Stubborn Full Circles
There was a weighted, long-lasting silence in the old car. It was… surreal. Gratitude mixed with complete overload. Even with my past, I had no skills to handle this revelation. And I acted accordingly.
Driving through tall trees that Noma had hidden me in, my whole life felt like an illusion. A facade. A theatrical play with a hidden director. A director I suddenly wanted to punch right in the face.
Instead of filling me in on all the years that I had missed with him, or offering some sort of explanation for what took him so long to find me, Uncle Styx simply asked, “What happened to your hand?” He motioned to my bandage while turning down a dirt road I didn’t recognize.
It was quickly clear that the two of us rejoining each other’s lives was going to be like forcing oil and water to perfectly blend. Hence, eyeing him like the infuriating stranger he was in my life. “What happened to your death?”
There was no way I was telling another soul about what occurred last night, including him.
Watching out the windshield, he snarled, “Now I see what they were talking about.”
Who? Singing words to different songs, I snarled in return, “What the fuck does that mean?”
He dared to challenge me. “Why do you think I came out of hiding, little prick?”
I blinked in dismay. “Hiding? You weren’t trying to find us?”
“Don’t need to find what ain’t lost.”
Is this asshole for real right now? “Lost doesn’t even touch what Noma and I have been through.” I peered out the window because the sight of him was making me ill.
“Don’t talk to me like I ain’t got a clue. If it wasn’t for you—"
Two-handedly, I smacked the dashboard! “Not for one second are you blaming any of this bullshit on me! I have no clue where you’ve been or why you’re finally showing up to the fight!”
At the dead end of the isolated road, he pulled the car over. “Listen here, you little sinner…”
His next words fell on deaf ears because my mind was too busy putting puzzle pieces together. I recoiled. Sinner? “How do you know what Noma called me? Starting after you died.”
His eyes widened, but he said nothing.
This made no sense. “I mean, for you to know that nickname, you would have had to overhear her or have spoken to her—”
I sharply sucked in air and awareness, remembering back when Noma was sick. Hallucinations sometimes were at a peak. “Is he at the window?”
My stomach soured. Ah shit. She was communicating with Uncle Styx, but the librarian told me he was dead! Right? My eyes squeezed shut while I tried to remember any time she actually spoke those words. Had I just assumed?
Searching for the car’s door handle, I felt like I was going to puke all the bacon I had forced down.
“No… No…” This isn’t happening. “No. No!” I got out of the car and screamed, “She fucking knew you were alive!” Feeling so damn betrayed by the librarian’s lies, I started kicking the car.
All the while, my thoughts kept rolling, revealing more facts.
Tauntingly so. “You knew I was without her!” So, so betrayed. “You never came for me!”
Wait…
If it hadn’t been medicines playing games with Noma’s mind, then what the hell did she mean by, “Your grandfather wishes he could be your grandfather.”
“I don’t fucking believe this shit!” I slipped on my knuckles and punched the hood, over and over. “A bunch of fucking goddamn liars!” I swung in fury. “Were you ever dead?”
My mom’s dad was dead before I was old enough to remember him. Uncle Styx died on my tenth birthday.
Heart thundering, I demanded, “Tell me! For real!”
Styx’s wide eyes now softened as if something I said—
For real.
Oh. My. God.
“You’re not my mother’s dad.”
I could see the truth clearly now. My tenth Life Date. Us in trouble. Uncle Styx silently apologizing to his president who was truly his… son.
“You’re paternal.”
My body set fire. A whole new emotion erupted inside me. It was one thing for an ‘uncle’ to not save me from going to a foster home, but it was a whole different thing for a grandpa to surrender me. I was now a Blue, with a father figure who didn’t care.
I went ballistic on the car. Outraged about the deep cut to my soul.
From behind me, Uncle—Grandpa—Styx grabbed me around the waist and dragged me, swinging mad, down a dirt driveway past a car that felt familiar, just as a man stepped out of his trailer shouting at us to leave his property.
Styx swung me so hard I spun, lost my footing, hit the ground, and rolled toward the front porch.
Back on my feet, I roared at Styx, “Why did you do that?”
“So you’d be that much closer to who killed your friend!” He pointed behind me.
As if becoming possessed by a cruel and deadly entity, my head swiveled to see the stranger. I had two dead friends. Which one was I getting the chance to avenge? I had studied the pastor’s daily routines. They never brought me to this house.
Then I eyed the taillights of the car, putting it all together. Caleb.
There was no delay in my charge. And a tirade that would change who I was forever.
The man didn’t have a chance. I had been set free to finally have a taste of much-warranted and much-craved revenge.
My first kill was laced with so many years of having no say; loved ones and moments stolen from me.
My first kill was going to be merciless and bloody.
Every strike to his face with brass and bare skin was me taking back an ounce of control.
This drunk driver would never kill an innocent again.
He wouldn’t even see the light of day. Only the flames of the hell I sent him to.
Coming back to the present moment, the sun had all but set. I rose from the body now, still, blood all around him dripping between the wood porch slats. “Oh shit.” I gasped for air. What have I done?
It felt foreign to be back inside my body again. Its shell was now a true sinner.
As if I hadn’t just committed murder, Styx waltzed past me with a bleach spray bottle.
As he doused the body and all surfaces I’d been even close to, he mentioned, “Just in case anyone feels the need to investigate and collect DNA.” He shook his head at the dead man.
“You piece of shit.” He explained, “Quite the rap sheet this one has.” He chuckled. “Had.”
As I stumbled backward, breathless, and down the steps, I watched Styx following me, spraying everywhere I touched or stepped. “This old remedy can cause havoc for and in any expert lab.” He motioned for me to expose the bottom of my shoes. “Up. Up.”
Blink. Blink. “Styx, I… I—”
He sprayed my shoes’ soles.
His large form approaching again had me stepping back, one foot shifting weight to the other, just like Dale told me to.
“Don’t overanalyze needed actions.” He tapped his temple while his other hand sprayed more bleach.
“Can make a one-percenter go a little batty.” He reached around me to open the door.
“Can you get in, please? Bleach can only make so much,” he gestured to my human form, “disappear.” When I didn’t budge, he rolled his eyes. “So, we gotta go?”
Dumfounded, I slipped into the car.
Sitting in the passenger seat, Styx buckled me in. “Hold tight. I have some wipes.” Then he simply shut the door.
Wipes?
Jaw unhinged, as was my new caregiver, I observed him checking his surroundings while walking past the hood and to the driver’s side door.
“Still in the clear.” Tossing the bleach in the back seat, he got in.
In between us were some Lysol wipes in a Walmart bag.
He pulled them out and opened the container.
“Clean up. All dirty ones back in the bag. Capeesh?” Then, as if there wasn’t a corpse—of my doing—being left behind, he started the engine and drove us off.
I didn’t move. Possibly frozen in a state of shock.
Styx had no time for it. “Seriously, wipe yourself or I’ll do it and won’t be nice about it.”
The amount of blood the wipes were covered in had me wondering how long I had blacked out for. How long had the man been dead before I rejoined my body?
With a Walmart bag full of soiled wipes, I was handed a fresh set of clothes. “Change.” I was handed another empty bag. “Dirty clothes in here.”
While we passed through a bigger city, I tried not to focus on how soaked my clothes had been as I removed them and shoved them in a bag about to burst. I wasn’t in dry clothes long when Styx celebrated seeing some homeless guys cooking hot dogs over a barrel of fire.
“Gotta appreciate the timing here.” He pulled over and parked.
After stuffing gray hair in a ball cap, he said, “Stay put.” Then he got out, snagging the two full Walmart bags along the way.
I tilted my head, noticing Styx suddenly walking with a limp as he approached the homeless.
He said something I couldn’t hear due to being parked too far away, then after nods, threw the bags in the barrel of fire.
Each man received some cash, then Styx limped back to the car, hot dogs being cooked over frying blood beneath them.
This man being nothing like the uncle that used to visit me and Noma, I asked, “Who are you?”
With the engine running, we pulled from the spot. He was focused on the road, but admitted, “The man who can handle your crazy ass. Ain’t my first rodeo.”
Dad.
Styx smirked as if my murdering ways were amusing. “Apparently, you remember and saw more than I thought.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing as he drove. I was suddenly exhausted in a way I had never experienced. My head dropped back against the headrest.
As if some sort of mind reader, Styx nodded. “We call it The Release.”
Lazily, my head lulled in his direction to see him, questioning what the fuck he was talking about now.
Styx shrugged. “Sex or kills, always brings on a much-needed release.”
Jesus. I felt like I had joined some sort of twisted circus. To shut it all out, I closed my eyes.
I must have dozed off because when my eyes reopened, the car was coming to a stop and, even though it was dark, the moon shined enough light for me to see pink walls…