The Dirty South (Chapter 5)

Beth had been a frail woman her entire life. Mousy voice. Unkempt hair. She was balding now. Soaked in piss. Pure horror written on her face. This is her now.

When it was then, she had a husband, a son, and a career as an at home telemarketer. Always cut the crust from the PB and J’s. Always had dinner ready at home for her husband after a hard day. They watched cartoons together, she and her boy.

The husband fell out of love with her not long after they had their son. The sex dried up almost immediately. She was willing to go through with it and hide her reluctance, but he was never in the mood. He seemed distracted. She hated to get physical anyway. She would recoil at Keith’s touch out of reflex. Eventually, even hugs felt like a violation on the island of Beth.

When Anthony turned three, there was an accident. Her husband swerved on the highway at the wrong time and killed the boy who was in the back seat. Keith had joined Beth in her despair- but in a separate room. They were over. She knew. That was cast aside to her grief- her real loss.

Beth knew it was an accident. The husband who had become distant would never have harmed a hair on the son he barely knew.

When Anthony left, time seemed to linger. She would concentrate on the distant second hands clicking on the large clock in the kitchen until the trance would end and hours had passed. She would try to find distractions but nothing was ever brought to completion.

When Keith left, she stared at the front door of their old house for an eternity. Beth went to the kitchen to prepare supper for three. She collapsed into a heap on the floor and sat there at first before laying back onto the linoleum floor. The coolness crept through her blouse and stung her back. She ignored it and closed her eyes to release the dam of tears.

Her job was still unsatisfying, but now she was indifferent. Death would be a gift, but her mind was in too much of a fog to do anything about it.

She would brush her rat’s nest of hair for hours looking into the mirror.

Whatever point this life was to have was erased.

Eventually, it was necessary to downsize from the 3 bedroom house to a single bedroom apartment.

The repetition was the only control she had any more. Wake up and shower her tired body. Eat a slice of dry raisin toast with cable news on all day in the background. Log into the call center from her desktop computer. Heat up macaroni and cheese or a TV dinner and brush her hair in silence for hours- once until her scalp bled. It stung but it was a good pain. It was welcome.

It was cold in her empty apartment especially in one particular corner. Odd for Charleston, but she didn’t even blink an eye from her trance to care. One night the convenience of too many sleeping pills presented itself. She unfortunately for her eventually woke up.

But one day she finally awakened from her trance. It was a cartoon that did it. Deputy Dog had replaced the cable news without her notice. Beth stretched and removed her headset. Did she mindlessly change the channel before going to sleep?

The remote was on a couch cushion instead of the coffee table. The comfort of her daily routine had cracked. The TV wasn’t changed back to the cable news but instead, she just shut it off without much thought. She then replaced the remote to its standard home on the coffee table two inches to the right of a stain on the glass surface that had never been cleaned. Old milk from Anthony. A sippy cup size ring. It was proof that he had ever existed and would always be as long as the stain continued as if a beacon.

Days later this occurred again. Deputy Dog like she and Anthony had watched numerous times. She shut it off and placed the remote two inches to the right of the stain.

The next time the issue presented itself she turned the television back to cable news and said aloud in almost a whisper, “Anthony, please stop.” Although there was no answer, it did in fact stop. Maybe that meant that it really was her boy just trying to watch cartoons with his mom. She shrugged it off for as long as she could, but after four whole days, she apologized to the room and begged for Anthony to come back to Mommy.

The television remained on cable news. This mystery was all she had. The only hope Beth could ever hold on to. After those four long days since she had apologized, she turned the channel back to Deputy Dog. The news could wait- and it did. After three weeks she had a moment of clarity where she realized just how insane she had been. What a fool. She knew just how worthless she had been. She couldn’t even commit suicide right.

Beth shut the TV off and her odd fantasy of getting her son back was to go away, too. Except for the reflection on the old glass screen which outlined Anthony sitting on the couch. She dropped the remote with a clatter and almost fell into another chair but caught herself.

“Anthony? Baby?” she slowly leaned toward a proper angle only to see an empty couch reflected back to her. She started calling toward the ceiling in an instinctive call to her boy who must be in heaven, “I’m sorry! I’ll turn it back on! Come back to mommy, baby!” She turned Deputy Dog back on but he was gone. She sat next to the spot he had been reflected as occupying and silently cried. A chill crept over her body.

She called out of work the next day to see if he would come back. A little voice of doubt told her that she had seen what she had wanted to see and Anthony couldn’t have been there. He died in a car wreck and there was nothing to undo that.

Luckily, it took only two days before he had returned. She cried tears of joy but didn’t want to scare him off. There he was, lying with his chin on his chest as he was flat on his back. He was wearing what looked like a blue shirt with a truck on it. It could have been just Deputy Dog reflecting back onto him, but she recognized the shirt. He wasn’t dressed in that outfit when he had died. Maybe it was his favorite.

“Baby, would you like a snack?” she asked in a broken voice eventually. He didn’t move or show any sign of acknowledgment. He couldn’t see her was the only possibility. Why would he ignore his mommy?

This continued for weeks. She tried working again but she didn’t want him to leave. The emails stopped not long after her last log in.

Keith left a message for her. Beth hadn’t even heard the phone ring. She had missed a meeting with both of their attorneys. It didn’t matter as the only thing that had kept her waking up before was her boy and he was back.

She found herself smiling again. She didn’t want to miss a second with Anthony. He would leave only when she slept. Beth never witnessed it. His hours were odd and would come and go throughout the day with a few short stops at night. Sometimes he would wrap his arms around his legs and lay sideways. Other times, he would rock back and forth or seemingly hum along to a song. Anthony never made a sound, however. He laughed a few times but only in the reflection.

Beth awoke freezing one morning around four only to see a barely visible outline of Anthony that could be seen outside of the reflection. There were no discernable features yet, but it was progress. Her attempts at speaking with him amounted to nothing again.

If she continued this way, what would happen next? Eventually could she hold him again? Brush his hair? Hear his squeaky voice once more?

He came clearer into view over time, but never gradually. One night he would be a thin whisper of an outline only to have a nose the next day. His smile could be seen next. Each time it grew colder. She turned the air conditioner on for maximum cool in case this would speed up the process, but it made no difference. Anthony would appear at whichever pace he wanted and Beth was grateful.

One day, she was in the kitchen rinsing off another plate she had neglected when a clear laugh could be heard from him. It was a laugh that wrapped around her insides and warmed her heart the same way as the day he was born and gave his first cry. She laughed, too.

Beth didn’t hear the phone at first, but once she saw Keith’s name, she answered it.

“Keith! Hey!” she was so full of joy.

“Beth?” this wasn’t a side of her he thought he’d ever see again.

“Yes, it’s me,” she smiled. He’s going to laugh, too. He’s going to come back and they’d be a family again. She wouldn’t pull away ever again. She had never been this happy.

“Why haven’t you been answering your fucking phone?” he was irritated.

“I’ve got great-”

“This is important, god dammit,” he said over his car’s air conditioning on max.

“I know, Keith, I-” she tried to tell him.

“You know what? Just what the fuck do you know, Beth? Jesus Christ, you need to sign the papers.”

She nodded and tried again, “Yes, I know, Keith, but it’s Anthony.”

“Listen, I’m hurting, too,” he became louder. “Did you forget that he was my son, too? You think you’re the only one who was torn apart? You don’t think I don’t blame myself or think about him every second of every fucking day?!”

“Yes, but-”

“Am I not allowed to grieve? I wish I had the opportunity to just shut the fuck down like you, but I can’t. I have bills. I…Just…Just sign the papers and I’ll leave you alone. Please,” he came almost to a full stop in his rage and was now breathing heavy on the other side of the phone attempting to cool off.

“He’s back, Keith,” she smiled. “Anthony came home to me.”

“What?” he asked.

“Our son! Our son is back!” she was so overjoyed to tell someone- anyone.

There was silence for a long time before Keith spoke again, “Are you out of your fucking mind? You don’t get to do that to me.”

“No, no,” she shook her head. “It’s true, Keith! It’s true, baby! We’ve been watching cartoons and now I heard him laugh and-”

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Keith was going to boil over now. “You are sick, Beth!”

She did as she was told. She looked at the empty couch where Anthony had been. They had never argued in front of him before and he must have been scared and ran away.

“You know what? Fuck it. I was hoping this could have gone better, but you’re so much worse than I had ever imagined,” his tone hinted that he was about to hang up.

“Keith, don’t-”

“You’ve got 47 days left to sign and if you don’t it goes into effect anyway. Goodbye,” and he hung up with a clicking sound.

She was alone again. Beth fell asleep on the couch curled up in her seat waiting for Anthony to come back.

It was freezing the next afternoon when she woke up with a startle. The power was out. She had cut off the outside world and now they had cut her off, too. No power, no Deputy Dog- and no Anthony. Panic set in but only for a moment as she saw Anthony clearer than any time since he had come back. He was almost solid and had a blue glow about him.

She sat next to him smiling and said, “Hey, baby. Mommy is so excited that you’re here.” He still didn’t acknowledge that she was here. How long until he could? He’d never become solid as that would be impossible. Right? How would their interactions be in another week? A month? Beth attempted to run her fingers in his hair but her hand passed through him.

She began to cry again. She was surprised that she even had the energy or tears to do this little thing. How many pounds had been lost she didn’t know.

In the middle of her crying, something seemed odd. She wiped her eyes with her wrists and look at Anthony. He then turned his head until he was looking directly at her for the first time since he was alive. Beth’s eyes went wide.

In a clear voice, and without blinking, he said, “Mommy, the bad man is here.”

Beth stood up immediately. Before the ghost of her son even lifted his hand to point, she already knew where he was trying to show her the bad man to be- the cold corner in the apartment. It had always been there. It was only eight feet away nearest to her corner of the couch. The realization that she never looked into that part of the apartment hit her aggressively. Shaking, she turned toward the black smoke billowing from the floor into a column that seemed to end at the ceiling. It had sucked all heat from the room and her bones.

The bad man.

Beth jumped so fast she fell backward and climbed over the couch toward the kitchen- landing chin first onto a thin throw rug. The black smoke shifted and followed her with a somewhat corporeal point that was clearly its shoulders.

The carpet bunched up as she scrambled and clawed on the floor to regain her footing. Everything was moving in slow motion. Her thighs were met with warmth as she pissed herself through her jeans. Beth attempted to scream but could only manage a hoarse dry moan of pure terror.

A solid icy hand comprised of pure opaque darkness shot out with its longer than humanly possible fingers sliding effortlessly around Beth’s throat. A noise came from the bad man but it was not words that could be comprehended. It almost sounded as if steam itself was furious.

Beth was easily lifted onto her feet and held against the wall. As this creature began to tighten its grip, her eyes began to roll into the back of her head. She had had enough.

There was a knock at the door. Did a neighbor hear this beast? Or maybe she did scream but couldn’t hear it herself.

A moment later the door was kicked in. Standing in the hallway was a thin pathetic bald man covered in bruises accompanied by a large redneck wearing yellow dish-washing gloves with exposed black teeth.