Chapter 2 Everett
Devil You Know, Tyler Braden
One Year Later
Control is an art form that I have perfected.
Not many individuals understand what it means to have full control.
They think they do, but they have no clue.
Having control is running several establishments while mopping up your family’s poor decisions, keeping them out of jail while standing tall as they drunkenly ream you out for whatever self-inflicted problem that has popped up that week.
It’s ignoring all threats, yet secretly annihilating any competition.
Control is being able to withstand your enemies whilst they torture you for days upon end .
During my station in Belgium, I was captured by German soldiers. They were less than enthused by our existence and made our stay memorable.
During that time, control is what saved me.
I focused every fiber of my being as they wrapped my body in barbed wire, lit my flesh on fire and cut me to the bone.
In that time, I learned to not utter a word or sound, or show any emotion.
They tried to break me, but I held my mental wards up and floated upon the black abyss of my subconscious.
All I have left are the scars that kindly remind me that I survived while many of my friends perished.
My family often forget I was a war prisoner, though I don’t blame them.
I despise pity, and thus I never speak of that time.
I wear long garments to cover my scars, even when I am pleasuring a woman.
No one will see my weakness. Besides, my family is so caught up indulging in the life I have provided for them.
The smell of sweet, metallic grunge engulfs my senses as I walk toward our welding mill. I love the smell of my Lockham in the fall morning. The small break of dawn kisses the sky, casting a warm glow across the heavens .
I begin the day before everyone else rises. It’s the only way to ensure a successful operation.
As I cross town toward the mill, the gravel crunches beneath my oxfords.
The steelworkers need to be checked on to maintain morale.
Once morale and accountability have been established with whiskey and coffee, I gather extra supplies and horseshoes to take over to the stalls nearly a quarter of a mile from the mill.
My father and grandfather before him created these businesses, which erupted into our family enterprise, and I continue to maintain them.
It began with the horse stables. Being a family of gypsies, we knew our way around horses and ended up getting involved with the gambling ring.
After cultivating that success, my grandfather began buying buildings around town, then leasing them to small businesses and rental homes.
My grandfather won the welding mill in a race.
After that, he grew out into everything from arms dealing, massage parlors and other interconnected dealings.
My grandfather taught us success and laid a foundation for us.
All we had to do was listen, though my other brothers don’t care for the business aspect of things, other than Kenneth.
He is the accountant of the bunch, while the others love to get drunk, brawl and visit the massage parlor.
As I finish up nailing the last horseshoe on my dear Arabian, Olive, I hear my brother Bobby’s stomping steps.
“Oi!” he yells in a Cockney accent; it still perplexes me how he managed to pick that up. “You need ta go deal with Baba, she’s off the rocker again!”
I take one long breath of air in then slowly breathe out through my lips. Our dear Baba.
The real queen of the family, despite what my mother’s overinflated ego likes to think.
Baba lives on the outskirts of the city in her own hut, but from time to time she will come into town to terrorize my mother and the city folk.
Baba believes in spirits and respects those of the Viking and gypsy religions, for her mother was Romanian and her father came from Norway.
We all inherited the platinum-white hair from his side.
Everyone could identify an Afton by their hair color.
I carefully place Olive’s hoof onto the dusted ground as I stand to face my brother.
As I answer him, I slowly stroke Olive’s silky black mane, relishing the simplicity of her care.
“What could our four-foot, five-inch Baba have done this time?” Glancing over at him, I motion for a cigarette and step away from Olive.
She snorts in disagreement at my smoking habit, but it helps calm my nerves and maintain control.
Bobby begins to light up his stick as I pluck it from his hands.
“Not near the horse, Robert, not near the horse.”
Bobby rolls his eyes at me. “You and your bloody horse brother. I swear you’re gonna turn into the old ’n’ lonely demented horse whisperer one day. Ya know I think you love ’em more than you love us,” he exclaims while exaggeratedly clutching his chest.
We walk over toward the office building as I state, “Yes. Yes, Robert, I love the bloody horses more than you all, because they don’t talk back, they don’t get drunk, they don’t get into fights and they don’t spend all my money.”
Laughter rolls over Bobby as he tries to light up his cigarette, his blue eyes glistening in the morning sun.
“Ya know, brother, I think if we gave them some ale, they’d thoroughly enjoy it.
Have ya tried? Also, YOU spend your money on the horses, so they don’t hafta.
” He shakes his finger sarcastically at my chest .
“Me spending money on them is still better than you lot taking the money and pissing it down the drain on stupid shit,” I mumble through a drag. “Now, what’s with Baba? Did she paint the town in sheep’s blood again?”
“Ah!” Bobby chufts, “Baba came into town to drop off a package. I guess she made something, then Mum tried to speak with her, but Baba wasn’t having it. So she attacked Mum, grabbed a lot of her hair or something.”
“Shit.” I begin thinking of what to do and how to manage the situation. Though Baba birthed our mother, they do not get along.
“What ya gonna do?” Bobby asks as he begins kicking gravel with his oxfords.
I take a long inhale, allowing it to coat my throat as I hold in the smoke, then all at once I let it out, gazing at my brother.
“Ya, know. I hate when ya do that. You look like a bloody dragon and it’s creepy as fuck,” he retorts with complete seriousness in his tone and stance.
I crack half a smile. “I’ll go talk to her. In the meantime, you really should switch your oxfords out for proper shoes when coming to the stables. You’re gonna get dust all over those nice shoes.”
Bobby places his hands atop his hips in a mocking fashion. “Propah shoes for the horse stables. You should really hear yourself sometimes, acting like your-ah fine gentleman, when ya know we’re savage gypsies at heart.”
I cock an eyebrow at him. “I’m not buying you another bloody pair of oxfords. Now go be a loon someplace else.” Shaking my head I retreat to change my clothes and head to Baba’s, hearing Bobby’s cackled voice say, “Love you, ya grumpy arse!”
The welcoming sight of Baba’s grass-roofed hut comes into view as I come over the embankment.
Her hut is close to the sea, where she says she feels closer to the ancestors.
As I approach, I spy her chanting in front of the large fire pit in front of her hut.
Her hut is approximately two hundred square feet, made of logs and a roof covered in long grass.
Small flowers sprout across the roof and the hut sits atop a smaller hill overlooking the passage down to the sea.
The two huts adjacent to hers are identical, though one is for the housing of ancestors and the other houses any guests.
The gravel crunches below me as I get closer towards her short, four-foot, five inch stature.
She’s grasping her Loki-embellished poplar cane as her other hand waves a small grass doll around the fire.
I shake my head as I realize my Baba has created a sacrifice doll of someone.
Then it takes me a second to realize—Robert mentioned Baba took some of mum’s hair.
I press my fingers into my temples as I try to gain her attention, “Baba, we need to speak.”
She continues dancing in her older, hobbled fashion, singing Norse mixed with gypsy folk song of some kind.
This woman has created her own merger of religions, for Christ’s sake, and I will never get used to it.
“Baba!” I shout.
Her head begrudgingly turns my way as she perches both hands atop her cane, the god Loki staring me down as I get ready to scold my grandmother for attacking her own daughter .
Alas, the words don’t come. I can’t chastise the woman that basically raised me.
“Yes, my dear?” she asks in her sweet Nordic accent, as her eyes rest on me.
One eye is golden and the other is a deep blue.
Her eyelids are permanently tattooed with black eyeliner.
Her hair is braided, half up and half down, and cascades down her back with waves of gray strands.
She wears seven golden-cuffed Viking relic jewels that are tightly woven within the strands of her braids.
I realize she is clutching the worship doll within the grasp of her cane, as her robes gently sway with the wind.
“Baba, did you attack Mum?”
She huffs in my direction as she rolls her eyes toward the gods. “You know, she will always have it coming. Your mama is pure evil. Evil I tell you!” She points an arthritic finger my way.
I approach her with pleading, outstretched hands.
“Baba, she is your own daughter, why do you insist she is evil? She birthed us. Me. For crying out loud, are my brothers and I evil as well?” I cross my arms, surveying her lot to ensure she doesn’t need any upkeep, or bodies hidden.
One day I arrived to find she had gutted a large wild boar to sacrifice to the gods; it had to have been close to nine stone.