Laurel Hell, Stranger Things

I. Chapter One

Chapter One
Hawkins, Indiana
1971 and then some

                Girl is five when she gets her first taste of violence. Girl is sitting in the kitchen, legs dangling off of the kitchen counter, a coloring book flattened across her knees and various crayons and colored pencils scattered across the counter. Her kid sister sleeps, cocooned by blankets and pillows so that she doesn't think of throwing herself off of the couch in the midst of sleep, in the living room adjacent to the sterile kitchen. In patchwork khakis handsewn by Mother, sandals hanging limply from her swinging feet, Shout by The Isley Brothers plays on the radio from somewhere else in the split-level home.

                "Nat!"

                Girl doesn't hear the first three cries of the woman's name, head snapping up on the fourth as Mother comes barrelling into the kitchen, winding her long black hair into a knot at the back of her skull, securing it with a clip and ignoring the man pressing in from the rear. Girl watches Father spit obscenities at Mother's back, Mother seemingly unfazed. Girl is frozen.

                "Are you even fucking listening to me?" he shouts, hands flying wildly, eyebrows creased with anger. No. Fury. Girl watches, silently, patiently, waiting for his anger to ebb before she returns to her coloring. The picture on the page is of a mermaid surrounded by seashells. So far, the mermaid has flowing gold hair and a tail that starts out turquoise but blends into a soft purple– "Hey! Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

                "I am listening," Mother sighs, face eerily stoic despite the slight tremor of her voice. Her voice that sings lullabies against the backdrop of noisy music seeping through the walls, her voice that lulls nightmares back into the threshold of her children's minds, keeps the bad thoughts from spilling out. This voice is steeled away from Father's anger, hot and potent. "I just have no time to argue."

                 "Sure, you do, you've got time for damn near everything else in the world!" he shouts. Always a shout.

                "I'm sorry I have a job I have to take care of," Mother says.

                Girl glances at her sister, still sleeping soundly on the couch, unbothered by the shouting match going on in the next room.

                Girl will remember it in snapshots. The slap of a hand against skin, a shout, the sound of old wooden cabinets straining against the force of a body against them. When they had noticed her, she'll never know, but the force of Father's hands against Mother's collarbones, digging, searing, sends an aftershock in her direction. Crayons go rolling off of the island, coloring book pages crease as Girl is thrown backward. Straight off of the counter, and then her eyes are open, and Mother and Father are telling the nurses that it was all an accident. She fell. She shouldn't have been sitting up on the counter by herself.

                Girl is weaned on violence. It's her sustenance, her virtue. Father slashes and screams, and then when he's gone there's a quiet he leaves behind, but the violence remains. It's not something one simply grows out of.

                Girl is God. Unrepentant, bones made of steel, tissue barbed wire, blood golden ichor. Girl is standing, bent at the waist, red seeping through her teeth as the bloodthirsty crowd of middle schoolers screeches their approval as clasped hands are brought down on her spine, sending her crumpling to the floor; a mess of curls and bony limbs. The crowd cheers. Girl is no longer standing, but she's smiling.

                "Come on, get up!" Georgia Thorton shrieks, voice piercing against the backdrop of the hungry teens looking for more, more, more. They're only kids, but it's this taste of violence that ages them, and when Andie looks up through stringy fibers of raven hair the line between Child and Monster is blurred. Her classmates, who usually float around her in a measure of safety, now spit down at her like a dog in a cage fight, ears clipped and ribs lashed with healed teeth marks. This blacktop is their territory, she's the parasite. "You started this fight, Lynch, finish it!"