upside down.
“If you want more,” she said, “then go get more.”
He smirked. “I can’t drive after major surgery. Girl, my arm is killing me.”
Adriana was not amused. “And you’re drunk.”
“Hey, will it be a problem tomorrow if I’m arrested for a DUI tonight?” Eric chuckled.
She stood and grabbed her purse off the back of her chair.
“You’re taking Dylan, right?” Eric said as he turned to his son. “Little dude, you wanna go to the store with Mommy?”
Eric lifted the boy and handed him to Adriana, who couldn’t resist the baby face but glared at the skull-faced father.
“Chill.”
“Don’t tell me to chill.” Adriana took Dylan.
“I’m just saying, don’t let your dad get to you. He likes being a dickhead.”
“It is his default setting.” Adriana agreed. “Anyway, I think Dylan and I will walk. It’s only a few blocks.” I could use a break from these people. “And the weather’s nice.”
“Oh, that reminds me: WCLR!”
He said the radio station’s call letters with such conviction that she jumped. “What about it?”
“Killswitch Kevin. 88.7. I miss him. I really do. The station doesn’t reach Cleveland. But that dude is, like…”
“Eric. Focus.”
“…a prophet. April showers. ‘Adios, muchachos!’ He said so this morning. It’ll be sunny the next two days. That’s gotta be a good sign. Smooth sailing or something.”
Rain or shine, it wouldn’t matter at tomorrow’s court hearing. She appreciated that Eric was an optimistic drunk but didn’t think Killswitch Kevin’s weather report could help her tomorrow. Nothing else had been “smooth sailing” over the past two weeks.
Thursday the 16th, two weeks ago, was the day that capsized everything. It didn’t start differently than any other, no warnings or talismans, just a trip to the mailbox. Adriana had finally gotten around to emptying the old iron box perched at the top of a pole by the curb. It was the third week of April, which meant a new issue of Punk World should be waiting for her, and there it was, folded in half to make room for something else, something that was much heavier. An overstuffed manila envelope was postmarked with the familiar wheat-sheaf processing seal of the local post office, and the return address had made her knees knock: Cellar Municipal Court.
In the empty kitchen, she had tossed the envelope onto the card table, where it landed with a thump. She winced and hoped the noise wouldn’t wake Dylan from his nap in the next room.
The package was too large for a jury duty summons. It was thick and far more imposing than the Punk World issue, wherein the alcohol-soaked anarchists relived their wild touring days or rattled off their shallow political diatribes. She’d heard enough politicking from her father to last two or three lifetimes, so she barely skimmed that section of the magazine anymore.
But thinking of her father, maybe he’d updated his living will again and sent a copy from work, on the taxpayers’ dollar, of course, to remind her of all the assets he’d leave to the local Boys’ Club and Cellar school district and all the nothing he’d leave her. That was something he would do. She tore the envelope open—
COMPLAINT TO ESTABLISH CUSTODY
Adriana sank against the card table. Her father, the Honorable Bradley R. Krause, Mayor of Cellar, Ohio, Plaintiff, and Default Dickhead, was seeking custody of Dylan Thomas Krause.
After reading the entire complaint twice and still only really understanding half of it, she sat, papers rolled up in her hands, holding the literal weight of it all. She stared at the phone on the kitchen wall. She may not have understood every section and subsection, but she knew that if she wanted to have a shot in hell at keeping Dylan, she’d need Daddy Eric in court with her.
She couldn’t face her father alone. Worse than alone: he’d have one of his buddy judges preside. It would be two against one unless Eric showed up to even out the fight. Eric, who’d taken off before Dylan was born. Who she hadn’t spoken to in years.
Dammit, call him.
I won’t call him.
Adriana didn’t want to take care of two kids. She had her hands full enough with Dylan. But a broke single mother going up against the town’s beloved mayor alone?
The battle in her head had continued for hours. She imagined calling and unloading on Eric, guilt-tripping him to come back. Or sharing a little about Dylan, how he enjoyed drawing too. Or just straight out asking for some goddamn money. No, not that, but maybe inviting him back from Cleveland for a night or long weekend. Or threatening to mail him a garbage bag full of receipts and invoices from the last few years. She didn’t actually have all that paperwork, though it would have easily filled two big black garbage bags. Call him.
Would he even recognize her voice?
She glanced down at the papers again.
COMPLAINT TO ESTABLISH CUSTODY
She picked up the receiver and dialed.
Now Eric was sitting there in her kitchen at the card table, getting inked, getting drunk, and sending her out on a beer run.
Adriana shuffled Dylan from her right arm to her left and gave him his pacifier. He celebrated his third birthday last month but still found comfort with it. Adriana didn’t see the harm. The walk to Glendale’s Grocery would be short, but he was already tired. As she reached the end of their front yard walkway, she looked back at the small house shrouded in darkness. The living room window was faintly lit; the dancing shadows inside looked like a congregation of ghosts. Through the window she saw Eric’s ghost approach Samantha’s, her raised pale arms drape over his shoulders; two drunken strangers who would try to see in the dark, try to build a fire from that spark, or whatever Vestibule sang earlier.
Until the morning after, anyway.
