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I stand up and start to pace back and forth in the tiny room. I argue with myself for so long that I feel like I’m starting to wear a path in the already well-worn carpet. I’m caught between my parents. Between my past and my present. And I can’t even see what could possibly be in my future.
Typical Rory. Spinning in circles for thirteen years and counting.
In the end, I drop back on the bed, exhausted and frustrated. And I decide to do what it seems like I always do: take the path of least resistance.
I’ll go to my first day of work at RJW.
You don’t have to stay any longer than you want. You can just go in tomorrow and see what Dad has in mind. It’s a way to spend some time with him. Probably the best way, in fact. That place — that company — is who he really is.
Making a decision makes me feel a tiny bit better. Even though it means I have to continue letting my mom think I’m in Indianapolis. And at that moment, I notice that sometime in the last hour or so, the rain has stopped. The sun is out now, streaming in through the gap between the ugly plaid curtains.
A sign? Or just a coincidence?
Either way, suddenly I feel super cooped up in this room. I need to get out of here for a while. Glancing at my phone, I see it’s more or less time for an early dinner. I decide to walk to the McDonalds down the highway. Yes, McDonald’s,again. For the second time since I arrived in town, the familiar taste of bad-for-me comfort food is a siren song I just can’t resist.
Grabbing my small cross-body bag, I sling the strap over my head, grab the key to my room, and step out into the wet but sunny late afternoon.
11
ROGUE
By the time I get to my dad’s place, the rain has finally stopped. Which is a good thing, because I don’t want to leave the dog food in the cab with the dog. Instead, I pull out a tarp from the storage box in the back and put the bag of dog food on top of it. I roll the windows down in the cab just enough for it to be comfortable inside for the mutt.
“I’ll only be about fifteen-twenty minutes or so,” I tell him. Then it hits me what I’m doing.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. “I’m getting way too comfortable talking to a dog.”
Grabbing the bag of groceries, I make my way up my dad’s crumbling front walk.
My father, Eugene Hicks, still lives in the same house where I grew up. Back when I was young, it was a simple but clean place. The outside — especially the lawn, trees, and shrubs — was a showplace back then. Since Dad considered a landscaper’s house to be a form of advertising for his business, the grass had to be mown just so, at just the right height. The lawn had to be edged. The bushes had to be trimmed just enough, in a way that made the house look cozy and attractive.
Back then, because of all that work he did, our place looked like the nicest one on the block. But that was a long time ago. These days, it’s the worst one by a long shot. The paint is chipped and faded. The front cement steps are so far gone they should have been replaced five years ago. They’re a hazard just to walk up them. The lawn is mostly dirt and weeds, the grass dead for years. Gigantic dandelions almost three feet tall sprout up against the front foundation.
The old beater van he used to use for work is in the driveaway. There’s a dark rectangle of less-faded paint on the side door panel, where the magnetic sign that had his logo on it used to be. The whole damn place smells of negligence, rot, and desperation. I’m surprised the city hasn’t sued Dad for the state of the place. Hell, maybe they have. I wouldn’t know one way or another.
The small mailbox next to the front door is hanging crookedly off one screw, stuffed with flyers and junk mail. I grab the lot of it and toss it into the grocery bag. I pound a couple of times on the door, then walk inside.
“Dad?” I call. “It’s me.”
The smell inside the house — acrid sweat and dust — is unpleasant, but familiar by now. When my mom lived here, during my childhood, it always smelled like laundry soap and food cooked in the Crock Pot. But that was a long damn time ago. Before my mother decided she finally had enough of my dad’s bullshit.
I move from the front door into the living room, and call for my father again. The couch where he spends ninety percent of his time is empty. The cushions are flattened and discolored, dented with the imprint of his body. A couple of beer cans sit on the end table beside an ashtray overflowing with butts.
There’s a radio on loud in the kitchen, tuned to some talk radio dude ranting about something or other. Just then, the flush of a toilet upstairs alerts me to where my father is.
“Dad!” I call again.
“Yeah!” he yells back. “Hold your damn horses!”
I head into the kitchen with the bag of groceries and start to unload them into the refrigerator. Dad shows up in the doorway. He’s unshaven, gray-skinned and gaunt. His eyebrows are bushy and unkempt, like a Russian general’s.
“Brought you some food,” I tell him.
He grunts a response. Coming closer, he angles himself past me and grabs a can of beer from the top shelf. A blast of stale sweat odor hits me, making me grimace.
“Might be about time to take a shower,” I remark.
“Fuck you,” he shoots back. He cracks open the beer and moves to the counter. Grabbing a salt shaker, he tips it over the opening in the can, then lifts the can to his mouth and takes a long, gulping swig.
