[SS] Six Weeks

[Jazzy Soul]

It's kind of a long, dark short story... my problem is I can't ever get them to end once I start writing. But I made an effort, and here it is. I'd like feedback from anyone who takes the time to read.

Six Weeks

It has been six weeks since I began trying to restore some semblance of order to my life. I won’t say that I haven’t succeeded, but if I have, then only just. The normal heartbeat of my life has been restored. The sun still rises hotly, making the city sweat, and summer days drag on and lead into sweltering nights filled with the typical suffocating humidity. My days are back to normal. The twenty-one year old drone that has replaced my vibrant, carefree teenage self is carrying on with my life’s duties as usual.

The repeated action of catching the train to work, working, and coming back home to rest in my third-floor flat in the newest high-rise building in town has become a monotonous affair. Even so, I find solace with the knowledge that it, at least, is going just as smoothly as it would if the pattern had never been interrupted, as if nothing earth-shattering had occurred at all within the past year or two, let alone just a few weeks ago. Yes, the physical return to normalcy is grudging, but nearly complete.

The emotions, though, are another story. My thoughts have been a tumultuous mess ever since that fateful day six weeks ago. My nights are restless and filled with the recurring dream that I’ve been having on and off ever since I was a child. The dreams stopped when I was sixteen; my shrink seemed a little put off by this but attributed it to a mental block, a stroke of good fortune. He seemed reluctant to be put off my parents’ payroll, but my daddy was ecstatic. He could finally afford that Sea Skimmer he’d wanted to buy, the financing of which had stopped abruptly on account of his youngest daughter’s psychological breakdown.

My mother took it all in stride. A strong woman, she was least likely to have a nervous breakdown over anything. Apparently the inflexible nerves and stubborn resolve skips generations in our family. I am nothing like her, and neither is my sister Tasha, as far as I can tell. Of all of us, my eldest sister Olivia most resembles my mother in appearance as well as demeanor. When the dreams came back, I freaked out, broke out into a cold sweat and
hyperventilated as I made the long distance call to Olivia, who now lives in Connecticut. My hands shook so badly that I misdialed twice before getting her on the phone. She was not happy to be awakened at three in the morning, and had no qualms about telling me so. But she realized that I needed her, or at least I hope she did. Nonetheless, she talked to me and calmed me down.

Since then, I’ve had the dream every day for the past five weeks. In my waking hours, I’ve seen him from the corner of my eye, sometimes lurking around corners. I can hear him wherever I go, and in other rooms in my apartment. I remember his steely gray eyes and mocking pink lips curled in a cruel smile with his curly head cocked to one side and his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his jeans as he stood on the sides of his Chucks. I remember the Doublemint fresh breath from the gum he’d always keep in his back pocket, left side. I remembered the innocence he portrayed, the sweet subtle innocence that even my daddy couldn’t see through. And I remember how for a little while we shared a secret; how we were the only two in the world who knew, and if it was up to him, it would have stayed that way for a little while longer.

Albert Fisher first came to our house in Opa-Locka, the only two-story one on the block, on a hot and sticky afternoon in late June, 1991. We’d just moved here from Philadelphia. I was seven. School had just let out, and the characteristic afternoon showers for that time of year had just begun to fall. My older sister, Tasha, and I would let the awnings down just as the fat drops started to splash on our faces and feet and bare arms; that way we could leave the windows open and catch a bit of the well needed breeze that came with the storm. We had to make a quick job of it, though, because rain stops and starts quite abruptly during a Miami summer storm.

Just before we got inside, the rain began to pour down in buckets. We got soaked. I barely had a chance to get out of my wet Pro-Wings before our doorbell buzzed. We were home alone, and our parents warned us against opening the door for strangers, and I reminded my sister of this. Tasha rolled her eyes and told me that she was grown and could do whatever she wanted to do, and let him in anyway.

Albert was a redbone boy, about Tasha’s age, fourteen. He said his momma was just as black as me but his daddy was a Puerto Rican. Tasha thought that made him special or something. I thought it made him mixed with black and Puerto Rican. Tasha warned me that if I told Momma or Daddy about Albert she would personally see to it that I got in trouble for something. She never mentioned what that something was, but she spooked me just the same, and I never said a word. Tasha and Albert’s relationship went on just like this, him sneaking over our house when Momma and Daddy were at work, for two and a half years.

[Jazzy Soul]

On August 14th, 1993, I had my ninth birthday party. Lots of the neighborhood kids came, and Olivia even came down from the college with my niece, Shaniya. By that time Momma and Daddy knew all about Albert, and he was there too. He was a far sight from the skinny fourteen-year old that snuck in through our front door two years ago. He'd grown taller, more muscular, and was now a basketball player for Northwestern High, Daddy’s old high school. When Tasha went into the eleventh grade Daddy said it was all right for her to see boys, and Tasha brought Albert home to introduce him to the family. Daddy already knew him, and liked him because he said he seemed like a respectable boy, him being on the honor roll and such. I knew it was because he played basketball as well as he did. “Represents the Blue and Gold like it's supposed to be,” Daddy'd say. Momma liked him because he was a boy, and she always talked about how she wanted a little boy, a son, and ended up with three girls, and now even her first grandbaby was a girl. She also liked the little dolls he made out of wood for her; sometimes he’d whittle one right at our house, and Momma was amazed at his talent and skill. His being a redbone didn’t hurt either; seemed to me like everybody favored the redbones, Momma included.

That night, the dreams started. I remember being curled up with the Kenya doll Momma had given me earlier that day. I loved her because she was a black doll, and I could really braid her hair, not like those stupid dolls with patches in the back of their heads. She was my favorite present, along with the manicure set and pink nail polish I’d received. I remember that once the dusk turned into night, Momma and Daddy sent all the kids home, and sent me up to my room to get bathed and in the bed. There was still music playing downstairs; my birthday party had turned into a grown folks’ party, like always. This year Tasha was allowed to stay downstairs with Momma and Daddy and Olivia, since she’d be a senior in high school in a week or so. Usually she’d be sent upstairs with me, and we’d play Barbie or something while the adults smoked and drank and cussed. This year, I went to bed alone.

I couldn’t sleep much though. It was hot, and Momma refused to turn on the AC because she said it made the light bill too high. I don’t know why they had the thing installed if they never wanted to turn it on. I clipped my nails and pushed back my cuticles, and painted my nails hot pink. Soon after they were dry, I fell into a restless sleep, tossing and turning and pulling my sheet off the bed.

I woke up in a puddle of my own sweat with the creaking of my bedroom door. I couldn’t have been asleep for long because the party was still going on downstairs. Once I shook the sleep out of my head and finally found my glasses on the nightstand after blindly groping for them, the tall figure taking up most of the space in my doorway came into focus. It was Albert. He had his head cocked to one side, his unruly curls falling into his eyes. His thumbs were hooked in the front pockets of his jeans, and on his feet were blue and yellow Converse sneakers, the Chuck Taylor kind. I told him that the bathroom was next door. He smiled, and said he wasn’t looking for the bathroom. He was looking for me. I wondered why he was looking for me.

“Why you looking for me?” I asked. “Momma want me?”

“Naw, she don’t want you, chickadee. But I do.” He stepped fully in my room and shut the door, twisting the lock with an audible click.

“What? What you mean?” I asked, only slightly confused. “What you want with me?”

“You’ll see in just a minute.”

Albert walked over to me and stood right in front of me, blocking my view of the door. His jeans had a big bulge by the pocket. At the time I didn’t know what was in them, but I was pretty sure I didn’t want to find out. Apparently he was going to see to it that I did. He reached in his pockets and pulled out a pocketknife. I gasped and looked up at him. He put his finger to his lips and whispered:

“If you bite it, I’ll kill you. Now nod if you understand me.” I nodded.
“If you make a sound, even a peep, I’ll kill you, and nobody will know it’s me. You understand me? Nod if you do.”

I nodded again. Tears were streaming down my face. I wished somebody, anybody would come upstairs; to use the bathroom, to look for Albert, to look in on me, anything. I looked around wildly for something to hit him with. Nothing remotely dangerous was within reach. I could try and jump from the open window, but who knows what would happen to me then?

Albert pulled down his jeans first, and then the basketball shorts, and then his boxers. His privates bounced out in front of my nose.

“Now I want you to put your mouth on it. And remember what I just said, don’t bite.”

That’s where the dream ends. That’s where it always ends. It stops right before I have the chance of doing anything. From the time I was nine until sixteen, I had that dream. From the time I was ten, I’d been going to see Dr. Silberstein about my “problem”. Then, when I was in the eleventh grade I met Antrell Rolland. He was my boyfriend and on junior prom night we had sex. It was alright, I guess. Not as spectacular as my friend Nicole had portrayed it to be; just alright. But I didn’t have the dream that night, and I hadn’t had it for the following five years up until six weeks ago.

Six weeks ago, he came back. He haunted me in my dreams, always lurking just around a bend or in the corner of my eyes, just standing there, sometimes glaring at me with a look of pure contempt in his eyes. Most of the time, though, he wore that same crooked smile that he’d always had.

The only difference between now and when I was nine is that now I know how it ends. I did find out how the dream finished. Then it always ended with his warning, his admonition. Now, it ends much differently. But what startles me now is that I can't remember whether it was a dream or not, and if it was just a dream, why did it keep happening to me every night? And why did I have to see Dr. Silberstein, the shrink, with his bushy gray eyebrows and unkempt beard that scared me so much? But six weeks ago I got the answer, an answer that has been haunting me ever since.

After his admonishment, Albert stepped fully out of his jeans, pocketknife in hand. He said that he was going to make me do what my sluttish sister wouldn’t. I was scared, and it was hot. I could feel the beads of sweat rolling down my back and down my face, intermingling with the hot tears. I knew there was only one thing I could do, even though I didn’t want to do it. I did it for so long, that he dropped the knife. I noticed this; but so did Albert. He put one hand around my throat, his wide thumb in the hollow, squeezing from a viselike grip to a gentle one. I got the message. He could still kill me. He put the other hand behind my head to guide me on, and kicked the knife across the floor. His eyes were closed. My manicure set was still on the bed. From years of groping on the nightstand for my glasses, my sense of touch had been heightened. I found the nail clippers easily. Deftly I switched it from cuticle cleaning mode back into clipping mode with one hand. I had just one chance, and I took it.

I bit and clipped in one swift motion, making Albert bend over double. He screamed; but he couldn’t be heard over the loud music and raucous fun that the grown folks were having downstairs. My eyes having adjusted to the darkness, I found the knife that he had cast aside.

Still doubled over with pain, his blood dripping all over my floor, Albert howled. I held the knife in my hand, shaking. I did what I had to do. The knife sunk in slowly but easily; and the more pressure I applied the deeper it went in. Blood squirted everywhere; Albert’s eyes widened and his hands went from his groin to his neck in an effort to dislodge his knife. He took it out, but that only made him bleed worse. He fell to the floor, bleeding and gurgling, and then, there was silence, and he went still.

I woke up panting, nearly floating in my own sweat. I tried to stretch my arms above my head, but they would not move. Everything was in a blur. Instinctively I made a move to reach for my glasses, only my arms felt as though there were lead weights attached to them. I heard voices coming from somewhere, but I couldn’t tell from where. I tried to sit up, but all I could manage to do was lift my head. This was not a good thing since the room began to spin around when I did. My head throbbed painfully with a pounding headache. I wanted to reach for my head and rub my temples, but my arms were pinned to my sides. I became aware of an itch on my lip, but I did not try to reach it.

Pieces of conversation floated past me in my reduced state of awareness. Somehow I could discern one name: Aaron Vander. I knew Aaron Vander. Vander was my mother’s maiden name; Aaron Vander was her brother, my uncle. Still more traces of conversation… it was my mother's voice, thick with emotion... “She was raped…” “Philadelphia… my brother did it…” “Only seven years old…”.

Seven? What was she talking about? I was raped, but I was nine years old at the time. It was my ninth birthday. I ought to remember. I was there; they weren’t. And it was Albert Fisher who raped me; not my uncle Aaron. The thoughts were racing through my head, but I told them to shut up so I could hear what was going on.

“We didn’t think, we didn’t know it still affected her like this,” A deep, rumbling male voice said. My father.

[Jazzy Soul]

“It’s quite all right,” said another voice, not as deep as my daddy’s, but unmistakably male. I recognized it as Dr. Silberstein. My shrink? What was he doing here? Where is here? And why can’t I move? What the fu*k is going on?

I screamed.

“I think the medicine is wearing off,” said Dr. Silberstein. I could barely make out three figures as they stepped into the room where I was. Two were dark, one was light; two were tall, one petite and feminine. Dr. Silberstein injected something into an intravenous bag that I somehow had not noticed until just now. I was in a hospital of some sort… but why? Dr. Silberstein wanted to know if my parents wanted to tell me, or should he? Did they want to wait outside? A piteous cry from my mother and a gruff nod of assent from my father, and they both left, closing the door softly behind them.

The trial, the lawyers, the jury all passed by in a whizzing blur. As Dr. Silberstein recounted the story, it all came crashing down on me. The realization of what I had done startled me. My heart beat wildly, I could feel the rhythm in my temples, and in the hollow of my throat. Despite the sterile, cool temperature of the room, I began to sweat.

Six weeks ago, Monday, August fourteenth, was my birthday. He said that on my seventh birthday my uncle, Aaron Vander, had molested and raped me, a crime for which he is still serving time. Six weeks ago, I started having my dream again. I didn’t tell Dr. Silberstein like I was supposed to, like he’d told me to if it ever happened to me again. But I figured that I was grown up; the dreams hadn't bothered me in years. If they did, I could handle my own problems, right? So every night when I went to sleep I killed Albert in my own personal hell, over and over again. I was Sisyphus, and killing Albert was my rock.

But it wasn’t Albert this time. I was nine when I killed my sister’s boyfriend, Albert Fisher, with his own whittling knife. I was nine years old. I was sent to a psychiatric hospital much like this one, St. Michael’s Institution for the Criminally Insane, where I spent my all of my birthdays up until I was sixteen years old. Three days before my release, my only friend, Nicole Harriman, was found hanging by a sheet from the post of her upturned bed.

Six weeks ago, everywhere I looked I could see Albert’s face. Every time I saw him, just around the bend, or out of the corner of my eye, I killed him. I needed to get rid of him; but he refused to go away. I didn’t want to see his face, see his unruly curls falling away from his forehead or the crooked smile, mocking me. So every time I saw sixteen year old Albert in my dreams, I took pleasure in seeing him die, over and over again.

He said that Albert had done nothing to me; that I'd killed him out of rage and nothing else. He said that Albert had been looking for the bathroom. He said his jeans had never been unbuttoned, that Albert hadn’t laid a finger on me. But how could that be? He’d come to my room, looking for trouble. Dr. Silberstein said six weeks ago, I began to kill, over and over again. I would come home from work and walk the streets, sometimes it would be as far away from home as St. Lucie, or Key Largo. I killed… not Albert, of course, because Albert was already dead. He had been for the past twelve years. But six boys, all products of an interracial relationship, ranging in age between fifteen and eighteen, were now dead, too. I'd hunt them one by one, for a week. On Friday they were dead. And I'd always make it to work the following day. They found me and tried me and then sent me here, where I was to wait to serve out my sentence. I am now thirty-four years old, in the year 2014. Every year, starting on my birthday, I have been having the same recurring dream for exactly six weeks… and then it would stop.

But I had been dreaming…. I didn’t really kill Albert, or any of those people that they claimed I had killed, had I? I raged; I wanted to reach up and choke Dr. Silberstein, choke the lies right in his throat before they had a chance to come out. Of course, my arms were strapped down to my bed, and I couldn’t move.

The next day, I was transported to Dade County Correctional Institute. Somewhere in the middle of the trip, Dr. Silberstein injected me with something. It spread a good, warm feeling throughout my body and made me drowsy. Soon after I fell asleep.

I woke up in a padded cell, with the jarring sound of jail bars being pulled back. I was chained at the ankles and wrists. He beckoned for me to come to him. We proceeded down a long hall, sterile and white. This hall led into a similarly all white room. There was a window. I saw fifteen faces that I did not recognize, and two that I did: my father’s and that of my oldest sister, Olivia. My father’s face was blank, unreadable. Olivia’s was wet and streaked with tears.

The cuffs were removed and replaced with straps, like the ones on my bed at St. Michael’s. The guard read to me:

“Monica Darlene McCullough, you have been tried and convicted of murder in the first degree by a jury of your peers. You have been sentenced to death by lethal injection. Do you understand your sentence?”

I sniffed. “Yes,” I surprised myself by saying.

“Do you have any words of remorse, or any last words as have been granted to you by the laws of the United States and the State of Florida?”

I tried to swallow, but the lump in my throat wouldn’t go down. “No,” I said.

“Well then by the power vested in me by the Constitution of the State of Florida I hereby carry out your sentence, at seven thirty-one P.M. on October eleventh the year of our Lord two thousand fourteen. May God have mercy on your soul.”

As had become normal by now, he injected something into my I.V line, but this stuff made it hard for me to breathe. The next injection came, and the world went black. And that’s all I remember.

[aplus]

Wow.

Jazzy, this is a good story. I like the pace of it, and I don't think it is too long. Your description was very good in this piece, and I think you captured the dark feelings of being raped and killing and insanity very well. Your vocabulary was solid, and I didn't catch any grammar errors. You also did a good job of using real images and places for a background, like when you described the Chucks and Doublemint gum for one character. Made it real vivid.

One thing I would do is try to make the piece more active...a lot of time you fell back into passive tense (if you don't know what I mean, just tell me and I can explain better). Also, in some sentences you use a lot of prepositions, which takes away some of the impact of what you are saying by making a sentence a little longer...I usually try to keep my preopositions down to two in a sentence if possible...sometimes you can take a more acive verb tense and get rid of some preps...

But as for the plot and the story idea, I liked it a lot. Good drop...

[aplus]

Another nice touch was your intro. I think you really brought a reader into the story well by describing summer and daily life, things we can identify with, and then slowly brining in the dark elements of your tale.

[Jazzy Soul]

Thanks plus... for reading and the crit and everything.... i appreciate it

Yeah could you tell me what you mean by falling back into the passive tense... I think i know what you're talking about but could you explain it to me seeing as i probably dont.. lol

[mac58]

Great Story! Jazzy I liked the story and plot alot. Only crit is that it was a bit too descriptive for me at times with some irrelevant info. especially in the begining, and some of ur sentences were too long. ie "Though the repeated action of catching the train to work, working, and coming back home to rest in my apartment on the third floor in the high-rise building on the corner of 135th and Biscayne is a monotonous affair, I find solace with the knowledge that it, at least, is going just as smoothly as it would if the pattern had never been interrupted, as if nothing earth-shattering had occurred at all within the past year or two, let alone just a few weeks ago."
After the first few paragrapghs the story flowed real well and I liked all the different twist and turns, and the descriptions got real good. Had me real interested and really felt like I could visualize it>>> Any of the crit I wrote was just constructive>>I really liked it>>>overall great story. Id like to read some more if u got.

[aplus]

Jazzy, passive voice is when you use "was" or some form of the verb "to be" before you use the "action" verb. There are times you can't help but use passive voice (sometimes it just sounds better), but when you can eliminate it, it brings the action verb to the front and makes everything more vivid, just by getting rid of the "was" or "is" in front of the action. This is different than saying "he was black." It is when you say "he was running awkwardly" instead of "he ran awkwardly".


My example from your story -

"He haunted me in my dreams, and was always lurking just around a bend or in the corner of my eyes...."

The first part of the sentence was in active voice...he haunted me in my dreams....

the second part was in passive "and was always lurking just around a bend..."

Simply playing with the structure you could get...

"He haunted me in my dreams, always lurking just around a bend or in the corner of my eyes...."

this brings the action to the forefront and gives the reader the feeling of desperation without that pesky "was" trippin things up. I don't think you need to change every time you use passive voice, I just saw a few spots where this would really enhance your story. And, like I said before, this was a good story, nice and dark, and I envy it a bit, because I am not that good at capturing this type of emotion/mental confusion in my work...

[Don Savant]

jazzy imma read this when i get off work

[Jazzy Soul]

Thanks Mac for your input and yeah I know that sentence was kinda long... I shortened it though, changed it up, so I think it sounds better now. Plus I get what you mean... it's that thing in your stories that keeps me hanging on. Previously it had no name... now I can recognize it for what it is... thanks and I made the changes that you suggested as well.