skinblade

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“You ain’t got no magic, girl!”

I looked up from the television and saw my father slapping my sister across the face. Spit flew out of her gaping mouth as she tumbled to the ground and landed with a solid thud. Her sobs did not have a chance to escape her tiny mouth. He bent over and took her by the throat.

“Get up you little retard.”

I rushed over and threw my arm between my father and my sister. I tried to wedge my body between them. “Stop,” I yelled, “Daddy let her go, don’t hit her anymore, dad stop!”

He released his tight grip on her delicate neck. I managed to push him back. My sister, Delilah, stumbled back and fell to the floor, the locks of her brown, curly hair covered her face. This time she managed to get the sobs out of her, she managed to express her fear and hatred in a torrent of tears and whispered curses.

“You know what she said,” my father spat out, “she said we were havin’ lobster for dinner. She said she was gonna make it out of that box of mash potatoes. What kinda crazy talk is that, boy?”

“I know, dad, but it’s the dreams that make her crazy,” I tried to explain. “Like if someone tells you something enough you start believing it.”

“We’re having Mac n’ cheese ’cause Mac n’ cheese is all we got ’till Friday.”

“I know, dad, but it’s just the dreams. Like what if this box of Mac n’ cheese said, ‘The Chargers will win the game if you eat me.’ Sooner or later, The Chargers will win a game after you eat it and you’ll start believin’ and say to yourself, ‘Yeah, The Chargers will win the game. This Mac n’ cheese is wonderful.’ Get it, dad, get it?”

He took a step back, cocked his head slightly to the left as if he were trying to understand what I had just said. He scratched at his salt and pepper beard, ran his hands through his military style haircut, then he picked up the box of macaroni and cheese and looked at it quizzically.

“Yeah, okay, okay. but you tell your sister not around me. She ain’t gonna be disrespecting me with that magic stuff, with that stuff your mama used to throw at me. She ain’t better than me or you. She ain’t got no magic, your mother didn’t have no magic… and, if she did, it would have saved her. It would have taken that cancer out of her.

“There ain’t no magic. Understood, boy? Understood, Delilah?”

But by the time he looked up she was gone. I had distracted him long enough to let her escape.

“Delilah? Delilah!” he screamed. “Well, don’t just stand there, go get your gaw-damn sister.”

“Yes, sir.”

I ran out the door after her. I knew where she would be hiding, but I was smart enough to wait long enough so that my father had time to cool down, drink a beer, and forget about the incident. Not that he was stupid. No, the man was simple, but not stupid.

I made my way down the street to the elementary school. In her mind, father was never at school with her, and that was the best place to be. I could see her running down the street.

“Delilah,” I called out. “Dee, it’s just me! He’s not coming after you. Stop!”

But she didn’t stop, and I had to keep running after her down Waterman Street. She was only ten years old. I was much bigger than her, and I was finally beginning to catch up with her. She shot to the left and wiggled her way in between the front gates of the school. I shimmied in after her.

She took a few more steps until she was next to the classrooms, then stopped. She turned to look at me, panting, no longer afraid.

“I said it’s just me.”

“I heard you,” she said in between breaths.

“So, why’d ya keep runnin’?” I placed my hands on my thighs when I reached her and struggled to get air. I took out my asthma inhaler and shook it before I sprayed the Albuterol into my lungs. I held my breath, let the medicine do its work.

“This is the safe place, Fish.”

“Don’t call me Fish, Dee, you know how much I hate it.”

“Sorry.”

Fish was my first name. My father thought it would be a good idea to revive the old hippie tradition of naming your children after things in nature. Mama had the sense to give me Mike as my middle name, and that’s what I went by to everybody but my father.

“I told you not to talk like that in front of him no more.”

“I know,” she said. She was staring at our shoes. They were old, and tattered. “Should I give us better shoes?”

“No, Dee,” I said sternly. “You know you can’t. He’ll wonder where we got them.”

“He won’t find out.”

“Yes, he will.” I sat down on the cement and leaned against the brick wall of the classroom building. “You have to stop this, Dee. It’s not going to do us any good.”

“Yes it will.”

“Maybe, but you know how it works. If you ask for something good, something bad will happen to somebody else. Remember what mama said?”

She sat down next to me. She began to sob, and I placed my arm around her. I held her tightly and let her cry.

We lost her last year, and it seemed to hit Delilah the hardest. Back then she didn’t understand why it was happening, but I knew. She had gotten the cancer because of all the good things she was doing for us. For all the good that happened, there had to be the bad. Father never knew what she could do, not really. And if she ever tried to tell him about it, he would always tell her that she was crazy, that she would never amount to anything. And even when she started making good things happen for us, he still didn’t believe her. He thought he was doing it. He thought he had gotten that great promotion at the plant all by himself, because he was such a hard worker. When she would produce a hundred dollar bill floating in the wind as if lost by some stranger, he just thought that it was his good luck. The luck of the Irish.

The cancer started off as a pain in her side, but she never told us. Not until it was too late. She never told me how she got it, but I knew. Delilah was born premature, she had lung problems, and mama made the choice of giving her own life for Delilah’s. Over the years the cancer grew, and it got so that she couldn’t take the pain anymore. One day she just collapsed. We rushed her to the hospital, and the doctor’s told us what it was.

When the doctor’s suggested chemotherapy, she refused, knowing that it wouldn’t do her any good. But my father insisted, and they injected that poison into her, which only made the last few months of her life a living hell. She never complained though. She always smiled when we came around, always ran her fingers through our hair, and told us not to worry, that she’d be in our dreams.

She was, and that’s what was getting Delilah into trouble. Every morning she would wake up and tell me about her dreams, about mama, and the brilliant light that surrounded her. Mama always told her such beautiful things. She told me the same things, too. I just never talked about it, not while I knew that my father hated her so much for leaving us. He wasn’t stupid, though. No, he was just simple.

I picked up Delilah after the time I guessed it took my father to guzzle down a few beers. I held her hand as we walked home, and made her promise, again, to never talk about the magic when father was around. As we walked back down Waterman Street I looked down at my shoes and noticed that there were a few less holes in them and the colors weren’t as worn. He won’t notice that, I thought. Hopefully.

Continue to Dream #2 - Danny Gets His Gun