The Dark by Denise Turner

It's a glorious summer day and you have just spent the week with your grandparents. Having successfully graduated from the first grade, you brought along your Big Chief writing tablet. You showed them how you could make little a's and big A's. The trick with the little a was to let the tip barely touch the dotted green line. The big letters were allowed to go all the way to the top. You showed them how you could compose letters to people by writing them thank-you notes during your visit. Dear Grandpa, How are you? I am fine. Thank you for the book. Then, Dear Grandma, How are you? I am fine. Thank you for lunch. The notes were signed with love and your full name was written carefully on the last line. They were impressed. Now you are on your way home, with plenty more writing samples to bestow upon your mom and dad. Each one includes drawings of houses with smoking chimneys and smiling suns. The letter to your daddy has five flowers growing beside the house and a curly tailed dog in the yard. You had to erase and re-draw the dog four whole times. Grandma has assured you it looks like a dog. You ask her again in the car on the way home if she thinks Daddy will like the picture. But this time she doesn't answer.

The first thing you notice is the absence. There is a strange emptiness in the house, like someone left all the windows open and the wind came in and took all the smells of home away. The big black Naugahyde chair your daddy sits in to smoke his pipe is missing. His coat is gone. Pictures of the three of you have disappeared, leaving dusty outlines on the hallway walls. Your mom is sitting at the dining room table crying. Behind her, the curtains are open revealing streaks of gray swirling around the distant mountain peaks. Even the sun is vanishing. What will happen now? It's not your fault, you are told. It was a decision they had to make between themselves. They knew it was coming. You did not. Why didn't somebody tell you? What kind of secret is this?

In your bedroom is a black and white photo, sitting on the nightstand. This is so you will not forget him. But the person in the picture looks nothing like your daddy. He is wearing a suit; Daddy would never wear those clothes. He likes jeans and leather jackets and growing his sideburns and packing good tobacco in his pipe. He uses cuss words and lets you watch scary movies and tickles you so hard you accidentally pee your pants. You saw him in the bathroom once, standing up. Your eyes went wide, but all he did was chuckle. Your mom explained that, yes, daddies can pee standing up, but it was not polite to walk in on people in the bathroom. Is that why he left? Or was it because you rode the pink plastic horse after he said not to, and broke your tooth on the driveway? Maybe it's because you tickled his foot while he was sleeping. He never liked that, but you were always compelled to do it. Maybe that's why, you think, as you stare at the picture of this absent stranger. Maybe the wind carried him away because you would not let him sleep.

* * * *

They don't talk about the fallen angels. They never warn you that the shadow hiding in the corner will reach out and snatch your soul.

The winds have taken you and your mom to a different city. You live in an apartment now and the kitchen has a funny light fixture. It looks like a giant orange sliced in half, hanging over the table. There were little worms in the macaroni and cheese one night. Your mom held the pan low so you could see them swimming in the water. Then, she tossed the contents into the garbage and the two of you ate fish sticks instead. You were both independent women now, and would stick together come what may.

You get your very own Barbie Townhouse for Christmas. It has three floors and a yellow plastic elevator that you pull up and down by a string. It's the very best present in the entire world, and you even invite the girl next door to come over and see it. She does not know how to work the elevator. It's easy, you tell her, showing her how to pull the string, but she still doesn't understand. Later, your mom explains that the neighbor girl is different from the other kids. You must be patient.

You relay this little story to the babysitter one night, but she is more interested in watching Kojak than looking at your Barbie Townhouse. She thinks Telly Savalas is cool and likes it when he says "Who loves ya baby?" You pretend to like it too, because she is letting you stay up way past your bed-time.

By the time your mom comes home Kojak is over and you have fallen asleep in the babysitter's lap.

"Wake up, sweetie," your mom whispers. She smells of lilacs and hairspray and coconut cream pie. You open your eyes and grin. "Come on sleepy head." She takes your hand. "There's someone I want you to meet."

He is standing in the doorway wearing a cowboy shirt with pearl snaps down the front. His belt buckle is fat, with a wild red horse bucking against an unknown force. You say hello, as instructed. Be polite. But he only stares down at you with frozen eyes and frowning lips. Suddenly your stomach hurts. He stays too long. He doesn't want to see your Barbie Townhouse and asks your mother when your bed-time is, exactly. After he finally leaves, you tell your mom that your tummy aches. She says the babysitter let you eat too much candy.

The man takes your mom away for a whole week. You go to stay with your grandparents again, wondering why you were not invited. When the week is over you are driven to a little town, far away in the mountains of Colorado. The house is dark and cold and smells like the man who makes your tummy hurt. It smells like the slippery black spots under cars, and scented soap and shaving cream, and old peanut butter and burnt newspaper and dust.

The walls are covered in fake wood and wallpaper that reminds you of scary movies. Even when your mom opens the thick red drapes, the sunlight will not come in. Shadows dart across the wallpaper and the pot-bellied stove; they slither over carpet that is growing bald and crawl into cobweb corners. Your mom can't see the shadows like you can. And no, she doesn't think the wallpaper has tiny screaming mouths in the pattern. She says you have an overactive imagination. She has already begun to smell like him.

Your bedroom is now in the basement and there are spiders and stink bugs in the closet. Your Barbie Townhouse sits in the corner, the elevator broken from someone's careless packing. You wanted to bring your swing-set, the one you had at the first house, the one your grandparents were storing. But the man said no. There is no room for a swing-set in the grassless front yard. There are only the shells of cars and engine parts. Traffic whizzes by along the main road and people hurl trash out the windows. He shows you all the places where the trash collects and hands you a bag. You spend your afternoons squatting over garbage: frayed potato chip bags, A&W napkins, discarded aluminum tabs from pop cans, gas receipts, matchbooks, Pepsi pop bottle tops, half-smoked cigarettes, whitened dog poop and crushed 8-track tapes with the ribbon stretching across the gravelly yard and winding through the rims of rotting tires. The kids from the trailer park across the way can't help but laugh. "Hey Trash Picker-Upper!" they holler. "What's yer name? Don't'cha gotta name, Trash Picker-Upper?"

You pretend not to hear them. You've gotten good at pretending, almost as good as your mom. Only, you cannot go still and silent like she can, staring for hours at a television that isn't on, ignoring the phone and the doorbell and the mean words and the little screams. Sometimes you go up to her while she is sitting in her chair. You crawl into her cold lap and whisper I Love You's into her ear. She rarely responds, but you do it anyway, hoping to bring her back. You don't want her to leave you forever.

He does not like it when you whisper. He does not like secrets, though he makes you keep so many. He doesn't like the way you hold your fork and he doesn't care if you like sauerkraut or not. You will sit at the table until you eat it, and if you don't eat it tonight you will eat it for breakfast in the morning. You are spoiled and it's partly your mother's fault. The good thing, he says, is that God has intervened. He brought a new dad into your life, one who will mold and shape you in accordance with the Holy Scripture. The first time he kicks you with his cowboy boots, it hurts. The first time he removes the thick leather belt from his waist, you tremble. You understand why the wild red horse is resisting. His words strike like little hammers in your brain, pounding hatred so deep inside that soon you forget what it was like to be loved.
You find ways to disappear. Sometimes, you go down into the basement and slide between the furnace and the concrete wall. Other times, you crawl into the cubby hole beneath the stairs, or stand inside the musty shower that no one ever uses because the walls are crumbling into flakey chunks. You practice being quiet. You practice counting. You count your breath, the ridges in the concrete, the soft holes in the shower wall, the number of footsteps coming and going, the number of times your knees twitch. The counting makes you become invisible, if only for a while.

Because no matter where you go, he finds you.

He grabs you and holds you to the floor. He steals your breath with his hands. You squirm and kick until the little white dots are swimming in front of your eyes. Sometimes he lets you go quickly. Other times he makes you wait. You must stop fighting and become perfectly still.

You must learn to obey.

You must look into his face and say, with your eyes, that he is your father and you are his child and this is what you deserve for sinning against the Lord with your foolishness and your defiance and your small breasts sprouting from beneath your shirt and causing wicked, vile thoughts. You must submit and ask forgiveness.

Then he will release you.

The first breath feels like ice-water thundering into your chest. You can't stop coughing. Your ears are ringing and your face is burning and your lips taste like the gritty soap he uses to scrub motor oil off his fingers. Your body is jerking, it's trying to make you cry. You can't let one tear get away. If you do, he will only hold you down again. And again. And again.

Sometimes, your mom wakes from her daydreams and takes you in her arms. The two of you flee to a strange motel, your grandparents' house, the never-ending highway. She apologizes and makes fairy-tale promises. But he tracks her down and makes promises of his own. He buys her perfume that smells like marshmallows and yellow roses. She smiles and cries and tells you it will be better now. But it isn't.

When your mom slips into daydreams again, you silently tell her how much you hate her. Then you crawl downstairs into your concealed cave. You turn the anguish inward, pressing the cool blade of a knife against your skin until the blood begins to run. Somehow, it seems like a release.

* * * *
They don't show you the way out of hell. You search in the pitch-black underbelly of life for something called love. The moment you touch it, it's gone.

By the time you reach high school, you're living in another city with another man your mother met at a bar. He drinks Milwaukee's Best and smokes three packs of Benson & Hedges a day. According to your mother he does a sexy two-step, and his house is nicer than an apartment with mice running along the baseboards. He passes out at the kitchen table most evenings, a lit cigarette smoldering away between his fingers. Your mother says he is her one true love.
Love is something you don't understand. Love is something strange and raw. Your boyfriend says he loves you. Jeff is the captain of the football team and all the girls are jealous. He stays up half the night writing love letters to you, penning bits if U2 lyrics he thinks you will "get" even though you've never liked U2. He has brilliant blue eyes and when he kisses you he trembles slightly. You want to feel what the other girls are talking about, but your hormones are playing squirrelly tricks. The butterflies never dance when Jeff's lips are pressed against yours. Instead they pop up whenever you see your best friend, Shelly. When she smiles at you they flutter, when she winks at you they dance, and when she hugs you the butterflies go wild in your gut. Sometimes, when no one is looking, the two of you will hold hands. Other times, she will whisper a secret in your ear. The secret is a kiss, small and soft on the lobe of your ear. It sends chills across your burning flesh.

You are compelled to be alone with her. When your mom and Milwaukee Boy go out dancing, you invite Shelly over to watch scary movies. You position the loveseat in front of the TV, so that you have no choice but to sit close. If one of you gets scared, you can plunge into the other's embrace. It works, and you spend much of the evening wrapped in each other's arms, munching on popcorn and shrieking whenever Freddy Krueger swipes a sleeping teen with his switchblade fingers.

After changing into your nightgowns, the two of you slip between the sheets of your fold-out bed and begin cuddling. Kissing on the neck, the shoulders, the cheeks and the forehead is allowed. A kiss on the lips has never been tried. Your heart is pounding. Should you take the risk? What if she pulls away? She is the most beautiful girl in the world and she is your best friend. You have never felt anything like this before. She makes you believe in something. Maybe this is love. The butterflies are spinning inside and you are growing dizzy with anticipation.

Tenderly, cautiously, you lean forward. Her lips are as soft as you'd imagined. They are sweet and plump and parted, inviting. The thrill is electrifying, sending quivers of delight to unknown parts of you. The kiss ends with a tiny shriek that escapes her delicious lips. This is the cry ofpleasure, you think, until her hand is pushing on your chest.

"Stop!" she cries. "Oh my god. We're gonna get AIDS!"

"What? No, no. We won't get that."

"Yes!" She sits up now and looks at you with wide, fearful eyes. "Just like Rock Hudson on the news." She starts to cry. "Oh, my god! We're gonna get AIDS. God is going to punish us!"

The next morning you swipe a pack of cigarettes. A week later you get drunk on wine coolers and throw up in a friend's bathroom. Her two older brothers help you clean up. They help you out of your clothes. A few days later you have a new reputation. You let Kenny Hernandez slip a hand inside your blouse outside the girls' bathroom. He doesn't care that you smell like cigarettes and you don't care if God rebukes you for this. God has been punishing you all along. No one understands what happens next. Your mother looks at the emptied medicine cabinet and makes a call. They lock you up in the juvenile psych ward. Your roommate is a girl who sliced her wrists with razor blades. The stitches are still fresh and, she tells you, she'll do it again when nobody's watching.

* * * *
When you think the darkness lives in you, it doesn't matter what they say. Lovers will come and go: new relationships beginning before the old ones are ever really finished. You will visit the ER more than once. You will seek love from those who cannot give it and run from those who say they care, because nothing is ever what it seems to be. Trusting creates knots in your stomach and the leaving always leaves you feeling raw. The storm begins with thundering thoughts. The wild energy strikes all forsaken parts of you with bolts of red fire. In the silent raging winds of night, you become the mad scientist, again and again. Dissecting and slicing through connective tissue, performing autopsies on what went wrong. Are you stupid? Are you ugly? Are you insane? As the thunder rips through your mind, you wield that scalpel in every possible direction-searching for the reason-the defect, the inherent flaw you believe is the cause of this excruciating rejection. If you can find it, you can remove it. And then you will be loved.

One month after your twenty-fifth birthday they pump your stomach. This time you spend two days in ICU, hooked up to monitors while the hallucinatory powers of surplus toxins take their fated course. The nurses keep rushing in to stop you from slapping out imaginary flames. They assure you the room is not on fire. They promise there are no holes in the floor. You are not falling, you are not burning, you are not trapped inside the wall. You are only lying in the hospital bed, see? No reason to panic.

Upon your release from the hospital your neighbor makes a giant pot of vegetable stew and invites you over. She's relieved you pulled through.

"I'm proud of you," she says after dinner. She is pouring leftover stew into a plastic container, because she knows there is no food in your apartment. "Do you know why I'm proud of you?" she asks.

You don't. You are selfish and sick. How could anyone be proud of that?

"Because you called for help." She hands you the packaged stew, along with a little loaf of bread. "Did you hear me? You called for help. I know it's painful, but you are managing an admirable evolution."

It takes a few days before you feel safe enough to sleep, and a few months before the dreams of dying cease to hover above your bed. Even though you're grateful to be alive, you feel like something is missing. Then one night, you have that strange vision again. You used to think it was a dream, but now you know it's real. Now you know that death was an option, but you have chosen to live. So when the vision comes again, you open up and let it in. There is a little girl calling out to you. She is lying on the bed where wild horses run. Blood is rushing from her insides, it is seeping through her turquoise pajamas. She is helpless, but you are not. You have choices. How will you live this life you have chosen? Will you abandon this child? Or will you reclaim what is rightfully yours? Break down the damn door if you have to, but don't you dare turn away. Do not leave her bleeding there, where the spiders and the stink bugs will crawl inside her mind. Go to her, and look inside her soul.

Once you behold her adoring face, the past begins to transform. Suddenly know what you have never known before. You thought this child was broken. You thought her pain was a force of nature that extinguished all hope. But she is beautiful and strong and perfectly made. She has always been this way. Her image was eclipsed by the shadow of another, but her spirit was never destroyed. Once you understand this, once you see her for who she really is, you realize that she's the one you've been looking for all these years.

"Come on," you say softly. "It's time to leave this place. Let's go home."

She looks at you, and in her eyes there live a thousand smiling suns.

* * * *
A few months later, you're standing on the precipice of change. You are trying to build a new life for yourself, but it isn't easy. You've enrolled in a few courses at the local college. It's something you've always dreamed of doing and now the fear is rising. How are you going to make it? Are you crazy? Your job at the little grocery store scarcely covers rent. You are not prepared for this. Classes start tomorrow. You need to do laundry, but only have enough quarters for one load. You look around the apartment and your meager possessions stare back mockingly: a bed, a radio, two chairs. You've barely managed to assemble a life of poverty. Who do you think you are to now set lofty goals? You probably don't have what it takes. Even your mother doesn't believe in you. You took the risk to ask, but she refused to lend you twenty-five dollars for the college application fee. She wept when you asked her. How could you be so selfish? Don't you know she has her own bills to pay?

So you used a chunk of grocery money for the fee and ate beans from dented cans. The student loan is coming, but something will go awry. You will screw this up, just like you always do. The new life you thought you'd have just isn't possible. The healing you thought you'd done just wasn't enough. Maybe you should go down to the campus and drop all your courses. Maybe it's just not meant to be.

You stare at the knives in the kitchen drawer.

Remember that familiar release? No one has to know. You can make one tiny cut, one small sacrifice across the surface of your flesh. It will only hurt for a second.

The little girl you now believe in begs you not to do it. You're free now. Can't you feel your breath? The man is not holding you down, anymore. So why would you spill your blood upon this floor?

You want to turn away from it, but those old feelings are still spinning around inside. They crave a twisted comfort in the sharp edge of the blade. You can count the droplets forming on your arm and disappear into nothingness, if only for a while. Your fingers ache to do it-to annihilate one insignificant portion of this day. What difference will it make?

You reach for the knife.

You hold it in your hands, turning it over and over, watching beams of light bounce across the steel plane. And then, slowly, you put it down. You walk out of the kitchen and turn off the light.

You pile your dirty clothes into the canvas bag. You count the quarters one more time and slip them in your pocket. Closing the door behind, you make the long walk to the laundromat.
Classes start tomorrow. And you're going to wear your favorite pants.