It Was Easy

It was an easy choice...

She always sent me outside. She'd smile, hand me whatever toy was within reach and send me out into the yard. She'd make sure that I was in sight from the window. She'd even give me a carton of apple juice. Mom was thoughtful.

But not thoughtful enough

The fucking yard was always at least 85 degrees on a Palm Spring fall day. I suffered. There were days where I had no choice but to move along with the shadows of the house. I just had to wait it out... play a little longer. It was always "Mommy's making a surprise." "Mom's gotta wrap the gifts."

I was a child. I wasn't dumb. One look at my father... and it was clear. Another argument. He never confirmed it. He never had to. There was an exchange. There was fuming and loathing... That's all he currently had for my mother and then when he turned to me... There was a stern reassurance that we were both in agreement.

This was some bullshit.

He hated sending me outside in the heat and he tried to stop her. The façade was relentless. The delusions were getting worse day after day. She started painting the kitchen this apricot green. She even started buying all the retro-fitted appliances. At any given moment, if she were left to her own devices, mom would sit by the window and endlessly hum. QVC started showing up more than Amazon... Her persona changed in the span of 6 months. She went from a normal mom to this weird eccentric version of what Dad and I had been forced to know.

"Got damn it, Sheryl, the kid isn't dumb. And for fuck sake, didn't-" Dad was sharply interrupted, mom spun on her heels and nearly spat in his face before turning back to me. Well, there I was ... outside.

The air felt weird that day. It felt like the moment right before licking a D battery. It was charged. The air was electric and of course, hot as hell. It was around noon. There was a large shadow that I could survive in. It faced the kitchen window. Where I could see the silhouettes of my parents. Their pantomiming and the shouting didn't leave much to the imagination. We were having money problems. The spending was getting out of hand and construction was well... that's pretty much been at a halt so Dad's been trying his hand at real estate. I guess he brought in a lot... but Mom had some new habits.

Same shit, different sweltering day.

At one point, I could remember begging my dad just to leave her, take me with him. To which he just shook his head. I was joking... really. I asked if he was thinking about killing her. He was motionless, he didn't even blink. I want to believe that was the first time he thought about it. I watched a bead of sweat fall into his eye, the sting bringing him back.

"Go to bed, Kiddo... It's getting late."

It's not like I thought about it all the time... it was just that statically speaking our neighborhood had the ability to hide a body. My father was in construction... There are always a lot of holes that need to be filled. But he had been working on the real estate side a bit more... that could have worked. Their drinking buddies had a farm in Riverside... and they were proud of their pigs and all the little piglets that they were producing. Not that the piglets would be effective. Rumor has it... it's the moms. They make quick work of a corpse... otherwise it could take two weeks. Shit, it was Palm Springs. If I were strong enough... I would have tied her to the iron swing set in the middle of the yard. Just to show her how it felt. You know... I go to school with this kid, DJ... Word is, give him 50 bucks and he'll burn a house down. It was a pipe dream that stabbed at the back of my mind... that's all. These thoughts... weren't all the time...

That wasn't my focus in the heat that day. My thoughts and eyes were focusing on the storm in the distance. It was weird, I've never actually seen a storm creep up before then. It was miles away, I could see it looming over. I couldn't smell the rain in the distance, but I remember hearing something in the storm. My parents yelling at each other didn't help. It was the first time I've ever seen a dust story. I was transfixed on the low clouds rolling in on one another. How the dirt and debris swam in circles, dipping, and diving over the homes. The clouds were thick and dark, nearly black... the sound coming in the distance. At the time it sounded like rain but there was something distinct, from a dream I had. It... It reminded me of what Rain on wind chimes sound like. A metallic melody That melody grew louder and louder

I was so lost in concentration, I didn't notice that I had walked into the neighbor's backyard. Shit, I was 3 yards over from mine. I was so transfixed by the sound, I couldn't hear my parents arguing anymore... just their screams. At that moment, I remembered what the sound was so familiar. It was the sound of metal colliding together. Dad was trying to make it to me... He never had the chance before whatever was making those sounds serrated his flesh from his clavicle to his chest. I heard a new set of voices... the neighbors, screaming for me to get it. They thought it was a tornado and had a wine cellar.

We were down there for about 3 hours. By the time we came out, it was nightfall... the cops had shown up. My dad was dead and I wasn't going to stay with her alone... They never would have believed that SOUND killed my Dad my less the fact that SOUND could have been seen? They would have never understood that the dust storm carried th- It didn't matter... "I saw mom... I saw mom with the chainsaw..." is exactly what I told the cops.

It was easy... I survived.