Absolution

A blanket of cold sweat smothered me when I awoke at ten o’clock on the dot; rays of sunlight shone in from under the yellow, smoke stained curtains, creating patterns on the ceiling where a grey moth slept.

My phone was ringing and there as a pounding on the door, and the moth continued to sleep. I screwed my eyes shut and bunched my hands in the rough, scratchy blankets on top of me. The pounding on the door grew heavier and the kid shouted through the cheap wood, asking if he could come in. I groaned and told him to wait a few minutes. I pulled a shirt on and grabbed my phone from my bag, I hesitated and reluctantly answered, the deep voice of my father greeting me on the end of the line with questions of what the fuck I thought I was doing, why wasn’t I in Illinois and why in God’s name was I still in California. I massaged my left temple with my free hand and slowly constructed an answer.

“I’m taking a month out. I haven’t had any time to think since middle school and I need this. I need this more than anything, because I was losing my fucking mind without my little brother by my side – he keeps me in check, I was going off the rails; I will go off the rails if I don’t get this time, I’ll do something stupidly reckless and then you’ll have lost both of your sons. If anything happens in the area, I’ll sort it out; but please, don’t call me until the end of the month? It was nice to hear you’re alive, by the way, dad.”

I hung up as he said, “You listen here, boy…” and opened the door. A cup of coffee was thrust in my face and with a blink, I grabbed it. I walked back into the room and sat myself at the table. The kid’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion when he spotted the line of salt lying thick on the carpet line near the door, he placed his guitar case and scuffed leather messenger bag at the end of the salt line and joined me at the table, taking off his navy blue jacket, leaving him in a light green polo shirt with all the buttons done up. He scratched at a freckle on his forearm, sipped his coffee and looked me deep in the eyes. I returned the stare into his pale blue eyes with a quirked eyebrow.

He broke eye contact, got two cigarettes out of his pocket along with his Oasis lighter and handed me one, lighting it once it was between my lips. I cupped the flame, looking at the kid’s eyes, pupils wide, focussed, deep in concentration as he made certain the end was alight; he licked his plump bottom lip and caught my gaze, he flinched almost, knocking my hand and the lighter to the floor, he muttered a curse and I bent down to pick it up, handing it to him slowly, my hand lingering slightly as pulled on it, his knuckle brushing against the side of my index finger.

I let go and he coughed. My eyes closed serenely and I blew out a cloud of smoke, they opened once more and the kid looked back at me with his dilated pupils and cocked his head. I smirked and he lit his cigarette with a shake of his head. He took a sip of his coffee and asked, with an amused smile, why the hell was I lining the doors with salt. I shrugged and told him this motel had a slug problem, who the fuck wants to find a slug slithering its way up to accompany you in bed.

He went on to tell me that before he and his mother moved into his step-father’s house (his step-father was an Irish man, apparently a cousin or something of JFK – which was the only reason the kid had even got to the US anyway, claiming to his step-father that he wished to find out more about the name his new family had given him; the kid hadn’t even visited Massachusetts), the shitty council house he lived in with his mother, grandparents and shady uncle had slugs living in the hollow walls, and that this one time, him and his grandfather were watching a Liverpool versus Everton match (I assumed he meant soccer, due to my brother’s two year obsession with British ‘football’), which was the biggest of all big deals in Liverpool, and his team scored a goal, and he cheered and threw his arms up in jubilation, elbow whacking a massive hole in the cheap wall. He said he screamed in absolute horror when he found what seemed like a whole family of slugs just lining themselves within the wall. I shuddered and he pulled a grim expression.

I scratched at my left collarbone and leant on my right elbow, taking a drag on the cigarette between my thumb and index finger and asked him why he was really here – it wasn’t just to talk about my paranoia regarding the slimy beasts of the night we referred to as ‘slugs’. He moved the ashtray from the middle of the table closer to him and stubbed out his cigarette, crossing his arms. He then asked me if I was pissed at him.

My eyes shifted a couple of times and I smirked once more. I shook my head and shrugged, asking him why he would even think that. He breathed out with a laugh and rubbed his eyes, saying that because I left quite abruptly the night previous, that he thought that he, or his friends, had offended me somehow. His cheeks began to redden slightly as I laughed and I said no, despite his friends being rather dick-like towards me, they hadn’t offended me, had only jogged something in my head my brother had said to me earlier in the week, which meant I had to leave and think about it.

He asked if leaving and thinking about it meant getting drunk on a room on my own and with a lazy smile, I inquired as to how he knew that. He pointed at the empty whiskey bottle lying at the side of my bed, and also pointed out how terribly I smelt of alcohol and how relieved I was at the scent of coffee. I finished my drink and stood up, picking a pair of jeans out of my bag and pulling them on. The kid said that his friends liked my bluntness and honesty; he then asked what my brother had said. Then he apologised for being extremely intrusive and bit his nails in embarrassment.

I told him it was just my brother being a pretentious bastard, using philosophical words and phrases he’d learnt at Stanford to confuse me, I told him that after I’d gone back over the words, that they’d honestly meant nothing and that my brother was just trying to fuck with me. The kid looked up at me with his wide eyes, blinked and asked if I missed my brother. I kicked at a dust bunny on the floor, stared intently at my shoes, felt my cheeks begin to colour and answered, my voice cracking slightly, with a simple, “No.”

I breathed in deeply through my nose and swallowed the massive lump developing in my throat and picked up my keys from the counter, pulled the amulet out from underneath my t-shirt, grabbed my leather jacket and opened the door, turning to the kid who was sitting at the table, confused. I raised my eyebrow at him and stepped outside of the motel room, looking back at him. He got the gist, picked up his things and closed the door; I turned the keys in the lock and jogged down the stairs to the car, and he stood next to me at the car door, I looked at him with raised eyebrows and he apologised, saying that American cars still confused him and the amount of times he’d almost got hit crossing roads was too many for him to recall.

He got in my side anyway and climbed over the seats, asking where we were going; I said that I was hoping he would tell me, and told him to take me to the singer’s house. He looked up to the roof of the car and hummed low in contemplation, saying that he might know where she lived, if I bought him a pack of cigarettes. I rolled my eyes and started the car up as he began to describe the way to the nearest gas station.