Pill-Billies (Discover this Summer's naughtiest read...) Page 8

  "I am not going out there with that fucking rapist piece of shit. I'm half tempted to blow his fucking head off. He blackmailed Richard when I was over here one time. When I was still on pills all the time. He made me suck him off or he said he would rat out Richard. Why the fuck is he here?"

  "Oh shit. It's my fault. I invited him and that girl. He has a huge bag. Richard and I bumped into them at the bar while he was looking for his friend Kyle who might be holding".

  I could tell Tori could care less about what that guy put me through. I finally saw her for what she is: a master manipulator. Just like her brother. She was unperturbed by the fact that that guy blackmailed Richard at one point just to get close to me. I knew right then we needed to get rid of Tori or move out. Since they were getting to be such a mess and Tori went off birth control we knew he would be getting her pregnant anytime now. Tori hugged me. She told us to go back to bed and that she will cover for us. As soon as she closed the door and I heard her walk down the squeaky stair in the middle of the staircase, I hopped up.

  "Let's get the fuck out of here. I'm sick of it."

  "Me, too."

  We jammed our clothes into our bags. We figured they would hit the pool and the hot tub. They would at least be in the basement soon doing coke on the glass table. We waited a while listening for the sliding glass door to open and close. Brooke had on her hiking backpack full of all her clothes and bathroom stuff. I had my Wildcat dufflebag that Terry and Ben got me for Christmas the year before rehab.

  It had everything I owned in it. The most important thing I had in it was my Netbook that I got at Best Buy so I could keep writing my book. This whole process has helped me so much just to get it out. I don't care if I suck at it or if nobody reads it. I get off on it now. It's my new clean drug.

  We pop out the front door and walk all the way down the driveway down the dirt road and the paved one-way road and the two lane highway and finally into the town of Holt. It is really just a BP gas station, a post office, a deserted downtown with interchangeable store fronts, that come and go with the bad economy and a cop or two waiting for speeders and drunks. We call Shannon's cell phone. She sneaks out careful not to wake Daddy up. She comes and gets us. We get to Daddy's house. We go to our bedrooms there. I cry and cry. Shannon and Brooke comfort me. I tell Shannon about the cop and what I had to do that time to protect Richard. I also tell her how me and Brooke quit everything bad. We just drink wine and smoke pot now. She is compassionate and empathetic. She is showing her age. She is no longer my father's child bride. She is my only Good Mother. I let her take me in. Brooke can't sleep without me holding her. I let her come in my room. It is just too weird for me if we go to the room that used to be her's and Burton's. Yuck. I don't even like to think about that chapter of my life. I have been harboring a lot of guilt since I quit pills. It was so easy to finally break the evil malignant spell after watching Richard and Tori slip again. I wish I could have saved my brother. If he would have known how good it felt to quit I bet he would have. I never would have found Brooke like this. So, I guess his death is bittersweet?

  I text Richard and tell him I refuse to be in the same house with that guy. He texts me back and tells me that he is furious with Tori and that they are arguing. The guy and his bimbo left after he came to check on me and Brooke and saw we had slipped out. He wasn't mad at all. He was really apologetic. I texted him and lied and said my Daddy woke up when we got here and asked me and Brooke if we wanted to go with him and Shannon to Bonnaroo in Tennessee and camp out for a week and I said yes. Richard was really saddened. He probably figured out Tori had succeeded at driving us out. He didn't beg us not to go either. We said our I love yous. I told him we would text him when we got back. Brooke took my phone out of my hand and called and changed the number. We were going to get free. For real this time. We would still hang out with them and spend the night, but we decided that night to get our own place together. Brooke has no arrest record or credit problems unlike me. I suck. I couldn't sign anything after David ruined my life financially and otherwise. Brooke told me that he made a pass at her. That motherfucker. She said it was Christmas the day after Daddy gave him the guitar.

  Another time he cornered her and felt her boobs. That was at my Mom and Terry's at my fucking birthday party. She said she pushed him away. He grabbed her throat and squeezed and tongue kissed her and told her she'd be back. I swell up with fury. I am so embarrassed and disgusted. David embodies why I want just Brooke now. Men can be heartless and vain by taking your self-esteem and scrubbing the toilet that is your flushed self-worth in murky water unfit to drink or shit on top of. They layer it on bit by piece. It robs you of sanity, dignity, solitude and the chance at real love. I love Brooke more than anyone I have ever loved. I am completely at peace in her arms. I don't care about the fact that we came together through Moma's second marriage. Terry has changed her. I still hate her guts but she's nicer to me. Terry is a grouch during football season but he gives me and Brooke money all the time. All we have to do is get him good weed. I just call good ol' Pig Paul over in Paducah now. We go get an ounce or two. Daddy's guy can get Bluegrass and William's Wonder but Pig can get this other shit that's the dankest bud I've ever smoked. The buds glisten with crystals. Their glimmer along with good, dry, red wine, becomes my gentle vice. I still have to watch myself with wine. I can get out of control. As long as I'm off real drugs I can accept being a wino pothead. Terry and Moma are so stupid they don't even know what an ounce is supposed to look like. Me and Brooke take all the big buds out and give them the shake. That's what they get for being shitty to us as kids. We would never do Daddy and Shannon that way. Plus, Daddy has scales and weighs bags every time he gets them. We told Paul not to tell Richard and Tori we have been hanging out for weed. I just tell him I got into it with her over his brother. Paul never asks me about my relationship stuff after he saw me with David all those years. He has no idea Brooke and I are helping Daddy and saving up money to move out. He doesn't know we are together either. That's fine with me. Paul is really nice to me. He is just not at all attractive. I don't want him to think me and Brooke are with each other like that. Bless his pea-pickin' heart…He is ugly as homemade sin. I really do feel sorry for him. He pays girls for sex. He don't like white girls like me and Brooke. He likes exotic types. He sells drugs to support his habit and rotating line up of strippers and other riffraff that come in and out of his place. The guys at that apartment he lives with are shady. They all have girlfriends so at least they don't try to talk to Brooke and me. We usually get there and go straight past them all to Paul's room. They are always playing the Wii or watching sports or South Park. One of them is friendly and his girlfriend is sweet. She stopped Brooke and told her how pretty she thought she was. That was sweet. Brooke blushed and all the boys looked away. She is that hot. I'm not kidding. I still look good. My boobs are humongous and my butt is bigger but it's booty, not Shovel Butt. Or, what me and Brooke call Flat Butt or White Girl Butt. I noticed since Brooke and I moved back with Daddy my accidents have stopped completely. I pissed the bed and then the leather couch on two different drunk nights when we had just got to Richard's after jailhab. Richard tried not to act mad. The couch cushion had to be replaced. It was expensive. The bed was pretty bad mostly water but all pee nonetheless. I noticed that being at Paul's place was making my anxiety go up. I decided right then that me and Brooke and Daddy need to grow. Paul was constantly on drugs anyway. He was a direct link to Richard and he was dangerous to be caught with. Brooke and I had been sifting the seeds and putting them in Moma and Terry's bags. I knew Terry kept them in a film canister in their little stereotypical stoner stash box that they got at Ross for five bucks. We went to Paul's one last time and bought half an elbow of that bomb shit to last us until our first harvest. I bought a thousand-watt light at the grow store in Louisville, a bunch of organic soil, and ten five gallon pots. The economy was so bad Daddy had been on unemployment. Shannon had to get a job at the gas station
working the shady graveyard shift. He hadn't built onto anybody's house in a long time since 2007. We were all tired of being broke. We got our little cloning box going. Before we knew it we had two different grow spaces. One for vegetative and one for budding. I knew once we got everything harvested I could sweet-talk Piggy into coming to get it to sell to the college kids. He was the only one I trusted. He told me that guy that had that bomb dank got his girl knocked up and had to move and quit growing. After five months we had harvested. We had a QP. Nice start. We let Daddy sell it to all his buddies. We overcharged Terry and Moma and David's Uncle. Moma was becoming a pot dealer for her and Terry's church buddies. Bunch of hypocrites. These two women from Moma's church wanted bigger bags. We ripped them off. They didn't even care. They were just happy to have pot. Brooke and I started selling some and saving money. We have only been over to Richard's twice. Last time we were there Tori had an engagement ring on her finger. I cried in the car on the way home. We said goodbye to them for good. Brooke was a little bothered by my reaction. I told her it was because Tori was my first girl relationship and that now I just felt used by her. She is going to milk Richard dry. She will leave an empty husk light enough to blow away in the slightest whisper of a breeze. So be it. He chose her over me. That's what he gets. A lamprey. A leech. A suckerfish. Her brother is worse than she is. That family is fucked up. So is Richard's and Paul's. I'm glad to see them go. If I didn't need Paul's money I would drop him too but the economy is so bad we pardon our symbiosis. Things are going great. Me and Brooke make Terry come get pot so we don't have to drive with it in Daddy's truck.

  We do the same thing to Paul. We tell him we don't have a car. That's not true. We just don't want to get pulled over with weed in Kentucky. It's a big deal. I do not want to go back to jail but I also can't get a job. Brooke applied at Target and Wal-Mart. She failed the pee test for weed both times. Silly stoner. She tried using some supplement thing she got at the head shop in Paducah. It didn't work at all. She got her money back but no job. We had to keep slinging. We put away money but Daddy offered to build us our own place. At first we said no but after we thought about it more we changed our minds. He started building it. Soon we had a little one bedroom cabin with a loft for us to sleep in, a wood burning stove, a mini fridge, two hot plates and a toaster oven. The view from our loft over the misty mountains was spectacular and lush. We also had cable and Internet from their house. Daddy wired all of it up. He is so awesome. Brooke and I went to Ikea and bought all kinds of shit. Our place looked great. Then, Daddy surprised us.

  He said he and Shannon got us a present. They made us close our eyes. When I opened mine up there was a puppy. I sobbed. Brooke squealed. We now had a dog. It was official: I was a lesbian.

  Chapter David

  David died in the prison hospital last night. One of the guards Daddy befriended called him this morning. I was shocked. I had almost forgotten him. Daddy was a mess crying. We all huddled around him. I hated his tears and moans worse than anything in the world. He was so pitiful to listen to like a lone good white wolf crying for his herd to just love not fight. He protested the cruel world that made David into the monster he was. He lamented the lost little boy that died inside. I surprised myself. I actually bawled. David's Uncle showed up and as soon as I saw his little round glasses face and his quivering chin and a salt trail down each eye. I broke. They had to pick me up off the ground. The hepatitis killed him. That and something else. I didn't understand or care. The family of that little girl he raped and murdered could rest. I refused to go to the funeral. Daddy couldn't afford to go. We all pitched in so he could ride with David's Aunt and Uncle. They acted like they had lost a son. I called Paul and told him. He offered to drive me to Charlotte. I said no. I was not going back to him even for his funeral. I was also afraid all his thug friends would be there. It might get ugly. I have no idea who he was talking to all the time but I know they know all about me. I can't take a chance on one of them blaming me somehow for him getting popped and getting hep-C. I got tested in jailhab and was clean. Lucky me considering all the sex we had and I had before and during my drug days. I have been off pills, liquor, and powders for almost a year now. It was the easiest thing to do in the world. All I have to do is look around me. I want to make up for lost time with my Dad. The worst part was when Daddy was crying he looked up at me. Shannon was stroking his gray ponytail that he sections off with black hair bands. His face glistened with clear liquid pain. He told me that he was so proud of me and Brooke for getting clean. He hoped I stayed that way because he couldn't bear to lose another one of his children. That made me melt. Daddy just loved. That was all he was capable of. He never fussed. He never criticized. He never yelled. He just let the world squash him. He held that white light in the palms of his hands. He held the brightest gift of all: unconditional love. He was it's lone champion. A warrior of peace impenetrable by hate. Daddy had lost another son to drugs. David got hepatitis from sharing needles. Daddy knew it. He saw on David's arms where the demons bit. He had lost two innocent boys. Ben came over with his girlfriend. I let them visit with Daddy awhile and went back to our house. Brooke was playing with the puppy. He is a Boston Terrier. We named him Bosco. Daddy said he met up with the woman who had him for sale in the parking lot of Costco. The woman was from Boston and said that our puppy had a pedigree line dating way back. We decided since he was a Yankee dog from Boston who found his way to our shitty Costco that he shall be dubbed the Mighty Bosco! Brooke has never had a dog before. I felt so sorry for her. She had no idea how to play with him or when to take him to go pee. We had a couple of dogs when I was real little. Moma got rid of them when we moved. They would piss and shit all over the house. She got tired of not cleaning it up and moved. I remember their names were Dingo and Sweet Pea. Sweet Pea was a Bischon. I don't know what Dingo was but he looked wild. My mind floats in and out while I'm talking to Brooke. She stops me and kisses me just as Ben taps on the screen door. He saw us. We ignore the awkward interruption and hope they don't think it was sexual. His girlfriend is blabbing about the dog and her dog. She keeps asking us all these questions about what kind of diet and puppy food we are going to use. She educates us on the BARF diet, or biotic and raw food diet. After they left me and Brooke laughed. I hate little rich bitch know-it-all trendy dog owner grad school graduates, like her. But, she is just right for Ben. I bet she saw us kissing and put two and two together. She's probably telling Ben right now his sisters are lesbos with each other. I drifted in and out of the memories of David. All bad. I tried to dig one bright one up. He managed to taint and ruin them all. I bet his ghost would guilt trip me the rest of my life for not going to his fucking funeral. I didn't need closure. I was closed. Brooke and I have transcended all of the boys: Burton, Terry, Richard, David, Pig Paul, and the dirty cop. They were all just dead to us. Tori was grouped in there, too. I let Paul tell Richard about David. He texted me. I just told him I needed to be with my Dad right now and that I will call next week. Tori texted me a real sweet message. It made me cry again. Brooke held me. I missed that little life before the coke and the cop ruined it. But, our new life was so much better. Brooke has been selling shoes on