“Hey, Gordo, what did you want to be when you were younger?”
The birds chirped loudly enough to be heard from the fire escape across the street. The cars all passed by the house and carried the wind violently with it in the same direction. Gordo had his hand extended out and away from our faces. He smiled. The same stupid smile he had when he was 15.
“I thought maybe I could be like a banker or something. Not the guys at the teller, the real bankers. The executives, you know, the guys making all the real money.”
“So like Wall Street?”
“You make it sound bad. I was like nine or something. I just wanted to make enough money to never have my mom worry about how she was gonna make my school lunch. Those were my priorities at nine.”
“Yeah, no that makes sense. I think I always wanted to either be a singer or an actress. I know, I know. How original and special of me.”
He laughed as he kept one foot planted on the bottom step of our porch and took quick drags of his cigarette.
“No, no, I think it’s cute. It makes sense for you.”
“Does it?”
“Yeah. You always wanted to be the center of attention, Charlie.”
“I was like six or seven, okay? I thought I was gonna be someone important. Also, have you met my mom?”
We both laugh and the sound carries with the cars driving by.
“Yeah, I have actually,” He scrapes the cherry along the bottom of his shoe. He flicks the remainder onto the road, before settling down beside me. “So, you gonna tell me what brought you home?”
“You first.” I take a sip from my cup.
“Well, that’s easy. I never left.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, I-uh had all these plans, and one day my mom got sick. I’m about to graduate. I have an acceptance letter to go to the college I want, but it’s my mom. She doesn’t have anyone but me.”
Gordo turns his head and forces a smile. He retreats into his coffee, burying himself in his cup.
“I’m so sorry.” The words come out and even now there’s not much comfort I can give and very little he wants from me.
“Yeah, it’s alright.”
“How is she now?”
“She actually died a few years ago.”
“Why didn’t you ever reach out? You could have called me. I have the same friggin’ number from when I was fourteen. I would’ve been here if you called.”
I tried moving in closer, but he instinctively scooched away.
“I know. I thought about it a lot. I almost did a few times. It just didn’t feel right. I think that I just didn’t want to give you another reason to be tethered.”
~
I put my bags in front of the entrance and looked into the living room. I thought I could hear sounds in the walls, like echoes. My room was maintained in an almost spotless condition. I turned my head around and looked into my mother’s room. I felt like I was taken back to a different time. A time when I snuck out of my room to open her door. I mostly saw a shadow of a thing, a lump. A figure of some kind on my mom’s bed, crying to itself in the dark.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, and suddenly I was back. The old band posters, the purple walls, and all the embarrassing additions I’d made to my room.
“I kept it just how you left it.”
“I see that.”
“Bring back old memories?” She asked as she chuckled.
“More than you know.”
“You remember where the laundry is right?”
“Yeah Mom, I know. Tuesdays.”
“Exactly.”
Mom scrounged through some of her closets, I’m guessing to look for towels and blankets. She shouts from the end of the hallway.
“Have you eaten?”
“Not yet. I thought maybe we could have lunch together.”
“Yeah. That sounds like a good idea.”
We both sat at the kitchen table, and my mom had this dejected look on her face. Like I told her she couldn’t watch TV until she ate all her broccoli. Moving her food back and forth with her fork.
“You didn’t have to cook,” she says. “I could have made us something.”
“It’s okay. I wanted to. Figured you could use a break. All that running around must’ve been exhausting.”
“Okay, I just wanted to make sure everything was perfect for when you got here.”
“I know and now we can enjoy lunch.”
“Yeah,” she said as she finally ingested a mouthful. She swallows. “So, how’s Henry?”
“He’s good, I think.”
~
I close the bathroom door and I can feel my hands trembling. I reach into my sweater pocket and pull out the bottle. The pills all shake in my grasp. I set it down on the sink and waited. I count. One. Two. Three. Just enough time that it seems like I’d realistically take to pee. Then I flush the toilet. I turn toward the sink and start to wash my face. I don’t recognize myself this way. My eyes were bloodshot. I looked tired, restless even. Like I hadn’t been getting sleep. I take about three or four pills and swallow them with a handful of water I’d cupped with my hand. Then the rushing fades and I feel still.
~
I placed my laptop on the floor of my old bedroom and placed pillows against the backside of the bed for me to lean on. For a while, I just stared at one of my old posters. I don’t even remember what I was thinking, maybe I wasn’t at all. After a while, I swore I could hear distant voices in the background, but I didn’t lose focus. This poster was my objective. I needed to watch. Then it rang. My laptop screen lit up and it was time for business.
“Thank you for calling C & C, my name is Charlie. How can I assist you today?”
The day began to blur and the calls all melded together into a soup of predetermined programming. Customer service mode. It’s all routine at this point.
“Have you thought about upgrading? At this level of usage, your speeds are probably being throttled by how many devices you have using it.”
“You know what, it could be a router issue. I’ve seen people go ahead and buy routers but not know the true speeds for their routers. You’d be surprised how many people are getting a fraction of their speeds from bad routers alone.”
The calls began to slow down. It’s late now and during lulls, I stared at the old poster. That is until I heard a knock. A thud. Like running, but the sound was ingrained into the floorboards. I followed it from one end of the hallway to the other until it finally led me to the bathroom. I opened the door and saw myself in this pocket of time and space. Holding her hair like I’d done so many times before.
“Get it all out,” I said as I pulled her hair away from her face. A frantic mess and it all began to vibrate as my mother hurled into the toilet. She noticed me, me. We both acknowledged each other in the silence left after the hurl. She saw through me, and I through her, and our faces scrunched up in anger as we yelled.
“Get out!”
~
“So how is it being back?” Gordo asks as he pulls another cigarette from his pack.
“It’s weird. In the shower the other day, I thought I heard laughing coming from the floor.”
“I didn’t take you for the type to believe in ghosts.”
“I don’t know what I believe.”
“You tell your mom any of this?”
“No, are you crazy? She can’t handle this kind of thing right now. Plus it’s just a thought, I’m not even sure I believe it much.”
~
I stepped out of my room, glanced over to the living room, and saw my mom sitting on the couch. She was flicking through the channels, looking for something to watch.
“You want some tea?” I asked her as I walked toward the kitchen.
“I’d love some.”
“Any requests?”
“No, not from me. Dealer’s choice, sweetie.”
I turned on the stove and set the kettle on top. I looked over from the sliver that I could see of the living room. The only glimpse of her I got was her thick red sleeve.
“Anything good on?”
“Ha! I wish.”
The kettle starts to whistle and I quickly turn off the stove. The water makes its music as it moves from the kettle to the cups. I walk over to the couch and place her cup on the coffee table before sitting.
We watch for a while as she forces herself to sit through some old dubbed kung-fu movie. She looks over at me and smiles, then mutes the film before turning her body to face me.
“You never did tell me how your auditions went.”
“You don’t want to hear about that.”
“Of course I do. Now come on, spill.”
“Okay, so I had this one role I was auditioning for. It was some kinda horror movie. They had this idea for a killer dancer or something. I put the camera in the living room and put on this white spandex suit I bought online. I even covered my face. Then I had all these strange masks scattered on the floor, and I just danced to this one song I knew would get me emotional. I mean, I danced, did some twirls, and jumped around. The whole works. I was like a chaotic ballerina. Then, when the music stopped, I dropped down to the floor. I just started crying. Just balling my eyes out. I covered my face with my hands. Not sure what I was going for… thought maybe I could put a spin on their idea. They seemed to like it though.”
“Did you get the part?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Then when do you start shooting?”
“I don’t. I couldn’t do it.”
“Why, you’re so good. You know I think you’re so good.”
“I just think I lost it.”
~
“You ever think about having kids?” Gordo looked over at me. I could tell his mind started to work overtime with that one.
“Me? Oof, I don’t know. I think in the future, once I have things figured out. I might be a good dad one day. I just don’t think I’m ready to even think about that. Why do you bring it up?”
“I had a scare once. It kinda fucked me up all kinds of ways. I still think about it sometimes. You know? It’s nice to wonder I think.”
“Yeah, I get that. You’d be a great mom by the way.”
I stared into my cup for a bit. It felt like it was getting low. I wished I could will it full. I guess reality is disappointing in that way sometimes.
“Yeah? I’m not so sure.”
~
We came in from outside. Gordo leaned over to give me a big hug. He turned toward her room and announced, “Hey Helen, I’m gonna head out. I left your stuff on the kitchen table for you. I’ll be back later.”
I look over at Gordo, tilting myself back in recoil as I say it.
“First name basis? What’s this?
“Things change,” he says as he chuckles.
My mom comes out rushing from her bedroom.
“Wait Gordo!” she exclaims. Exasperated as all hell trying to keep old Gordo there.
“What’s up?”
“You doing anything today?” my mother asks.
“Not really.”
She gives him this mischievous little smile.
“You have anything stronger in that bag of yours?”
~
The coffee table was littered with liquor bottles, and the floor had a row of beer bottles and cans. An ashtray sits in the center of the table with a small mountain of buds and ash. My mother couldn’t keep herself from swaying back and forth. She sings. She sings the way she only sings when she’s drunk. Like we’re the audience, and this is her stage. We, the little people, allowed to see her greatness.
She stops.
“Gordo, did you know I was almost a famous singer?”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I had just made my first EP out of a shitty little basement on the east side. The producer I worked with, my god, he had a fantastic ear for music. He made that album really come together. He was so handsome too.”
We both laugh as she sways almost gracefully in the midst of her retelling.
“I had an executive from a record label who just loved it. He was ready to sign me up.”
“What happened?”
“Well-“ she says before I cut her off to finish.
“She had me.”
“Mhmm, my little flower. You’ll always be my baby.”
That’s when I heard it. The walls reacted, they banged.
“Do you guys hear that?” I asked.
“What’s that sweetie?” my mother chimed in.
“I don’t hear anything,” Gordo replied. How could they not hear a thing? It felt like the walls wanted to rip themselves out of place. It moved toward the floor and I found myself in a trance. This time I’d catch it. The banging went into the hall. It moved from the floor to the wall. My head moved to follow the sound.
It banged and banged, then it came to a halt. It stopped at the bathroom door. I opened it and I saw her again. The white dancer. I thought she only lived in my dreams. Yet, there she was glaring back at me with a handful of pills extended past the threshold. A voice echoes and vibrates in the walls, calling out to me. My mother.
“Just a little sweetie, it’s called micro-dosing. It’s good for the soul.”
The banging shifts from the bathroom to the floor and across the hall to her bedroom. It bangs and bangs. I feel a shaking in my body. I can’t quite muster the will to open the door. But I hear something, a whisper, then two. And it almost sounds like a child’s laughter. So I push through and charge shoulder first through the door.
I see them tongue-tied and in an embrace. Their mouths are on top of each other. My mom’s face warps. She taunts me. It was the white dancer all along. The rage I had built up to this point had spilled over, and I could no longer contain myself. So I lunged at it, grabbing it by its throat and slamming it to the ground. I squeezed my hands tighter around its neck and the whole room erupted into chaos as I banged her head onto the floor.
“Stop!” Gordo yelled.
“Charlie, you’re killing her!”
~
“Look who it is?”
I stepped out of my room and looked over at the doorway. At first, I couldn’t believe it. My old friend Gordo. We were inseparable when we were younger. I hadn’t seen him in years. First, he hugs my mom and then he smiles at me as I approach them.
“I heard you were back in town. Wanted to stop by and say hi.”
He gave me a big hug and we both laughed.
“It’s good to see you,” I said.
“You too. You look good.”
“You don’t look so bad yourself. Do you want some coffee? I just made a pot.”
“Yeah, I’ll have some. Thanks.”
I rushed into the kitchen and poured two cups of coffee. Then I went back over to them and handed Gordo a cup.
“You wanna go outside? I wouldn’t mind the fresh air. Is that alright, ma?”
“Yeah of course. You two should catch up. I’ll be in my room. Holler if you need me.”
I carefully open the door for us both as we step outside. Mom’s door always had a slow hinge, so we just laughed and smiled at each other as we waited silently for the door to close behind us.