Discouraging at Best

Whipped on the Face With a Length of Thorn Bush: Yes, Directly on the Face-2

With hands on hips Quadira's father snidely laughed. “I sure ain't the one's got to clean that mess up woman. Hell, why not, let's all bust up the house!” So saying he cast his mug into a suicide trajectory, allowing the thing to burst against the corner cupboard.

That was the only reasonable explanation to it all as far as Quadira could tell, the window theory. One of those furry little things had snuck in while she was sleeping, rummaged about in her room maybe, then crept into her bed looking for a place to hide. Maybe it was a rat?! No, no, Quadira could not allow herself to believe such a thing. It must have been a squirrel, and somehow that gross little thing had gotten inside of her, got trapped, and was trying to chew its way to freedom. If there was an Almighty He would spare her any more pain, prevent any more bloodshed, put a solution to this horror in her mind so that she might eliminate it once and for all.

"You gone asked for it now July! I don't care no more, I just do not care!” Quadira's mother stooped then to pick up the thorn brach that lay beside Malcolm.

"Don't you do it woman. You hear me Ernestine?"

Her mother cried out just then, having pricked herself on one of the thorns. Malcom's body convulsed at that moment, rising vertically at least a foot, before bouncing on the floor and shooting up to a standing position with a howl. Both parents were sent reeling by this action; Malcom's screams, combined with the rivulets of bloody urine-mud he had flung about during his ghastly resurrection, proved enough to silence the household. Just as quickly he went silent again, simply standing still, staring straight ahead at the finger-painting Josephine had taped to the wall.

Even Quadira had been roused from her internal torments momentarily. She soon lost interest, however. Maybe when Malcolm was inside her chewing her guts out she could spare him the time of day. Until then she had to devise some plan for exterminating the invading rodent.

Quadira's mother was the first to find her voice. “Praise be..."

* * * *

Josephine was confused, as always. When did her parents not confuse her? After listening to her father's rants about being “the have-nots” day in and day out, at the dinner table, in the bathroom, on the rooftop, she had taken him literally. In school, on the first day when everybody was watching her, and the teacher asked, “Little girl, what's your name please? You didn't respond to the roll call...” Josephine had proudly announced that her last name was Havenot. To this day she still didn't understand why the other kids had all laughed, or why her teachers refused to call her Josephine Havenot. Now her brother was risen from the drainage ditch, risen from Death's grasp. Or was he? “Malc alive?” she timidly asked her mother.

"Oh! What kind of question is that?!” her mother screamed, tearing at her own hair, engulfed by ravenous happiness.

"I'll be damned, I'll be damned, I'll be damned!” Josephine's father shouted, standing, hurling his rolled up paper at the floor with deadly intent. “What now? What now?! We ain't been put upon enough? We ain't got bills to pay and taxes to pay and worries enough for our boy to up and die, then come back up in here like some kinda undead freak?!"

"Don't you talk that way!” Josephine's mother hollered, her sheltering arms thrown around Malcolm despite all the icky stuff on him.

"I'll talk that way! I'll talk that way and more! You wanna go and die boy? Well? Well! Then you keep on goin'! I didn't give your butt permission, did I, to come on back in my house, see? We don't have

no undead in here! Uh-uh!"

Was her brother alive or dead? What did “undead” mean exactly?

Josephine's mother did something then, something she had not witnessed before: she snarled, lips drawn back in a feral grimace while a strangled sound emanated from her throat.

"Don't give me that, woman. Look at us! Just when we had one less mouth to feed, and now what? My God, we are the have-nots, I'll tell you, those mansion-livin’ sons of bitches don't have to put up with this nonsense. I'm the have-notingest bastard on this lump of mud spinnin’ through space towards Armageddon, that's what I am!"

So did that mean her older brother Malcolm was some kind of angel now, or maybe a devil who slipped into bodies like they were pajamas? He didn't look evil, or overly good either, he just sort of looked like, well, Malcolm. She wandered over to the center of the room where he was located and stood waving her hand back and forth through his line of vision. There was no visible indication that anything registered.

"Don't you do that honey child, you go on and leave your brother alone now. And you, July, you need to shut that mouth before the flies get out. Who ever said our Malcolm was dead? Well? You a doctor now and a layabout?"

Just then Josephine's oldest sister, DeAnne, who hadn't been home for days—probably because she dropped out of tenth grade earlier in the week—came barging in through the front door, listening to music through headphones and singing along. “What it is what it is, this freaky b***h is, back in da hizzouse like Mickey-Mickey-Mizzouse, step to my grill an’ I'll rip yo skanky blizzouse, I take your man home and make ‘im, make ‘im shizzout, those funky high-waters you got is—"

"Dee!” both of Josephine's parents yelled, their eyes and veins nearly bursting. At that moment the entire family froze, the only sound audible being that of the music blasting out of DeAnne's headphones. After a long, uncomfortable pause Josephine's father finally turned back on her mother like a dog driven mad. “Woman, you want to keep that brokedown walkin’ corpse then you get his stank self cleaned, and then you put yourself to work down here cleanin’ up the mess—"

"July—"

"Shut your mouth Ernestine—"

"July—"

While Josephine's parents reached a feverish level of malice DeAnne stood speechless and Quadira just kept rocking back and forth like she had all evening. Josephine used a twig to poke at Malcolm, poke him in the chest and the throat and then the face, but he never flinched, never even looked at her.

"Oh stop that!” her mother yelled, knocking the twig from her grasp.

Quadira leapt up, oblivious to the scene, and raced to the kitchen which was still in disarray from the practice session with the thorn switch. She threw open the cabinets under the sink, where all the cleaning chemicals were stored, and began to wildly fling containers left and right, discarding them on the vinyl tiling.

"What in creation is going on now?” Josephine's father exclaimed. “What it going on in that child's head? Ernestine, get your daughter under control!"

Finally Quadira stood, almost throwing herself down in her haste, her hands clamped around a cylindrical pesticide container with a pump handle. “Kill the squirrel!” she screamed, plunging the contraption between her legs.

On seeing this everyone sprang into motion simultaneously, all save for Malcolm that is. Josephine made it to her sister first, struggling in vain to turn her around in an effort to see what was going on.

The rest of the family, however, had plans of a different nature, and arrived only a split second after the diminutive girl. Their parents wrestled the cylinder away from the raving twelve-year-old, threw her back, pinned her to the table.

With the music still pumping from under her earphones DeAnne jumped forward, landing a blow to Quadira's face, followed by another and another, and everybody in the family was too shocked by the many turns of events to make any attempt to curtail the beating. “You sick little skeeza, I ain't even tryin' to see that, I ain't even tryin’ to see that!” she kept repeating as she pounded Quadira.

Finally Josephine's father intervened, his fingers brutally crushing DeAnne's exposed shoulders, decimating the skin, and he slapped her like God smacking a stray rebel angel back down to the fiery depths ... and he had that look in his eye. “What is wrong with this family?” he uttered, not really seeing them anymore. “You're all against me, aren't you? Yeah ... yeah..they are ... got to stand up for myself..."

"Don't! Don't you go doing nothing rash now, honey,” Josephine's mother said, attempting to come off as soothing, while DeAnne collected herself on the floor. Quadira wailed unintelligibly on the table; Malcolm was petrified in the living room; Josephine was confused again. What squirrel? “July honey, don't you do nothing rash now, you know we all love Daddy ... ain't that right girls? Tell your papa."

Josephine's father was far from listening though. He shambled out of the room, world-worn, in search of something. It seemed as though he may have been grunting something under his breath, but he might not have been.

Did Josephine have two dead brothers now? Was that the truth or did she just make it up? Nobody ever mentioned her oldest brother, her parents wouldn't tolerate such talk. All that she knew about him was that he was the second oldest, right after DeAnne. Maybe he was just visiting somewhere for a long time, or at one of those fancy schools where you sleep and eat there year-round. All Josephine knew was that she wanted to know more but probably never would.

* * * *

Hershel was in several thousand pieces by this point, on a shelf overlooking the dining room, his ashes in an oversized plastic martini cup, covered with plastic wrap that had grown loose with time. Hershel's present situation was on account of his father having sold the brass urn he came home in for what turned out to be a decent profit.

* * * *

When the old man had thrown DeAnne down he had been lucky, because she wasn't expecting him to act up. Otherwise she would've let him know that things had changed. She collected herself up off the floor, the music still pounding an outrage in her ears. Her mother was motionless, not even paying any attention to her, just standing there staring after the old man like she'd been doing her whole adult life. That freak Quadira was preoccupied with sobbing on the kitchen table, still as helpless as DeAnne had left her. Josephine just kept saying “What's goin’ on?” over and over again and that little Erkle wannabe Malcolm kept his vigil in the living room.

Whatever was going on in the home didn't matter; DeAnne would set things square with the pops and then either split or take things over. Feeling up the lead she was packing, DeAnne had more than half a mind to just blow up the spot once and for all. She had her clique in full effect so what was the point of even trying to stay there anyway?

"July!” her mother called, nervously.

"Just let him try something,” DeAnne reassured herself.

DeAnne's mother grabbed at her arm. “Don't tell me that man hit you hard enough to knock the sense out of your head. Don't you go provoking nothing now, girl."

"What's wrong with Quadira mama?” Josephine asked.

"This family,” was DeAnne's answer.

The old man's footsteps vibrated through the staircase and interrupted her mother's scolding words. By the time he made it down the stairs DeAnne was prepared, much to her mother's horror. At first she thought her father was rolling with a gauge but no, it was just a rifle. He must have sold the shotgun sometime and picked this thing up to replace it. Either that or he'd done something that required him to dispose of it discreetly. At that moment, though, he was bug-eyed, the rifle still slung over his shoulder, not at all prepared for what his daughter had in store.