08

02. Mama's Gun

DYLAN

In the summer silence, I was getting violent

In the summer silence, I was doing nothing.

• • •

Chicago, Illinois • August 3, 1964

If it wasn't for the sudden sound that came from outside his room, Dylan would've been asleep within a minute.

Lifting his head and slowly opening his eyes, he looked through the darkness and spent a few moments sitting in silence, waiting for the next sound. But it didn't come, well, not right away. It came when Dylan's cheek was about to touch the warm pillow, and this time it was louder.

He got up, grunting and mumbling and wishing he was already asleep so he wouldn't have to go check, or wishing he could be ignorant enough to pretend he didn't hear anything and go back to sleep.

But Dylan knew what the noises most probably were―his mother, drunk, coming back home at whatever the hour was, probably 2 or 3am, falling on the floor, kicking whatever was in her way―and because of that Dylan didn't have what it took to simply ignore it. Not because he cared too much about his mother, but because he wouldn't be able to get a good night's sleep knowing she could be choking on her own vomit.

He opened the door to his room, the dim light coming from the kitchen illuminating the small living room enough for him to see around. As expected, his mother was laying on the floor, face down, between the couch and the TV, a pool of vomit next to her leg. The door to the house was left ajar, so Dylan hurried to close it, glancing quickly at the quiet dark street before doing so.

"Baby," his mother mumbled, the word rather coming out of her mouth as bey-bah. "Help yo' mamah to ge' up."

Dylan stood in his place for a moment and watched her palms sliding on the floor in a pathetic attempt at getting up by herself. She was like a baby, Dylan thought, a 37-year-old ugly baby, sitting in her own vomit. He felt sick to his stomach as he looked at the woman who's supposed to be his mother. He remembered her leaving with a jacket on today around dinner time, but it wasn't on her now, and he couldn't see it anywhere in the room. Her long arms were too thin, the skin too loose from the lack of exercises. She shouldn't dress like this, he thought, with sleeveless shirts and short jeans, not when she drinks more alcohol than water, when she lays on the couch all day until it's time to hit another bar―not when she has a son at home.

Not being able to stand it anymore, to just remain stuck in his place and look at what his life is, Dylan found the will to step toward her, and the more he did so the stronger the smell became.

Then it fully came. The disgusting smell of alcohol, vomit, and sweat combined holding bad memories of bad nights like nothing else could. His mother's perfume.

"Get up," the 12-year-old boy snapped at his mother. That surprised him, but not too much, because on some nights, he just wouldn't have it. Yesterday night she came back home in the same state, and the day before that, and most probably tomorrow will be the same. There already was some residue of vomit left on the floor near the kitchen door from two days ago, where she managed to drag herself in the search of another bottle of alcohol.

"Don' use that tone with meh! Who d'ya think ya are, boy," she slurred, barely managing to hold her head straight and look directly at him. "I'm yo' muther."

"Act like it!" Dylan shouted, eyes wide and lips tight. There was a bad taste in his mouth, bitter and sour, trailing back along his tongue and down his throat.