1. Lost And Lonely – Marie
It’s been three months now, since it happened. Since the whole street ran out of their houses at the sound of the ambulance screaming its way towards my house. They wheeled Cody out covered in one of those red blankets, a vacant expression on his face, to the gasps and horrified looks of my neighbours.
They couldn’t and still can’t figure out what’s wrong with him. My father explained to the paramedic that he started to jerk and shake for no apparent reason, then passed out. He lied. That’s not what really happened that bright sunny day in my bedroom. In truth, it was me. I did it. I made him gasp for his breath, fight for his life. I made those disgusting veins appear on his face.
I kissed him. Just one simple, innocent kiss between two teenagers. Neither knowing what to do, how to go about that first special kiss. Where to put your nose, so you close your eyes? But something went wrong, something inside of me changed. I felt it. A twinge, that turned into a rush of emotions, thoughts and memories from his lips into mine. I saw everything, from his first childhood memory to what he had for breakfast that day. All flooding into me. For a second I thought I was him it was so strong. I was so confused, then scared, then terrified. Then screaming.
I haven’t been allowed to leave the house since. I’m out with stress. That’s what my mother has told my school anyway, that because of the ‘incident’, as she calls it, I couldn’t possibly manage to go into school due to my depression. Apparently, I’m almost suicidal. I think she’s panicking, desperate to find something people will believe other than the real truth. Her friends come round the house to see her. They tell her that they don’t know how she copes with such a difficult child, who gets so stressed and depressed that she can’t even go to school or leave the house. They hug her and support her, and she cries, but is it from guilt that she’s lying to her friends or guilt that she ignoring her only daughter’s real problem? Who’s hugging and supporting me? When they come, I’m not allowed out of my room.
My best friend Sara is bringing homework to and from the house. I’m not allowed to see her either. She comes to the door, my father takes the folders from her, and then he closes the door in her face. He turns away everyone who comes to visit. At least I’m allowed in the garden after dark. They are scared of me, scared of what I’m now capable and most of all scared of what it means for them. They’re easy lives.
It can’t go on like this for much longer. I can’t go on like this.
I’m a mutant. A freak. Something filthy if the look my father gives me is anything to go by. But I couldn’t help it. I didn’t mean to change. It wasn’t my fault not really. I tried to say this, but my parents refused to listen. I keep thinking that it would have been easier if I’d have turned out to be a lesbian, or maybe it would have been the same.
My father won’t look at me any more, wont talk to me, and I’m guessing he would rather play with a rattlesnake than to touch me. I am no longer to be mentioned in polite society. My mother, she’s the one who says how she feels. She cries too. I walk downstairs to breakfast. She glances at the thin gloves on my hands, and she turns away, grips the edge of the sink like Southern women do, and she cries. For my situation or hers, I don’t know. Then come the insults. Because it’s my fault, don’t you know. It’s my fault Mother Nature decided to mess with my DNA. My fault that I turned into one of those abominations that are all over the news these days, you know, the ones running around killing people with sonic beams and walls of snow, sick people who can get into your head and make you do funny things. Sometimes, when father isn’t there, she blames his mother. Bad blood apparently. Looking for anyone to blame but herself more like.
She tells me that I’m nothing now. I can’t leave the house because someone might see me, even though my appearance hasn’t changed at all. She tells me that because of me. Her life’s over. How can she have her dinner parties now? Her socialite friends wouldn’t want to be seen in the same house as the likes of me. Her bridge evenings will have to be cancelled, and if anyone from the Church found out her status in the community would fall so low.
There haven’t been any arguments. There haven’t been any beatings. There hasn’t been anything, and I think that’s worse. If my father shouted at me, beat me, told me I was a monster, a freak, at least I would know he knew I was there. At least he would be acknowledging me.
My father goes to work every morning, comes home eats his expertly prepared dinner in the living room away from me. My mother glares at me all the way through dinner with that you’ve-driven-your-father-away look, and then he reads his paper before he retires to bed. All without a word in my direction.
My mother goes to the store every Thursday afternoon. She always asks me if I would like anything. I always say, only to go with you. She always accuses me of being cruel, because I know I can’t, and it wouldn’t be fair on her to be seen with me. What if someone found out? She locks the doors and windows before she leaves. I’m never sure why, is she scared someone will sneak in, or that I will get out? She always used to go on a Thursday morning, but now it takes so long for her to lock all the windows and doors that she goes in the afternoon.
I’m trapped in an empty house. Though even when they are here, its empty. Silence from one, hate and disdain from the other. What am I supposed to do? I really am stressed, depressed and suicidal now. I’m cut off, isolated. Trapped in this house where every room seems like some cavernous space that I’m too scared to cross for fear of the same loneliness on the other side.
What do my friends think? I don’t know, maybe they think it’s because of Cody, because I loved him so and now he’s in a coma. Little do they know. I kissed him, that’s all. One small kiss. My lips met his. They were soft, gentle. Then it started; I literally sucked the life out of him. His thoughts, some of his memories, his fear, his life, it flowed into me like cranberry juice into a tall glass.
I spend my days drawing, reading books or magazines that my mother has left lying around. Wandering the house. It’s a huge, four-bedroom town house, nice big garden full of beautiful flowers. Not that I see them in the day. But none of that matters now. I’ve made my decision. I know what I have to do.
Thursday afternoon, I sit on the bottom stair and watch as mother puts on her coat.
“Do you want anything from the store?” Her accent is old and thick, but cultivated to sound posh.
“No, only to come with you.”
“Marie-Anne, we go over this every time. You will not leave this house until you stop this ridiculous trick you are playing on your body. Now, be a good girl and put some of your clothes in the washer while I’m out, then you can run them through the dryer. I’ll be a little longer today. I’m going to the Clancy’s for coffee first.”
“Yes mamma.”
She looks me up and down, then shakes her head. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you. At least there are places for disabled or mongrel children. There’s nowhere for… for…”
“Mutants?”
Her heels click quickly on the expertly polished floor as she gets close to my face and whispers. “Do not say that *word* in my house!” She stands up again and smoothes out her hair, then her coat. “You are lucky that we keep you, that your father works to feed you. I mean it is, not like you’ll ever be able to make any kind of contribution to this house again. Now, do as I have asked you and I’ll be back by four.”
“Yes mamma.” I stay where I am until she closes the door. I hear her small perfect car start and then pull out for the drive and down the street. Then I’m on my feet and running up the stairs to my parents’ room.
I open up my father’s closet and rip out his old army duffel bag. The label on the side reads: Private H R D’Ancanto. He was in the army, but as my mother bitterly points out, all he did was sit behind a desk. I feel slightly guilty for ripping the label off I know how much it means to him. I wonder if I mean as much, but I don’t want anything identifiable with me. I chuck the label high and over the back of their tall wardrobe. It falls down the gap between the wood and the wall. It’ll never be seen again.
Next, I’m back in my room and pack the duffel. I’ve never run away before, but I’m not stupid and know that wherever I go, *I* will be the one carrying this bag.
I also put in a keyring. It’s a square piece of plastic with a pink background and on it, printed in a retro style is ‘M&S’. Marie and Sara, my best friend, that I haven’t seen for three months and two days because my father won’t let anyone near me. She has the same keyring. We had them printed on my 17th birthday in December last year. I can’t call her, or tell her I’m going. It’s too risky. But I will take this keyring, so I can remember her. I purposely don’t pack any photos or keepsakes of my life with my parents, one they take up too much room, two, they make me too easily identifiable and three, why should I?
Lastly, I grab a clean washcloth and my toothbrush out of the bathroom and then my passport out of my mother’s document box, she still has it from out vacation to Europe three summers ago. I’m not sure if I will need it, but I’ll take it anyway.
With my bag packed, I take it down stairs. Thankfully, it’s not heavy. In the kitchen, I smile at the predictable’ness of my mother. Hidden inside a large cookie jar is her emergency housekeeping fund. She tells my father that it is in case one of the kitchen appliances. The car or the washer goes wrong, but really she’s saving it for a trip to Chicago with her friend Margo Clancy. There’s just under $600. My father thinks it $200. I smile a little, knowing the look on her face when she realises that I’ve taken the lot and she will have to lie to cover herself. She’ll never admit that she had nearly $600 stashed away from him.
Right, so I have my bag, I have some money. Now, to get out of the house. First I make a quick call to the local cab firm. I have a plan you see, like I said. I’m not stupid. If I call a cab and get it to take me to the bus depot, they will track me easily. But there are two major ways to travel around here, the Greyhound and the trains. The buses take you to places like Arkansas, Houston, Dallas, further into the South or along to California. The major trains take you North, towards New York, etc etc. The bus and train station are right next to each other by the way. So my plan is, I get a cab to take me to the Bus depot. I buy a ticket for Dallas, make sure I talk to the ticket man and make myself memorable. Then run the few hundred yards to the train station where I get a train to where I really want to go. It’s a hassle, but I’m determined that no one will find me. Not that I’m even sure if they will want to. Maybe they won’t miss me at all.
I can almost hear my mother voice in my head, ‘We are better off without her’.
That thought stops me. What if they really won’t miss me? What then? Do I have no family, nothing? I guess I won’t.
But first, I have to get out of the house. In a way, it’s easy. My mother doesn’t go in the basement other than to use the washer and the dryer, she complains about the stairs. While I’m down there, I grab the small one-man tent my father uses for fishing trips. It clips easily to the back of the duffel and the little gas stove fits inside.
The old hatch at the rear of the house doesn’t lock. About a year ago, my father told her that he had fixed the lock, so she stopped bothering him about it, nagging that if he wasn’t careful we would get robbed. So now he really has forgotten to fix it.
I’m round the front of the house just as the cab picks me up. I make a point of calling a goodbye to Mrs. Lawrence, the old lady next door. She waves and gets a good look at the cab. Busybody.
My plan goes as I want it to. I talk the hind legs off the ticket man, and he giggles and smiles at me, then wishes me a safe trip and hopes that I enjoy my stay in Dallas with my grandma. Next thing, I quickly use the restroom to change my clothes and alter my hair, this time under a cap. The bus for Dallas leaves just as I do an hour and 48 minutes after my mother left the house this afternoon, I’m on a train headed for Wisconsin.
It’s around 570 miles. There are plenty of stops on the way, but I make sure to keep quiet and off the radar. It takes just under 7 hours, with stops. But I don’t care. I step off that train into the night, free. Free from everything.
Then fear overtakes. What if I’ve done the wrong thing? What if I’m really bad at this? I could get lost, murdered, raped, hacked into small pieces by some weirdo with a big knife, lots of knives? But no, get a grip. If I just think on my feet and concentrate, I can do this. I have to do this because I’m not ever going home.
I know some people run away because their situation really is desperate. They’ve suffered sexual or physical abuse, and they really need to get away, but I feel abused too, neglected, unloved, and love means a lot to me. So does trust. So I won’t be going back. From now on, I trust no one. No one can save ‘me’, but me.
It’s too late in the evening to go anywhere now, so my first night of freedom is spent on the floor of the train depot. Nice. No one minds or questions it. A lot of people do it while they wait for another train, or maybe its because they are so dunk/drugged that they just can’t stand up anymore. I guess I’m just another one in the crowd now, just the way I want to be.
The next two weeks I spend travelling through Wisconsin. It’s hard going, as I’m trying to keep my money outgoings to minimum as I don’t know how long I’m going to be out here. The ticket to Dallas cost $98, and the ticket to Wisconsin cost another $110.
At one point, I hitch a ride with a trucker. He’s fat and has a stinky looking beard with what’s left of his lunch stuck in it, but he opens his door and offers to get me out of the rain. Five miles later, he throws me back out of the truck and calls me a prick tease. According to his logic, he picked me up, so I immediately should agree to give him a blow-job. Ha! Not on your life mate! So he showed me the sidewalk again. That’s when I decided, no more hitchhiking. Walking is much better. Not particularly safer, but better. So I walk and then camp at night. My money buys me little bits of food, like bread, crackers and until now I never realised how many different types of tinned Spam you can buy. I know I’ve lost weight, but right, now I’m still keeping going.
I get through to Minnesota, find a job for a couple of weeks, and then move on again. Thankfully people are happy to pay cash in hand, I’m not using my SSN card. This is how I carry on, moving from one town to the next until I’m in the next state. It’s nice. I get to meet people, tell them what I like and leave out the bits I don’t like. I can be me, without having to worry that people will look at me the way my father did or speak to me like my mother.
As I work my way through North Dakota and then Montana, I start to feel a little detached from myself, like I can’t be bothered to think anymore. I’m lonely and I think I’m shutting off somewhere inside. Maybe that’s why I spend more time in Chinook, Montana, than I planned, but only because I got a job helping an old lady with her two horses. It seems I have a natural ability with them. She’s sweet and has never questioned my gloves, even when I’m in her house.
But I think I might be making a little breakthrough with my skin. Ever since Cody, bless him, I feel so guilty about it all. I have had a tingling or a buzzing on my skin. But now, if I concentrate hard enough I can turn it off for about 3 or 4 minutes. Maybe if I keep going I can make it longer, maybe I can turn it off completely. But hey, one thing at a time, right?
**
Six months, give or take a day and a few hours, since I left my mother’s house, I use my passport for the first time and legally cross the border into Canada. I have to admit, it seems like an enormous relief, but at the same time it seems like some kind of final word on things. I’ve used my passport, signed my name to say who I am, and I watched as the official entered my name on a computer because I was under age. Then he smiled and wished me a safe and pleasant stay in Canada.
If my parents had reported me as a missing person, my name would have flashed up on his computer, and the game would have been up. But here I am, walking through the checkpoint seemingly without a care in the world. I look back at the gates. The same official is seeing other people through, not even sparing me a thought, and why should he? Apparently, no one else has.
I find a bench and forget about the chill on my bottom as a cry, turning into heaving sobs, the realisation hitting me. My parents didn’t report me missing. They’re not looking for me. No one is looking for me. My sobs subside, and anger takes over. How dare they? I’m their daughter! My mother carried me. She used to sing me to sleep. My father used to pay ball with me, wash my hair. They have cared for me when I’ve been sick, stood up and cheered for me at my piano recitals, and now, nothing.
I wipe my eyes angrily. Fine then. If they don’t want me, I don’t want to ever see or speak to either of them again. I really don’t have anyone to fall back on now. Even though I was the one who ran away, somewhere in the back of my mind, I had this thought, that if I really needed them, then maybe, just maybe they would be there for me. This has brought it home. They will never be there for me. No matter how much I can control it. I’m still a mutant, still an embarrassment, and I’m on my own.
All of a sudden, I feel the chill on my face. Probably all the tears. Wiping them away I look around, there’s a huge notice board with a map of Canada near the bench, so I stare at it for a while. A bright red arrow declares, ‘You Are Here’. I’ve always wanted to come to Canada. I was telling Cody all about it just before I kissed him. I had this big trip planned from a map in my room.
Now after six months, I just want to settle for a little while, but I don’t want to stay here, near the border. Looking at the map, I pick a small town a little father north and decide to make a beeline for it. A nice helpful man at the local visitor centre told me that if I go to the bus station, I can get a bus to Calgary which will go straight through to Edmonton. Should take about four hours, and from there I can make my way to Alberta and a little town called Laughlin City. I like the sound of it, Laughling, it sounds like a happy place, full of laughter. Plus it’s on the edge of a lake and I’ve always wanted to live near water.
Six months and six hours later, I arrive where I want to be. It’s not much. There’s a huge lake, Slave Lake, not sure I like the name, but hey, who am I to judge? There’s a dock, a fish market, two diners, a nice looking bar and a dingy one, an elementary school, a skinny strip of land commonly known as the airport and a small selection of shops. It looks like the village of out of Murder She Wrote, apart from the snow, and I’m in love with it already. I guess ‘I’ start here.
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Beta by Gamma, she rocks!