"Saturday Morning in Kershaw"

Aaron Foss


White, stucco ceiling.

Were her eyes really open? They couldn't be.

Her eyelids were still heavy with sleep, like they were locked in place with steel pinions.

Sara Brickman groaned to herself as she turned onto her side. Dull green numbers glowed
from the display of her alarm clock. They proved she was awake and that no hardware had
been holding her eyes closed as she'd thought a half minute before.

10:24

She'd also overslept an hour and a half past when she'd planned on waking. Why had she
forgotten to set the alarm?

She raised her head off the pillow, but immediately fell back into it as the horrible wave of
nausea overtook her and nearly made her pass out. She winced at the pain as she brought
her arms up and rubbed her eyes hard with the palms of her hands. Her vision was blurry.
The morning beams skating across her retinas felt as if acetylene torches were searing
each eye into a permanent night. She wiped the cold trickle of sweat off her forehead with
the back of her hand and she tasted bile in the back of her throat. She almost gagged, but
managed to avoid it by craning her neck back into the comfortable down and tensing up what
muscles she could feel. The dull repetitious drumbeat of her own pulse throbbed in her
temples and she was sure each time the next thundering rush of blood would be the one that
forced her skull to cave in on itself and free whatever ungodly thing was trying to gain its
freedom from inside her.

Her head may as well have been some poorly constructed middle school shop project placed
in a vice and squeezed into something passable. Her tongue was rough and stuck to the roof
of her mouth. She spit, not caring where it landed on the rug, but her thick saliva only managed
to dribble down her chin. It hurt to swallow and she dreaded every time her body betrayed her
with that involuntary action. Her shoulders were tight and her spine burned the entire way down
her back. She could barely feel her arms now; they must have fallen asleep as she lay there. She
managed to barely touch her fingers to each other, ensuring herself that they were still there.
Aching calves and thighs proved her legs had not up and walked away without her.

"Fuck, what the hell did I do to myself last night?" she thought to herself.

She chanced opening her eyes again. The room was filled with dusty illumination as the sunlight
filtered its way through the gauzy, beige fabric of the curtains. They swayed back and forth on
the slight breeze that blew through the open window; gliding with each other to a waltz only
drapery could hear. A flitting ghost caught her eye as it glided past the window in complete
silence and perched itself on a bough of the beech tree outside. It stared at her and she
returned its gaze through bleary vision. Cocking its crested navy head, the ghost gave an
interrogatory chirp.

"Mr. Blue Jay, I think I may have had a little bit more to drink last night than I should have,"
she muttered through the gravel in her throat.

The ghost bird chirped again and jerked its head up and down in agreement. Puffing his chest
out, he scolded her with a throaty warble.

Sara still hurt too much to move. She resigned herself to her bed for the moment and tried
to recall the events of the previous night. The electrical impulses in her brain scattered among
each other, but couldn't reveal anything to her. Thinking was only exacerbating her misery.

She groaned again. She'd never felt this horrendous in all her nineteen years. She had partied
in her two semesters at Mt. Kennedy College, but only partook of alcohol and never enough to
interfere with her academics. Excess was something that did not suit her. If it came down to
a choice between a party or studying, it always ended up with her sitting before a mountain of
books and with a few disappointed friends. They called her the "good girl" and sometimes worse,
depending on their mood or sobriety. It didn't matter though. She knew her parents weren't
paying 35,000 dollars a year for her to be doing keg stands and dropping acid like other kids.

That may have been a bit of an exaggeration on her part, but she knew at least two of her friends
had experimented with things that she'd never dream of trying. She didn't know what and didn't
want to. She cared a great deal for all the friends she'd made at Mt. Kennedy, but wasn't na•ve
enough to fool herself into thinking she could change their behavior by becoming an after school
special. Besides, most of them were good, or at least passing students, who only found their
erratic acts brought on by spending a bit too much quality time with Jim Beam or Jack Daniels.
Disappointing her parents was her ultimate fear and she had worked too hard to let others get
in the way of her future. Her future was all that mattered to her. Her future with Carl. Her
sweet Carl.

She'd first met him when she was only seven and the Malloy family had moved in to Mr. Horton's
old house after he'd had his heart attack and passed away. Carl was the Malloy's only child. Two
years older than she was, he was a tall, stringy kid with quick eyes and a quicker sense of humor.
He had always been able to make her laugh.

They became inseparable friends, relishing their games of kick- the can and hide and seek up in
the woods behind the old log mill. It was during one of these childhood endeavors that Sara had
found the clearing. It was a huge space caught between two massive groves of ancient trees.
The arms of the old elms and oaks formed a sepia canopy of interlocking handshakes high overhead
and batted away the glare of the towering afternoon sun. The radiance they allowed to drop
through hung in gold medallions on the old sagebrush bushes and scattered blazing brilliant coins
on the ground. The leaves, having jumped from their perches during the first cold snap of the
season, lay wet and mottled on the ground. Still they retained their pristine ruby and orange
brilliance. She walked through them towards the granite creek bed slashed into the ground by
some long ago glacier. The water rippled with life as buzzing insects skimmed the surface. A fat
bullfrog sat proudly as king atop his slick throne of water lilies.

She had found Carl and brought him there. Neither needed more than a look at the other to share
the fantastic feeling of grandeur they had when they stood in that place. They named it Oz,
because Sara said when she had first seen it she felt like Dorothy exiting her cyclone-traveled
house in her favorite movie. It was their favorite place to be. They would chase lizards among
the crevices of the rock piles or lie on their backs staring at the stars through the canopy. The
glinting fireflies stood no chance against their quick, tiny hands. Sitting by the creek with their
feet in the water, they loved skipping echoing stones off the face of the granite bedrock.

The time Carl had broken his mother's antique teakettle with his soccer ball he had disappeared
to avoid his consequence. With smoldering parents aimlessly searching, she had been the only
one that had known where he'd be. She had snuck away and found him there on the moss-covered
oak that had fallen before either of them were born. He was racing his Hot Wheels over the lichen
dappled bark and hadn't known she had been there until he turned to her and revealed he was
crying. Sara had never seen any boy cry before. She didn't know what to do. He stared at her
solemnly and she sat by him and hugged him, sharing the silence. He'd cry again years later when
she would tell him that was the moment she knew she loved him, even as a school age kid.

Oz became their sanctuary, a refuge from the oppressive dealings of childhood. Over the years,
they came to know it intimately and they could find each other there whenever things were too
much to handle. The time Carl's dad had come home, angry from losing his job at the bank and
saying horrible things to his wife. The time Sara's dog had escaped from the backyard and ran
into the screeching tires of Ed Marmott's pickup truck. The time Sara had told Carl she had been
accepted at Mt. Kennedy and was leaving at the end of the summer. They had been dating straight
through high school at that point and Carl had chose to stay behind and intern at the Kershaw
Gazette as a junior copyright. They were both crushed, but Carl had been selfless, hiding his feelings
as well as he could and she loved him even more for it. She knew by his pained look he wanted to
tell her to stay, but he restrained himself so that she could go out and grow in the real world.

Mt. Kennedy was a seven hour drive by the highway, far too long for a quick weekend visit, but they
talked by phone every night at nine sharp, waiting listlessly in the mire of their anticipation for the
Christmas holiday that would bring them together again. The love they had flowed like wind over
the hundreds of miles of farmland that separated them. They refused to let distance break them.

She had waited with baited breath to return to the man she loved and sleepy town she called home.
Most college kids would frown at the thought of coming to a place like Kershaw, but its 2,000 plus
residents thought differently. It was a place set back from the world; small enough to foster a
sense of community between all its people; large enough for a diversity of new people to find it and
call it home each passing year. Commercial industry would find no foothold here. Sara thought of it
as a Mayberry, an out of the way map dot. There were no pie tins cooling in windows with delectable
wisps of brown sugar scent lost to the wind. There was no laughable town drunk, burst capillaries
giving away his condition to the folks he met on his buffoonish misadventures. Still, she loved the
seclusion of Kershaw from the modern age.

Sara smiled to herself. She loved this town. She loved her parents and the traditional upbringing they
had given her, instilling inside of her the values they held dear. She loved being back in her old room
in the house she grew up in. She loved Carl. Every thought that materialized to her now warmed her
heart. The uncomfortable tingling of her left arm waking up propelled her back to the realization of
her physical discomfort. She felt something sticking to the arch of her foot and realized that she
had gone to bed wearing one of the pink plastic sandals she'd worn the night before. She flexed her
toes and it was lost beneath the sheets. As she pulled away the top blanket she noticed the dirt
streaking her forearms for the first time. She was covered with caked earth. Whatever paralysis
had gripped her let loose and she bolted from the bed. The grey sweatshirt and jeans she'd worn
yesterday still adorned her and they were stained with drab rust and sorrel colored mud. Russet
brick red river clay speckled itself over her slate gray attire. She pulled at the largest crimson
splotch. Bringing her fingers to her nose, she cringed at the unmistakable copper smell. Blood.

She dropped to her knees and clutched great handfuls of the shag rug beneath her. Outside the blue
jay's chittering sent tremors down her spine.

She wheezed to herself through chattering teeth, "What the fuck happened to me? How did I get like
this?" She tore the ruined shirt from her torso and kicked out of her soiled jeans. She heaved them
to the far side of the room and they smacked the wall before hitting the ground with a rumple. She
pressed her eyes closed tight and fumbled through her inaccessible mind.

Yesterday. Remember yesterday.

Home for six days. Unpacked most of what she'd put off. A few duffle bags left. Drove to
Thompson's Market to get scallions and tomatoes for her mother.

Christ, the blood is everywhere.

Jeremy called. I need to talk to you. I'm sure you've heard some stuff about me since you've been
back. I'm out of work at five. Swing by whenever.

A ruby palm print on the wall. Whorls of blood from a glancing finger left there. Dry, caked blood
on the carpet. A muddy sandal print.

Carl had picked her up to drop her off at Jeremy's house. Singing along to the Tom Petty mix tape
she'd given him to ease the tension. His favorite band. Jeremy. Oh my god. Jeremy.

The clarity she found hit her squarely in the chest and exploded with a buckshot of disgust and
titanic grief. She had been raped.

Raped. Her mouth hung agape as the staccato repetition of the word replayed like an old vinyl on
a skipping phonograph. Raped. Still on her knees, hot tears flowed now. Not dripping, but flowing
in torrents down her fevered cheeks to the floor. She'd been beaten. Her blood stained everything
here in her house. It had poured from her at Jeremy's hands while he assaulted her. Her sobbing
was uncontrollable and she tried to catch a fleeting breath between the forced heaving of her chest.
She choked on her emotion. The wet gasps caught in her throat before they erupted in peals from
her one after the other, exploding through the room with her plaintive wailing.

The blue jay chirped its condolences before leaving to find someplace more cheerful to haunt.

Sara had known Jeremy Skinner even before Carl. He was their best friend. He was a hulking,
strapping son of a local farmer with a sequoia body and logs for forearms. Star of the Kershaw
High School football squad, he had led them to four straight state titles with his hard nosed
demeanor on the field. Despite his size, Jeremy was a caring, kindhearted soul. He was eager to
help anyone in need, even staying in Kershaw to jockey a gas pump when his dad had thrown his
back out and couldn't get out of bed. He'd been accepted to Mt. Kennedy on a football scholarship
and Sara and he were thrilled to be going to the same school.

Sara had known since they were kids that Jeremy had wanted to be with her. She loved him, but
not in the same way she loved Carl. Jeremy was a friend; Carl was her destiny. To his credit, he
had never once acted on it, not even voiced his feelings about her to anyone. Never had caused an
awkward moment or a touch of despair. She knew it must have hurt him horribly, to be in love with
his best friend, but he was consummate in never professing anything that might ruin the friendship.

He was selfless.

Word had gotten back to Sara about his drinking through Carl. With nothing to occupy his time, no
college, no football, he had sunk into a depression of sorts. Though they were all still underage, Jeremy
had turned to the bottle to pass the time. It had started with typical experimentation. Beers at a
poker game and Tommy Wilke's keg party. The problem was Jeremy couldn't handle himself when he
drank. He was an altogether different person under the influence of alcohol. His language had become
profane and vile. He was belligerent, telling his friends he had no problem, that he was in control. He
had even taken a swing at Carl as he tried to wrestle his keys away from him the night he had downed
at least a fifth of tequila. Probably more. That had been the breaking point for the two of them.
Jeremy and Carl hadn't talked since that night three months ago. Though they were estranged, Carl had
kept his mouth shut about Jeremy to everyone, respecting what was their friendship too much to let
slip anything that would be kindling for the wildfire of small town rumor and innuendo. He had hoped Jeremy
would stop himself, but he seemed content to drown in his own misery. He had refused help from all
directions, fallen into the bottle. The inward sloping sides offered no fissure to which he could cling to
and save himself. He claimed he had sobered himself to anyone who brought it up, an obvious lie. Sara
was the only one who had yet to try.

When she had last seen him at Christmas, he was solemn and quiet, not himself. He'd never met her eyes
when they had talked, staring at his boots and being deathly afraid of revealing his addiction to her. She
was anxious to try; she needed to help Jeremy if she could because she knew he would have done the same
for her. At least, the old Jeremy would have. Where all others had failed she would succeed. She had to get
him to at least acknowledge his affliction, perhaps coax him into seeking help for it.

Carl had gotten worried when she told him she was going to see him. He said she'd been gone too long. She
hadn't been able to see his radical progression towards the edge. Hadn't seen him become introverted and
unpredictable. Jeremy would never allow Carl to accompany Sara into his family's house now, and if anything
happened to her, he'd never be able to forgive himself.

She loved him for worrying so much about her. Nevertheless, she had to try. He had dropped her in the
driveway and told her to be careful. She told him not to worry, that she could handle herself and Jeremy
would never hurt her. They promised to meet later and discuss how it all had gone. They kissed goodbye,
the sawing harmonica of "You Don't Know How It Feels" playing a soundtrack to their embrace from the
car speakers.

She had rung the front doorbell. It was humid and the night crickets were fiddling through the oppressive
air. She glanced back over her shoulder at the spot Carl had left her in the driveway. The Steiner's Volvo
was gone; Jeremy was home alone. When he had opened the door, she smelled the whiskey before he had
even opened his mouth to greet her. He was a mess. A greasy sheen covered his face and he was sweating
profusely. Red cheeks swelled with a small grin as they hugged and he invited her inside.

She'd had no more luck than anyone else. He swore to her that her drinking was under his control. Everyone
else was a liar. They didn't know what they were talking about. He sat across from her on the faded maroon
sofa, intoxicated with cheap plastic bottle liquor and her presence. He looked in her direction, not at her but
past her, into some distant place only he could see. An eon passed. Then an eternity. He spoke softly, without
inflection of any kind and began to tell her everything. Everything that he had felt for her since he'd first seen
her. He thought she was the most gorgeous person he had ever laid his eyes on. He told her of the dreams
that haunted him. The ones where Carl lost interest in her and broken from grief, he would swoop in to save
her from sadness and fear. The dreams where they were together and nothing could split them apart. Not
Carl. Not anything.

Sara sat and looked at the hardwood floor. She hadn't ever expected this moment to come and didn't have a
response ready.

"I have to go now Jeremy; we can talk again tomorrow. I know you think you're fine, but you're completely
wasted. You're saying things you don't mean and you know who I'm in love with," she said to him. He looked
pained as he picked apart her response through his haze. A few sentences had ripped apart a lifetime of
hope and his dreams were dashed. They both stood up together and made their way to the door. As she
tried to open it enough to allow herself room to exit, he put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back.
She stood petrified as he slammed the door shut. With an ominous sneer, he advanced on her.

She couldn't remember the attack. If he had drugged her or her own mind wouldn't allow her to remember
the vicious event for the sake of her own sanity wasn't clear. Her friend. Her friend who suffered his whole
life with unrequited love had snapped. All under the influence of the fucking bottle he couldn't keep out of
his mouth. He had taken something from her, something that was hers and only hers to give away. Something
he desired and yearned for every time he had seen her, spoken to her all these years. She chose to give it to
Carl, only Carl, and that had crushed him.

Raped.

How could she explain this to Carl? Her sweet Carl.

Suddenly aware of her near naked body, she crawled across the floor to her dresser and found a thick pair
of sweatpants. She struggled into them. She stood up and stumbled to the bathroom across the hall from
her bedroom where she missed the sink and vomited into her hands. The mirror revealed the full sight of
her. Clotted blood tangled in her hair with bits of twigs. It shot out unkempt in all directions. Filthy stinking
clods of mud. The blood caught in the creases of her eyes; it hung in dried rivulets across her forehead like
a tapestry woven from only the foulest of things. Her stomach was bruised and she searched herself for
the deep gashes the blood had poured from, the gashes Jeremy had inflicted. She found none.

Far in the distance, a police siren echoed across the neighborhood.

She screamed now. It was the only way to release everything she felt inside. It was piercing and hurt her
ears. She screamed again. All the shame she would bring to her family. To Carl. It wasn't her fault she
knew, but their love was so deep that her violation would be his.

Her mother called to her from downstairs, no doubt aroused by her racket. The voice was loud enough
to be heard, but the words were inaudible.

She looked again for the wounds that must be there.

Raped.

Jeremy had caused this. The terror of knowing she had been beaten and penetrated by a person she
called a friend. The blood was everywhere. The dirt was everywhere. No wounds. Dirt and blood. Dirt
from inside Jeremy's house?

Raped.

The clarity filled her.

Jeremy had come closer to her. She warned him to stay away, but he was huge. Freed by admitting to
his years of frustration and empowered by anger from her rejection, he would take what was his to
take. The booze made him unstoppable. She had run, out of the parlor and into the kitchen. The back
door was to her left. Locked. She fumbled with the latch as he ran into the room, almost tripping in his
stupor. The door flung open and she rushed into the night air. It invigorated her; a second wind hit her
as she rushed toward the road. No cars were in sight. No headlights in the distance. No beacon of help.
He erupted from the back door, cursing as he followed her. Carl would be at his house, awaiting her
phone call when she got home. The Steiner property sat isolated from most of the town, back near
the old log mill where she'd played as a kid. The closest neighbor was at least a half-mile away.

Carl had been right. She hadn't recognized her old friend. This was a new creature; a monstrous being.

She looked back and he had gained ground on her. There was no way to outrun him; even in his insane
state he was athletic and would catch her. She ran to the woods. Maybe she could find a place to hide
from him until she could sneak away for help. She plunged headfirst through the trees, branches scraping
at her; grabbing her the way Jeremy wanted to grab her.

She found a deer path curving under the light of the quicksilver moon. She followed it and then stepped
into Oz. The place had no good now. It was silent, too silent for the woods at night. Phantasm shadows
jumped in all directions. She crouched behind the fallen oak, the same one she had sat on with Carl so
long ago. She stayed behind it, out of sight. Making her way to a huge elm, she stood up and her legs
burned. The deep space quiet was unnerving. She quieted her breath to listen.

The rustling of the leaves as he approached was the only way she knew his location. He wasn't swearing
now, trying to be quiet, but still too drunk to approach in complete silence. She felt around the ground
and found a grapefruit sized rock. Grabbing it, she rotated it in her hand. The porous surface cut her
palm, but she found the bluntest edge and turned it outward where it would do the most damage. She
stood quiet, petrified.

The footfall that came from the other side of the tree was the trigger and she lunged now, hitting Jeremy
hard and with a resonating thud. The rock reverberated in her hand. He fell forward, slumped unconscious.
She lowered herself on top of him. Two more sharp blows made contact and she heard the skull give way in
the dark with a the same crack as the walnuts Uncle Nate used to roast on Christmas Eve as they sat
around the bonfire. She fell back on her haunches and caught her breath before she turned him over.

The siren outside grew louder, a wailing banshee haunting her.

He had known where she would come after the trying saga of getting Jeremy to admit to his problem.
Like always, he had known where to find her. He had come to wait for her. Carl. Her sweet Carl. His
damaged head gushed fresh blood onto the forest floor of Oz. His orbital bone had caved in, the membrane
that was his eye hung loosely in what had been its socket. It mixed with the thick red stream and oozed,
over his shattered face.

Love had been killed in an instant by her own hand. Her love.

The mirror in front of her couldn't reveal anything that she felt and the hot tears swam in her eyes again.
This time she found no words, only disbelief as realization set in. Horrific clarity. Time slowed. Her head
swayed.

Sara Brickman had always planned for the future. She wanted to know who she was. She wanted to know
where she would be for the rest of her life. Now, as she turned from the mirror to face her mother's
screams, the splintering of the bathroom door. and the barrel of the policeman's gun, where she would
spend her life was a question that she would not have to ask anymore.


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