The Last Exit to Normal Read online

  I shook my head. “I thought it was decoration. You know, hanging dead animals around the place to spruce it up.”

  Ever optimistic, my dad smiled. “See, Ben? You’ll learn a ton of stuff around here. Different way of life than the city.”

  My dad, the teacher of wisdom, couldn’t help but direct me in the ways of life and show me how to be positive about things that couldn’t possibly benefit anyone. “Well, as long as they don’t hang me up by the feet to drain, I’m fine with it. I like the wide-eyed dead look, anyway. What’s for dinner?”

  Edward shrugged. “Mom has something going in the kitchen. Why don’t you go ask if you can help with anything.”

  “I’d rather walk through a pit of fire, thank you very much. She’ll rip my head off and crap down my neck.”

  Dad gave me the stare that meant Go.

  “I am seventeen now, Dad.”

  He looked at me. “And we’re guests in her home.”

  I stood up, rolling my eyes. “If you hear screaming, save me.” Then I walked inside, slowing as I neared the kitchen. I called around the corner, “Don’t shoot!” No answer. I could hear her moving, though, and didn’t hear the cock of a gun. Just pots and pans banging against each other. I looked around the corner.

  Miss Mae looked at me, but she didn’t really “look.” Not with a normal-person look. Those eyes ripped through you like she could see to the darkest part of your soul. “Get in here and grab that,” she said, pointing to a basket above the refrigerator. I reached up and took it down for her. She scooted me away with her hands, motioning to the table. I set it down as she opened the fridge. She took a pitcher out, snapped at me to get a glass down from the cupboard, then filled it halfway. “Get that ice out of the freezer.” I did. She plunked ice in the glass, then turned around and handed it to me.

  I took it, surprised. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  She nodded. “That’s more like it. Sit down.”

  I sat. “My dad asked if I could help you with dinner . . . ma’am.”

  “It’s called supper around here, and I told you to sit. If I wanted you to help me, I wouldn’t tell you to sit. Now get me that bowl near the window.”

  I did, then sat in my spot. I sipped from my glass—raspberry lemonade, sweet on my tongue. No battery acid in it. She busied herself with a mixing bowl full of yellow batter, her back to me as she whipped it. I took another sip. “Is that corn bread?”

  “I thought you people lived on that fast-food garbage all the time. Yes, it is.”

  “Edward makes it from scratch, too.”

  She stopped mixing for a moment, her back still to me, then started again. “You don’t have a mother.”

  I shifted in my seat, trying to be a polite young man. “I do, but she’s just not with me now.”

  “I don’t hold account of a woman abandoning her baby.”

  “I don’t know if you would call it abandoning, but . . .”

  “You ain’t with her, now are you?”

  “Well, no, but . . .”

  “Call it what you like. Boy needs a mother.”

  “My momdad does a better job, really. He’s a good cook, and he doesn’t mix colors in the wash.”

  She turned around, her eyes blazing. This is where laser beams shoot out and incinerate me—I knew it! She studied me, and I wasn’t burned to a crisp. A half smile barely slid across her face before it disappeared like a lost puppy stuck in quicksand. She turned back to her bowl. “Get the milk.”

  I did.

  “Eddie’s always been funny that way. Like a girl with boy parts. He’d get razzed by the boys for it.”

  I smiled. She called it “razzed”; he called it getting the shit kicked out of him on a regular basis as a kid. “He’s all right.”

  “No boy should be raised by two men. Puts weird ideas in your head, and from the looks of it, you already got some.” She peered at my piercings, but didn’t say anything more.

  I shrugged. Being a good boy only lasted so long. “Better than being some inbred redneck with two teeth in his head and a corncob pipe stuck up his ass.”

  She glanced at me sideways, still mixing. The old-people skin under her arm waggled. “You got something against country people?”

  “As long as they don’t drag me behind a pickup truck, I don’t.”

  She sniffed. “Come closer.” I took a step closer. She sniffed again. “I smell tobacco smoke on you.”

  I shrugged.

  She narrowed her eyes. “You been smoking cigarettes?” She raised her spoon to me, pointing it at my face.

  “Are you going to whack me with that?”

  “You answer me.”

  “Yes.”

  Her eyes sharpened; then she brought the spoon down on my knuckles. Hard. “You find yourself some manners around me, boy. It’s ‘Yes, ma’am’ to you.”

  I rubbed my knuckles. They throbbed. “Ouch.”

  She threatened me with the spoon again, waving the thing in my face.

  “Ouch, ma’am.”

  She nodded, then held one hand out. “Give ’em over.”

  I didn’t move.

  “Come on, right now. Give ’em.”

  I contemplated running; she couldn’t be that fast. I dug in my pocket instead, handing my smokes to her.

  “And the lighter, boy. Don’t be smart on me, now.”

  I gave it to her. She opened them up, took one out, lit it, and inhaled, leaning against the counter.

  I gaped at her. “You’re smoking my cigarettes.”

  She frowned. “ ’Course I am. Don’t be a rube. Haven’t had one in ages because the doctor won’t let me, and that old bastard Frank at the drugstore won’t sell ’em to me on account of everybody in this town having their noses in my business.” Then she whacked me on the head with the batter spoon hard enough for the sound to echo off the kitchen walls. “And there’ll be no cussing in this house or I’ll put the strap to you.”

  I rubbed my head. I couldn’t believe I was standing here being systematically beaten by an old lady with a wooden spoon. Even the dried gel in my spikes didn’t protect me. And besides that, she’d just stolen my smokes. I looked around for another wooden spoon so I could whack her back, but gave up. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Get on out of here. I’ll holler when supper is ready.”

  She turned to the bowl. I reached for my smokes on the counter and the spoon whipped out faster than lightning and cracked my knuckles again. Then she went back to mixing. “We got ourselves a deal. You get me smokes without Eddie knowing about it and I’ll overlook the fact that you shouldn’t be smoking in the first place. Now get.”

  I walked outside, rubbing my hand. Edward and Dad were still sitting on the porch, and a man was standing at the steps, talking to them. Dad gave me a look when I came out, then turned his attention back to the conversation. The man, a few years older than my dad, looked at me with dark eyes set in a gaunt, weather-beaten face. With skinny arms, legs sheathed in Wranglers, and a tight short-sleeved checked shirt and pointy-toed cowboy boots, he had a pooch over his belt buckle and carefully combed salt-and-pepper hair. Tension oozed from him like bad B.O.

  Dad introduced me. “Mr. Hinks, this is Ben, my son.”

  He gave me a second glance, his face a statue. No nod, no handshake, no hello. His eyes went back to Edward. “Didn’t think I’d ever see you back here, Eddie.”

  Edward gave him a stilted smile. “Didn’t really ever think I’d be back, Norman.”

  Mr. Hinks looked around, swiveling his head to survey the neighborhood. “Some things don’t change.”

  Edward shrugged. “Some things do.”

  “Be here long?”

  Edward smiled. “As long as it takes.”

  I’d never heard Edward talk like he was talking. Usually there was some sort of sarcastic humor in everything he said, but now he was careful. Guarded. Mr. Hinks cleared his throat. “Got me a son named Billy. You’ll see him around, I’m sure.”

&nb
sp; Edward looked at Mr. Hinks’s hands. No wedding ring. “Mrs. Hinks?”

  Mr. Hinks smirked. “Up and left three years back. Never was right in the head.”

  Dad spoke up. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Mr. Hinks glanced at Dad, then turned his attention back to Edward. “You’ll be wanting to leave him be.”

  “Who?”

  “My boy. Not to be offensive about it, but you know I never held account of the way you are.” He nodded when Edward remained silent. “And with us bein’ neighbors and all, I thought I’d just set things straight so we can get along without no trouble.”

  Edward smiled, some of his sarcasm coming back. “It’s not contagious, Norman. Unless you want it to be.”

  Mr. Hinks cleared his throat, a tinge of anger coming into his voice. “I told you I ain’t giving offense here, and I don’t mean no harm, but I got a boy to raise the way I see fit, and you and I see things different. Ain’t nothing else than that.”

  Edward took a drink of beer. “Not like the harm you meant when we were kids, right?”

  Mr. Hinks shook his head. “We ain’t kids no more, Eddie, and I’m not sayin’ that what I did to you when we was youngsters was Christian, but I’m not going to stand here and try to make peace with my neighbor and be put on about it. You live your life and I live mine and we don’t have no conflict. That’s all. I got nothing against you as long as you and yours keep to yourselfs.”

  Dad, of course, didn’t say anything. Edward, surprisingly, didn’t tell Mr. Hinks where to shove it. I smiled, then sat on the steps to the side of them. “You know, I read something once where they said that guys who hate fags actually want to get it on with another dude. You know, some sort of subliminal thing.”

  Dad stared at me like he’d enjoy killing me, Edward sighed and took a drink of his beer, and Mr. Hinks scowled before completely ignoring me. I watched the muscles in his jaw work before he spoke to Edward. “I came over to say my hellos and I guess I’ve done it, and I don’t need no kid mouthing me without getting put in his place for it.”

  Edward nodded. “I guess you have said hello, Norman. Goodbye.”

  After he’d gone, Edward looked at me. “Ever think of going into community relations, Benjamin? You have such a knack for diplomacy.”

  I smiled. “What’s with him, anyway? Going for the Jerkoff of the Year award or something?”

  Dad shook his head. “I don’t think he was trying to start something, Ben. I think he’s not used to different lifestyles, and it will just take a while for him to see that we’re not a threat.”

  Edward smiled. “Yes, we must educate and enlighten, not intimidate and alienate.” He looked at Dad. “Didn’t Liberace say that? Or was it the Pope? I distinctly recollect somebody in the entertainment business saying that.”

  I remembered the deer hanging by its heels, then shrugged. “Well, at least he didn’t alienate himself or anything. God knows we wouldn’t want that.”

  Edward smiled. “You have batter running down your forehead.”

  I wiped at it. “Your mom beat me up with a wooden spoon.”

  Edward laughed. “Don’t mouth her.”

  “How’d you know I mouthed her?”

  He raised his beer and clinked bottles with Dad as they enjoyed some inside joke about me being abused by an old woman with cooking utensils. “Hurts, doesn’t it?”

  I nearly told them she stole my cigarettes, but remembered our deal. If I broke it, she’d probably sneak into my room tonight and eviscerate me with a paring knife. “What’s a rube?”

  “She called you a rube?”

  “Yeah.”

  “A rube is an idiot.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Very funny. Supper’s almost ready.”

  Dad looked at me. “Supper?”

  “Whatever. That’s how they say it around here, and you didn’t just have your knuckles broken by a crazy old bag.”

  Dad lowered his voice. “Respect, Ben. You know . . .”

  Edward laughed. “Paul, if there is one thing my mother is, it’s a crazy old bag. Just don’t say that around her or you’ll wish for the spoon.”

  CHAPTER 3

  The first week of imprisonment at the Redneck Internment Camp for Teenage Degenerates began in my room because I didn’t want to go outside and be lynched. I liked pretending it was a sauna, because if I didn’t, it would be considered an oven. I wondered why the whole town, even situated in a hollow as it was, didn’t shrivel up and crumble to dust in the heat. No wonder Miss Mae’s face looked like a slab of dried leather. Anything would, after eighty years in this heat.

  I didn’t even know how long we were going to be here. Every time I asked Dad, he shrugged and told me that he didn’t know. Wasn’t sure. We’ll see how things go. That—coming from my dad, who was the most consistent and scheduled person in the world—was one thing: bullshit. What it meant was that he didn’t want to tell me, and the only reason he wouldn’t want to tell me was because I’d go off the deep end if I knew. And going off the deep end meant permanent. Or at least until I turned eighteen and skated this joint myself.

  And that meant the grim and dim possibility of school. My grand and supposed-to-be-wonderful senior year. I pictured Rough Butte High School as a one-room clapboard building with a corral instead of a parking lot. Hitch your horse to the rail, step in, and learn your numbers, boy. I’d take my lunch to school in a tin pail just like Laura Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie. Yahoo.

  Life in Rough Butte consisted of two things: being bored and coming downstairs when Miss Mae yelled that it was time to eat. I did see the kid next door, Billy, take a dead cat by the tail, open the gate in the rear of the backyard, and disappear into the fields with it. Pure entertainment.

  By the time I decided I should venture out into no-man’s-land, I’d sweated at least a swimming pool. I couldn’t stand it anymore, and the whopping three channels we got on the TV didn’t cut it, because even if there was a show on that I liked, every time Miss Mae walked by, she grumbled and turned it off.

  Miss Mae was nothing but misery. She didn’t smile about anything, and I wondered if her face would fall off if she did. The last time she walked by and turned the TV off, I turned it back on before she got out of the room. Hellfire and damnation erupted in the house. She spun around quick as a cat, her eyes burning into me. “You got a problem with my television being turned off when I turn it off, Benjamin?”

  “Yeah. I was watching it.”

  “You’ll watch it when I say you’ll watch it.” She stomped over and turned it off.

  I pushed the remote button and turned it back on.

  “What’s the big deal? It’s just TV.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “It ain’t just television, it’s a waste of time for no-accounts that waste time.” Then her voice cracked through the house. “EDDIE!”

  Edward, thinking she’d hurt herself or something, sprang through the front door, then stopped, relaxing when he remembered that his mom didn’t have a nervous system. She couldn’t be hurt. He looked from her to me and back to her. “Yes?”

  She pointed a talon at the TV. “You get this infernal thing out of my house this instant! I won’t have this . . . boy . . . sitting around in my house all day watching it. Out. Out right now or I’ll get your father’s shotgun and kill it.”

  Edward sighed. “Mom . . .”

  She faced him, her eyes challenging. Then she grimaced, nodding her head. “So you think livin’ in the city for all these years makes it just fine to sass your mother? Don’t you think for a second that I can’t strap a full-grown man if I’ve a mind to, Eddie. Get it out of my house!”

  Edward stared icicles at me, like I was to blame. I shook my head. “I was just watching the damn thing.”

  The next thing I knew, Miss Mae’s hand flashed out and I’d just been slapped across the mouth. She peered at me. “I told you I’ll have no cussing in this house. Now get into your room until such a time as I talk t
o your father. Go.”

  I might be a rebel without a cause in my own mind, but I was stunned. I’d never been hit before. Not by an adult, at least. I looked at Edward in wonderment, touching my lip; then I walked up the stairs, utterly defeated by an old lady, and went to my room like a good little boy.

  Dad knocked on the door a few minutes later. “Have a word, Ben?”

  I turned from playing a stupid computer game. “Sure.”

  He sat on the bed. “You’ve got to understand something, Ben.”

  “What? That this place sucks? I understand.”

  “Miss Mae is strict.”

  “Really? Jesus, I hadn’t figured that one out.”

  He stood up, which was totally unlike him. Usually he’d settle in for an hour-long talk. “Mind yourself around her, Ben. That’s all I have to say. You can come out when you’re ready.” Then he left.

  Ready? I was seventeen years old, and they were treating me like I was five. I grabbed my skateboard and headed downstairs. I didn’t care if a punked-out city kid with tattoos, piercings, Converse All Stars, and liberty spikes on his head might cause a few stares in this burg, I had to get out. Miss Mae sat on the front porch, fanning herself. She looked at my board, then at me, like nothing had happened. “What in God’s green earth is that contraption?”

  “A skateboard.”

  “What does it do?”

  I held it up. “It rolls. You ride it.”

  She grunted, eyeing the thing suspiciously. “I don’t hold by nothing that doesn’t have a steering wheel. Good way to break your fool neck, if you ask me.”

  “Want to try?”

  She sneered. “You trying to kill me before the Lord takes me away in his own time?”

  I smiled. “No. I just wanted to see you break a hip.”

  Even though she was still evil, her tone was lighter. “I got myself the ones I was born with and plan on keepin’ ’em until I don’t need ’em anymore.”

  I smiled. “See? Watch.” I flipped the board down on the porch and jumped down the stairs, landing it perfect.

  Her brow furrowed. “Do that again.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t you question me!” she barked, then gestured with a saggy arm for me to do it again. I did, landing it like I did the first time. She nodded, then shooed me away. “Get on out of here, and stay out of trouble.”