Afterwards (Editing)

chapter five

"How was the whore's house today?" Mrs. Kilder asked as i walked in her door putting her car keys on a hook in the wall.

"Same as always," i say. She sighs and turns her head to stare out the window. I flick the lights on.

"Turn them off," she says.

"No," i say.

She gets up out of her chair and turns the lights back off. Then she goes back and sits down, groaning as she goes.

I flick the light back on.

She sighs in defeat. Too exhausted from the first act of moving to get up again.

She is't doing too well. She is old though so you can't expect her to be as healthy as a horse. No one knows why she's sick or what she's sick with. I guess she isn't sick physically. Dane thinks she has a bad case of pneumonia. In the middle of July. For half a year.

Dane is too young to understand. To untouched. You see nothing bad has happened to him. He has avoided bad things for so long he has started to believe bad things just don't happen. Unfortunate to say most seventeen year olds will never have the luxury of that feeling like him.

I've considered showing him my manuscript. I haven't though. Whenever i consider it i think of a crab without a shell. I can't show it to him because it's to emotional. When he is older.

Mrs. Kilder on the other hand has enough to deal with. So there my manuscript sits. In a typewriter. Read by only me.

Sometimes i pretend my brother has read it. 

Mrs. Kilder and i sit in the dark for a while and i see why it is only getting worse. The more i think the more things seem to... spoil, sour.

I make her dinner, make sure she eats it, and then i go back to my apartment a floor above her.

Mr. Thompson has a real job so he only screws around on Friday, Saturday, and occasionally Sunday. I really only clean on Sundays and sometimes Saturdays so i work as a secretary. I dread the week days because is always brings papers and spreadsheets to type and things to file and phone calls to make and receive.

I sit at my typewriter, close my eyes, and stretch out my fingers searching for words. Then i start to type.

The sun gently merged into the horizon. He stayed to watch it. Della left. She had to be home by seven or her mother would kill her. Dustin was glad she had left. He wanted a moment like this, to savor it. Della would have talked his ear off. 

Dustin's mind wavered on his mother for a few lingering moments. He snapped himself back, though. His Father made the subject disappear. There was no talking of what happened. There was no acknowledging she was gone. It was like she had never been there. He didn't like it but that is how his Father coped with it. If he thought about it it would only stay in his mind and bother him. So he didn what his father did. He pretended nothing had happened.

He watched the colors make the lines of the horizon waxy and orange. The sun scorched his eyes but he didn't close them because he wanted to take a snapshot of the moment.

As the moon and stars took over as the light source Dustin realized Della had left her jacket. He picked it up and looked into the dark night wishing for the waxy, blurry, orange horizon back. Then he shoved both arms in his pockets, the jacket sandwiched between his waist and arm.

I stare at the ink on the paper for a moment before i wash up and go to bed. I don't wear makeup on weekends so after i brush my teeth i can go to bed. And i do.

I fall asleep with fourteen year-olds Dustin and Della wavering in my mind. Della unscathed and Dustin covered in scrapes. And i wonder how they will turn out.