We need to do something, p.10
We Need to Do Something, page 10
“Did you get it?” Mom asks. “Did you get it?”
“I don’t know.” Dad wipes his mouth, disgusted. “Maybe.”
He starts gagging again, prompting him to hurry to the sink and lower his face under the faucet. It doesn’t take long for him to choke on the water pouring down his throat. He gives up and rests his forehead against the wall, out of breath, wheezing.
Meanwhile, Bobby’s still groaning and writhing on the floor. Mom helps him to his feet and together they get into the tub with me. I try to scoot to the side and give them plenty of room, but two seconds of the faucet digging into my spine is all the motivation I need to relinquish my porcelain grave. Mom scoops up the blanket from the floor and spreads it along the tub, then helps Bobby sprawl across it.
“You’ll be safer here, baby.”
“It hurts. It huuurrrts.”
“I know, baby. It’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay.”
“Did Daddy get the venom out?”
“Yes. He got it all out. You’re going to be just fine.”
Dad starts pacing around the bathroom, fists at his side, jaw clenched, rambling. “That motherfucker . . . that fucking . . . that fucking motherfucker . . . ” He points at the upside-down trash can with intense rage. “You motherfucking motherfucker!”
I fold my arms across my chest, barely dodging my father’s erratic movements. “Is Bobby going to be okay? Mom, is Bobby going to be okay?”
“He’s going to be just fine.” Mom smiles at a terrified Bobby. “Isn’t that right, baby? You’re going to be just fine, right?”
“Y-y-y-yes?”
Mom searches frantically through the various bathroom items scattered across the floor and counter until finding the tall bottle of peroxide. She unscrews the lid, tells Bobby it’s going to hurt, and splashes some of it along his arm without waiting for a response.
Bobby clutches the wound and wails.
Off in the corner, I’m hugging myself and trying not to cry, whispering, “This is all my fault this is all my fault this is all my fault—”
“Am I going to need to see a doctor?” Bobby asks.
“Sure, just to be safe,” Mom says. “Once we get out of here.”
“But what if that man shoots us?”
“ . . . We don’t know what that was.”
“These motherfuckers!” Dad screams, and charges the bathroom door. I leap out of the way just as he connects with the wood and bounces back on the floor. No visible damage is inflicted.
He remains flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling, breathing heavily, seething.
I step back into the tub with Bobby and Mom and the three of us watch him, waiting to see what’s going to happen next.
***
In a voice so low and calm we can barely hear him, Dad says, “Why hasn’t he come to check on you yet?”
Another long silence.
And I can’t take it any longer. “Why hasn’t who—”
“Dee,” Dad says, cutting me off, “don’t play deaf. I know you heard me.” He sits up and glares at her. “It’s been a week. Maybe longer. Don’t you think he’s worried about you?”
“I don’t want to do this right now,” Mom tells him. “Not in front of the kids.”
Dad rubs his brow, annoyed. “I’m not trying to be an asshole, goddammit. I’m just saying. We need to get out of here or we’re all fucked. Especially now with Bobby. Is there a chance he might come?”
“Who are you guys talking about?” I ask, practically pleading at this point.
Mom doesn’t answer.
“Well?” Dad says, voice prodding.
She sighs. “I told him if he didn’t hear from me by midnight, that something might have happened.”
Dad narrows his eyes. “Something like what?”
“We shouldn’t get into this right now.”
He makes a big show of looking around the bathroom. “Oh, do you have a better time in mind? Maybe go out in the living room and continue this discussion, is that it?”
“You can’t go to the living room,” Bobby says, voice weak. “We’re stuck.”
“Thank you, Bobby. I guess I forgot.”
“You’re welcome.”
“What’s going on?” I ask again.
Dad cocks his head at Mom. “Dee?”
“I didn’t know how you’d react. I was scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“ . . . of you.”
Dad laughs. “What did you think I’d do? Hurt you?”
“Maybe.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” He wipes his lips. “Have I ever hurt you?” He gestures to me and Bobby. “Have I ever hurt your mom? Huh?”
“Sometimes you yell and get angry and make her cry,” Bobby tells him.
This response seems to sucker punch Dad into silence.
A half hour passes. Or maybe an entire day. Eventually Mom says, “If he was going to come, he would have already been here.”
“Where does he live?”
“Not far. Within walking distance.”
“Jesus fuck.”
I can feel the rage boiling inside me, much how I imagine it permanently cooks in my father. “Stop ignoring me!”
Everybody directs their attention my way. Like they just realized I’ve been trapped in this bathroom with them the entire time. I can’t stop shaking.
“What are you talking about?” I ask them.
Of course I’m met by another long silence.
“Hello?”
Dad lowers his head, quiet.
Mom clears her throat. “Your father and I are getting a divorce.”
“What?”
“No you’re not!” Bobby shouts from the tub. “That’s not true. Dad, tell Mom to stop lying.”
Dad remains unresponsive.
“We decided on it the night of the tornado,” Mom says. “We were going to tell you both the next day.”
Dad snorts. “We decided?”
Realization hits. All the clues, right in my face this entire time. “Oh my god, Mom, are you cheating on Dad?”
“I’ve been seeing someone. Yes. He makes me happy. I deserve to be happy.”
“And I don’t?” Dad asks.
“Goddammit, Robert, don’t pull that shit now.”
“Pull what shit?”
“I tried. I fucking tried. And I was miserable. I asked you to get sober. I asked you to help out more. I fucking begged you, Robert. I begged you.”
“I can’t believe you guys are getting a divorce,” I whisper.
“Who are we going to live with?” Bobby whines.
And I tell him, “Mom, obviously.”
Dad glares at me, hurt. “Why obviously?”
He catches me off guard. I realize I’ve screwed up. “I don’t know.”
“No. You said obviously. What the fuck did you mean by obviously?”
“Just . . . you know . . . I don’t . . . I don’t . . . ”
Mom takes over for me. “She meant that I’m the only one who can actually take care of them without passing out drunk in the front yard.”
“That was one time.”
“It shouldn’t have been any times.”
“Guys . . . ” Bobby whispers.
But Dad ignores him and stands back up, getting that crazy look in his eyes again. “You think you’re taking my children away from me, you got another thing coming, baby. You fuckin’ try it. I dare you.”
“ . . . guys . . . ”
“Please stop fighting,” I chant, “please stop fighting please stop fighting please—”
Mom takes in the whole situation and does something peculiar. She smirks. “You’re scaring the kids again, dear.”
Dad stops and glares at us all in the tub, seething with rage, then reality hits and he points at Bobby. “What’s wrong with him?”
We all glance down and discover Bobby convulsing in the tub next to us. He’s grabbing his wrist and moaning. We rush on top of him, trying to calm him down.
“It hurts,” he cries, “it hurts it hurts it’s on FIRE I’m on FIRE help me HELP ME . . . ”
“The belt’s making it worse,” Dad says. “You’re fucking killing him.”
“ . . . oh my GOD oh my GOD . . . ”
Frantic, Mom loosens the belt and casts it aside, nearly slapping me in the face with it in the process. Bobby continues moaning. His wrist and hand have gotten extremely swollen and discolored. She hesitates, examining it, clearly out of her element just like the rest of us. She twists the tub faucet to COLD.
“Put it under the water, baby. Come on.”
Bobby scoots up to the flowing water and cautiously extends his arm under the faucet. He cries out and hides his hand against his chest. “IT HURTS IT HURTS EVERYTHING BURNS!”
Mom presses her own hand against his chest, waiting, concentrating, then withdraws. “Oh, god, his heartbeat is way too fast.”
Dad kneels so they’re eye-level. “Bobby, calm the fuck down! You gotta calm the fuck down right now!”
This only makes Bobby cry louder and further freak out.
“That isn’t helping,” Mom says.
“Well what the fuck do you want me to do, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“We have to do something, don’t we?” I wail. “We have to do something.”
Mom soothes her voice down into something replicating calmness. “Okay, baby, take big deep breaths, okay? Real nice and easy now. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay . . . ”
They continue this routine for several minutes and eventually he actually starts to calm down. Mom cradles him in her arms. They’re both dripping with sweat and tears and—judging by the smell—urine.
“Can you tell me, Momma?” Bobby asks, voice soft.
“Tell you what, baby?”
“You know.”
Dad’s sitting on the toilet, next to the upside-down trash can. The snake has stopped moving for the time being. Its rattler no longer makes any noise. Perhaps it’s trying to fool us into believing it’s gone away and that we’re safe. Stupid snake. There’s no way in hell any of us are ever going to entertain such a fantastical delusion again.
Mom holds Bobby tighter, resting her cheek against the back of his head. “Well, we were at Walmart trying to buy a frozen pizza, and you decided you had been in my belly long enough.”
“Your big fat belly,” Bobby whispers, a faint trace of humor lingering in his tone.
Mom nods. “Like a watermelon.”
Bobby lets out a soft laugh.
“And I couldn’t walk any more, it hurt so bad, you were kicking me so much, so I had to sit on the floor right there in the frozen food aisle, and Sissy had to go find someone to help us.”
“Did they call an ambulance?”
“They sure did. So we waited for it to arrive and this very nice, young cashier sat with me holding my hand telling me everything was going to be okay, that I just had to be strong and wait a little bit longer and nothing bad would happen and everything would work out, just like now, baby, just how I’m holding you and telling you the same thing because it’s the truth, baby, you know that, right? It’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay.”
A fresh wave of tears stream down Mom’s face as she chokes back sobs and continues.
“And I asked the cashier, the young lady, I asked her how she could know it was going to be okay, and she looked down at me and smiled this wonderful bright smile and do you know what she told me, baby? She told me she knew it was all going to be okay because it had to be. You get it? It was going to be okay because it couldn’t possibly be any other way. That we just had to believe it would be okay and act brave and strong and it would all work out, and you know what, baby? She was right. She helped me act brave and strong and we waited for the ambulance to arrive and they pulled you out of me right there in the frozen food aisle and I saw your beautiful little face in the paramedic’s arms and I knew in that moment that I should have never doubted my love for you and that I would never ever doubt it again and I haven’t, I never have, and that’s why I know you’re going to be okay and Sissy’s going to be okay and everything’s going to be okay so we just have to hang on a little bit longer and someone will come, I know it, someone will come and they’ll move the tree and open the door and everybody will be waiting outside to make sure we’re okay and life will be better, I promise you, sweet beautiful baby, I promise with every ounce of my soul everything is going to be okay, you just have to trust me, okay, baby? You have to trust.”
She cries and rocks Bobby in her arms and his eyes are half-open but he’s no longer breathing, and we all know it, we’ve known it for several minutes now, but that doesn’t stop her from rocking him, from holding him tighter and spitting tears and mucus from her mouth as all of the world’s agony blossoms into its final form.
***
“Fuck this,” Dad says, and rips open the box of alcohol wipes and shoves several in his mouth. He chews them like gum, sucking up their juices and spitting them out once they’re dry. His face twists with agony but still he throws another handful of wipes in his mouth. Pacing the bathroom. Chewing. Sucking. Spitting. I don’t know if those will actually get him drunk and I doubt he knows, either. But goddammit, he’s going to try.
***
Bobby hasn’t left the tub. The blanket’s wrapped around his body, hiding his flesh from view. Mom sits on the floor just outside the tub, back leaning against the porcelain, jaw against chest, eyes closed. Once I thought this tub would serve as my own grave. How foolish I had been. Perhaps soon enough, we will all follow my brother into the unknown.
I keep waiting for him to jump up and shout, Gotcha! Anything to confirm he’s pulling some kind of prank. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s pretended to be dead or kidnapped for a laugh. I remember once he said something particularly asshole-ish to me, so I punched him in the stomach and he doubled over and collapsed to the floor. Rolled his eyes back and lolled his tongue out and everything. Got completely still, wouldn’t move or acknowledge our demands for him to knock it off. Finally, after Mom started to really freak out, he sat up and apologized, said he was just trying to scare us.
Well, if that’s all he’s doing now, he’s definitely succeeding.
We’re scared, all right.
We’re fucking terrified.
How can a kid go from making butt jokes one second, then . . . then . . . then . . .
Oh my god. How can this be real?
Dad remains atop the toilet, face buried in his hands, knees on his thighs.
I stand in the center of the bathroom, unsure which parent to focus on. None of us can stop crying. I need them both to hear what I have to say but I don’t want to tell it to either of them. How am I supposed to explain something I barely understand? How sure am I my memories are even real? How long have we been in this fucking bathroom? It’s impossible to separate facts from fictions. Maybe Amy never existed. Maybe the black magic rituals were invented inside a brain rotting with slow, impending death.
No.
It happened.
I know it was real. Otherwise, nothing else is real, either. This bathroom. My family. These thoughts. I might as well be throwing a temper tantrum in some mental asylum, confined by a straitjacket drenched in my own slobber.
“This is all my fault,” I finally whisper to the room.
Slowly, both my parents lift their heads. Eyes black from sleep deprivation. Skin loose around their faces. They just stare at me for a moment, as if they’re not sure I even spoke.
“What?” Mom says.
“I said this is all my fault.”
“What’s all your fault, honey?”
I pause, unsure how to answer such a complex question, then point at the bathroom door, followed by the bathtub.
“What are you talking about?” she says.
“This all happened because of me.”
“No it didn’t, honey. C’mon. Don’t think like that. It’s nobody’s fault.”
“No. Listen. You aren’t listening. You never listen.”
“Okay.”
“Last night.” I shake my head. “No. Not last night. Not anymore. The night it started. When was that? That night . . . that night . . . Amy and I . . . we did something bad. We did something real bad.”
No one responds. I have their attention now.
“There’s a website we go to sometimes.”
“What kind of website?” Dad asks. He’s still chewing those alcohol wipes. The sound’s sickening and I can’t stand to hear it.
“Please don’t get mad,” I tell them.
“Mel, what the hell are you talking about?”
“It was like a subreddit thing. Like, for the occult. People all around sharing . . . I don’t know, books they’ve found.”
“Books?”
“Like, old books. PDFs, blogs, Google docs. Everything.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m saying, this subreddit, what they had. I guess . . . spells, basically. Like, I don’t know, rituals.”
“What the fuck is a subreddit?” Dad asks, but I ignore him. Despite our current predicament of being trapped in a bathroom, there is still not enough time to thoroughly explain Reddit to my father in a way that he will understand.
“I don’t understand, honey,” Mom says.
“Amy was sick, okay? Like . . . really, truly sick.”
“What do you mean? What was wrong with her? Was it cancer? Did she have cancer?”
Shit, how the hell am I supposed to explain this? Especially after everything that’s happened. It’ll sound like I’m speaking in a foreign language (speaking in tongues). I inhale and exhale deep breaths several times before continuing. “We thought, maybe, there was something inside her. Something . . . bad, like . . . like a spirit. Or . . . or a demon.” I hate how silly it sounds coming out of my mouth. It makes me feel like a little kid.
Dad lets out a loud laugh. “Mel, what the fuck are you babbling about?”
“It was ruining her life.” I try sounding more serious by deepening my voice and waving my hands to punctuate certain words. “The thing inside her. It used to be dead, but then it came to life, and it wanted to destroy her, wanted to take over her body and do bad things.”
