Dead Stones [manxman] [boyxboy]

Mom oh mom

Luke had rented out the lounge area for receiving guests to Miranda and then later rented the garage begrudgingly to Robert, who was desperate for cheap accommodation on the west side.  While Robert was content with the private dark, dank garage, Miranda grumbled about the compact florescent lightening and its unnatural whiteness, the cold tile floors, hemispherical windows that took over an entire wall, looking over the scorched earth lawn outside. Despite her reservations, Luke was deaf to any suggestions of renting Lisa’s or his sister Carly’s old bedroom.

Then on a Tuesday evening around eight pm when he was about to leave for the go club, he exited his cavernous room and noticed at the end of the hallway, the crack of dim light leaking from Carly’s door.  Yawning, he slugged to close the door, and then finding inside, a top-heavy figure in blue testing the bed, her severe face elongated with the long vertical shadows cast by the slat blinds.

The taste of cinnamon burned in his throat; he coughed lightly.

“Oh, you scared me,” Miranda said insincerely. “This room is just perfect when my son comes to visit. He doesn’t like the lounge much. Say, I’ll give you an extra fifty bucks in rent to let me use it sometimes.”

Her words were the aether permeating the willowy shadows rustling over the purple polka dots blotting the walls. Luke fingered his throat as if it could bring relief to the stinging in his throat, and Miranda traipsed around the purple headboard, pawed the dolls gay in Victorian dress on the bed, (creepy-looking but could be quaint), peered over the pastel gallimaufry of trinkets on the desk (I know someone who could use these… Doesn’t look like you’ll be using it), then picking up Carly’s portrait and saying adoringly over the brunette curls, “You two related?”

Stinging became scalding, and he walked over rigidly to her and calmly took away the picture.  She emitted a vague snort, those little discomforts intended to show offense at his temerity at disdaining friendly gestures. But it was all forgiven with a little dilating of the eyes, a priming of a smile, and she said, “No one’s using this room. I think an extra fifty bucks is good enough.” Luke stared at the tight crow’s feet crowding her temples, and the gunky mascara spikes, but his mind was drawn down to his throat, down the constricting Via Dolorosa. “Maybe not, the room’s a little dark for him …” her tingly voice strained into a whimper, and she slunk around the haggard Luke, “Woops, it’s past eight, I should call my Jake and tell him good night…. Please don’t play that weird game around him. I’m afraid he might think the pieces are candy and swallow them—Got to go.”  And the click-clack of her sandals was trotting hastily down the hall.

As soon as Luke heard the distant echo of a door banging, he swooped down to sight on the hardwood floor—sheared half-moon prints of dust? Dead skin cells? Sebaceous oils? A strip of confetti? Mom wouldn’t like that. His throat bathed in acid now, he scurried to the janitor closet by the kitchen door and took out a mop and cleaning towels. He dashed back to Carly’s room, commenced a deep clean of the dark-stained floor, the beige blinds, the desk varnished with purple, the pyramid of portraits on the dresser. And a madly interrupting the silence of his rituals to penance, his phone rang.  He answered it; his hello was crazed and breathy.

“It’s Cindy… You sound a little strange… It’s nine thirty… are you still coming to the club? We’re going to try later, can you believe it, Filipino tacos?”

Cindy’s voice sounded distorted as though through a low-pass filter, inflicting a tight arch of discomfort in Luke’s shoulders.  He looked about in the decaying ivory hue, for reason’s fundament in the electronic stream. But the words were the wind, the wind flinging the lone slat blind, and over the poster of an underdressed teenage icon, the shadows swinging in with the wightly wind. And there on the glossy rounded bedpost, the attractor of ghostly retribution, a half-thumb smudge. Mom wouldn’t like that.

“Hello?”

Luke turned off the phone and attended to Mom’s demands.