This Brushfire Within

This Brushfire Within

It’s been hot as a devil’s tooth since the drought. I can’t even put my cigarettes out the window of my car, for fear of fire, but the truth is, the sun’s been beatin’ on me to quit anyhow. I adjust the radio dial, but the only station that comes in is Christian radio. Might as well turn it off. I ain’t seen the truth in God since Sunday School. Sister Ruth and all them church ladies will sharpen their teeth on your eyes if you let ‘em. 

I pull into our gravel drive. Mama’s not home. Suppose if she were, she’d be next to dead in her chair anyhow. Her veins can’t stand the needle much more, I’ll tell you that.  

I pull out another cigarette from my pack, and begin pacin’ the wooden porch. It crucifies my feet-- probably conviction splinterin’ my steps, ‘cause I don’t believe in God no more. But I want to. I think. I want to believe I could be loved like that. Sometimes it feels like I’m pullin’ for beliefs like they’re stuck in the attic behind mama’s old rock records said to be satanic. I inhale, and feel the smoke deep in my lungs, hear the fire sizzle, think about how that fire and brimstone will get me some day if I don’t get my act together. Maybe I do believe. Maybe I just don’t like him sittin’ up in the sky castin’ judgments and punishments on me like he does. 

What mama don’t know is I’m leavin’ tomorrow. I don’t remember much about my daddy, but he sure taught me how to leave. I still remember that suitcase, with the sleeve of his white button-up hangin’ out the zipper, reachin’ for me as he walked out the door. Suppose his leavin’s got somethin’ to do with the way I let Jesse Ray’s truck bed burn my thighs ever since I been brave enough to let it. 

The sun’s settin’ red like some Revelation plague when I go to my room to count the money I’ve been savin’ for 2 years babysittin’ and workin’ late hours at the diner. It should be 1,763.00. I remove the sweatshirt atop my jewelry box, pull it down from the corner of my closet, unlock the box, only to find that there’s nothin’ there. I look everywhere for the money, but I know the only place it could be is there in that jewelry box and since it ain’t, I know who has it. And she ain’t even here to yell at. Even if she were, it’d make no difference. I keep tryin’ to do it right, but all it leads me to is wrong. Tears well up like hot springs in my eyes, burnin’ me up just like the time she pulled twenties out from under my mattress, and the only thing I think to do is scream and head to Jesse Ray’s. 

“Well, hey there, baby,” he says. 

“Shut up and fuck me.” I say. I’m a fiend for somethin’ that barely pleasures. Sort of like suckin in cigarettes. 

“Now, wait a minute,” he says.  

“Do it now.” I say and start unbuckling his belt. Slide his jeans down to his ankles, and push him up against the barn. 

“Are you even ready?” He asks. 

“I’ll be fine.” I say, but really, I want it to hurt. I want it to burn like hate. He starts thrustin’. “Harder.” I say. He thrusts faster. “Not just faster. Hurt me.” So he does. My eyes steady on a nail on the black barn wood just when the bruisin’ begins. I start to cry. When he pulls out, I fling off the tears, light a cigarette and leave. 

“Hey, where you goin’?” He yells after me. My body shakes as I drive home. 

I walk into the house and mama’s in her chair, arm hangin’ loose like a wet piece of paper. Blue lines blurrin’ together—nothin’ but vein and pale. A ribbon of smoke tangles its body to mine. It smells thick like the spirits stuck in them glass bottles on the tree out back.  Mama’s cigarette must’ve dropped out her mouth, ‘cause fire is eatin’ the walls and gnashin’ its teeth on the floorin’. 

“Mama!” I try to wake her.

No response. 

“Mama!” I say, shakin’ sweaty shoulders. She comes to. “Mama, the house!” I yell. 

The whites of her eyes are pink spider webs, what you can see of ‘em at least. She bats me away. She’s not registered the fire, so I grab her and put her outside, run back in and fill a pitcher of water. But it’s no use. I cough out the darkness and run outside. We both stand there by the glass bottle tree. I still remember the two of us hangin’ them bottles after daddy left. I wonder if this smoke is freein’ them spirits. I wonder if it can free mine. The smoke grows higher, and the only thing left to do is watch it burn. I’m close enough now to know what hell feels like. 

My knees grind into gravel. Mama sits beside me. The glow of opossum eyes behind us, all demon and dime. I can’t stay here consumed by this fire. I’ll end up like her or worse. Mama used to say “To everythin’ there’s a season,” but my eyes can’t harvest this raw earth I been dealt. So I get up. Breathe out the black lung and venom. Surrender so I could mend my morrow and settle this brushfire within. 

“Where you goin?” she says. “Ruby Ann!” I don’t turn back. I get to my car. My hands grip the wheel, white knuckle and bone. An old hymn enters my mind, comes out my mouth like wheezin’, “And oh, what weeping and wailing, As the lost were told of their fate. They cried for the rocks and the mountains. They prayed, but their prayers were too late.”