His face is weather beaten. It’s leather from the wind and rain. He sits in a hard plastic chair. The light is harsh and accentuates a scar he received in a drunken bar fight years ago. It is round like the broken tumbler that an angry drunk smashed into it. His eyes are dark and soft. Freckles dot his nose and cheeks. He speaks with a Minnesotan accent, even though he’s never been. It is one of the inherited sins of his parents. He looks down at his hands. They are rough from fishing and carpentry. He fixes things. He fixes them all. But this is something new. The PA speaker near him asks for a doctor here and a doctor there. He closes his hands.
I loved you from the first time I Held You.
His eyes are heavy and his chest burns a little now and then. He has the swagger one inherits from living on the world and in it. It isn’t the same that one finds a gangster using. It is isn’t the same that a wheat grass drinking CEO uses. It is a swagger the world gifts to the ones it’s been hardest on. He is only 5’11” but when he stands, his thick figure causes him to seem to be a giant. He’s seen this and that and done it all.
But I never wanted to do this.
An overweight and serious nurse who has seen this too many times walks to him. She is strong and her hair is pulled into a bun. She looks down at her hands as she walks. The hands that have saved lives with Narcan as often as some mothers make sandwiches for their children. These people here in this village on the edge of the sea… they are her lovers, her brothers her sisters her fathers her mothers and she is so, so tired today.
“She’s sleeping but you can see her.”
“Is she going to be alright?”
“For now, but Jon….Jon, I…I don’t know.”
“Take me to my daughter.”
He follows her down the pure white hallway, past wide grey doors and windows. They walk past the nurses station. He sees someone he knows but he cannot stop. He cannot. He sees only the walk. The nurse opens a doorway and he pushes past her.
I Held You
She is beautiful with light brown hair and the face of an angel. It isn’t scarred. It is harsh from the environment when it is awake, but when she sleeps…he steps a wide stride and is at the bed. The fucking bed with the machines and the beeps and the rail and oh my angel… and he falls down.
Down
Down
His knees thump against the tile and he doesn’t cry out. He kneels there he looks down for a moment and reaches finally to find his daughter’s hand. It is cold and warm. He holds it.
I will be with you forever.
She is ten years old now in his mind.
“Tell me the story!” She says to him as he tucks her in.
“I don’t know any stories.” He says as he adjusts her stuffed animals just like she wants.
“Daddy!” She shrills.
“Which one do you want to hear?”
“The one about the boy and his doggie.”
“Oh that one,” and he brushes her hair away from her beautiful eyes. She has her mother’s eyes.
“Please?”
It is a very old story he says to her.
I wish I could protect you from the world and keep you perfectly safe like in that moment.
Four years later and a nasty divorce later his beautiful girl smokes cigarettes and wears black. She is angry like he used to be. Meeting after meeting with the principal of the school informs him that she is intelligent. Impressively so. The principal tells him that the school is wasted on her and she is acting out over the divorce. Don’t tell me about my daughter. He says menacingly. The principal acquiesces. But
This place isn’t good enough for her.
What are you saying?
That she is wasted here.
This isn’t good enough for you?
Jon, it isn’t good enough for her. She deserves a better school, a future.
Are you saying there’s no future here?
She could be something.
You outsiders always come here and try to stir up trouble. You’re probably the reason she’s misbehaving!
Jon, this isn’t about me or her teachers
DON’T TELL ME ABOUT MY DAUGHTER! And he punches a hole through the wall.
He doesn’t do that anymore.
Jon has other daughters. One was married to a handsome skinny boy and they have two children. Her name is Abby. One is sad and torn. Her name is Candice She has a son. His father is an addict. Jon keeps trying to get him to work. He is farther down a path that Candice cannot walk so she watches him as she holds the hand of her son. He is only four but he is half her size already. He walks like his grandfather. And she loves him more than earth loves the moon.
The one lying in the hospital bed is named Raylie. Jon called her his little Ray. When she was young she ran against the wind.
“What are you doing?” He would ask her.
“I am fighting the air.”
“You’ll never win.”
“But it’s fun!” She says to him and he laughs and she is running now against the wind. He would push her to help but she doesn’t want it, she doesn’t want it.
Raylie is seventeen in his mind now. She likes drinking and boys. He cannot save her. She yells at him and screams that he’ll never understand. “You’re just a stupid fisherman!”
“At least I know better than to fill my body with that fucking poison!”
“Fuck you!”
“Why don’t you go out and fuck another boy from the village, you fucking SLUT.”
And she screams. She throws the coffee maker at him and it slams against the wall He moves to stop her.
DON’T YOU FUCKING TOUCH ME!
I’m sorry he says
I’m sorry
She leaves and breaks the glass in the door as she slams it shut. He almost punches the wall but
He doesn’t do that anymore. Instead he slowly sits down on the kitchen and breathes out. Breathes IN. Breathes Out. He gets out of his chair. Candice is standing in the kitchen.
“You don’t say that to her ever.”
“Say what?”
“Don’t you call her slut. You know nothing about her.”
“Candice, don’t you start. She is my daughter and I know her better than you think.”
“No you don’t. Not anymore. You gave that up for this fucking town. That fucking boat.”
“I live in this town for you and her and Abby!” He begins to yell.
“I don’t give a fuck about this place.” She says. She never raises her voice.
Her son begins to cry upstairs. “I have to go feed him” she says.
He sits for a while. He has a bottle hidden somewhere. It is half full of whiskey. It is callingcallingcalling.
He stands back up and cleans up the broken coffee pot. He sweeps up the broken window.
Candice is on the couch feeding her son.
“I have to go to the boat.”
“Dad I think I need to move.”
Don’t leave me.
“I’ve been talking with mom.”
“Wisconsin?”
“It’ll be a fresh start.”
“We can work this out.”
“Dad this place is eating me. Abby is leaving too.”
“This place is our home!”
“It isn’t ours.”
“Our people have lived and died here since…”
Candice interrupts him. “Can’t you see that isn’t enough for me? For any of us? Why do our grandparents get to condemn us to a broken life on this land? Why can’t we leave?” She feels fire burning. Jon looks at the wall.
I don’t do that anymore.
“What about her?” He gestures to the broken door that Raylie left out of.
“She is staying.”
“Why?”
“Talk to her about it.”
“When are you leaving?”
“In a week. We’ve saved up enough for tickets. And mom is helping.”
“I’m not giving you money to leave this place. It is your home.”
“No it isn’t dad.” She shifts her son over to her other breast.
“I need to go to the boat.” He leaves and Candice breaks silently. Her son becomes angry with her and he begins to cry. She rocks him. Go to sleep my little prince. Go to sleep now. It’ll be alright.
He comes back three weeks later with a haul of fish. He is tired and after when he gets home there is no one. There is no one but a note on a door. Candice tells him in the note they couldn’t wait and that Abby and she have gone. “Be good to Raylie, she is the most fragile.” She says.
Raylie comes in that night drunk and maybe something. He isn’t sure.
“You didn’t go with them?” he asks her after a little so he can pretend he didn’t notice.
“There wasn’t enough money.”
“Your mother?”
“She spent her savings to get her grandchildren down. There wasn’t enough for me.”
“At least you’re here. This is your home.”
“Oh fuck it.” She says and she leaves again.
“Where are you going?” He calls after her.
“Obviously not far!” She screams back at him and he hears her car start up.
She goes to HIS apartment. He is sitting with a glass pipe.
“What is that, pot?” She asks him as she kicks her shoes off.
“No it’s something new. I got it from Ian.”
“What is it called?”
“Meth. It’s supposed to be good.”
“I know about that. They talk about it in school.”
“Suck my dick and I’ll let you try it.”
“Fuck you.” She says and she plops down on the seat in the dining room. “Have you tried it?”
“A couple of days ago.”
“What was it like?”
“The angels lifted me. It’s dirty though. I’m not able to sleep. I did the laundry three times. I feel like superman still. I felt like I could fight anything.”
“Even the wind?”
“Fuck I’d fuck that wind up.”
“Let me try some.”
“Okay.” He says. He tells her like he’s reading an instruction manual.
“Heat it up till smoke comes out. Breathe in but don’t hold the smoke in breathe out just after. Otherwise the meth recrystallizes in the lungs and that fucks you up bad.”
“I’m not a fucking child.” She says.
And after oh after. This pain is so far away. She will fight the wind She will fight the wind She will fight the wind She will fight fight fight fight fight.
Now it is two years later. All of Jon’s daughters are home back to their village. He was secretly happy that their experiment failed. But now they are almost completely different. Outside changed them. They talk about it like it is all they could ever be. But don’t they see? This place is part of them. They are part of it and he misses when they were children but they are beautiful and his daughters so he does what he can for them. He gets Candice an apartment and Abby and even Raylie too. He is married again now and has two young children. They take up most of his time.
Candice calls her father one day, “daddy I can’t find Raylie. Abby and I have looked everywhere. She hasn’t been home for two days. Is she with you?”
“No. Did you try HIS apartment?”
“He won’t answer his phone.”
“He will for me.”
“That’s why I called you.”
He hangs up. He calls his brother. “I need your help.” His brother says he’ll be over in just a minute. He pulls up in his truck. Jon climbs in.
“I have the bats.” His brother says.
“I brought my pistol.”
“Don’t you pull that fucking thing out.”
“It’s just in case.”
His brother is a hardcase, Jon has always held a sneaky suspicion that he is a borderline psychopath. He never asked. His brother never told.
They get to HIS apartment. Jon doesn’t bother calling. They go in with a simultaneous kick. The apartment has holes in the walls and the television is cracked. The coffee table is broken and laying against the wall. HE stands up from his couch to stop them. Jon’s brother points a baseball bat at him.
Sit the fuck back down.
HE does.
“Where is she?” Jon commands. He looks at the room down the hall. Jon goes over and swings the door. She is chained up to a bed… She screams when she sees him.
“GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!” She yells. Jon turns back around. He tightens his grip on the baseball bat.
“Why is my daughter tied up in your room.”
“Please don’t hurt me.” The boy pleads.
“Why is my daughter.” Jon starts and he hits the boy in the arm with the bat. The boy cries out.
“She was trashing the place. She’s fucking psycho man! I just fucking tied her up til she came down! Then I was gonna kick her out. I’m sorry!”
“No you’re not. Not yet.” Jon says and he grabs HIM by the shirt. Where are the keys to the lock.”
“They’re on the dresser!” The boy says as he points. Jon turns away and his brother smashes the bat down on the HIS outstretched hand.
FUCK!” The boys screams. And begins to cry. Jon unlocks his daughter his daughter his daughter. She tries to fight but he holds her so tight.
“I’m taking you to Candice’s. I’m taking you to Candice’s” he keeps saying until she grows quiet.
“Don’t let that monster touch me.” Raylie says.
“He’s not going to hurt you anymore.”
“Not HIM.” She says. “Your fucking brother.”
Jon doesn’t say anything except, “We’re going to your sister’s.” Jon stops at the door, he turns to his brother who is standing over HIM with the bat. “Not til we’re gone.”
His brother nods sharply. He stands over the boy. He waits until he hears the gravel under the tires. Then he leans down and picks up a glass pipe. He looks at the boy who is moaning on the couch, holding his arm. He leans in close to the boy. He puts the glass pipe up to the boy’s face and gives it a wiggle.
“I’m going to put this inside you now.” He says. Then he grins. The boy goes pale and doesn’t scream. HE just shakes.
Candice is waiting outside of her apartment when Jon drives up with Raylie. Her son is at Abby’s for a couple of days. She opens the passenger door before Jon can get out.
“Is your fucking brother here?”
“No.”
“I don’t want him near us.”
“I know. He’s not here.”
“Fuck you.” She says under her breath as she hauls Raylie up the stairs. Raylie doesn’t fight anymore. Candice undresses Raylie in the bathroom. “Did he hurt you?”
“Who?”
Candice replies with a look.
“No, he stayed on the other side of the room.”
“Good.” She looks her sister over and hugs her. She pulls away. “Take a bath.” She waits until Raylie is in the water and then shuts the door. She slides against the wall and cries.
Things were better for a month. Then Jon got a call from the hospital. His daughter was in the ER.
“What happened?”
“She overdosed.” The nurse says.
“On meth?” He asks.
“Jon I’m not supposed to even be telling you she’s here.”
“Tell me about my daughter.” He commands.
“It was heroin.”
“What?”
“We used Narcan and stabilized her. She’s going to pull through.”
“I’m coming down.”
“That’s why I called you.” He hangs up and calls Candice and Abby to tell them. They say they’ll come down.
He sits and wonders what happened to everything. His plans, his children. This place on the edge of the sea is so hard on people and only the hardest survived. He knew his children would, at least in the beginning. He is afraid now. He is so afraid.
Candice comes in first. Her curly hair is down around her shoulders. She stops and puts her hand on her dad’s shoulder. He puts his hand over hers and they stay there for a little.
“Do you want a minute?” he asks.
“If you don’t mind.” He leaves and shuts the door behind him.
She looks down at her pretty little sister. “Oh Raylie you did it this time.” She sits on the edge of the hospital bed and strokes her sister’s hair. Her sister sleeps. “Raylie come back to me. We miss you.” And she cries again. Her tears fall down and stain her sister’s pure white hospital gown. She leans over and kisses her sister on the forehead. “This place is so toxic and it tears at us, but come back to us. One day we can do it. We will be free.” She says. And then opens up the door.
“I have to go. I left my kid with Abby.” She says to Jon. He nods.
“Is Abby coming?”
“Probably tomorrow.” He nods.
Jon pulls up a seat and looks at his watch. It’s 3:13 in the morning. He closes his eyes.
The next day after lunch Raylie wakes up. Her eyes flutter and he is standing over her. My daughter My daughter. Raylie puts her hand over to him and he takes it.
Tell me about the boy and his doggie she says to him after they are done crying.
He sits on the hospital bed and touches her cheek. “It is an old story.”
There was a boy once a long time ago. He had a small puppy. They would take long walks in the winter to trap and to explore. The puppy could only go so far on his own. When the boy first had the puppy he would become angry. The doggie didn’t know why. The boy would yell at his dog to go home. But the doggie would just keep coming. The doggie would struggle against the snow and stop. The boy would turn and the doggie kept coming. Even though they were so far apart.
Finally the boy turns and walks to the doggie. The doggie is scared because he knows the boy is angry but he doesn’t know why. The boy reaches down and picks the doggie up. He cradles him. The doggie licks his face. I love you the doggie says to the boy. And the boy speaks with the puppy. They walked together for many years after that. Even after the dog was big enough to walk alone, he would stop and the boy would turn back. He would cradle the dog and they would walk through the storm together.
One day they were walking together and found an old woman in the deep snow while it was blowing. The boy asked the woman why she was out there alone and she said it was because she helped the lost.
We aren’t lost the boy told her. She said she knew that because she had been watching them. She told him she was old.
“How old are you grandmother?” The boy asked.
“Older than some of the rocks on the shore.”
“That is very old.”
“Yes and I cannot help the people anymore. I am too old and I must give this to someone else before I fade away.”
The boy thought long and hard. “So you want me to take your responsibility.”
“It comes with a power.” She told him. “But you will outlive everyone you love.”
He looked at his puppy and then looked at her. “I cannot do this without my companion.”
“You and your dog are one when you walk. He will live too.”
“Will I save people?”
“Every day.”
So the boy said he would. The old lady smiled at him and put her hand on his head. He felt warmth and the cold of the day did not affect him anymore.
And now some of the elders say when they are lost there is a boy and a dog who show them the way home. They are guardians for us, watchers of the path and the boy and the dog love us even as they watch us die.
Jon stops there and Raylie looks at him.
“Do you think they are happy?”
The boy and his doggie?”
“Yes.”
“Even though they lived without anyone else to love?”
“Sometimes you just need each other and that’s it.”
“Will they help me find a home?” She asks him and he is tired because he knows.
Jon knows this.
“You are home. My baby, my daughter. Is that what you want to hear?”
“I want to be happy.”
“I am happy when I am with you. Are you not happy with me?”
“I just…”
“What?”
She sighs with finality and then “I love you daddy.”
“I love you too. I loved you from the first time I held you. You are my home.”
Raylie doesn’t reply to him. She rolls over on her side. Jon sits quietly. “I love you.” He says to her.
A dampness grows beneath her eye on the pillow. She feels them run down the side of her cheek. She doesn’t make a sound. Her shoulders sag. “I’m very tired. I’m going to sleep now.” She says and he understands. He gets up slowly and kisses her head. He leaves the room and the door swings shut.
The nurse begins to head for the door.
“She’s sleeping” he says. The nurse nods.
Jon steps outside and stops at the end of the sidewalk. The wind blows hard and the rain begins. He feels the salt air against his face. The air blows harder. He looks into the sky. The rain pelts against his face with such fury. This land is harsh and only the strongest can survive it. He wipes away the water and Jon knows this.
He cannot give. He clenches his fist.
There in the village at the edge of the sea, he screams against the wind.
Storied By Josh 