~Bladen~
Sitting still, something I haven’t often done.
The sun rises behind the house, and I watch as the shades of purples turn to pinks and oranges, before the day sky begins to turn into a blue sky full of white fluffy clouds.
Peace.
How can everything be so quiet, tranquil, and beautiful on the outside, while a storm rages inside the four walls of the house in front of me?
Climbing off my beast, I stretch before taking the first step toward the place called home.
Four letter words: hell and home. They are one in the same.
Step by solidary step, I make my way forward. At the porch, I inhale deeply.
I’m no longer a boy. I’m a motherfucking man with a score to settle.
The doorbell is lit up. I press it, hearing the chimes of my childhood ring throughout the silence around me. I remember a time when the bell would sound and I would feel hope that someone would come and save me. Then the bell became nothing more than another chime of irrelevance for help would never come.
It takes a beat before the door lock clicks and the knob turns. Then my mother stands in front of me in her robe, silver hair hanging down around her shoulders as she squints her eyes and looks up at me.
“Bladen.” My name is a mere whisper from her lips.
“Momma,” I greet as she steps back, inviting me inside.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispers as I stare at the cream-colored walls and the same pictures lining the entryway from so long ago.
“Still the saint,” I say, not lowering my voice.
“He’ll kill you, Bladen. Please, son, go back where you were,” she pleads, her voice cracking with emotions.
“Not if I kill him first.”
She gasps, and I press further into the home.
“Bladen, he’s your father; don’t put the black mark on your soul.”
I laugh, not hiding my presence in his home in the least bit.
“My soul is tarnished. He’s not the first life I’ve taken, and won’t be the last.”
With her frail hands, she reaches out and grips me. “You aren’t the bad man they say you are. You’re my son, my good.”
I jerk out of her grasp. “Momma, you let him toss me around, beat on me, put a gun in my fuckin’ mouth and dare me to take a breath. You let Mr. Andrews and him do whatever they felt necessary to teach us some fucked up lesson. As far as I’m concerned, there’s not one good thing in you, him, or this house.”
Tears fall rapidly and freely down her time-weathered face. “Bladen, please leave. Don’t do this.”
“The devil is calling, Momma.” I smirk just as Satan himself rounds the corner in nothing but his boxer briefs and a shit-eating grin.
“Bladen Jacob Jones, the prodigal son has returned.”
I step up into his personal space. Even this early in the morning, he reeks of whiskey. “I’m not here to repent for my sins, you sick son of a bitch.” He has to look up at me. I relish it. That’s right motherfucker, I’m grown now. “I’m here because the devil demands his due.”
He starts to swing, but is too slow. I block the punch and grip his neck with both hands, backing him into the wall.
Feeling him tense under me is empowering.
“What the fuck do you know of me? Tell me,” I say through gritted teeth then release just enough for him to speak. I want to know what he does. I want to know if he’s the reason she took off. What has Anderson Jones learned in all these years we’ve been away.
The arrogant piece of shit in front of me takes the opportunity to smile. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Word is my boy didn’t land himself in a criminal enterprise, but a patched member of a vigilante group of bikers who are hell-bent on solving cold cases.”
I tighten my grip again, cutting off his air supply. “Good, the word landed where it needed to. You’re right about the bikers I patched into. We solve the unsolved cases. What you didn’t seem to learn is the justice we seek is by our own hands.”
For a split-second, I see the panic in his eyes, before he masks it as he kicks out, kneeing me on the inside of my thigh.
“Cock and balls as big as mine. You shouldn’t have missed, but then again, you’ve never been clear-headed enough to aim straight.”
His mouth opens and closes, struggling to breathe.
My mother comes to our side, covering my hand with her frail fingers. “Please, Bladen, let him go. He didn’t mean to be so hard on you.”
Anger.
Rage.
Unbridled fury.
Too many years the buildup has come, and now it all boils over. I release my father and turn to stare my mother down.
“Weakness bleeds. You gave it to me, and took me fuckin’ years to get it out of my system.” My words are slow, calculated. She gets my point.
“I gave you the money, Bladen. I did what I could,” she whispers, looking to the side of me where my father is hunched over, catching his breath.
“Money?” I laugh. “You think I wanted that fuckin’ shit. Your father left you an estate. Yup, Momma, you inherited cake and gave that tainted shit to me. Just like the cycle of violence repeats over and over. How many times did Pops toss you and Mamaw around? Made that shit acceptable.”
She shakes her head as the tears fall.
I’m numb to it all.
“Bladen, please. It’s hard.”
Again, I laugh. “It’s hard to stand up for yourself, your kid, and what’s right? Let’s be clear; I don’t spend your money like you think. I give that shit away to help people get their kids safe. No child should sleep at night worrying about their momma, their siblings, themselves”—I look her in the eye— “their neighbor, their best friend.”
The gasp from her tells me I hit home just as I hear my father moving behind me.
“This isn’t the life I wanted for you, for us,” she tries the same bullshit she fed me when I was a young boy.
“Well, it’s what we got, now ain’t it, Momma?”
I hear the distinct sound of a safety clicking off and a hammer being pulled. Slowly and deliberately, I turn to face my father.
“Looks like we have a breaking and entering, seein’ as we weren’t expecting our son to come home. The surprise caught us off guard, and in protecting my home and wife, I took aim and pulled the trigger before sorting out who was in my house,” my father teases.
Before I react, my mother cries out and jumps in front of me just as he fires. Warm, red liquid splatters my front as my mother falls to the floor in front of me. My father bellows, but does not move. He watches. Dropping to my knees, I scoop her up as my dad loses his shit, wailing about me costing him his one love. He’s pacing now. Like a caged animal waiting to be released, he walks back and forth.
“Shut the fuck up!” I roar. “You don’t fuckin’ know love.”
My mother looks at me, pain evident in her eyes as she takes a raspy breath, only to make more blood rush out of her chest.
“I didn’t want this for you, Bladen, you gotta know,” she says just as I look up at my father, who watches my mother struggling, her blood pooling on the old linoleum floor. I wait for him to take his shot and kill me. Instead, he looks at me, eye to eye, man to man, and smirks.
The venom in his glare would intimidate most. Not me, I don’t back down. Not any more will I cower beneath him.
“Go ahead,” I dare him to kill me.
“Explain this,” he whispers before turning the gun on himself and firing. I don’t know what to do, think, or feel as I watch his body hit the floor.
The last of my mother’s energy is spent fighting to sit up and crying out as my father’s brain matter and blood splatters all over the kitchen she cooked so many meals for him in.
Her head never turns to look at me again as she takes her last breath.
Numb.
I wish I could say I felt something.
Anger, the emotion that kept me company for most of my life is suddenly down to a simmer.
Sadness, I think would be normal given all is lost. Never is there going to be a second chance for a family between us, although I don’t wish for it anymore. Still, shouldn’t I grieve what I lost? Not the two dead bodies on the floor in front of me, but the childhood I never had?
Maybe it’s all too much. Maybe I just can’t process it anymore. Maybe I’m as cold-hearted as him.
Instead of moving, I find myself stuck in place. On my knees, on the old linoleum floor, my mother’s blood saturating the denim of my jeans, I remain still.
The copper stench in the air continues to grow as my father’s body empties so rapidly, his red blood now mixing with hers.
Still, I remain unwavering.
Lost.
This moment in time, I can never have it back. The room spins as I search my mind, my soul for a happy time. Something that can make me feel.
However, I am left empty.
My parents lie bleeding and lifeless on the floor in front of me, and the relief I came here to find is not to be found. I wanted to know Tamalyn wasn’t on their radar. I wanted to have reassurance she left because she sought a change. I gave up everything for her to feel safe. I came here to make sure she was.
The house phone rings loudly in the silence surrounding me. I make no move to answer it. I make no move to disengage myself from the death around me.
The peace I thought I would find is not here.
Instead, I’m in a black hole of nothingness.