Ajar (13 page)

He was spinning me around, pulling out
handcuffs.

‘No, no, you can’t do that,” my mother
grabbed me. She was not steady on her feet and she fell.

“Mom!” I shouted and then said, “You
bastards.”

He tightened the cuffs hard. No one offered
to help my mother up. She sat on the floor, dazed and startled.

“You Woodard bastards,” the cop growled into
my ear. “You need to get the hell out of town. You should have died
in that fire.”

“You fucking bastard.” I spat in his face.
He slammed me up against the wall, face first. I fought hard. They
dragged me out to the car, I refused to walk. Then they threw me
into the car, purposely slamming my head against the car frame.

I was photographed and fingerprinted. I
spent the night in a cinderblock cell that smelled heavily of
urine. In the morning I was released without even a ticket. I
walked home.

When I entered the house, it seemed eerily
quiet.

“Mom?” I called out.

My head hurt where the police had smashed
it. I felt sore all over. Part of it was probably from the
accident, the other part from my arrest.

“Mom?”

I walked down the hall. The door to her room
was partially open. I pushed at it. She was lying face down on the
rug, vomit spilled all around her head. Bottles of painkillers were
scattered around her, too. These had been my prescription from my
beating at the high school. I hadn’t realized there were any left.
She was blue and she was not breathing. I tried to roll her over
but she was stiff; rigor mortis had already set in. I sat on the
floor next to her a long time. The sky was beginning to darken when
I finally got up.

I went to my room and took down my backpack.
I put in it a few changes of underwear, socks, a pair of jeans and
a T-shirt. There was nothing else to take because it had all been
lost in the fire. I went out in the dining room and into the top
drawer of the server and took out what money my mother had there.
It was only $100. Where she had gotten it, I didn’t know. Maybe my
uncle had given it to her. I left the house without saying good-bye
to her. I walked for a few miles and then put out my thumb and
someone stopped and picked me up.

I never went back. I suppose my aunt and
uncle gave my mother a burial. I really have no idea. I don’t know
what happened to the house. I changed my name to Woods. No one
knows my history or that I am the brother of the Sawyer Shooter. I
hitchhiked around for a long time but I finally settled in a small
town where no one’s ever heard of the Sawyer Shooter. I spend my
time now looking for odd jobs, just enough money for booze and
cigarettes. I don’t like to work at one place for any length of
time. People ask questions when they start to get to know you and
I’m not ready to answer questions. I visit graveyards a lot to
think of Lindy. I hope she is waiting for me somewhere. I keep
waiting for my forever sleep.

My life always feels undone. I feel like I
have left the stove turned on somewhere, the back door ajar or the
iron plugged in. Nothing is ever complete. Nothing will ever truly
be over.

~The End~

About the Author

Marianna Boncek is an English teacher, author, and poet. She
grew up in the Sullivan County Catskills and is a recent transplant
to the Hudson Valley. She has a particularly keen interest in
“lost” local history. Her two books
Gone Missing in New York
and
The Spooky Hudson Valley
were published by Schiffer
Publications. Her poems have appeared
in The Waywanda Review,
The River Reporter, Home Planet News
and
Lifeblood
. She
is a member of the Goat Hill poets.

[email protected]

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Melange

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