Jane Olmsted, Movie Lines (short story)

“Of course I did, I was an addict. But I got out. Having Tyler forced me out.” “Did you get pregnant and just quit?” “Not right away. He used to cry all the time. About drove me nuts. I went to live with my Gram, over in Fayetteville, and her family. Gram used to hold him for hours. She just took out her hearing aids and rocked him, and eventually he’d fall asleep or eat or be still. I cleaned up on my own for awhile, but then got into it again with Tyler’s dad. When Tyler was about five, she told me her and my aunt would take care of him. I didn’t know what she meant, but the next day, the police came and picked me up. Long story short, I was committed. I went to a place in Louisville. Ten Broeck.” “You’re kidding. My sister went there too.” “Yeah? When was that? I was there in ’99.” “Did you know Cecily Collins?” “Jesus. You have to be shitting me. That’s your sister?” “You knew her? You’re that Edna?” So what. So someone’s sister meets someone’s mother in a crazy house, and then later that someone and the mother meet up in a mine shaft. Stranger things happen every single day. Like watching his dad look up from licking a plate and say, “Whose kid is that?” Like listening to his dad screwing some girl in the back of the truck, while he fiddled with the radio dial to drown out the slurring words, “Whatcha wanna spoil it for with one of those,” and “Take me there, baby.” Like standing on the side of the road after his dad kicked him out of the truck for backtalk and watching the taillights fade. Like walking for three hours till he got home and saw the truck parked in the driveway, then inside heard his dad snoring, and climbing upstairs to his room and into his bed, his legs so tired they vibrated, and his cat crawling over them and settling against his chest. She licked his hand and then his arm, and when a tear rolled down his cheek, she crept up some more and touched his face with her paw. He’d flung her away, but she came right back. He felt her throat with his fingertips and the rumbling peaked, then quieted to a mumble. So what. It didn’t mean anything. Walking home that night he went over and over it, what he’d said that was so bad as to cause his dad to make him walk home at two in the morning. They’d gone to someone’s big house outside Harlan, someone who was running for sheriff. Some dare-a-lick from Texas with big cowboy boots caught Tyler by the arm as he was walking past and pulled him between his legs. “I’ll give you $5,000 for this.” “He’s worth twice that.” In the truck he’d said, “You spent more’n that on this piece of shit, and it don’t even do your dirty work for you.” Smack. “If that’s all the respect you got to show your father you can walk home and think about all I done for you.” A few cars passed. After the first one slowed down, he started hiding in the weeds whenever he heard the whine of tires. He didn’t want to run into that Texan out here. Crouched there he watched a car full of partiers go off the road then get back on. A weak moon shed enough light to lay a ribbon through the trees where the road was. Coyotes on all sides yipped and howled. An owl cut a shadow across the sky. Crawling things rustled the leaves around him and from far away a dog’s bark became a yelp and then silence. He could live with the animals, he thought, someplace like where his daddy’s strange uncle lived deep in the holler. Uncle Newby was crazy and everyone made fun of his hillbilly ways. Pipe. Piss can. Fishing pole. Green and blue bottles hanging from the trees. His mom used to say how living up there was just fine till someone broke a leg or got their foot caught in a trap. So what. Accidents happen all the time, beginning with how you happen to get this mother and father and not another. No one planned that. Not even God knew. That wasn’t the sort of detail that God took time with. So what if everyone went to church and said one thing and went home and did another. It wasn’t good or bad. So what if his daddy died in jail. So what. ~~~~ He’d fallen asleep but awoke when something flashed against his eyelids. He opened his eyes and waited. He could hear footsteps. Then another flash. Then silence. “Are you there, Tyler?” He held his breath. Another flash, this time closer. More silence. Then, “Ah, there you are. I’ve got your picture here. Do you want to see?” Her hand brushed the top of his head as she sank down beside him. She held the camera toward him and it lit up, showing a small square where his face rose out of a brown background, his eyes like Gollum’s eyes. “I told your mom I’d come find you. She’s got a bad headache. She really bashed her head when we ran into that wall, that’s why she didn’t come herself. She’s worried about you.” He wanted to say, “A boy’s best friend is his mother,” from Psycho, but his voice croaked, so he stopped. She lifted her arm and laid it over his shoulder. “Is it okay if I do that? I’m kind of cold and you’re warm.” He nodded and pressed his legs together so she wouldn’t smell the piss on his pants. “I think you’ve had a hard life for a little kid. You shouldn’t be worrying about how the adults in your life are going to survive. You should be playing with kids your age, maybe be on a baseball team or something. Or maybe, seeing as you’re smarter than the average bear, maybe on an academic team. Do they have those at your school? “You know I lost my dad when I was twelve, not much older than you. He got killed in a car wreck. My mom took it hard so I felt like I had to take care of my two little sisters, you know? Kind of like, if I didn’t then something bad would happen. When you’re in the middle of something it feels like it’s never going to end. But, you know what? My baby sister is like elastic. She snapped back and put her great big heart into her horses. She’s going to be a vet someday. My other sister took it harder. She got into a lot of trouble and did a lot of damage to, well, to everyone she knew, especially her family. Cuz it’s your family that’s easiest to hurt. You love them most and you hurt them most. Kind of funny, don’t you think? Kind of backwards. Your mom was in the same place my sister was and your mom helped her, and I’m grateful for that, because, you know, my sister’s my best friend. And she’s doing okay now. Like your mom. Turning her life around. “So I just thought you might like to know that everybody’s got a story. Your story belongs to you, but it’s also part of your mom’s and your dad’s story. And I sort of wondered what you thought of that.” Was she asking him to answer? He thought for awhile, but nothing came to him. “You talkin’ to me?” “Now, don’t pull that one on me. I already heard you say that earlier.” “You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.” Like Razzo Rizzo pissing himself on the bus. “You’re not a bum. Have you seen the movie Little Man Tate? You remind me of that kid a little. He was a genius. It was hard for him to fit in. And another similarity, you know, is that his mother loved him a whole lot, like your mom does.” “Oh good, that makes me feel so much better.” “I think you’re being sarcastic, but I’m going to pretend you mean it. I’m sure that’s from a movie and I’m not really talking to Tyler. Maybe it’s a good thing, since you’ve got such a good memory and have seen so many movies, so you can still express yourself, but it seems like a bad thing, too. You know what I mean?” “I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, ‘bad’?" “God, you’re good. What’s that from, can you tell me the name of the movie at least?” “Ghostbusters.” “Ah. Well, okay, then, what’s bad about it? I could tell you but I wish you’d tell me yourself. If I swear that it will never leave this mine, will you tell me?” It was tempting to stop rifling through the files in his brain, where the movies lined up like books on a library shelf. And here was Diana with the yellow hair and orange streak and she didn’t know that most of the lines he used were ones he’d already used, over and over. They sounded new to her, so she thought he was clever, but they were old and tired. It’s bad to have people living in your head and telling you what to say. Sometimes their voices get so loud that they don’t let you sleep, and sometimes it’s hard to remember what you meant to say because what they’re saying is not it at all. It’s like breathing stale air. The words are someone else’s air and you’re speaking it. But he didn’t say this, and she didn’t ask any more. When she stood up, she pulled him up, and they walked back to where his mother lay on her side. He sat down in front of her and put his hand over hers, where it rested on her forehead. She whispered something and wiggled her little finger against his. His hand was cool and steady against the trembling iciness of hers. No one spoke and eventually she and Diana fell asleep. He listened to them rebreathing the air for a long time, then he, too, fell asleep. In his dream, he heard his granddad calling their names, and three strong beams of light swept over them. The three of them wept as they stood and hugged their rescuers. His legs no longer hurt, as if the rash had dissolved. In his dream they stepped out of the mine and into a late afternoon sunset with orange that streaked across a yellow sky. The sun itself was a great red balloon on a string that someone on the other side of the world was tugging down. He woke with the sound of his own voice: “They’re coming. They’re coming. I can see them coming.”