Page 10 of Getting It Twisted

“Good luck getting inside that door, then, boy. It’s locked. The cops have the key.”

I grit my teeth. I know damn well the cops have the key. “I’ll manage.”

The dog—Jagger—has stopped barking, but she’s still pacing the yard, letting out wary little whines now and again. Ennis and I gaze toward the house looming in the darkness.

“I’m almost blind, boy,” Ennis says slowly, “but not so blind that I didn’t understand what was going on here.”

My voice comes out bitter around a cloud of smoke. “Oh yeah? Why didn’t you do anything, if you knew so much?”

“I don’t stick my nose into other people’s business.”

“Then what’s this you’re doing now?”

Ennis studies me, forehead creasing into deep dark grooves. “You shouldn’t be back here, boy.”

“I’m not. I’m just gonna fix up the place and sell it.”

“Are you, now?”

“Someone’s bound to buy it. Why else would I be here?”

“Well, get it done, then, boy, as soon as you can. Don’t linger around here.”

“Is that a threat?” My sarcastic tone and accompanying grin don’t seem to work on old Ennis. He stares at me blankly before pursing his lips and giving another whistle.

“Come here, girl!” This time, Jagger obeys, and they continue down the road.

“Yeah, go ahead, don’t let me keep you. Crazy old man,” I mutter under my breath.

As I turn back to the house, an unease that wasn’t there before courses through me. And suddenly I wish Jagger and Ennis would’ve stayed a little while longer.

I open the trunk of my car and rip out the tattered gym bag containing most of the stuff I own. Then I start trudging up the overgrown path toward the house. My house.

The house I was born in. The house I grew up in. The twisted times, the lonely times. The horror my mother put me through.

Darkness presses further in on my vision the closer I get. The house is little more than a shack, with rough wood-panel walls bleached gray from the sun and many years of neglect. The stairs creak as I walk up the patio and try the door. Locked, like Ennis said it would be. If the door were as run-down as the rest of the house, I could’ve kicked it in. But this door is a remnant of my grandfather, reinforced with a lock on either side; I need the key to unlock it even from within.

No matter. I go around the back. I have to watch where I’m going; there’s so much shit lying around on the lawn—wires, old car wheels, dingy furniture—all half-hidden by knee-high weeds and grass.

I imagine myself dousing the house in gasoline and lighting a match. I’d turn my back on the fire while flames licked into the open black sky.

What I do instead is grab a decent-sized rock from the ground and chuck it as hard as I can into the hallway window.

The sound of shattering glass is deafening in the silence and fills me with a strange sense of satisfaction. Using an old chopping block as a stepping stone, I heave myself up, taking care not to cut myself as I crawl inside.

I land on the wooden floor, glass crunching under my feet. I flick the light switch in the hallway, but nothing happens. Electricity’s shut off? Oh well, I could’ve seen that one coming. A quick check in the kitchen—which is a disgusting mess in its own right—tells me the faucet is also nonfunctioning. Great.

The interior hasn’t changed much since I lived here. It’s smellier, sure, and dirtier. Cigarette butts litter the floor together with old food containers, beer cans, and bottles. My grandfather’s shotgun still hangs in the hallway, however, and what used to be my bedroom is oddly unchanged. In fact, it’s so pristine it sends a chill down my spine.

My desk, my bed. The posters of old bands I liked and actors I found hot. I left this place when I was eighteen—plenty of time for my mom to get rid of my stuff.

All the more convenient for me. I’m not about to sleep in my mom’s bed; that would be weird. Breaking into my old childhood home in the middle of the night is weird enough.

The officer who called didn’t mention how long she’d been dead before they found her, but since the house doesn’t smell like a corpse, it can’t have been long. Are there any traces of her left, or have they already cleaned that shit up? I’ll have a look in the morning.

I sit on my bed and stare at a torn, faded poster of Ziggy Stardust on the wall. It’s strange; Daniel and I were friends for so many years, yet he never visited my home. I never allowed him to see who I was here. Never allowed him to bear witness to that small and pitiful boy, or hear my mother’s screams shaking the walls . . . Her tantrums, her torments, her endless slew of boyfriends and tricks . . .

What did she think about in her last moments? Did she cry out for the men who kept her company? Did she think of my dead grandpa? Did she think of me?

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