Memorial Day
Shanna Swezey
We’re in the pickup going around a two-car wreck. Eric shoves an open can between his legs, hands shaking. It’s a bad one, he says, leaning over my lap to get a good look. His words are watery and slow. Ash breaks off his menthol cigarette and spills onto the floor shifter, dusting the top of the can and a fanny pack on the floorboard. Lights flash over our faces as paramedics work outside the passenger window. I stare instead at my hands that won’t stop shaking and up to see Mom’s hands adjust on the wheel. They’re going to have to use the jaws, Eric says, slurring his words. He blows smoke in my face. I pull back, but there isn’t anywhere to go. I reach out the window and pull the wing mirror in, careful to not let my eyes fall on the wreck. The smoke hits the mirror, turns, rivers back in. Eric turns his head towards Mom, tells her to drive safe. Too many people are killed on Memorial Day. Tragic, he says, his delivery almost performative. My throat burns as his words linger, wet and long. I have an urge to elbow him in the ribs. He takes a drag off his Newport, his grey lips tight around the white stick. My stomach is heavy, and I dig my fingernails into my wrist to keep from feeling their despair: the people hurt in the wreck and the people at home who loved the people hurt in the wreck. It’s a feeling I know well—that nothing will be okay again. Eric’s smoke hits me on the exhale. I resist turning my head. One look and the image won’t leave. I close my eyes, retrace the steps I took before we left, try to remind myself I did what I was supposed to— anything to not feel this.
It was getting late but still damn hot, too hot for this time of year. When the sun is in that part of the sky— past our east-facing house—setting over the cornfields, my stomach sinks and the thoughts race and my heart races too, and I feel like I am speeding up and slowing down at the same time. Mom said she and Eric were going into Maryville. Had to get something from his place he never slept at anymore since moving in the second week. I asked to go. Eric made a face but didn’t say anything. Mom didn’t say no, but she wasn’t herself anymore. Eric carried the fanny pack to the truck. I knew what he kept in there. Little baggies of white dust, a tawny glass pipe, a torn scrap of terry cloth. I put my sandals on just right, touched the doorknob just right, got into the pickup just right: careful to not let my knuckle hit the doorhandle, not let any part of my body touch the truck’s frame. Carter and Chelle were okay when we left. Chelle was singing to TLC. Carter was playing Skippo with the neighbor on their porch. They were not in the wreck. They were not here. They were not here. I keep repeating this. My hands keep shaking. I open my eyes.
Evening sun lights up my side of the truck: orange mixed with amber and blue. On Mom’s side lightning bugs glow in the shadows beneath the trees. When the flashing lights are gone, Eric takes a drink from the can. Mom turns on the bridge to go into Maryville. Half-way across, a cop comes head-on from the Maryville side. Mom readjusts her hands on the wheel. Eric pushes the can down next to the shifter on the floorboard. Holds it there close to my leg, squints out the bug-splattered windshield. His head moves with the passing of the black and white sedan. I know him, he says, about the cop. Eric is always knowing everyone from Maryville. Robert’s nephew. You met him, Lena. Robert, you remember. Mom nods, and I know she doesn’t, but she won’t disagree with him. Eric is cradled on the bench seat between us, rocking to the movement of the pickup. His leg brushes mine and I hit it hard with my knee as we bump to exit the bridge. He doesn’t notice, his body all loose like that. He brings the can to his lips, takes a swig. I stare at the words on the side: Steel Reserve 211. It’s his seventh or eighth. He starts around ten every day after he throws off the covers and pisses in one of the Folgers cans he keeps next to Mom’s bed. We can hear it, the pissing, because he doesn’t close the goddamn door and the whizzing echoes in the wide empty space of our two-story farmhouse, bouncing off oak floors and hundred-year-old lath and plaster walls. Gross, Carter said. Disgusting, Chelle said. He’s an animal, I said. A fucking animal. Watch your mouth, Young Lady. Whatever. It’s because of the stairs, she said. It’s hard for him to make it in time. Like that matters. He’s fifteen years older than her. He looks about a hundred or zero depending on how you look at it. And when we ride, he has to sit next to her. Needs to be near her. Know what she’s doing. She can’t go anywhere without him. We don’t know if he can feed himself. Chelle and I were talking and said if we didn’t know better, we’d think he kept booby milk in those cans, but we’ve seen him spill, and it’s amber, not milky.
Going down Main Street, the streetlamps are just coming on. Eric stubs out his cigarette and places a hand on Mom’s thigh, the other holding the can. He doesn’t wear a seatbelt, but they won’t get him for that. The smell of sour and sweet on his breath lingers in the cab even though the windows are down and the humid, Ohio heat races over our salty faces. The smell from his grey folded skin, like unwashed laundry sitting in a moldy basement, lingers, mixed with the sour-sweet scent. It makes me sick. What makes me sick too is, Mom said never again after Dad but here she is, one just like him. For a moment we had her all to ourselves, and the thoughts got better, and things didn’t have to be just the right way. Then she gave herself to him, replaced us like chips she was cashing in and it’s just like it was before, but with Dad, he never came home, and with Eric, he never leaves. The feeling that nothing will be okay never leaves. It never leaves.
It started when Mom stopped coming home. First one night, then two, then three. She came the fourth night. She said thirteen was old enough. She called the second night to tell me to keep an eye on the twins—as if she expected them to listen to me, them being just a year younger. They had each other, and Chelle had friends, and Carter had sports, and I couldn’t sleep. The images I saw when I closed my eyes tormented me, kept me up: Carter and Chelle dead in a cornfield, their bodies torn and laid bare; the bloated, vacant face of our mother floating belly-up in the Ohio. I had to touch the frame on my bed over and over to get the images to go away, to keep the bad thing from happening, and I knew something was wrong, and I didn’t want to be here no more— here, here, here. So, my fingernails found their way into my wrist, the soft belly of my forearm. When that wasn’t enough, I found a razor, a dulled steak knife. I needed my relief the way she needed hers, and I knew something was wrong, really wrong, when I tried to stop but couldn’t. I tried to tell her, but she couldn’t sit still. I told myself I was fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. And, when I see wrecks and things, it’s just like the images in my head and that feeling. That feeling. And it steals me back to that night. That night when she phoned to say it was alright, even though it wasn’t. It wasn’t alright. It wasn’t her anymore. It was someone who took over; someone who became her when she was with him— with Eric, and they were doing the things she did with Eric— the Eric-things, the things she never did before. The things they needed the fanny pack for. So, it was like she died and was replaced with someone else even though she is still alive and has the same hair, and face, and smells. The inside part of her is gone. And I can’t bring her back.
Mom shifts the truck into first. We pull in front of Eric’s place, she cuts the engine. Eric reaches for the fanny pack. Mom gets out, Eric on her side. They tell me to wait in the truck. And it’s that feeling, that feeling. And I’m not okay. I’m not okay. I’m not okay. I watch her climb the stairs, the distance between us growing. My stomach is heavy, and the wreck, and the sweet-sour scent, and the smell of his grey skin, and the smoke. Mom is dead, and it shouldn’t be like this. She disappears behind the metal door. I dig my fingernails into my forearm. And for a moment it burns. And I forget about Eric, and I forget about Mom being dead, and I forget it’s Memorial Day, and I feel. I feel nothing.
Shanna Swezey
We’re in the pickup going around a two-car wreck. Eric shoves an open can between his legs, hands shaking. It’s a bad one, he says, leaning over my lap to get a good look. His words are watery and slow. Ash breaks off his menthol cigarette and spills onto the floor shifter, dusting the top of the can and a fanny pack on the floorboard. Lights flash over our faces as paramedics work outside the passenger window. I stare instead at my hands that won’t stop shaking and up to see Mom’s hands adjust on the wheel. They’re going to have to use the jaws, Eric says, slurring his words. He blows smoke in my face. I pull back, but there isn’t anywhere to go. I reach out the window and pull the wing mirror in, careful to not let my eyes fall on the wreck. The smoke hits the mirror, turns, rivers back in. Eric turns his head towards Mom, tells her to drive safe. Too many people are killed on Memorial Day. Tragic, he says, his delivery almost performative. My throat burns as his words linger, wet and long. I have an urge to elbow him in the ribs. He takes a drag off his Newport, his grey lips tight around the white stick. My stomach is heavy, and I dig my fingernails into my wrist to keep from feeling their despair: the people hurt in the wreck and the people at home who loved the people hurt in the wreck. It’s a feeling I know well—that nothing will be okay again. Eric’s smoke hits me on the exhale. I resist turning my head. One look and the image won’t leave. I close my eyes, retrace the steps I took before we left, try to remind myself I did what I was supposed to— anything to not feel this.
It was getting late but still damn hot, too hot for this time of year. When the sun is in that part of the sky— past our east-facing house—setting over the cornfields, my stomach sinks and the thoughts race and my heart races too, and I feel like I am speeding up and slowing down at the same time. Mom said she and Eric were going into Maryville. Had to get something from his place he never slept at anymore since moving in the second week. I asked to go. Eric made a face but didn’t say anything. Mom didn’t say no, but she wasn’t herself anymore. Eric carried the fanny pack to the truck. I knew what he kept in there. Little baggies of white dust, a tawny glass pipe, a torn scrap of terry cloth. I put my sandals on just right, touched the doorknob just right, got into the pickup just right: careful to not let my knuckle hit the doorhandle, not let any part of my body touch the truck’s frame. Carter and Chelle were okay when we left. Chelle was singing to TLC. Carter was playing Skippo with the neighbor on their porch. They were not in the wreck. They were not here. They were not here. I keep repeating this. My hands keep shaking. I open my eyes.
Evening sun lights up my side of the truck: orange mixed with amber and blue. On Mom’s side lightning bugs glow in the shadows beneath the trees. When the flashing lights are gone, Eric takes a drink from the can. Mom turns on the bridge to go into Maryville. Half-way across, a cop comes head-on from the Maryville side. Mom readjusts her hands on the wheel. Eric pushes the can down next to the shifter on the floorboard. Holds it there close to my leg, squints out the bug-splattered windshield. His head moves with the passing of the black and white sedan. I know him, he says, about the cop. Eric is always knowing everyone from Maryville. Robert’s nephew. You met him, Lena. Robert, you remember. Mom nods, and I know she doesn’t, but she won’t disagree with him. Eric is cradled on the bench seat between us, rocking to the movement of the pickup. His leg brushes mine and I hit it hard with my knee as we bump to exit the bridge. He doesn’t notice, his body all loose like that. He brings the can to his lips, takes a swig. I stare at the words on the side: Steel Reserve 211. It’s his seventh or eighth. He starts around ten every day after he throws off the covers and pisses in one of the Folgers cans he keeps next to Mom’s bed. We can hear it, the pissing, because he doesn’t close the goddamn door and the whizzing echoes in the wide empty space of our two-story farmhouse, bouncing off oak floors and hundred-year-old lath and plaster walls. Gross, Carter said. Disgusting, Chelle said. He’s an animal, I said. A fucking animal. Watch your mouth, Young Lady. Whatever. It’s because of the stairs, she said. It’s hard for him to make it in time. Like that matters. He’s fifteen years older than her. He looks about a hundred or zero depending on how you look at it. And when we ride, he has to sit next to her. Needs to be near her. Know what she’s doing. She can’t go anywhere without him. We don’t know if he can feed himself. Chelle and I were talking and said if we didn’t know better, we’d think he kept booby milk in those cans, but we’ve seen him spill, and it’s amber, not milky.
Going down Main Street, the streetlamps are just coming on. Eric stubs out his cigarette and places a hand on Mom’s thigh, the other holding the can. He doesn’t wear a seatbelt, but they won’t get him for that. The smell of sour and sweet on his breath lingers in the cab even though the windows are down and the humid, Ohio heat races over our salty faces. The smell from his grey folded skin, like unwashed laundry sitting in a moldy basement, lingers, mixed with the sour-sweet scent. It makes me sick. What makes me sick too is, Mom said never again after Dad but here she is, one just like him. For a moment we had her all to ourselves, and the thoughts got better, and things didn’t have to be just the right way. Then she gave herself to him, replaced us like chips she was cashing in and it’s just like it was before, but with Dad, he never came home, and with Eric, he never leaves. The feeling that nothing will be okay never leaves. It never leaves.
It started when Mom stopped coming home. First one night, then two, then three. She came the fourth night. She said thirteen was old enough. She called the second night to tell me to keep an eye on the twins—as if she expected them to listen to me, them being just a year younger. They had each other, and Chelle had friends, and Carter had sports, and I couldn’t sleep. The images I saw when I closed my eyes tormented me, kept me up: Carter and Chelle dead in a cornfield, their bodies torn and laid bare; the bloated, vacant face of our mother floating belly-up in the Ohio. I had to touch the frame on my bed over and over to get the images to go away, to keep the bad thing from happening, and I knew something was wrong, and I didn’t want to be here no more— here, here, here. So, my fingernails found their way into my wrist, the soft belly of my forearm. When that wasn’t enough, I found a razor, a dulled steak knife. I needed my relief the way she needed hers, and I knew something was wrong, really wrong, when I tried to stop but couldn’t. I tried to tell her, but she couldn’t sit still. I told myself I was fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. And, when I see wrecks and things, it’s just like the images in my head and that feeling. That feeling. And it steals me back to that night. That night when she phoned to say it was alright, even though it wasn’t. It wasn’t alright. It wasn’t her anymore. It was someone who took over; someone who became her when she was with him— with Eric, and they were doing the things she did with Eric— the Eric-things, the things she never did before. The things they needed the fanny pack for. So, it was like she died and was replaced with someone else even though she is still alive and has the same hair, and face, and smells. The inside part of her is gone. And I can’t bring her back.
Mom shifts the truck into first. We pull in front of Eric’s place, she cuts the engine. Eric reaches for the fanny pack. Mom gets out, Eric on her side. They tell me to wait in the truck. And it’s that feeling, that feeling. And I’m not okay. I’m not okay. I’m not okay. I watch her climb the stairs, the distance between us growing. My stomach is heavy, and the wreck, and the sweet-sour scent, and the smell of his grey skin, and the smoke. Mom is dead, and it shouldn’t be like this. She disappears behind the metal door. I dig my fingernails into my forearm. And for a moment it burns. And I forget about Eric, and I forget about Mom being dead, and I forget it’s Memorial Day, and I feel. I feel nothing.