Once there was a man named Emerson. He was strong. He could lift 100 pounds with one arm.
There was just one problem. He worked in an office. So he never got to lift stuff. This made him sad. So he walked to his boss’s desk and said, “Hey, I like to lift stuff.”
“You have to type and talk to people on the phone. That is your job,” said the boss. “You’re not paid to lift stuff.”
So Emerson went back to his desk. He was sad but he didn’t cry.
Then when he was walking home he saw that there was a house on fire. The firemen were not there yet. Emerson walked into the house and saw that there was a woman stuck under a stove. Emerson picked up the stove and threw it out the window. Then he picked up the woman and put her on the lawn. She was OK.
Emerson found out later that the woman owned a car crushing…
Micah stopped and thought for a moment. He stood up from his desk in his bedroom and yelled from the door. “Hey Lexy, how do you spell ‘business’?”
“Business,” Lexy said from another room as if she was weighing it on her tongue, “Uh, B-U-S-I.”
“K, wait.” Micah walked back to his desk and wrote the letters down then went back to the door again. “Okay.”
“N-E-S-S.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s this for?”
“Nothing,” Micah sat back down before he forgot the last letters.
…business and that she needed somebody to lift cars in and out of the machine. So Emerson quit his job at the office and married the woman. Her name was Iris.
Micah was writing for school, but somehow it was still thrilling. The story had to have a beginning, middle and an end. This story had them all. He thought it was good. He never had to do this sort of thing in grade five. He sauntered into the living room where Lexy reclined, watching Seinfeld, canned laughter and groovy slap bass notes emitting from the screen.
Micah handed the dog-eared pages to Lexy, “We had to write a story for school. I wrote about my mom and dad.”
“That’s great, let’s see.” She clicked on the lamp and read the story, nodding along. She turned up to him, smiling. “I like it. Where did you get the idea?”
“I don’t know. It’s just the way I see them. My dad worked in an office. That’s what you said.”
“I’ve never said anything about car crushers. And I think your dad liked his job.”
Micah kept a picture of them by his bed but it gave few clues about what they were like or even the way they looked. In it Emerson wore large sunglasses and had a scraggly beard; his mother had her eyes closed and was laughing, her whole face a pink blur, features trying to settle into place. Micah’s parents remained a mystery to him; every clue went into rebuilding their lives like a detective rebuilding a crime scenario.
“What should I write then?” Micah took the pages back.
“I think you should leave it as is, honey.”
“But it’s not what they were really like.”
“That’s ok. It’s a story.”
“When can I know?”
This was a question often asked.
Lexy looked back at the TV then turned back to look into his eyes staring intently back at her. This was it. He had to know. I’ve waited so long, she thought, I’ve tried my best. She took a deep breath, preparing herself like you would before a dive. She said, “Okay.”
Micah smiled. Lexy had a sick feeling in the bottom of her stomach.
Her instinct was to place him on her lap; they moved into the kitchen and sat at the table.
“Your father was sick,” Lexy began. “But not like a cold or cancer. He was on medications but they only helped a little.”
“Sick?” Micah asked, squinting.
“He sometimes couldn’t tell what was real.”
Lexy remembered the phone call. The only call she received from Iris which did not involve some advertisement for a bible college or an invitation to a “woman’s group”.
“What should I do?” Iris asked, helpless.
“Call the god damn cops.” Lexy answered.
“But what will they do?”
“That’s not what you need to worry about right now.”
Iris never called though. She took Emerson to a doctor, but the problem was down played by both of them. Emerson was only prescribed a mild drug “for depression”. Iris combined this treatment with a proper, unabrasive prayer circle.
“So he was, like, crazy?” Micah asked.
“Well,” Lexy paused, “sorta.”
But in the beginning, it wasn’t like that. They were happy, but he must have known though, he must have.
“Then what? How did they die?”
“He had an accident,” she said as if it settled the matter.
Micah sighed and put his hands on his face. “Not this ‘accident’ crap again. Just tell me what happened. I’m eleven, I can take it.”
“Alright,” She paused gathering her words together like groceries in a bag. “He was frightened of things that weren’t there… He was sick and one day he ended his own life.”
“How d—“
“That’s not the point,” she said, stopping him. He had blown bother their brains out. But could she tell him that?
They said nothing for a while.
“My mother?”
Lexy saw an image in her mind’s eye, her sister slumped and bloody next to her crying child. She had never seen the actual scene but dreams and imagination had filled in the gaps with all too much detail.
“She,” but the words wouldn’t come out, she broke into tears. She focused and tried to unattach her self from the words. Through the sobs she said, "he killed her."
Micah stared at the table as if he was trying to change the color of the tabletop; not knowing how to react to her loud cries.
She reached out to take Micah’s hand. He moved it away and then got up to leave the room. She reached out and clutched his shirt. He stopped and wiped his runny nose with his shirt sleeve. Lexy looked at his face and could tell he was holding tears back. She let him go. He walked to his bedroom and closed the door.
Lexy chewed on her nails. Iris would have known what to do. She would have read some bible verse or prayed. That was her answer to everything. Iris thought praying could heal her husband, thought it could save her sister. Praying! Lexy thought, it’s just wishing, it’s just getting on your knees, pulling out a list and saying “gimme”. Still Iris would have tried.
Lexy stood up then bent down with her knees on the linoleum she said, “dear—oh fuck it.” She quickly stood up and went to her bed room.
Light from a street lamp streamed through the blinds, making lines of shadow. Lexy undressed and got under the sheets. This was when she thought of Iris the most. When she felt inadequate, when dreamy heightened ideals of what a mother should be filled her head, when she knew that only Iris could ever do the job justice.
They had been close before Iris went and married Emerson. Iris had been more than a big sister. Their parents had not been much help before they died. The two of them simply had to make it on their own. Then Iris ran off and became a ‘goody-goody’ and the family was just not good enough, clean enough. Then after the wedding everything moved fast. Iris gave up her job, moved to a new house and then was pregnant in just a few weeks. It wasn’t right, but she seemed happy. It wasn’t until Micah was six months old that Emerson finally cracked. Papers called it a tragedy, lamenting the rise in these incidences, it always happens in such nice families. Crazy people can pop up anywhere, Lexy thought, people just don’t want to admit to themselves that they just might know one. Knowing, or having suspicions, it spreads out the blame, how can you blame some crazy guy, chemically imbalanced, especially when the people around him wouldn’t even help.
When the social worker had handed Micah over, Lexy had had question, but not about feeding and changing.
What do I tell him? How do I raise him? How do I protect him?
The social worker didn’t seem the type to answer. She needed Iris. They had had no hospital room where they could have had a last word, a room where it all could have changed. Apologies happen easily in a room like that. When the past means nothing and the future is short.
…
Micah laid face up, his mind somewhere between anger and tears. He tried to punch his pillow but it didn’t help, so he just tried to sleep. He’d never tried to sleep before, staying up seemed to always be the best thing. Now he just wanted the night to be over. He looked to the wall at a picture that he painted in Sunday school when he was seven. It Jesus walking on water, but it looked more like a bearded triangle resting on top of blue spikes.The teacher had encouraged him, or at least tried to. “Looks great uh…” the teacher searched for his name.
“Micah,” Micah said.
“Micah. Right. Sorry little buddy.”
Returning to the picture, Micah drew brown lines coming out of the triangle and three prongs on the ends as fingers. Now he needed the green for hills in the back ground. Another boy was using the green crayon to scribble circles on a page.
Micah asked for the crayon.
“I’m using it,” the boy replied as the crayon went round and round, shrinking as the wax was layered on the page.
“But your just drawing stupid lines,” Micah said.
In response the boy drew a green line down Micah’s page. Micah pushed the boy and the boy started, with far too much ease, to cry. The teacher came to the boy’s rescue and Micah was brought out to await his aunt outside the sanctuary.
Inside, they were singing a slow, drowsy hymn. Lexy came out to meet Micah following the teacher. A chorus of voices sung, “As the deer pants for the water…” The sound quieted when the door to the sanctuary closed, the three of them on the outside.
The teacher spoke to Lexy. “You’re supposed to come to the classroom when his number is displayed. He hit my son.”
“Number?” Lexy said, confused.
The voices, old and righteous, surged, becoming more impassioned. Micah heard, “You alone are my strength, my shield…” The voices died back down, blocked by the large wooden door.
The teacher opened the door and the voices erupted again. He pointed to a set of red digital numbers shining on the wall near the empty wooden cross along the back wall of the sanctuary.
He closed the door again.
“Every child has a number. Weren’t you told?”
The voices became loud in his ear as if hundreds of voices were singing all around him. “You alone are my strength, my shield. You alone are my strength, my shield.” The line repeated again and again ringing in his head, becoming more shrill and louder with every repetition.
Just then both of the adults turned down to look at Micah, in unison they said, “You come when your number is called. Never before though. Never!”
They started to laugh, shrill angry laughter. Micah felt his body falling, the voices fading. He was leaving the church and he was falling rapidly down. It was getting hot and he realized he was in a cave, red from flames. He could still hear the song repeating like a skipping CD but muffled and far away. In front of him was a man. It was Emerson. Huge drops were dripping from his head. He was in torment, screaming and panting, huge chains tying him down to the wall.
Never before!
Lexy was awoken by Micah’s screams. She grabbed a bathrobe and ran in to find him sweating and ranting. “He’s in hell,” he screamed. “I saw him. I saw him.” His breathing faltered, Lexy could tell he was still trying to wake up. She sat by him on the bed, petting his wet hair.
She said, “Shh, it’s okay. He’s not in hell.”
“But that’s where,” Micah sniffed, trying to catch his breath.
“Shh, just go back to sleep, okay?”
“He was tied down and burning.”
“No, shh. Go back to sleep.”
“But I…”
“Shh.”
His breathing slowly returned. His eyes closed. He slept. Lexy left the door open and quietly walked away.
...
The next morning Micah walked to school and read over his story. He felt as if he had written it years ago. It seemed unimportant now as if the story was a failed math test.
Micah read through it again, but was surprised to find an amendment written to look like his writing added to the end of what Micah had thought was a finished work.
Then one day Emerson got stuck in the car crusher and died. For some reason he went to hell.
He woke up and had chains on his arms. So he broke them and started to fight all the bad guys that were there. They had horns and claws.
He punched them and threw them in the lava. Then he went to a wall and started to dig with his bare hands. He broke the rock until he got to the other side.
That was where Iris was. She died too but was in heaven. They hugged. Now Emerson was in heaven too.
The end.
Micah scratched out ‘they hugged’ with a pen. Way too girly, he thought and placed the story in his backpack
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