Mercy

Silence, save for the nonsensical coos of the child nestled in my arms, engulfed the room and mocked us with an intensifying sense of unease in anticipation of the inevitable meltdown. Jakob, the junkies, and I observed in horror as the sickening grimace stretched upon Billie Joe’s features grew dark with a terrifying sense of malevolence, eyes shimmering with whatever imprisoned fury he felt for his son subsequent to his outrageous request for money. His progressively mounting anger was channeled throughout his entire being in the form of a disquieting tremor that amplified his disgust with each passing second. The corners of his mouth sagged into a revolted glower, as if the sheer thought of giving his son more than a meager fifty dollars ingrained a sour taste into his mouth the moment Joey stated his demand. Soon after his body began to tremble, Billie cast his cane aside and paced about the room without so much as the purple object, a wall, or my arm to lean against for support. The adrenaline coursing through his veins was enough to keep his body in motion despite the pain being mobile so obviously caused for the old bastard.

“Dad, don’t you think you should sit down?” Jakob asked timidly, being just as concerned as I about his sudden knack for bottling his resentment.

“Butt out, Jake, I ain’t gonna sit. I’m gonna walk in circles ‘til this bullshit makes sense to me,” he growled, though it was alarmingly clear that his hostility was not meant for the younger of his two sons.

“What bullshit? All I need is fuckin’ money for my kid. That’s it,” Joey snapped, reluctantly pushing himself up from the floor before the dizzying blow to his head brought him back down to his knees. Clutching his temple, he groaned, “Son of a bitch, Jake, did you really need to hit me that hard? I bet you gave me a damn concussion.”

“You’d be out cold if I’d given you a concussion. Now quit your bitching, you were asking for it,” Jakob shot back, his poisonous stare spewing venom at his unpleasant older brother.

“Shut the fuck up! If you actually had money, none of this would have happened!” Joey hissed, stumbling to his feet and all but colliding with his father as his attempts to attain equilibrium proved to be futile. The clash severely startled the old man, who had been lost in the whirlwind of miserable thoughts cascading throughout his incessantly occupied mind, and sent him reeling helplessly on the balls of his feet to regain his balance. With much effort and arm flailing, Billie Joe managed not to fall flat on his ass.

Whirling around to face Joey, he bellowed, “The hell is wrong with you, boy? You fuckin’ stupid or somethin’? I know the drugs’ll make you feel like Jesus fuckin’ Christ, but even a goddamn retard wouldn’t stick his dick up that chick without a rubber!”

Joey froze, though the triumphant smirk he wore never faltered as he stared his father down. Grin broadening, he drawled, “No shit, it broke…but it was the best damn lay I ever had.”

The girl in the rocking chair twitched, and the corners of her mouth curled into the tiniest of smiles. There may have been a flaxen beauty sitting before us in the rocking chair, but whatever attractiveness she potentially contained was masked by sheens of grime coating her pallid features and golden tresses mangled about her airheaded stare. Her crystalline blue eyes flicked in my direction in what I assumed to be her means of watching over her son, though a second glance brought one to comprehend a look of volatile desperation weaved within the mange that consumed her. It became frighteningly obvious that she would abandon the child the instant an opportunity arose to do so, and with a terrific pang of fear for the child, I realized this was her opportunity. It was not her child she was curiously peering at…it was me. I was her easy exit from motherhood.

“Guess it don’t get much dumber’n a junkie fuck, huh? I really hope bonin’ that skeleton was worth all this,” Billie Joe scoffed, derision wrapped within each contemptuous word as if he was oblivious to the girl’s presence in the room.

“I-I’m n-n-not a s-skelet-ton,” she stuttered in a lazy attempt at defending herself, incapable of allowing an insult to permeate her filthy skin despite the evident truth to the old man’s crude remark.

“Honey, I ain’t talkin’ to you!” Billie barked, eyes flashing. The girl jumped at being so harshly addressed and was sent spiraling into a twitching fit more violent than before. Her anxiousness paralleled an escalation in creaks and groans resonating from the floorboards beneath the rocking chair she was glued to, and I had the oddest urge to slap her into a decent state of sanity despite the manic withdrawal raging throughout her mind and body. I feared that if I was subjected to the irritating noise much longer, I myself might plummet headfirst into a fidgety state of madness.

Joey’s seemingly resilient smirk cracked at his father’s blatant disrespect for his girlfriend, though he hardly took it upon himself to shield her from the verbal lashings. Instead, with his lips curled into a pathetically feigned pout and his hands clasped to his chest like a beggar before the king, he settled upon reiterating his demands in a sycophantic display of self-pity and dire necessity. The oiliness to the junkie’s methods matched the sordid filth plastered about his girlfriend’s skin, slick and nearly unbearable to observe, and I found myself absently wondering how long it would be before the desperate man turned to prostitution to solve his money woes.

“Just a grand, Daddy. That’s all I need. Just gimme a grand and we’ll never bother you again,” he groveled, keeping his stance placed firmly upon his knees to add the proper dramatic effect. When his father said nothing, he added, “I’m not a fag like your whore over there, Dad. I can’t suck your dick to change your mind, but I’m sure Maggie would be more than happy to.”

The rocking chair stilled and a pair of watery blue eyes stared intently upon the old man, apprehensive in anticipation of his response, but he snorted in disbelief and obstinately refused the proposal. With a purposely acrid bite to his already insensitive words, he snarled, “I do not want Miss Mary Magdalene over there touchin’ me…‘n’ for the record, Joe? Callin’ Fairy a fag ain’t helpin’ your case none ‘cause you’re just ‘bout insultin’ everyone else in the room with your bigot bullshit.”

Joey gasped as the realization sank within his corroded soul, and for the second time since the argument began, no one spoke. All eyes gaped at father and son, wordlessly agonizing the outcome of Billie Joe’s confession, regardless of how predictable it may have been. To be honest, it would have been safe to assume that we were all morbidly fearful of what Joey might do or say in retaliation taking into account his unabashed tendency to lean towards homophobia.

I, on the other hand, was glowing at the prospect of the old bastard finally coming to terms with a feeling wedged within his heart for decades…a feeling society had drilled into the public eye as being godless and condemnable. Billie Joe may not have been an overtly religious man, yet no one could admit with any amount of sincerity that they are more than welcome to be a target for unrestricted, anarchic punishment for the sake of their own bliss. For his generation, it was far less damning to hide a true identity behind a beautiful woman and an armful of children. My eyes flickered to the tattoo on the old man’s arm, and I mulled about whether or not the woman he’d paid eternal homage to through graffiti of the flesh had known she was nothing more than a cover, a mask. How could she have lived with herself perceptive to the fact that she’d been an unwilling participant in a deceitful charade?

Something told me she knew. Nothing was ever bullshit with Billie Joe.

“Did you just…fuck, was that you coming out?” Joey spluttered, blown away in every manner imaginable. Hell, Billie Joe could have given Lorraine a run for her money with how easily he’d been capable of being the Momentary Master of Mindfuck, yet his unfair advantage over those lacking the clairvoyant skill he claimed to possess automatically placed him as the indisputable Master regardless of Lorraine’s fancy little Ph.D.

“If that’s how you wanna take it, boy, then fine. I ain’t arguin’ it either way. Now is a grand all you want, or are you gonna up the price again while you still got the chance?” the tricky bastard challenged, smirk identical to Joey’s prior to his loss of the forced upper hand.

The offer was a trap meant to ensnare Joey in his own drug-induced greed, and perhaps it was even meant to bring about a reasonable amount of guilt at how shamelessly he’d acted as his own girlfriend’s fucking pimp, but the man refused to take the bait. Alternatively, he permitted for the sweet success of over one thousand dollars to dangle in front of him without so much as a hand darting out to snatch it away before his father had the chance to change his mind and murmured, “No…no, a grand’s enough…for now…”

“So be it. Jake, mind grabbin’ my checkbook for me?”

“Dad, are you out of your mind?! He’s probably going to use the money to pay off some dealer!” Jakob shrieked, though his body grudgingly hovered near the door to follow through with his father’s unsavory orders. Billie merely responded with a desperate plea in his eye, and Jakob exited the room at once.

The baby in my arms squirmed, petite mouth unhinging to release an impressive yawn, before it lazily peered up at me. He giggled and cooed, though it was a feeble utterance that compelled me to wonder just how malnourished this child truly was. As if to reiterate my implicit qualms with the parental skills, or lack thereof, of Joey and Miss Mary Magdalene, the infant’s eyes rolled back within their sockets. He was unconscious in a matter of seconds, lips parted slightly to allow the drool to languidly dribble down his chin. Baby Armstrong was far too lethargic to be considered healthy, and if someone didn’t do something soon…he simply would not make it.

In a hoarse whisper, I asked, “What’s his name?”

Joey mused for a moment, but rapidly realized he had no proper response for me. He didn’t even bother to fabricate one as he sighed, “I don’t really know. Maggie calls him Phoenix, but I think that’s a ridiculous name.”

Frowning, I traced my fingertips over the sallow cheeks of the sleeping child and mentally agreed with Joey that Phoenix was, indeed, a ridiculous name. No matter what the baby was christened, he would never rise from the ashes in the event of his parents’ final act of neglect. If he was to die at the hands of his mother’s gluttony, not even a hopeful name of rebirth could feasibly raise the dead.

Phoenix. My God, she might as well have named her son Jesus.