I just need to find my way out of a second mind-hazing maze first.
ChapterTwenty-Five
JR
“Hey,” Jae mouths when my groggy eyes float over her face and veer toward her kiss-swollen lips. “Do you want to share where you went the past forty minutes?” She doesn’t give me the chance to answer. “Flumazenil is the most effective ten minutes after being administered, but you continued napping like I didn’t give you an extra hit.”
I’m confused as to what she’s referencing until an intense urge to protect her spikes the hairs on the back of my neck. We’re being watched, and once our stalker gets close enough for me to grab them, I’ll be sure to pass on my dislike of being gawked at with my fist.
I hated it when I was a kid, and it grew more perverse when I realized my identity could end more than my second chance at life…
“Does that look like twine to you?”
After bobbing down to secure a tomato plant to a stake with a length of string, I slant my head so my good ear is facing away from Cecil. He can talk about the difference between twine and string for hours, and although I’ve grown to love his debates the past three years, my head is thumping way too much this afternoon to tackle his nonsense.
The dark brown brew Cecil lives off every winter is the equivalent of rat poison. It tastes like shit, burns the fuck out of your throat, and knocks you on your ass. But unlike the rats that got into the crop of corn last year, you’re back onto your feet within a couple of hours of downing a bottle.
Perhaps two if you’re as old as Cecil.
He hasn’t yet reached the age where he needs assistance to wipe his ass, but he’s cutting it close. The only reason he’s held out so long is because of the environmental toilet we installed in a makeshift bathroom a few years back. It’s the size of an aircraft toilet, meaning he doesn’t need to bend to wipe. He can do it while standing.
While the heat of Cecil’s breaths hit the back of my neck, I chuckle about the time he had to wipe with a wad of leaves because I hadn’t returned from the store with toilet paper in enough time. He used the wrong leaf, and the consequences of his actions stretched from the back of his knees to a region of his body I have no intention of ever seeing again.
We now have patches of fur in case of an emergency.
Cecil’s cabin was designed for one, but a man who should have passed years ago doesn’t take up much space. In the warmer months, I sleep on a hammock swinging off the front verandah. In the colder months, I wear a hole in the rug at the front of the fireplace I installed after shivering my way through my first three nights as Cecil’s unwanted house guest.
I stop recalling a time that seems so long ago when a rolled-up newspaper smacks me up the back of the head. Cecil learned about the hearing loss in my right ear rather soon into our unusual housing situation, but he doesn’t take kindly to me using it to my advantage.
He hates ignorance almost as much as he does the outside world. He hasn’t stepped foot off his land in over ten years, hence the reason I’ve never felt like a burden to him. I keep his cabin stacked with the things he can’t grow himself, and he keeps my mind away from the dark thoughts it constantly faced during my adolescence.
It’s an odd pairing, but it works for us.
My brows furrow when Cecil mouths, “Go inside,” instead of telling me. Even with my hair hanging past my ears, the annoying ring Isaac’s roundhouse kick caused my left ear is still present to this day. It’s frustrating, but I’m hoping the thicker my hair becomes, the less annoying it will be.
It will also be the perfect barrier for the whiny voices of the women who flock to my side during my bi-annual treks to town. Even with them not knowing my family’s notoriety, they hang off my every word like my face alone makes up for the horrific scars on my back.
Since I don’t agree with them, I thank them for their invitations before returning to the cabin Cecil inherited over a decade ago.
My father would make heads roll if he learns of my celibacy the past four years, so I won’t mention the fact I’ve never gone past third base with a woman before.
“Let me f-finish getting these tomato plants s-straightened, then I’ll stoke the fire s-so water will be r-ready for showering.”
Only a couple of weeks ago, the thick black poly hose mounted to the cabin’s roof supplied enough hot water for two showers and a bucket of water to do some laundry. But since it’s cooling down faster than usual this year, we’ve reverted to using the ancient boiler most households removed when electricity was invented.
“Inside now, punk ass.” Cecil’s words are fired out of his mouth so quick, I struggle to lip read what he says. “I won’t ask again.”
With my hearing not the best, it takes me shifting my eyes in the direction of the vibration under my feet to understand Cecil’s unease.
We have visitors.
Visitors.
Not once in the three-and-a-half years I’ve lived here have we had visitors. And from the sternness on Cecil’s face when he orders me into the cabin for the second time and his quickest glance of the gun that rarely leaves his side, it isn’t hard to determine these aren’t visitors we want.
“Goddammit, kid,” Cecil growls down my good ear when I stand at his side instead of cowering away as he’s hoping. “Sometimes you are more trouble than you’re worth.”
I scoff at his claim. I tried to take the cheater’s way out years ago. He taught me that wasn’t the right way to go, so I refuse to make the same mistake twice.
