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SINISTER

15.

“God damn it, Garren, I told you to keep up with those branches.”

He used to wonder why the daadee hated him. The question had kept him up after bed time, churning in his stomach like hot coals. He’d figured it out, though. Now he knew why.

“Get moving. You hear me?”

During the summer months, his father worked for Manitou Lawn Care, mowing grass and trimming shrubbery for people who didn’t need to get dirty.

“Yes.”

Today, his father and a squat man with a beer gut were removing a dead tree from someone’s property. They were far away from the house, a white structure with large windows that reflected sunshine. Garren had watched them saw a mouth into the dead tree’s trunk, then slice deep into the opposite side with a chain saw. The squat man had pounded a wedge into the cut, forcing the tree to lean toward the side, then snap in half and fall. He’d never seen a tree being cut down before and thought it was interesting. He’d paid more attention to the house. It was enormous, probably big enough for several families to live together and never run into each other. He wondered if the family that lived there had a boy and if he was watching from behind one of those large windows.

“We ain’t got all day. You understand?”

His job was to feed branches to the wood chipper. The wood chipper, in turn, pulverized them and spit their remains into a trailer hitched to one of the company’s old pick-ups. The chipper’s blades were dull and it wasn’t devouring the dead limbs like it should. It was pointless to explain that to the daadee though. Explanations, no matter how reasonable, meant nothing to him. He’d only target something else to rag on.

So he squinted against the sun and looked his father in the eyes. “I heard you,” he said, his voice low and firm. Then he waited to see if the daadee noticed the change in tone. It wasn’t much of a rebellion, he thought. It was three words that disobeyed the subservience that he’d been trained to give his father since birth. He saw the daadee lower his head a tad, a movement like a bull threatening to charge.

“Ah, he’s doing all right,” the short guy said. “He’s just tired, probably out chasing girls all night.”

“He wasn’t chasing no girls.”

His father went back to the fallen tree and raised his chainsaw.

“You bringing the boy to the country club job?” the other guy asked. “That work’ll probably take all summer, bet we can use a strong kid out there.”

“He ain’t strong and he ain’t much of a worker.”

“Maybe you’re not paying him enough?”

Garren smirked and reached for a pile of branches, angled them into the chute and gave them a slight push, enough to let the blades get a grip and pull them the rest of the way. Tiny bits of chewed up tree shot out the chute right away.

“I work cheap,” he told the other worker, “as in for nothing, not one cent.”

His father scowled at him, the constant storm behind his eyes getting bigger. “Room and board is what you get paid.”

Garren licked his lips, tasting the salt of dry sweat. He hadn’t slept well. The guitar… She’d kept him up. Even after he’d laid her in her case, careful and gentle, and slid her back into hiding under the bed, she’d prodded him awake.

“If you had a brain in your head you’d realize you’re also getting an education, Garren.”

The way the daadee said his name, turning the double-r into a growl, made the hatred even more clear. He heard it above the sound of the wood chipper’s hungry grind. Sweat dribbled into his eyes and he had to look away. His hands were in gloves, an old pair his father had worn out, the grime of tree sap and dirt so thick on them they barely allowed his fingers to move. The cheap bastard, he couldn’t even buy his son his own pair of gloves. He swiped at his eyes with his forearm, trying to clear the sweat.

“An education in menial grunt work,” Garren said, “like I want to be an unskilled laborer.”

“What did you say?”

When he looked back, his father was next to him. He was not a big man. They stood eye to eye. Garren licked his lips again. The other worker, he saw, had turned off his chain saw and stood watching the scene.

“You said something. I didn’t hear it. Say it again.”

Garren cleared his throat.

“Come on, say it again.”

“I said you do menial grunt work,” Garren said. “Do you know what menial means or should I explain it to you?”

The shove came fast and certain, a hard jolt from both his father’s hands against his chest. It knocked him backwards and he crashed into the pile of branches. He felt one of them pierce his arm and another slice into his side.

“You eat ‘cause of the work I do,” his father said, leering down at him.

Garren struggled to his feet. His chest hitched as he caught his breath, a sound like crying but, this time, far from it. He felt blood dripping from a long stinging pain in his side and glanced at his tee shirt. Red liquid blossomed into the torn material, blood.

“Uh, he might be hurt,” the other worker called out. “He might be hurt bad.”

Garren didn’t bother to look at his father. He knew he’d find no concern in those furious eyes. He’d see no compassion, certainly no regret or remorse. The man knew only hate because it was a kick to hate his awkward, ugly son. It gave him power and, in some sick and twisted way, pleasure.

“Now you got anything else to say?”

Garren stepped away from the branches. He pulled off one glove, then the other. They hit the ground with a flap as he spun on one heel and began to run. He saw the other worker’s face for a second, noting the way the man looked on him with deep pity. He heard his father yelling, something about being a little girl, and he pumped his arms to break into a sprint as he reached the mansion-like house. He ran off the property and onto the street, getting his sense of direction and heading towards home. His smoke battered lungs wheezed. The cut in his side burned. He did not cry, though, not this time.

The soles of his shoes were thin and the hard running hurt the arches of feet. He slowed to a jog, then to a fast walk. The anger still felt like a whole different person living inside him, but now the being was stronger, less defeated, more… motivated? He didn’t know for sure what to call it. He knew only that whatever coiled in the deepest parts of him was, for some reason, stronger now. It was healing; and maybe, he thought, it had something to do with the guitar that had whispered its addicting melody from its place of darkness under the bed.

* * *

At home, his mother was at the table in the kitchen. She had her waitress uniform on and a piece of toast in one hand She’d burned it, he noticed. An envelope was at the head of the table, the daadee’s place. He recognized the Manitou High School emblem where the return address was and saw that it had been opened. They’d sent a letter home and it was probably about the unexcused absences.

“Your daadee called,” she said. “You need to get back to the job site and finish helping him.”

He hurried to his room, wondering if she noticed the dried blood on his arm and on the side of his shirt. How could she not? He pulled the tee shirt off and tossed it on his bed, a red and white flag on top of a faded blue blanket. He squeezed into a fresh shirt, then stuffed the four others he owned into his backpack. He shoved his socks and underwear on top of them. There was no room for his other pair of jeans, so he left them in the corner. They rode too high on his ankles anyway, he thought. Then he kneeled down beside his bed, the cut on the side of his ribs let a fresh wave of hurt out as he slid the guitar out.

For a moment he remained kneeling, one hand on the case’s top, listening. Her voice was clear, the song a fluid series of guitar notes, each higher pitched than the other. It sounded like screaming in staccato. He smiled because with that powerful phrase of music circling inside his head it didn’t matter that the daadee hated him, or that his mother was certifiable. Those things ceased to have consequence and merit. He returned to the kitchen, the guitar in hand and his backpack secured to his shoulders.

As he headed toward the back door he said to his mother, “Tell daadee I’m tired of bleeding.”

* * *

“Kiddo,” CJ said, rushing out from behind the counter. “What happened to you?”

Garren looked at his side. More of his blood had leaked out of him and stained the new shirt.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “Listen, I need an amp and some lessons and, I don’t know, picks and stuff… And I need it all right away. I have money and – .”

CJ grabbed him by one arm. “Come with me.”

He let CJ escort him through the sales floor. Half a dozen customers were on the floor, some staring up the new guitars, others checking out the amplifiers or accessories. One of them was playing a bass guitar. CJ dragged him into the hallway, then let go of his arm to unlock his office. Garren stepped inside the room.

“Let me see.”

“What?”

CJ pointed at the growing blood stain.

Garren set his guitar down and took off his backpack, then he lifted up his shirt. Now that he looked at it, the cut was pretty bad. It wasn’t that long, maybe about the length of a dollar bill. But it was deep and it had torn a wide valley through his skin. Fresh blood, vivid red, oozed from the deepest parts of the crevice.

“Right now you need stitches more than you need picks and guitar lessons. I mean, what the hell?”

“I fell onto something sharp,” he said. The lie came automatic. He’d downplayed every ass kicking he’d ever been given. Had he been trained to do that, he wondered? Was it part of the weakness that had been installed in him? They’d made him docile, a punching bag of skin and bones, and he’d cooperated.

“Like what, a bayonet?”

“Actually that’s not true,” Garren said. “I got shoved onto something sharp. It’s a long story. Let’s just say that my father, he’s, you know, not a very nice guy.”

“Anyone who could do that,” CJ said and pointed to the tear in Garren’s side, “is a psycho.”

Garren started to lower his shirt.

“Leave it up,” CJ said and went to his desk. “I think we need to tell the police.”

“I’m eighteen, it’s not exactly child abuse.”

“Then it’s an assault,” he said, opening and closing the desk’s drawers. “I know there’s a first aid kit somewhere.”

“You got a lot of customers out there. You know that, right?”

“A bleeding kid takes priority over customers.”

“It’s not like I’m gushing blood,” he said. “So how much do you charge for guitar lessons?”

“You are something else, kiddo. I mean it.”

Kiddo… That made him grin. He’d never been called that before. CJ had done it the first time they’d meet, he remembered. He’d said, “The guitar’s dead, kiddo, let it rest in peace…” He’d been wrong about that, though. She wasn’t dead at all. She had songs inside of her, so many beautiful sounds…

“How about this,” Garren said. “I’ll be your assistant. I’ll go wait on those customers right now and I’ll clean up the store every night and help you run this place. I’ll even clean the bathroom. You’ll pay me with guitar lessons.”

“You don’t know anything about guitars. How will you sell them?”

“I’ll need a key, too,” Garren said, “and your permission to crash here at night.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You’ll teach me everything I need to know and I’ll learn fast, I swear. Is it a deal?”

CJ slapped a drawer shut and stood up. “Like I said, you are something else.”

“So we agree?”

“I can’t find the first aid kit, so go to the drugstore down the street. Buy some rolls of gauze, tape and a bottle of liquid bandage. Then come right back.”

“I still don’t know if we have a deal or not.”

“Okay, kiddo, deal,” CJ said and waved one hand through the air. “Just make it several rolls of gauze and stop bleeding on my floor.”

He looked down. A tiny blood splatter had landed on the guitar’s case. One fat, red drop was on the silver chrome latch.

“If you get an infection and die I am not responsible.”

“I’m cool with that,” Garren said. “See you in a minute.”

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