Spring Won't Come

One:Manny

Greasy strands of auburn hair scraped against the dirt-framed glass as Manny leaned his head against his bedroom window. He closed his eyes and exhaled, feeling the glass vibrate with the rumbling of an approaching freight train.

Every night, he waited by his window and welcomed the roar of the engine and the clanking of the track rails that temporarily blocked out the obnoxious din produced by his parents.

Ten minutes later, the last of the train cars zipped past his window and Manny was once again forced to acknowledge the screams of his parents that pierced through his bedroom door. He wished more trains would run through the night.

Manny heard the crack of a ceramic mug smash against the kitchen wall and he wondered why his parents had ever married in the first place. His stepmother said that things had been different then, but at fifteen this meant nothing to Manny. He had more important things on his mind like trying to pass school, starting a band, and girls. Always girls.

Kayla occupied his thoughts the most. She was a year older than Manny and considered by most to be way out of his league. Both of their fathers had served together in Vietnam and had reconnected after discharge, and this was Manny's one advantage.

All of Manny's earliest memories were of playing games like "Hide and Seek" or "Red Rover" with Kayla and the other neighborhood kids. It wasn't until two years ago that he had stopped seeing her as the little girl with pigtails and scraped up knees. Now she was the first girl that Manny had fallen in love with. It was frustrating, confusing, and the perfect fuel for teenage angst.

Manny winced at the crack of another dish crashing to the ground. Kayla's parents were even more dysfunctional than his, they didn't even try to fake the happiness produced by his folks. Her parent's disdain for each other was naked and unashamed; how they stayed together was a mystery. He supposed that even miserable people didn't want to be alone.

Manny remembered one time when Kayla's parents had decided to become the center of attention at the school's open house. Manny couldn't recall what had started the fight, he just remembered Kayla's mom screeching at the top of her lungs at her husband. They went back and forth for a while before a teacher had politely asked them to stop. No one was surprised when the Romees had taken offense and the police had been called to resolve the matter.

The long shadows of Manny's parents crept through the gap between the floor and his door. He rolled his eyes; they always fought with the light on and didn't seem to care that it kept him from sleeping.

One of the shadows kept pacing, his mother, and the other, his father, stood at attention. The pacing shadow screamed and more glass shattered. The silent sentry advanced towards the screamer and a fist slam onto the kitchen counter.

Manny rolled over onto his back and lost himself in the glow-in-the-dark stickers that dotted his ceiling. He used to stare at those stickers and cry himself to sleep as a child. Those tears had dried up long before he had finished elementary school and now he just spaced out at the walls and ceiling. If he was lucky, he would be able to slip into unconsciousness before things got too out of hand, like the time he had woken up to a fist-sized hole in his door.

Manny traced lines between the star stickers in an attempt to numb his mind enough to sleep. He realized that it wasn't going to work this time.

He huffed and he peeled back his bedsheet, throwing his legs off the side of his bed. Operating by the yellow glow of the streetlights, he slipped into his Jack Daniels pj pants and put on the Johnny Cash shirt that hung off his lamp. A King Diamond poster clung desperately to the chipped white walls; he made a mental note to add more tape to it. Manny took a deep breath and opened the door out to the hall.