WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1) (56 page)

“Why do 
you
 think you feel responsible for others Willodean?”

“I asked you first.” I snapped back. 
Why was I so mad?

“It’s okay to feel anger Willodean. It’s a healthy emotion if channeled.”

“Oh really?” I spat. “Well it doesn’t feel healthy to me. Why can’t I just take care of me, not worry about what everybody says or does? I mean, shit. I have no idea w
ho I am. I don't feel anything but pain, pain and more pain.   Am I just made of pain?”
I moaned and grabbed my head, fumbled with my hair, wrapped my arms across my chest, paced across the rug.
A restlessness took over my body. 
I sat down on the couch, got up from the couch, walked back to the window, and then back to the couch.

“I feel like I need to ask someone to tell me how I’m supposed to feel because I really don’t know what I feel anymore. Or if I ever did. Or…if it’s even normal to feel in the first place
. Am I normal?” I glared at Doc, my eyes on fire. 

“What is normal?” Doc says shrugging her shoulders. I hate her answering my questions with a question, psyche babble protocol.

“
I’ve never been normal Doc. 
I don't know what normal is. I’ve always felt different. I hated it. Just hated it and I hate feeling that I hate it. I hate feeling period.
And then I feel guilty for hating it.  What kind of crap is that? 
All I do is feel. I’m sick of it. Dammnit!” I flew across the room stomping and pretending I was on top of wallpaper Branson.
The idea of hurting him gave me satisfaction, if only temporary. 
“You know, instead of feeling, I'd rather be nuts. At least being nuts you don't feel.”

I glared at Doc u
ntil her she won the stare off and I had to blink. 
She wasn't going to speak until I answered my own questions. I felt helpless and slumped to the floor, in front of the couch, my arms flaying across the cushions. I screamed into the pillow again, my madness muffled into the fabric seams. 
I will probably have to buy this pillow from her. We have become to close.
 
What the hell is wrong with me? I feel like a kid, a lost goddamned kid.
 After my insidious screams and the office rampage, I was exhausted. I was so empty I could barely lift my head. I had never felt that much anger and actua
lly let it express itself in me and out of me. 
I felt exposed and vulnerable as if someone stabbed hot poker holes in me. The Willow tree
was damaged and leaked.  It cried and wept and flowed with southern sap.  A
multitude of redeeming tears spilled out from the rooms, inside the house. Loud wailing cries could be heard in my gifted ears.
I could hear the little girl crying with me. 

“I have all these things in my head that make me crazy.” I said making little motions with my hands a
s if my words didn’t make sense, so I was air drawing it like a child. 
I grabbed three tissues out of the Kleenex box in front of me, blew my nose fiercely, and waved them like a white flag of surrender while babbling
on and on. 
Doc was more attentive that ever. And then I realized why. I was talking about myself. 
Not Branson.
 
No one else. Just me. Me. Me.
Me. 

“I have things in my head I’ve always felt but never told anyone.” I said tasting the salty bitterness of my tears on my lips, their salvation giving me room to breathe, to be. “Words stuck inside me, deep inside me and held down by something, never validated by a voice, stuffed down, put there, unwelcome. It’s like they’ve been there forever, just waiting on me to spell them out, speak them, acknowledge them, talk about them, and make them exist.”
I noticed my speech getting faster. 
“Each word is like a piece of me, a puzzle of who I was, who I am,
who I lost, somewhere, long ago. 
Chapters, big chapters, books and more books, whole damn libraries, I think…” Doc’s face was lit
up like fireworks. She nodded at me, and continued writing. 

“Every time I get closer to me …the real me, these demons are set loose waiting for their moment to be known. And that scares me, so I shut down. In a strange way, they protect me from myself. I don’t understand it exactly, I can’t put my finger on it.”

A wall had been broken down. 
For so long, I shut off my needs, my thoughts, my wants, my desires, and my plans for life. 
Me. Willodean Hart. I lost me, I shut me out. I locked me out. I denied me. I rejected me.
 People didn’t have to reject me. I did a fine job of that, 
all by myself
.

Holy Smokes. I h
ad to sit and soak on that one thought.  It was
a revelation. I did not like who I had become. 
But why?
How did I get here? 
Why are there so many blanks? Wh
y can’t I remember? 

“Willodean.” Doc said in her slow, petite calm voice. “Do you know why you were so hard on yourself? Do you remember where it started?”

I didn’t even think about it. 
I could feel it climbing up my throat and clawing its way out of me from the rejection room. The loomin
g Lena room spewed and spurted down the hall. 
The words exploded in my own voice before I could decipher them.

“Do the right thing Willodean. You don’t want people talking, ya know. They’ll judge you, talk bad about you and reject you. Don’t do that. Don’t say that. Don’t be that. You’re not good enough. Be more. Do more. Be Better. You’ll never live up to your name. Try harder. Be more. Do more. Make your bed. Live the lie
—and my mother…she…” I stopped suddenly, my air cut off. 
I sank back against the cushion.

“What about your mother?” Doc said looking up. “You’ve haven’t said much about her?”

“And I’m
not going to start now.” I said matter of fact. 

“But…”

Ding!
 The timer
that ended my session rang out. 
Saved by the bell.

Liberators and Dirt Dancers

We call ourselves the loggerhead liberators. We scan roadways for suicidal turtles, those daredevil ones, who have a tempt-fate, stare-death-in-the-face mindset. We’ve saved countless from total annihilation, I’d dare say, even extinction. Well, okay, except for that 
one
 time.

Dad couldn
’t function without a cigarette. 
Brutus was having an overhaul in the tinker shop, so he had no choice but to drive Mis
s even with Lena's bent eyebrow melting him to a puddle of water.  Dad’s life in the fast lane
was a little too rough for Lena’s forty-mile
an hour pace.  A
fter all, he named his first born after James Dean, which ought to give hints to his loyalties.
For Mag and I, a store run meant two things, candy and soda pop. 
Dad was driving the tread off Miss when he turned on a dime, skidded the corner on two wheels and slung Mag and I, every which way but yonder. Lena Hart would be all kinds of pissed off if she knew Miss was being treated like a demolition racetrack piece of trash. Dad said what she doesn’t know, won’t hurt her, plus his tootsie roll bribe sealed our lips shut. Dad was in a nicotin
e fit and taking it out on Miss when Mag spotted him.  He was creeping along in the middle of the road. 

“Stopppp! It’s a turtle!”
Mag screamed. 
The radio blared so loud dad didn’t hear her and
passed the turtle. 

“Daaadddddd!” Mag screamed a conniption but it was hard to hear anything because dad had the radio full blast with M-m-m-Mel Tillis as dad called him. Finally he slowed and
turned the radio down. 

“What is it?”

“TURRRTLE.” Mag said pointing behind us.

“Ohhhh hell.” Dad said sighing. “Is that all. A turtle rescue, huh? Now?”
He agreed but the nicotine withdrawal said it better be quick.  Dad always turned into a kid when we did a rescue. 
Lena Hart said men never grow up.
That always bothered me. 
Why not women? Why did we get the raw end of the deal? I don’t want to grow up either.
Life wasn’t fair and I didn’t like it one bit.  Since then I’ve wondered why females are cursed with adulthood. 

Dan spun the wheel, slammed the gear in reverse, thronged the gas and skidded backwards stirring up rocks and dust clouds. Mag and I soared
left and right and all over the car. 
Riding with dad meant several things but none of them involved staying in one place. Dad stops and throws M
iss into park.  Mag was all dramatic making sound effects
and bouncing up and down. I climbed over the seat to get a better look.

“You aren’t even close, dad.” I said giving him the cracker jackass look. “It’s like a thousand feet away.” I was exaggerating but
questioning his driving always got him to pedaling. 

“We gotta save him Dad.” Mag said whining. “Hurry.”

“Well, alright then.” He threw the Mercu
ry in reverse again. 
Dad gets moody without his cigs but a stee
ring wheel is a good substitute. 
The Mercury prissy pot Goodyear tires squeal and boil smoke until we lose sight of the turtle, the road, trees, buildings, signs, surroundings, everything. Dad has to make a Dukes of Hazzard show of everything. Mag and I brace while Dad pitches the radio back up and floors it. Merle Haggard blares out the perfect lyrics. 
Mama tried to raise me better but her pleading, I denied. That leaves only me to blame 'cause mama tried.
 This motivates him to dirt track mode. He’s into the ditch, zigzags back to road, back to ditch, spins out, and revs motor up, screeches tires.
Mag and I are holding on for dear life. 

“Dad!” I shout over Merle’s voice.

“Eeekkk…don’t smash it.” Mag screams and cups her hands over her face. Dad slams on the brakes. Mag and I ricochet until we have to peel our faces off the plastic seat covers. The music fades, the gears lock down and dad turns around.

“See…” he says. “It takes skill. I didn’t smash the turtle.” Dad thinks every situation s
hould test your driving skills. 
Turtle rescues included. “Now hop to it.” He said snapping his fingers. “Let’s get this done and over with.” His voice was snippy which meant if he didn’t get a cigarette in approximately five minutes—we were toast and the turtle would be left behind to defend for himself.

“LIBERATOR!” Mag and I screamed and raised our hands at the same time.

“You did it last time.” I
said.  My cheeks swelled like a bull frog. Mag doesn’t
remember fairness when it involves her not getting a turn.

“No I didn’t.” She spat. Her tongue sparked venomous saliva until I thought my skin might fall off from the burn.

“Yes YOU did.” I
yelped.  I
was not giving in to her poisonous spit. Mag’s knows darn well she liberated a turtle rescue two weeks ago. “You can’t liberate all the time, right dad?” I looked to him for a resolution.

“Just calm down girls. Stop arguing. By the time you two finish hem hawing the turtle will be long gone. I don’t give a damn who gets the turtle but somebody better get it quick or we’re outta here.”

Mag and I stare and make ugly faces at e
ach other. 
Dad points to his watch. He was a stickler on the democracy of debate, plus he was out of cigarettes. 
Bad combination.
 Dad made us work out all our disagreements. He didn’t care if we disagreed till we turned ten shades of purple, but by damned, before bedtime, a decision better have been made, or it would end in a red ass. 
His decision.
 Dad liked personal choices, resolution, and a thick belt, if needed to enforce his policy.

“Times up. What’s it gonna be?”

“Fine.” Mag said sighing. “I’ll be lookout.” I couldn’t believe it. 
Finally
. Democracy in my favor. I liked being the liberator, because it gave me a sense of heroism. The lookouts job is to 
look
 for approaching vehicles and give warning to the liberator. In Mag’s case, the warning is a piercing scream that makes one deaf and scares warts off frogs. The esteemed job of a liberator is to risk life and limb to rescue the turtle from peril. It’s a dangerous job but someone’s got to do it.

“Go!” Mag yells. I make a mad dash for the middle of the road. I’m barefoot and the pavement is scorching hot. The sun is beating down so bright I can barely see. By the time I got to the suicidal tortoise, I felt like I'd just walked on hot coals and the su
n made my eyes leaky and blurry. 
A liberator has to do what a liberator has to do, despite peril, foes, blinding light, hot pavement. The rescue must go on.