Dream World Junkie

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 1

September 2007

Driving to the market no longer seemed to be a simple task. My mother’s emotions were in an uproar. Her eyes never stayed focused when she was feeling out of balance. In fact, it was more common to see her out of balance than in. Her head twitched back and forth, her right hand shaking as she held her cigarette.

What could that son of a bitch want to talk to me about? Her voice was raspy and unclear because of a morning of crying and continuous smoking.

Don’t worry about it. You’re not going to respond to his phone calls. I was persistent that she leave him be.

Stephen, he has been out of prison for two years, and he contacts me now? It just doesn’t make any sense. She blew a trail of smoke from the side of her lower lip as she spoke.

It makes perfect sense, Mother. He has spent the past two years looking for you, and now he’s found us.

We’re just going to have to move again, and that’s all there is to it. I’ll have to leave the church, and you kids will have to change schools again. Goddamn that bastard! I hate him! The brakes squealed as my mother turned the Buick around, avoiding an angry-faced driver behind the wheel of a red Jeep Grand Cherokee in the other lane. I didn’t make a sound. Whenever her stress level reached this intensity, I knew better than to chime in with any advice or concern. I closed my eyes, not focusing on her driving, to try to avoid panic or worry of my own. We reached our apartment and decided to skip going to the market in a final attempt to clear her mind. Mother banged hard on Phil’s bedroom door. I stood in the living area, awaiting instruction.

Phil! Wake up and have your shit packed in one hour. We’re moving. She turned to me with a look of exhaustion. That goes for you, too. She walked past me into the kitchen and started throwing things into a bag from the open cabinets. I’m just going to have to take the house deal. I didn’t want to take it, but I’m going to have to … in the middle of fucking nowhere. Goddamn him! Her mumbles were faint, but I listened to every word. When the rant beneath her breath had silenced, I went back to my bedroom and started folding my clothing.

Stephen, what’s wrong with Mom? What does she mean we’re moving? Phil stood in my doorway, still wearing his boxers, with his eyes blood red and his black hair matted and messy.

Bruce called. He knows where we live, and she’s worried, so that means it’s time to move.

How’d that fucker find us?

He’s been looking, I suppose. My answers were short and soft. I didn’t want Mother to hear.

How the hell are we going to move? We don’t have any money.

There’s that house outside of Salem. Grandma wanted Mother to keep an eye on it, remember? Really, it was an effort of my grandmother to try to help get us out of a two-bedroom apartment. I don’t think Mother saw through it. She was never one to accept charity, especially from relatives.

Oh, but Mom didn’t like it because it was secluded. Phil nodded as he took in all of the information. He stood in silence until he couldn’t take the awkwardness between the two of us, and he soon disappeared from my room. I gathered the last bit of my clothing. Knowing Mother’s mood, we’d be out of here in just a couple of hours. I pulled out my tiny leather booklet, in which I often stored pictures and memorabilia. I found a family photo that had been taken years ago. Speaking of the devil, there was Bruce. My mother stood next to him, and I could tell that she was in awe of him. I never comprehended what she had seen in that piece of dirt. There he stood, bald with rotten teeth and a very noticeable beer gut. He was a disgusting and ugly human being. Fire grew inside me when I stared at that man. He was indeed the epitome of the all-American, middle-aged asshole.

Everything I could hate in an individual was right before my eyes, embodied in a sports-watching, beer-guzzling, abusive dickhead. His arrogant and hypocritical Christian values made me sick. The only difference between Bruce and the millions of husbands across America was that he actually resembled the soul that lived inside him. As I took a second look, I realized my thoughts were biased, but Bruce truly was a monster. He’d left scars inside my mother that she just didn’t have the power to heal.

Your uncle is going to be here in less than an hour with the pickup. Mother stood at my bedroom door, shaking more than ever as she held her cigarette. I nodded in response. As I heard her footsteps taper off down the hall, I looked at the two suitcases on my bed. My whole life fit easily into those suitcases. I could just take off with them by myself. The thought excited me in a way, the bravery that it would take, although nothing would have been as brave as taking nothing.

Maybe I could just start walking and never stop. People do it a lot these days, not so much for its true beauty but rather for the media attention that it could bring.

I sighed, realizing that this would, more than likely, be my last day in this apartment. My mother’s paranoia wouldn’t allow us to come back anytime soon. I retraced my steps to make sure I hadn’t overlooked anything. I didn’t keep much. I never saw the use for most electrical things. I didn’t buy into the fads that most people my age did. I’d like to think pop culture didn’t influence me. I was sure it had some effect, but I didn’t like to think that I needed to be a consumer of passing trends. So many teenagers felt that it was a necessity.

Once I realized that I hadn’t left anything behind, I sat outside on the porch. The morning smog was thick. Rush hour had started. I pictured the nearby highway filled with middle-aged people scrambling to please the employers for whom they worked, all the while knowing that they would never receive an ounce of credit for the work they did.

Hey, what’s wrong with your mom? Scooter appeared on his bicycle. He had been my only friend from my high school of two years.

We’re moving today.

Why? He squinted through his thick glasses.

Long story, I responded. I felt sorry for Scooter. Mother had always referred to him as a poor soul. What she didn’t know was that he had a knowledge that most people couldn’t even grasp. Most people didn’t realize this, of course, not even Scooter himself, but if they could have seen the inner workings of his mind, they would have been envious of him. I knew I was. In school, he had been my only friend, and I felt ashamed that I didn’t feel up to saying a proper good-bye.

I guess you don’t want to go to the Daily Double today, then? He was disappointed. The Daily Double was an old local movie theater in town. Every afternoon, they showed a double feature of classic movies. Scooter and I were usually the youngest viewers there. Come to think of it, that was about the only place I was going to miss in this shit hole of a town.

I can’t, Scoots. I smiled. I’ll phone in once we’re settled. I know all of this is strange, but I’ll explain later. When I walked inside the apartment, my mother was still scrambling around, gathering things. I looked out at Scooter as he rode away on his bike. His presence was soon replaced by Uncle Mike’s pickup truck. I knew what was going to come next. Mother would have Phil and I load as much heavy furniture as we could into the back of the pickup, and as fast as we could.

Chapter 2

The scenery nearing our new home was atrocious. Mother had said that I would be going to a newly built school. What she had failed to mention were the reasons for the newly built school. It seemed that Pickahill High School was one of many new schools that had been developed in recent years. It disgusted me that such a rural area had become so overpopulated because of condominium and housing developments.

There’s another one, I said to myself. My mother gave me an odd look, as if she hadn’t heard what I had said but didn’t care enough to ask. We sped past the entrance to Mazy Gable Rural Development. As I looked through the gated development, I could see the tiny yards, the identical homes built of straw, and so much of that evil green dollar.

If developments weren’t a form of communism, I hadn’t the slightest clue what was. It seemed as though the people of these communities were living in a tiny bubble, with silly laws dictating what colors they could paint their homes, how long their grass could be, and what type of plants they could grow. I had such animosity for developments, along with the shallowness they attracted.

The citizens of the upper middle class are willing to drive themselves into debt in order to appear wealthy. It was all a contest to see who had the most. Their children went into beautifully remodeled schools, but the curriculum was wretched, because the school board had already spent too much money on the upkeep of a good appearance to worry about what was really important. It had always seemed to me that communities like these represented an unspoken American ideal: As long as it looks good, don’t fix it.

Mother had no idea how happy I was to be living in the middle of nowhere, secluded from the asinine ideals of our suburban neighbors. Oh, how I loathed suburbia.

When we arrived at our new home, I felt overcome with joy. I immediately got out of the car to get a closer gander at the house. My eyes followed the woodwork from top to bottom. It was an old Victorian house in the middle of the sticks. Mother didn’t realize what a bargain she had passed up in choosing not to live here before. The wraparound porch was inviting, while the huge windows were dark and mysterious.

This whole darn place needs a paint job and maybe a new color. Who puts black paint on a Victorian house anyway? Uncle Mike closed the door to his pickup as he approached me and my family.

It’s so ugly, my mother said in an appalled whisper.

Yeah, it looks haunted. Phil laughed. Their stupidity angered me.

I think it’s perfect, I replied flatly.

Yeah, you would, Phil said and approached the front porch. Well, let’s check this bitch out.

The inside was as flawless as the outside. The wood creaked a glorious sound, even by the slightest footstep. The stairs were wooden, and they towered all the way to the top. The kitchen had a woodstove, too. Nearby, there sat a restaurant-style table with built-in booths, which led to a beautiful stained-glass window above. It was the only stained-glass window in the entire house.

Of course, the house did come with its share of noticeable problems. Uncle Mike had suspicions of a leaky roof, along with pipes that could easily freeze. The entire house was covered with dust, and it lacked furniture. We hadn’t enough things to furnish even half of the house. It wasn’t that the beautiful Victorian was big. In all honesty, it was very modest. We were, of course, just poor, and Mother had only salvaged enough money after Bruce was sent to prison to afford the bare necessities.

The rest of the afternoon was spent moving what little we had into the house. I would have much rather rested on the hammock and enjoyed the warm sun upon my face, which peered in through the huge, leafless trees. It seemed that summer was coming to an end and that death was all around us. Even so, all I could see was beauty. It seemed strange how, even in death, nature managed to be marvelous.

Once we had finished, Phil took off in Mother’s car to go sightseeing. The only sights I wished to see were right in front of my eyes. Mother and I sat on the porch and listened to the locusts.

I’m miserable. Mother broke the desired silence.

"Oh, Mother, you can stop