Seventeen year old Misty Cellars lives in a double-wide trailer where she bargains with a local drug gang to keep her mother out of prison. After losing her father to heroin, she is invited to a weekend church gathering, or so it appears. Instead, M...
The Little Store is the only store in town. In front of the post office next door, there is an old gas pump with black and white numbers that spin around as you try to time the pennies just right. You pay, not because God is watching, but because in a small town like this, some is gonna find you. It's best not to run when there's nowhere to hide.
Our double-wide trailer borders the creek where my Dad and I used to hunt for crawfish and sit on big rocks that I swear were shaped like chairs made just for the two of us. My Dad never yelled down there. We faced each other, and looked each other God-honest in the eye for once. We listened to the stream, he wasn't angry, and when we were back there, I swear, he was my dad. Whenever I look back on those memories, I grow them real big in my mind, and they take up the whole landscape. Like, if you took one of those old fashioned Reel Viewers, and flipped through the circular slides: Click, click, click. Each one is of my Dad and me, down by the creek, and I let my mind's Reel Viewer do its job: My blinders are good. Whatever else happened, part of him was my Dad, a good Dad.
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We would use the old rope swing to sail into the algae-dense water under the old bridge. Behind the old bridge is a fallen-apart dam, the concrete all juxtapositions of what used to be straight. From back when there was a real paper mill here. Behind cascading Indian Steel, is the hermit's house. A real hermit. Otherwise, there is another trailer where the middle school secretary lives with her two girls and her lunatic husband. Whenever we ask him why he's firing guns so close to our plaec, he who tells us he's just trying to get his kid's ears prepared for hunting season, or the parade, or some dumb bullshit. I can still hear him shooting from my bedroom sometimes: Pop, pop, pop. Those things haven't changed. Just the part with my Dad, and the rocks made just for us. I loved to sit out on the chilly grass late at night and gaze at the moon, or count fireflies, or stare at my feet and repeat, "This is it. This is all there is."
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Over all the last summers I can remember, Jenna and I would use the old rope swing to sail into the algae-dense water under the old bridge. Behind the bridge is a fallen-apart dam, the concrete all juxtapositions of what used to be straight. Once, there was a real paper mill here. Behind cascading Indian Steel, is the hermit's house. A real hermit. Otherwise, there is another trailer where the middle school secretary lives with her two girls and lunatic husband. Whenever we ask why he's firing guns so close to our place, he who tells us he's trying to get his kid's ears prepared for hunting season, or the parade, or some dumb bullshit. I can still hear him shooting from my bedroom sometimes: Pop, pop, pop. Those things haven't changed. Just the part with my Dad, and the rocks made just for us. I loved to sit out on the chilly grass late at night and gaze at the moon, or count fireflies, or stare at my feet and repeat, "This is it. This is all there is."
I can't remember when the moonlight sparkles stopped coming each night. Maybe it was when the Gravedigger started coming past every day, or when I got sick of playing summer camp with Dad, or when Dad left for good, and I was so sick of being alone that life lost its luster. It's not exactly desirable, hanging back out there again, what with the Chase Brothers making it a frequent stop. But a double wide trailer isn't double much. And sometimes, I've just gotta get out.
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Mom's boyfriends are always the same. The latest, Dave, he never does the dishes, he never makes dinner, and he never helps out around the place. He gives my mom cleaning supplies for the holidays, the controls the music, he hits her, and yeah this is getting worse, isn't it? He shuts us off the living room when he watches TV, and says things like, "This dinner looks nice. If only I had a fork to eat it," if my mom had forgotten one. Not only does he never get up to actually get himself some silverware, he makes her feel bad about it. He does dumb shit like whack me when I crossed my legs "like a boy" at the dinner table. The kids at school say I sit like a boy, too. Ever since Jenna left, all the ways I stand out feel like bad ways. And now, just standing itself can feel like a sin. Sometimes, I only feel like I am living when I can hide out at the creek and read. I became afraid of everyone. In books, I can let my mind go. I can live.
