Cracks – Chapter 3

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3.

Aubrey took Caleb’s glass to the kitchen while he went to attend to his pants in the bathroom down the hall.

Maria yelled from the living room, “There’s a hair dryer in there if you need it!”

“Thanks!”

The bathroom door was ajar. Caleb laid his hand on the cool wood and began to push it in. The way the hallway was set up, Aubrey and Maria’s room sat at the end of the hall. Caleb had a view of their nightstand, where toys—he only assumed they’d been used the night before—sat on the couples’ nightstand. One was a stoic looking number, thick and pink, with a tapered, bullet-shaped end instead of the usual mushroom-headed devices he’d seen for sale in Petri’s Adult Books on Highway 231. The second dildo looked like the Hydra from Greek mythology. The multi-headed appliance’s green skin glistened in the light from the lamp that sat on the corner of the nightstand. Caleb smiled. No shame passed before these two women, because to them, the outside world didn’t exist.

Caleb’s arm extended and the bathroom door bumped against the wall behind it. He walked in and turned around to close the door, but the sight across the hall stalled him. He looked into the guestroom, the sight of the made bed slowing the natural rhythm of his heart.

And like that, he was back there—memories coming on faster than a spark from a struck match.

In Caleb’s memory, Aubrey was passed out on the sofa, snoring loudly in the dimly lit great room. Maria bent over and scooped her wife up. Maria laughed when her drunken gait almost ran Aubrey’s head into the entrance of the hallway. Caleb, just as drunk as Maria, had the miraculous foresight to see the blow coming and lifted Aubrey’s head out of the way.

“Thanks.”

“Not a problem.” Caleb gave her a wink, then stood there, waiting until the two disappeared into their room before he moved on to the guestroom.

Monty had always been a lightweight. On the rare occasion Caleb and him smoked weed together—only twice in their four-month relationship—Monty ended up quitting after two hits, no matter the strength of the herb. Monty was even worse when it came to alcohol. That night, only two fingers of Grey Goose passed by Monty’s lips, but that was enough. Monty patted Caleb on the thigh and tucked himself away in the guest bed.

When Caleb came in, almost three hours later, he slid into bed silently, hoping not to wake his boyfriend.

“Hey,” Monty whispered, smiling in the light passing through the shades. Moonlight played across his face in linear patterns.

Caleb leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thought you were `sleep.”

“Been thinking.”

“About?”

Monty slid his arm over Caleb’s chest, down his stomach, then back up under his shirt. The movement excited a rather drunk Caleb and he moved in to kiss Monty.

But Monty pulled away.

“What’s wrong?”

Monty rubbed Caleb’s chest. “You ever gonna tell you’re father about us?”

All the fuck went out of Caleb. He laid back and put his hands behind his head. “We’ve talked about this.”

“I know, I know. I don’t understand your father, and all that crap. But I love you, Cay. Seeing you so embarrassed to be with me hurts. If we’re ever going to be more, you’re going to have to fess up. You just have to.”

“What more can we be, Monty? Seriously? You want to run off to Canada and get married? You want me to abandon everything I’ve worked so hard for here? Do you?”

“I didn’t say that.” Monty stopped rubbing Caleb’s chest and removed his hand from his shirt. “Would you ever choose?”

Caleb tried to find Monty’s eyes in the dark room, but not even the moon could highlight those sad, gray things. “What?”

“Between us and the life you have now. Since it seems that you think you have to be denied one or the other, would you ever choose and stick to only one?”

“I’m drunk, Monty. And I’m tired.”

“I’m getting tired, too, Cay. Just in a different sort of way.”

“What’s that suppose to mean?”

“You can figure it out. Goodnight.”

Like a shot, Caleb was back in the present, standing in the doorway of Maria’s bathroom, staring at an unused bed where all of his problems had begun. Before that night, things had been simpler. Monty and him shifted after that evening two months prior. Their relationship was different after that. Up until the final fight, then things were over.

Caleb no longer wanted to think about Monty. He closed himself in the bathroom and locked the knob behind him.

The hair dryer sat on a shelf above the toilet, within easy reach. Caleb pulled the device down and laid it next to the sink. His eyes, set deep within his thin face, lingered upon his reflection. Bags were beginning to form under his eyes, though he got plenty of sleep at night. The stress of losing Mom must have worn on him harder than he first thought. His cheeks were normally red—his mother always said he’d had thin skin—but that day, they looked bloodless.

“Maria was right, Cay,” he told himself in the mirror, realizing his voice sounded like Monty’s. “You look like shit.”

Snick.  

The sound caught Caleb off guard. He yanked his head away from the mirror. There, in the center of the glass, was an inch long crack that hadn’t been present on the mirror before. Caleb reached out and ran his finger down the hairline fracture. As he pulled his digit down across the crack, an oily streak appeared in its wake. The clear trail turned pink, then red. The pad of his index finger burned. He pulled his hand away, studyied it. A slit, the width of a paper cut, shone wet with blood in the center of his pointer finger.

Sniiiiiiiiiiiiick.

Caleb about gave himself whiplash, the way his neck snapped up. The crack in the mirror lengthened, reached from one corner of the mirror to the other. The break ran on the diagonal, looking like the upside of a mountain range. In the dead center, a depression appeared, as if someone stood there with their thumb pressed on the middle point of the mirror.

Snick… Sniiiiiick… Sniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick.

The glass spider-webbed. Haphazard lines zigged and zagged across the surface. Caleb saw himself in twenty or more different pieces. The medicine cabinet shook on the wall. Shards of glass fell into the sink, shattering on impact.

Caleb could feel himself backing away, though he had no thought of fleeing. The sight had his heart racing, but he was eerily calm given the circumstances. He kept looking from the cut on his finger to the glass raining down into the sink, back and forth, until his neck seized and the muscles in his throat constricted.

He couldn’t breathe.

Caleb’s hands went to his pants pocket out of pure instinct. The action was a survival mechanism and had been well utilized over the years. His mind told him to calm down. He began to cycle needless information around in his brain. The square root of 24 was 4.89897949. The 350 engine in the Nova was bored 30 thousandths over to a 355. Monty looked good in skinny jeans. Mom used to cut the grass when Dad broke his leg and Caleb was away at bible camp. Celeste fell in love with Caleb that summer, but he told her he didn’t want a girlfriend, that girls were too much trouble. She’d slapped him. He couldn’t catch his breath after chasing her down to pummel her. Poor Celeste, with her split lip, crying about how he “weren’t suppose to hit women!” Dying Caleb, with his failing lungs, hunting his inhaler—sucking wind, Dad called it—sucking wind and not finding a bit available. Sucking wind and still nothing was working. Because the container was empty.

Caleb slammed his inhaler in between his lips, and pumped. That familiar, unpleasant metallic taste flooded his mouth and he sucked wind like never before. He bent at the waist, supported himself there with a hand on each of his thighs, his inhaler poking out from between his thumb and his bloody forefinger. The red ran down the shaft of the pump, and dripped—splat splat splat—onto the tile floor. The spatters of blood formed the shape of an elephant—a big crimson monstrosity equipped with trunk and all. At least that’s what Caleb saw.

Maria banged on the door, asked, “Yo, CC! You fall in, or what?”

“I’m… okay. Gimme a… minute.” Caleb’s head rose until he was looking in the mirror. Not a crack anywhere to be seen.

“Didn’t hear the hair blower goin’. Thought maybe you couldn’t find it.”

“I got it. Be out in a minute, Mare.”

There was a brief silence, then, “If’n your shittin’, spray `fore you come out!”

“Yeah… will do.”

Caleb listened for Maria’s receding footsteps before he went to the mirror again. He raised his finger to eye level, found no cut. He thumped his thumbnail against the glass, opened the cabinet, and glanced inside. The back of the door was unmarred; no cracks hid there either. Bottles of over-the-counter allergy medicine and analgesics lined the shelves of the cupboard. Nothing seemed disturbed. He closed the mirror, watched himself shake his head in the unbroken reflection.

“I’m losing my mind.”

Caleb checked the floor for the crimson elephant his blood had created, but it had been herded away. Pale, egg-shell-colored tile welcomed him with a deadpan stare. The floor seemed to ask, “What the hell are you looking at?”

He answered, “I wish I knew.”

“What?” Maria called from the end of the hallway, her voice distant and muffled.

“Nothing!”

Caleb plugged the hair dryer into the wall socket between the sink and the medicine cabinet. With the flip of a switch on its back, the dryer whirred to life. He played the appliance over his damp lap in languid revolutions until the fabric was dry to the touch. The aroma of tepid alcohol filled the small bathroom, reminding Caleb of when Mom would bring a shot of warm whiskey, flavored with a drop of honey and lemon, to him those days when he got sick as a child. The brew would open up his passageways quicker than any inhaler and give him that fuzzy feeling that preludes sleep.

Before leaving the bathroom, Caleb unplugged the hairdryer and put it back on the shelf above the commode. He glanced over the mirror once again, making sure no cracks were present. Only his pallid face stared back at him.

Aubrey was waiting when he returned to the living room. She stood in the center of room, between the sofa and the recliner, beside to the Marshall amp, holding a clear Dixie cup.

She gave him a wink. “Don’t think this one will crack on you.”

“Thanks.” Caleb took the cup and sat down on the sofa.

“Everything come out all right?” Maria asked, smiling.

“I didn’t have to go.” Caleb figured honesty was needed, though he wouldn’t tell them everything.

“What took you so long then?” Maria scratched at her boob again. Caleb almost told her she might want to get that seen about.

“I was thinking about Monty.”

“Oh?” Maria’s hand stopped moving under her breast but she didn’t remove it.

Aubrey sat down beside him and rubbed the small of his back. “You okay?”

“It was the guest room that did it. Brought back the last time me and him were here, you know? We sorta argued that night. Well, that isn’t quite right. But it was the first time he brought up me telling Dad I’m gay. Didn’t go over well. Seeing the bed, how empty it was, kinda made me think about how things ended.”

Maria asked, “You feelin’ empty, CC?”

“Or, guilty?” Aubrey quit massaging his back and met his eyes.

“You know what, guys? No. It is what it is. I’m not telling Dad, and that’s it. It wouldn’t make a whole hell of a lotta difference now, anyway. Me and Monty are finished.”

“You’re a stubborn li’l sissy if I ever saw one, CC. You allergic to easy? Because you sure love makin’ things hard.” Maria shook her head, sipped her whiskey, then removed her hand from under her heavy breast. She smelled her fingertips and proceeded to chew the nail on her pinkie.

“Nasty,” Aubrey said, faking a gag.

Maria stuck her tongue out at her wife. “You still love me.”

Caleb thought the subject had moved away from Monty and him, until Maria looked back over and said, “Well?”

“Well… what?”

“Why do you have to make things so goddamn hard? Sheesh, you’re stubborn and stupid, to boot!”

“You think it would be all dandelions and sunshine if I told my dad I like guys? Are you kiddin’ me, Mare? There would be nothing easy about it. That man would castrate me.”

Aubrey broke in, “That would kinda spoil things, Maria. I’m sure Monty likes Caleb with his sack attached.”

Maria scowled. “You’re not helpin’, lady.”

“Besides, Monty needs to move on. He needs someone…” Caleb thought about the mirror from moments earlier and his guts tied into knots. “Someone more stable right now.”

“I wasn’t saying you two need to hop right back into the sack together, CC. I was sayin’ that you need’ta give it some thought. Rummage on it for a while.”

“That’s ‘ruminate’, not ‘rummage’, hon.” Aubrey corrected.

“Whatever. CC, you had a good man. You’s just dumb as a brick to let him go. Asshole father or no asshole father, you fucked up. Royally.”

Caleb said, “Preachin’ to the choir, Mare.”

“Then the choir needs’ta shut the hell up with all that Jesus noise and listen. I’m not asking you, CC, I’m straight up tellin’ you that you screwed a donkey lettin’ Monty go.”

Caleb erupted, “I know that!”

“Whoa, hon,” Aubrey put her hand on his shoulder, but he snatched it away. “Damn. Okay.”

Caleb brought his cup up and downed the Crown Royal in one swig. The fiery liquid went down so fast Caleb imagined his esophagus singed by trails of flame, the DeLorean’s tracks in Back To The Future descending his throat.

“Easy, CC. We’re just talkin’.”

“Then talk about something else.”

The room grew quiet, and Caleb started feeling bad about his outburst. Maria and Aubrey only wanted to help. He had been a jerk. He’d broken Monty’s heart and there was nothing he could do about it. The thought pained him, but there was no need to lend The Drivers any of that hurt.

Aubrey finally broke the silence. “How `bout that Crimson Tide? Those boys sure can make a touchdown.”

“Aubrey?” Maria asked in a calm voice.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

Maria lowered the foot rest of her recliner, crossed her forearms over her exposed chest, and leaned forward. She stared into Caleb’s eyes. His guts went squirmy.

Maria said, “Besides your momma and Monty… anything else bothering you?”

Caleb wondered how much he should tell her. Would she believe the nonsensical hallucination he’d just been through in the bathroom? How about his thumb the night his mother passed away? Could he trust his own eyes? They’d all seen the crack in the glass and the whiskey in his lap. Maybe he could confide in them.

In the end, he shook his head. “Aren’t Monty and Momma enough?”

Maria nodded. “I reckon so. Thought I would ask, anyway.”

“Do you want another one?” Aubrey asked, pointing at his empty Dixie cup. Brown liquid had settled at the bottom, an auburn iris surrounded a milky-white pupil.

“Sure.” Caleb handed her the cup. Aubrey went off, playing bartender once more.

***

Caleb drew three sheets to the wind around eight o’clock that night. He sat back in the couch and listened while Maria played Beethoven on her new B.C. Rich guitar. Her punk stylings forgotten for the moment, knowing Caleb didn’t need to hear anything hard and heavy that evening. Aubrey toyed with a fretless bass she’d pulled from a closet in the hall. The stock said Fender, but a glittery-blue Gibson sticker adorned the pick guard that was surrounded on all sides by a golden sunburst pattern Caleb felt must be a vision of Heaven. The bass looked older than Aubrey and smelled of lacquer.

Caleb tried to learn guitar in high school, so he was able to discern certain chords as Maria serenaded him. He named notes in drunken syllables that fell from numb lips. Maria brought up the fret board, played high on the strings, held the E with the thumb of her left hand in the F position while her index, middle and ring fingers formed a D. With her right hand, she picked. Fingers caressed strings, as if those nickel bound chords were Aubrey’s more tender parts. Maria seemed so content playing that hauntingly soft music on such a jagged, evil looking instrument. The juxtaposition was not lost on Caleb. It was ugly and beautiful at the same time. Rather like his life.

He let the throb of Aubrey’s bass soothe him into a lucid dream-like state. The whiskey warmed him through and through, so the steady baritone acted like a monotone pool in which he could float, warm and peaceful. The notes were birds flying on a melody’s airstream. Aubrey began to hum—a high, mournful noise Caleb imagined Sirens had used throughout history to drive a ship’s captain and crew to their deaths upon stony shores.

He closed his eyes and saw his mother’s face, heard her dying words.

           Caleb’s voice came out toneless, lower than the music around him, “Step on a crack. Break that bitch’s back.”

And the band played on.

Next Chapter coming 1/10/13.

 

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