Page 3 of Half Blind

“Mr. Johnnie, your daughter Latricia is in my class. I wonder how she would feel if I told her you are trying to get me in a dark corner, asking me to kiss you on the mouth? Do you think, while you’re at my Momma’s house that some man is at your house asking Latricia to kiss him on the mouth?” Myrtle asked, watching Johnnie Williams get the hell up and head home.

Soon, word spread that Myrtle wasn’t the girl to try out, but the boys at school didn’t get the notice. Several times she found herself surrounded when the other girls intentionally left her alone and in jeopardy from froggies feeling jumpy. Smart as a whip, she always talked herself out of the situation, but a day would come when she couldn’t. Instead of trying to prepare for the confrontation, Myrtle prepared for the now. The school bake sale was when she learned of her talent with chemistry.

The brownies, cooked to perfection with just the right amount of nuts and a shiny top which crinkled when you bit into the chocolate yumminess, were laced with a bit of leftover marijuana from Laney’s last rent party, along with a capful of Milk of Magnesia and melted chocolate flavored laxative. Myrtle had played it smart and baked two batches of brownies. The ones for sale were simple brownies, the freebies, in bite size increments, shared with the classmates in her homeroom. Myrtle knew that Mrs. Phillips, her favorite teacher, was diabetic, “Ma’am, with your diabetes, I wouldn’t want your blood sugar to bottom out, so don't eat these. Try the others where I used less sugar and chocolate.”

Therefore, Mrs. Phillips didn’t partake in the decadent delight. However, all the students in her class spent the remainder of the day racing to the toilets. Myrtle smiled, being the only student in her class to make it to the bake sale, selling out of the brownies within the hour.

Mrs. Phillips pulled her to the side. “Myrtle, did you put something in those brownies?”

“Yes, Ma’am, I made those brownies with extra baking chocolates and love. I think I may have gone too heavy on the love,” Myrtle said, offering a smile. “Is something wrong?”

“All the kids in your homeroom are sick,” Mrs. Phillips said.

“I don’t understand,” Myrtle said honestly. “I sold out of the brownies at the bake sale and no one is sick from those. Perhaps one of the kids brought in something else that everyone tried...you never know these days.”

Mrs. Phillips said no more about it, and the kids in the class seemed to back off harassing Myrtle in elementary school. The summer before Myrtle’s freshman year in high school, Laney’s rent party turned sour. A jealous woman accused Laney of sleeping with her husband, then called the police on the party. Although it wasn’t a Speak Easy per se, and Laney technically wasn’t selling liquor, nor was she selling illegal substances, the police deemed the living environment unfit for Myrtle to remain.

It was the last time she saw her mother when they placed Myrtle in the car with the social worker. She was taken into care that evening, and in the next two days, she was sent to Ohio to live with her Grandmother Evelyn, a quirky woman with a penchant for herbology. The farm she lived on bordered a stone house farm owned by James and Ella Neary, who had one daughter, Mary, who gave birth to three sons: Ezekiel, Gabriel, and Isaiah.

Myrtle didn’t trust the boys, although they were handsome young men, she learned to maintain a healthy distance. The middle son had dark eyes which kind of creeped her out, but he was gentle in his words. When he spoke to her, he never stood close, always far enough away that she didn’t feel threatened. He never spoke to her with his brothers around, or if she came to the house with her Grandmother Evelyn, he made a point of speaking with her in the presence of the adults. This approach built a trust between them, and when he’d return in the summers to spend time with his grandmother, whom he absolutely adored, they developed a friendship.

This friendship helped her get into college and helped Myrtle obtain scholarships and an internship with a chemistry lab at Langley. The Masters/PhD program she completed in chemistry earned her several accolades along with a few patents and side jobs working for a covert operation called The Company. The friend from her childhood siphoned her off to return to Ohio with a teaching gig at a local university with a private lab and a farmhouse nearby. Occasionally, per their collaborative agreement, Myrtle agreed to take in one or two young teens Gabriel was helping to find a new home or a new life.

“Would you like to keep the income flowing in Myrtle to work on private projects to continue funding your research?” Gabriel asked one evening.

“Of course; I would be a fool to say no,” she told him.

He spoke of anger. He spoke of anger needing a home and purpose. His pretty mouth talked about the greater good and being a part of something bigger. Then Gabriel said he needed her to make lemonade from the lemons she was handed.

“Lemons?”

“No, Lemon,” he said. “It will be your handle. We need specialized chemicals made. I have a friend, down in Arkansas who has the same specialization. Work with him to perfect the formulas and you have funding.”

“What’s with the lemon?”

“Your handle. Never tell him your name, just your handle, which is Lemon. He is Merge, a Direction,” Gabriel said. “In the Southeast region, each state is assigned a Technician to oversee special needs in the state. Some states have more than one, like Ohio has more than one. In the Southeast, they are the Directions whose handles are named after traffic signs. In the Great Lakes, there are the Fruits. You are a Fruit. Therefore, I deem you, Lemon.”

“You’re creepy,” she said. “Even as a kid, I thought you were creepy and grooming me. Silly me, thought you wanted to fuck me.”

“Honestly, I did have an interest,” Gabriel said. “I have always loved your mind, which made me love you, and I wanted us to be closer. Sex is too basic for our relationship, Myrtle, but I am a man. A man thinks of those things, but a man of purpose moves differently. I move differently.”

“So, that means a hearty fuck is off the table?”

“For now,” Gabriel said. “I would rather have your respect and loyalty, knowing you can trust me rather than a night in your arms as a lover.”

“Oh well,” she sighed, looking at the thick notebook in front of her. “What kind of shit are we making?”

“You’re perfecting a formula to break down a human body in less than 24 hours,” he said. “Include in the composition the breakdown for bones and teeth.”

“Ooh, I should be scared, but I want to know if I can do it!”

“I need you in Arkansas by the weekend,” he told her. “My friend has a farm. He’s a guy and you will be safe with him. Do the work, keep a low profile, and a bonus is waiting for you when you’re done.”

When they were done, she had enough to buy her own farm and set up her lab to continue her research on the benefits of snake venom to cure drug addictions. It was going well, and now a man she didn’t know had shown up and killed Frank and Larry, her babies. She was furious and the man needed to die. In her office was the perfect recipe she’d created with Mr. Merge, which went into a cup of hot tea. The formula took the sipper of the tea into a nice slumber, never to awaken. This dude was going to get a cup of tea with his breakfast.

It was then that she remembered the woman standing there who’d come to be trained by her.

“I’m Lemon,” Myrtle said. “These are my wards, Ayanna and Bria. I don’t know who this asshole is that came and killed Frank and Larry.”

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