Abducted Chapter Nine: An Escape
Wherin the Graves children desperately attempt to escape the trappings of station. From the novel I'm working on while I'm in school work on my writing skills. This comes to you unedited.
Chapter Nine: The Escape
Another way you get a dead brother is by trapping him in his needs. Like pimps, record and movie producers, your parents get him hooked on high doses of all manner of habit forming drugs. Ritalin, Adderall, Vyvanse, and plain old amphetamines. Along with this you get him addicted to barbiturates and benzodiazepines to sleep. The kind that supposedly killed Judy Garland and Marylin Monroe. Plant the seed of addiction and it will blossom into a bad habit in months or even days.
You’re sitting at a train station watching the rail workers and passersby from a bench next to the largest suitcase you can find that can still be considered a carry-on. The cracks and clangs of the rocking steam engine fill your ears along with the crispy hisses of the breaks and shouts for people to board. It’s not your ride, not yet. Shuffling to and fro, passengers say their good-byes, give their kisses and hugs, hop on the train, and stare out the window at their loved ones like some lonesome movie.
In your pocket is a ticket to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Throwing darts at a wall-mounted map, you and Brad simultaneously hit the four corners where, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado meet. This spot on the map happens to be the largest swatch of land the United States Government gave to the Navajo Native Americans as a reservation. Imagine Brad’s excitement when you tell him it’s 27,413 square miles of desert, fields, plains, plateaus, and mountains all blessedly free of maids, butlers, bannisters, granite floors, untouchable art works, vaunted ceilings, CCTV, wardrobes, armories, snooping armed guards, other pearl clutching snotty elite children, and of course free of your Mother. Free of your Father.
Shaking, shuffling, and breathing, your suitcase is supposed to be inconspicuous.
From the suitcase comes a tiny voice, “are we there yet?”
You pat it, say, “not for a bajillion hours.”
Because it’s hard to just rip a person away from their addictions, you open the zipper a crack, and drop in two Adderall 10mg.
From the bag comes crunching like hard candy, then a tiny, “thank you.”
You rub at the back of the square case, supposedly where Bradford’s back came to rest when you zipped him in. Could be upside down for all you know now, but the effect of the pills has set him into dissociative calm. Picture him with pupils so black and deep you can swim in them. Body so slack you’d think he was dead, but a bounding pulse says otherwise.
From the case, Brad says, “I wish I could see their faces when they can’t find us.”
You and he make no bones about your mutual hatred of your parents, but he’s still so young he pictures them crying over us being missing. Probably they’ll care very little, just send out a search party and wait, lounging with cocktails at the ass crack of dawn. Possibly they’ve known what you were planning the whole time. Doubtless, they laughed and allowed the secure transaction for you to buy the ticket. Maybe they watched, laughing, clutching their bellies as you and Brad snuck out the window, climbed down the three story trellis, and landed in the camellia bushes. Undoubtedly, gleefully danced as you, with pillows full of a few changes of clothes, medications, toothbrushes, maxi pads, shoes, the suitcase, and Brads favorite headdress, run across the sprawling estate to the boarder wall where you climbed the sturdy roots of an elderly oak tree and dumped over the side.
Maybe even they’ve realized the CCTV videos of Bradford practicing violin, mixing chemicals, writing software, pooping, showering, and listening to music were all pre-recorded and have been on a loop for hours.
To the bag you say, “for sure they’ll freak out,” then you say, “I love you.”
Brad says, “I love you too,” then asks, “what will it be like when we get there?”
Not to go all George to his Lenny, but you describe fields of braided wheat grass dancing in the wind, buffalo accosting the ground with hoof stamps, mountains in the distance, and an unearthly calm that can’t be abated. Danger, real danger of sharp rocks, buzzards that will pluck out his eyes, stagnant water, infections galore, cuts, scrapes, bruises, and black eyes. The heart of a living breathing environment where he can run, shout, scream, dig, pant, and rest, like any other little boy. He can build skyscrapers out of mud, fingernails caked with earth, and destroy them with the swift kick of his heel.
Brad titters then quiets after you slip him half an Ativan to cut the effect of the Adderall.
A group of businessmen tromp the platform with heavy shiny shoes and board another train with no mind paid to you or your bag. A lady older than neutrinos, shriveled like knotty pine, frowns with a toothless mouth as she watches you feeding your carry on schedule II and IV controlled substances.
What feels like forever ago, you and Brad stole one of mom’s make-up kits. Spent the hours before you left painting your face so you look a little older. Foundation for the pimples on your cheeks, then rouge, bright red lip stick, highlighter on your cheekbones and down your nose, bluish tint under your eyes, bleached your hair a fantastic white, and painted your nails jet black. Probably, you look less like an adult woman and more like a bad cosplay of Harley Quinn.
Taking out you little mirror, you’re affright at the reflection. Whatever older is, this ain’t it. Shouldn’t have let Brad do it.
Once on the train, your plan is to let Brad out when you reach Oklahoma. In case your mom and dad have their feelers out across the country, you’d dressed Brad up as a girl. With some of your old clothes, a dress, high stockings, saddle shoes, and one of mom’s wigs, you added touches of feminine contour to his chin and cheeks. With his already Elijah Wood huge eyes, and round jaw, it wasn’t hard to do. But for added extra effect you’d practiced the things he’d say if questioned.
You ask the bag, “say it again. Like we practiced.”
After a moment, Brad says, “eww, icky boys!”
Then, “I’m going to go pee… sitting down.”
Then, “I’m a girl. I bleed from my… Ba-gina.”
“Va-gina,” you correct.
“Va-gina,” he says laughing.
Not well formed or even planned beyond late night crayon drawings and diagrams, this escape isn’t the first, and it won’t be the last. Can’t say you’re ruining it, thing is, you already know the little one tittering from the suitcase, he’s gone from this world and there’s no getting him back. There was the time you’d phoned a few newspapers to tell them about your parents’ tax evasion. Even faxed them photocopies of their returns with the discrepancies highlighted. Even sent them cassette recordings of their business dealings with dictators and warlords. Perhaps the expose would draw enough attention, they’d see your abused little faces and help out. But with enough money to reserve land on Mars, the paper and news outlets were paid off and they never investigated.
A homeless man with a matted beard, shoes worn through the sole, jeans torn at the knees, and one cataracted eye, tromps the platform dirty hand out asking for change. Engineers and conductors alike shoo him away by name.
“Dave, you can’t be here. Now leave.”
Two boys chase each other up and down the stairs circling the gate and a surly woman shouts for them to get away from the tracks. No train in sight, her powers of perceiving the deaths of her twins makes you warm inside. No one’s ever felt that for you. For Brad. Except to protect investments. Like gold or silver, children are the retreat stock for unaccounted for earnings from African diamond mines, illegal weapons sales, and top secret information.
Across benches lining the station sits a random assortment of other riders and rail workers. A line of open newspapers, crossed legs, and distant faces reading unaware they’re sitting next to two of the richest children on earth- should your parents die that is. The thought of a decent house fire or assassination attempt makes you clench your knees together with excitement. Imagine your mother’s hair caught on fire and her screaming around the parlor in a silk gown looking for water. The butlers watching on in pleasure as her face melts like that guy in Indiana Jones on opening the Ark of the Covenant.
“How much longer, sissy?”
“Forever little one,” you say.
He says, “I have to pee.”
In the station are three restrooms, women’s, men’s, and family. With less of a chance of being bothered about what bathroom you’re going into; you take the women’s. It’s a one seater just large enough for you and the suitcase. Inside, with the door locked, you lay the case flat and unzip it. Popping his little head out, Brad breathes deeply, and smiles at you. The wig worked its way off and lays in mats under him along with his boy clothes. The dress he’s wearing is pressed and folded standing up exposing my old pair of Dora the Explorer underwear, a small dot of urine from how long he held it. Pulling the dress to his chin, and taking down the childhood icon, Bradford pees copiously into the bowl.
Once done he says, “uh oh. Now I have to poop.”
You frown.
He says, “don’t be mad.”
You say, “I’m not mad,” then, “actually I’m glad you’re doing it now rather than later. The train bathroom is much smaller.” Not that you know that for a fact. You’ve never been on a train before.
Above and behind him is a translucent window out of which pours overcast light and through which the rail station sounds spill in, muted. Far way, like the sound of an airplane passing overhead, are the sounds of muttering men and heel to toe boot stamps stalking one end of the platform to the other. Clomping official feet, and deep voices.
One says, “you see either of these kids?”
There’s a pause, another voice, presumably Dave says, “I ain’t seen nothing you gestapo freaks now buzz off.”
You must remember to give Dave a hundred before you leave. In the case, along with your meager travel aids are three bank bundled wads of cash and numerous corporate credit cards with limits in the 6 and 7-digit range.
There’s a knock at the door, rap-rap-rap-rap-rap, and a strong woman voice askes, “are you done in there?”
Turning to face the door, you say, “fuck off. There’s a family bathroom right there, bitch.”
Whoever it is leaves, clopping on angry high heels.
Passing by the window, the man voice says, “dressed like Raggedy Ann…”
A voice mutters, “no.”
Already it reeks like burning hair and bogs in here.
Brad says, “I can’t get it going,” and clenches, with his little neck veins distended and his eyes bloodshot.
Another way you get a dead little brother is, you don’t tend to the side effects of the drugs he’s on. Benzos in combination with stimulants back you up for days and days. Sometimes you’ll give him magnesium citrate, Colace, and Senacot to help his bowel movements along, most times they work, other times they don’t. In the case are a hundred glistening glycerin suppositories in a sandwich bag. You’ve got a good hour before our train comes so you ask him to stand and tell him to bend over.
Rolling his eyes, and grimacing, he stands, lifts the dress, bends over face almost in the toilet and points his tiny butthole at you. Taking the oily sup and aiming, you ease in until you’re half a finger deep then pull out. Brad smiles as a thank you then sits again. You’re the only one he trusts with this, like Elvis and his mom. Your father always uses two or three fingers, and you suspect he gets an almost imperceptible thrill in not only being in there but causing pain when doing so. That greasy slightly upturned corner of his mouth makes you shiver.
Brad says, “I’m sorry,” then clenches, grunts.
Out of him comes the roiling sound of muted ducks and barking dogs then like a tube of toothpaste under a car tire he frosts the inside of the bowl with days’ and days’ worth of intestine long human fondant. Insurmountable relief washes over his face as he unloads bails and bails of rope, pauses, breathes, then heaves again until it slows to a trickle. Once done he takes a slice of toilet paper, pinches it off, wipes himself, stands, takes up the Dora underwear again, and drops his dress then examines the bowl.
It’s a wonder he didn’t deflate.
Looking along with him you’re horrified. If you saw this in the woods, you’d think a sasquatch or yeti was nearby and run for safety. Nope. Just a normal day in the life of Tabitha and Bradford Graves. You attempt to flush and find the island swimming, spinning, but refusing to go down. Sighing, you reach into the suitcase and take out the trusty poop knife. It’s exactly what you think it is. A handy tool to have when you regularly clog bowls in restaurants and hotels like Brad does. Reaching in, you cut it into manageable pieces and flush. The toilet takes it whole and you’re relieved. Then after the relief is gone the water begins to rise.
It rises to the rim of the bowl and begins to spill over around your shoes. Gods.
You hadn’t noticed till now, but the pair of lady feet complete with heels had been tapping, rapping outside the bathroom door. On the murky water reaching the door and spilling out over the breezeway the tapping stops and the surprised heels jump, the shadow disconnects with the floor then reattaches with a loud bonk like the sound of a baseball connecting with a concrete wall.
She says, “oh, you filthy little animals!” Then the shadow disappears probably to shriek at some manager or other unsuspecting rail worker.
The suitcase is filled with an inch thick of brackish used toilet water. All your clothes, your supplies, your getaway money, everything is soaked.
“Oh, no sissy. What do we do?” Brad asks.
There are no tricks up your sleeve for something like this. Outside the window the official heels clomp the walkway again asking newly arrived passengers if they’ve seen you and Bradford dressed like clowns. In the puddle outside the door another pair of feet slosh around, darkening the breezeway, and there’s knocking. This time it’s a more official hand, a manly one that beckons an answer, like your mother or father.
Deepening your childish voice, you say, “go away.”
But the knocking continues. Along with the bowl vomiting Brad’s used food comes fear working its way down your legs and the tips of your fingers. Not just the ghostly white paint on Brad’s face but he’s paler like he’s got anemia. There’s the chuckling of the train against the tracks and the hiss of the brakes. Whoever is on the other side of the door is attempting the handle, jostling it up and down, back, and forth.
“Go away,” you shout and that’s when the creepy jostlers work of tossing the old brass knob succeeds in a click.
Creaking on its hinges the door opens and behind it is the overdressed, filthy, yellow, and slovenly Dave. Looking wide eyed he takes in the scene. Chopped turds and undigested nuts float between his feet. Before him two children dressed like Pennywise gape, wide eyed back. You’re still holding the poop knife. Brad’s slumped against the wall looking sleepy.
Yet another way you get a future dead brother is by not managing his bodily reactions. Like when the pressure of heaving too many baby-sized turds squeezes the nerve in his anus and it causes a severe drop in blood pressure and he passes out. It’s happened more than once, and it will happen again. Brad slides down against the wall and sits butt in the puddle, head on his shoulder. Thinking quick, or what was quick for a man with severe alcoholism, Dave sloshes in and shuts the door behind him.
Dave asks, “what’s wrong with the little tyke?” Then, reaching out to touch Brad, he says, “maybe I can help?”
Without thinking, you strike out with the dull poop knife and stab at the crusty old man’s hand. Dave’s slack jawed surprise retreating his hand from your brother’s head, backing away from us against the door, cradling the wounded hand to his chest. The look of betrayal in his yellow eyes spoke of years of mistrust at the hands of thousands. Letting the memory of this float through your mind, you’re still struck by the horror of it. You’re still sorry for all of it… and what happened next. There’s a momentary pause where the air is still with tension like the last note of a ballad ready to be plucked.
Inspecting his wound, Dave is struck by the force with which you could thrust a dull butter knife. Though decrepit and dehydrated, Dave’s wound weeps oily black blood. Driving his thumb onto the cut, he shrinks away and opens the door to escape.
A woman’s voice says, “playing around in the toilet. You know, like children do sometimes.”
On the creaking of the hinge, in the widening aspect of the open doorway, behind Dave is a cadre of rail workers, police officers, behind them is a prim and proper older woman with a huge, shaded gardening hat. Within a second’s inspection the officers perceive more danger than there actually is. Frightened little girl holding a dull defensive weapon, little boy dressed as a girl passed out on the floor, both swimming in a puddle of shit soup, bag filled with money, decaying old man cradling what was so obviously a bleeding molesters hand.
You scream.
That’s when they draw their guns and with no hesitation at all they unload twelve rounds into Dave like he’s a rabid dog ready to be put down. Yes, they’re aimed at the open door where you’d leapt onto Brad to protect him from the barrage of bullets and flying hunks of flesh and bone. Slumped on his knees, Dave is coughing, croaking, wheezing. The little wound on his hand seems so small now compared to the spare hundred or so orifices given to him courtesy of the county sheriff’s office. Slap on the wrist for shooting before thinking. All debts wiped clean for saving the Graves children from a monster.