The hollows, p.1
The Hollows, page 1
This is dedicated to my wife, Joey. Also, to my parents, to those friends I’ve lost, and those who might have lost themselves…
Do You Wish To Continue?
Chapter 1:
The Case of Serenity
Before I ripped the two worlds apart, I was never afraid. The monstrosities from this world took the form of the foster care system, shoved into families where being ignored was considered the best of outcomes, but being disregarded was not a luxury that day.
“Why is my laundry not out of the dryer and folded?” I heard that cow’s slurred words ask me.
I whispered to her in the quiet voice that took me weeks to master in the silence of my room, “Yes ma’am.”
“Don’t take that tone. I don’t want to be called ‘ma’am’, you little shit!”
I recognized hatred, though. Loathing appeared long before getting lost, long before the realization that monsters existed, both inhuman and human alike. The feeling of intense distaste for many living things was present well before falling into the unceasing turns in never-ending halls with doors that held nightmares behind their thresholds. I was no stranger to that.
“I’m sorry,” I said, eyes at the black and white tile floor, my hands folded behind my back.
The scoffing sound, a customary response for anything I, spit from her mouth. She nearly knocked over the bottle of brandy that was the catalyst to her sitting sway, “you’re sorry. Sorry for what, exactly? Calling me old or not doing what I fucking told you to do over an hour ago? You are an ungrateful little brat, you know that?”
My eyes kept to the floor, “Both. I’m sorry; I was wiping down the litter box and cleaning Brandon’s room. I didn’t mean to forget your laundry. I can go do it now,” I turned to leave.
“Don’t walk away from me! Did I tell you we were done?” She screamed, a little saliva dripping from her mouth. She picked up her drink and gulped, sloshing the brown liquid around and dripping it down the side of the glass.
“No, ma--, Mrs. Slinger, but you did just remind me that I have to finish my other duties around the house before Mister Slinger gets home,” I said, waiting for permission to leave.
Loud sounds of disdainful amusement grouched from her nostril. Mrs. Slinger had not taken off her nightgown for three days now, always sitting and watching television, not bothering to care for her child as long as she had a slave in the house to do it for her. She drained the contents and flung the glass across the room, missing my head by an inch before shattering against the wall behind me. The sharp smell hit the air before the remainder of the shards had rained to the floor.
“I’m—I’m sorry, I’ll try harder. I promise I will do better,” I said in the politest tone possible, reigning in any sarcastic remark that came to my head. This conversational occurrence was not a rarity. She spat, lounged, and drank as I cleaned and took care of Brandon, their busy, green eyed six-year-old, that currently was watching from a playpen in the other room.
“Oh, Serenity Nyx will try harder,” she mocked. “You damn well better. Why did we even sign off on you living here, you lazy little shit? Tell me one good fucking reason we should keep you. ONE!”
“Because you get an extra seven hundred dollars a month from the foster agency as long as you keep me?”
“Give me another one! A thousand dollars wouldn’t be enough to get me to care!” Shrill laughter followed the loud nostril grouch, “it pays for my hair and nails, but that’s about it. I mean look at these roots! The state could have given us more, especially if they knew what I had to put up with here!”
The tension in the room shifted, like two directional winds, as the garage door groaned. I did not like Mr. Slinger.
“About damn time,” She said. “Clean up that broken glass, you useless-”
The door unlatched, opened, and closed without my eyes diverting from the single black tile in the kitchen. Dragging rubber soles scuffed the Singer’s newly shined floor from whence my knees got their bruises just over two hours before after scrubbing for several hours. Mr. Singer’s blood alcohol level seemed to match his wife’s, if not exceeding it.
He grunted as he passed me. His body purposefully brushed the back-side of mine while his wife remained oblivious in her drunken stupor.
I did not like Mr. Slinger. But he liked me.
I’m glad he was drunk. It meant he would not attempt to take the nightly trip to my room and attempt to climb into my small bed. His courage had never heightened to an actual explicit encounter, but these days he was growing more daring in his actions, sometimes making it all the way to my bedside before thinking otherwise. He had no quarrels with beatings, though, nearly enjoyed them. But upon the nights he would leave my room with his belt still cutting the corners of my legs and arms in silence, he would whisper ‘not a word’. And not a word left my mouth.
“Yeah, go right on up to bed, dear. Not home until seven in the afternoon and drunk. And not a word to your wife, either! You might want to know what our little Serenity has been up to today,” Mrs. Slinger slurred, hoping for a rise out of her husband as well for a little justification.
In the past, there were times I prayed. Please let the beatings not be as bad tonight. Please let them go to sleep. Please do not let him see the mess I made with the blankets on the couch. I used to pray daily, but that stopped a long time ago.
Mr. Slinger’s look brought the assumption he was holding the eventual contents of his stomach for the toilet deep in the back of his throat. He croaked before burping, “Why th’fuck should I care? They are picking her up tomorrow.”
He did not even attempt to hide his disappointment, but only I knew why as his eyes lingered on me for just a second too long.
The drunken mess of a woman sat straight in her chair, “Excuse me?”
His sluggish shrug mirrored his slurring speech, “Office called. Picking her up tomorrow. Might have found a family willing to take her for good.”
“And you were going to tell me that when, exactly?” As she jerked, the front of her robe opened an immodest amount.
“Good lord, woman, can you put on some clothes? Have you been sitting around in your bathrobe all day?” Mr. Slinger burped.
She stood up and stormed from the room, but not before we heard her scream, “I get no help around here! And now she’s leaving. What the fuck am I supposed to do, now?”
He stiffened, “How the hell should I know? Maybe you should actually get off your ass and get a job so we can afford to send the kid to daycare. Or maybe we will apply for another foster.”
“I can’t just up and get a job!” Mrs. Slinger screeched. “Do you know what the market is like nowadays? I’m disabled!”
“You aren’t disabled, you hag. You have been taking oxycodine since you hurt your leg for over two years now. Even the doctor said you shouldn’t need them past a few months!”
She slammed the door to her room just as Mr. Slinger yelled, “Oh, sure. Slam doors like a child. Go take another damn pill!”
Their argument picked up and carried for the next few hours with random bits of glass breaking, slamming doors, and audible cussing that filled the house. When the nightly hour clicked to the new day, my birthday quietly showed its face.
That night was not as bad as the others. Mr. Slinger ended up taking his nightly trip to my room when Mrs. Slinger slept off her liquor, but his inebriation failed his anatomy. He whispered how much he would miss me and how sad he was that he would never have another opportunity to keep trying. But even through the tears, I could only wait patiently for my birthday wish to come true.
Fuck Mr. Slinger, I thought to myself as the morning sun rose, not bothering to sleep that night for fear of waking and realizing that leaving was just a dream. And fuck that drunken cow, too. The detailed notes I kept from him regarding our encounters and the single recording I had hidden with his voice and eager pleasures were left in a blue envelope.
I didn’t bother waiting until the Slingers were awake to shove everything I owned into the few duffel bags that I could find. It did not take long, there were only four changes of clothes and two pairs of shoes plus a few knickknacks that I had collected. Searching quietly through the house, I realized that many trinkets were missing – a small glass panther and a music box that I stole from an estate sale down the street along with a few books were nowhere to be found. I cursed under my breath. I wanted to keep those.
I gave up my search when a knock came at the door. A polite, modestly dressed man stood just on the other side in a slightly wrinkled red polo and khaki slacks.
Mrs. Slinger screamed for me to answer; I hid my smile at her obviously painful hangover and pulled the door open wide.
John Kennedy, the CPS advocate that had dropped me off in that hell-hole, stood and smiled, “Hello, Serenity, it is nice to see you again.” He stared down at my bags by the entrance, “Are you ready?”
Everything was packed away tightly in his truck within a few minutes, taking care to not leave a single item for which I would need to return. Not that I would ever bother to return to get them anyway. The Slingers did not say goodbye, or even making eye contact for that matter. Mr. Slinger was still snoring in the other room. But, as I made my way to John’s truck I saw that Mrs. Slinger was opening my little blue envelope I had left for her. I hope the bitch cherishes it.
“How was your stay, Serenity?” John asked. He was always the one to transport me to the foster houses. A nice man in his early thirties, with a head full of hair and a pair of glasses always attached to his face.
I kept my eyes forward onto the rising sun as we headed east into the heart of Houston, Texas, “It was fine, Mr. Kennedy.”
He must have heard something in the tone of my voice because he nodded somberly and gripped the wheel a little tighter. John knew the struggles of bouncing from foster to foster, being one himself when he was younger.
“I know it can be tough, Serenity. I am hoping that you will give this family a chance. I met with them before and they seem like nice people,” He said before staring off into space.
All in all, his experience was not terrible, but there is a psychological desperation that forms when bouncing from family to family. You either become overly attached with dreams that they will keep you, or you become off-putting in hopes of guarding your heart and mind against the inevitable abandonment. He would tell me about how the families were generally nice and hospitable, but he knew, as well as I did, how much there is missing.
Seeing firsthand the apathy and disregard being in the system, transitioning from house to house, shelter to shelter, and CPS office to CPS office took a toll. Once only thought as an irritating sequence had turned into a loathing structure of placement and removal followed by placement and removal. For as long as I could remember, the only face of relative reoccurrence was my Child Advocate, and even the sight of him was sparing at best.
“Was it really that bad?” He asked. I chose not to give him an answer.
We drove in a thick silence. There was a calculation one had to perceive when responding to certain questions. One must think of all possibilities before answering, as so to not make a misstep. Questions are prodded ways of unearthing secrets or emotions. When answering, I always tried to think before I spoke.
“Happy Birthday, Serenity,” John Kennedy whispered.
Happy Birthday. Yes…I was happy.
“Thank you.” I meant it.
He let out a whistle, “Fourteen today, if I’m not mistaken; that’s a big number.”
I hated those condescending tones meant to point out my youth, even if they were unintentional. I tried swallowing my irritation, “woopti-fucking-do.”
John looked sideways at me, “What is with you and that mouth?”
“It’s the only mouth I have,” I said rolling my eyes.
“Then you should treat it better.”
Another thick silence passed, we tread through it together.
“So, who’s the unlucky family this time?” I asked.
“Mr. and Mrs. Charpiot,” He said in the exact same feign excitement that was in his voice when introducing me to the Slingers.
“And who are the Charpiot’s?” I asked.
He cocked an eyebrow, “The agency never told you? The office said they called.” When I shook my head, he continued, “They are an older couple in their early fifties, I believe. Church going folk, nice as they can be when I met them. They said they already have a room set up and have been looking to adopt for some time since they couldn’t have kids of their own.”
I nodded. Church going folk did not impress me. I had met plenty that claimed Christianity but did not know what the hell being a Christian was all about.
“But they are nice,” I prodded.
John looked over at me, “Seemingly much nicer than the Slinger’s,” he said reading my mind. “They love each other, it seems, and have a great interest in adopting a child somewhat older. When we said there were younger children, babies even, they wouldn’t hear a thing of it. They said every child deserves a home. I don’t think they have the energy for an infant, so a teenager seemed to fit. But, I will warn you. They are old school. They probably run a pretty tight ship, but it seems more like structure than over the top.”
Yay. Structure. Every child’s dream.
It was less than two hours passed my departure from the Slinger’s that I found myself standing, bags clenched in hand, in front of a house nearly too quaint to be taken seriously. It was a complete cliché with a white picket fence, red door with blue and green stained-glass, blue shutters, flowers and potted plants, half-circle driveway, and even a Labrador retriever taking a piss in the front yard to boot.
I looked up at John and cocked an eyebrow as if to ask, are you fucking kidding me? He smiled down as if doing me a favor, inadvertently pompous. The smile I sent back was the same one I rehearsed to give the Slingers every morning.
I looked back at the truck and then down the streets. It was an open-faced neighborhood. I didn’t know the real term for houses that sit close to the main intersection and only a couple rock throws from the highway. It took me a moment looking around before I recognized the area. Just east of downtown Houston on the other side of the highway from the baseball stadium. We were not six blocks from where John Kennedy’s truck had first spotted me three years and seven foster families ago. I wondered if DeMarco was still there, the black and white mixed boy two years older than me that I would skip school with. Even as the red door opened to the Charpiot’s, I was going through hazy memories of the taste of my first beer and the smoke from my first cigarette.
The woman was taller than I was and undeniably older. Her brown hair was laced with gray, weaving through the roots of her head. She was not pudgy, yet wasn’t small either, and carried herself as if a woman from the sticks, grown straight from the cow’s dairy and freshly dropped eggs.
“Is this Serenity?” She spoke excitedly with the gruff of smoking unfiltered tobacco for several years.
“Nyx,” Mr. Kennedy added.
She smiled warmly, heatedly, damn near singing, “That is such a beautiful name; I hope you appreciate it.”
I looked her in the eye, and smiled with my best mask, “Thank you.”
“Well, don’t stand there all day! Come inside, come inside. Let’s get acquainted,” Mrs. Charpiot stood aside and waved us in. It smelled of apple cinnamon. There was a warmth of comfort that I had not felt in years. The warmth of knowing that this was not just another money-hungry foster, but a woman who genuinely wanted me there.
She brought us through the doors, warmed us up some tea, and introduced me to the house that would later be full of my echoing screams.
Mrs. Charpiot showed me my room that was filled with a large bed with a white comforter that would, by the end of the night, be stained in red. Leaving the room, we closed the white and cream door that be chipped and stripped by fingernail scratches. We toured through the tenderly sunlit hallways with bright tile and wooden floors that would make it easy to clean up the future tears, saliva, and blood. She took us to the two-car garage that would later be sealed shut to snuff the sound of metal instruments, harsh rope, and any possible whimpers for help and remorse.
But at first, it really all seemed so warm.
John’s cell phone kept chiming and eventually he picked it up. Talking quickly, he acknowledged that he would have to leave for an emergency at another foster.
“Are you going to be alright, Serenity?” He asked me.
I nodded to him. He put an arm around my shoulder in one of the most awkward side-hugs I have ever received. After several repeated heartfelt apologies, John left as Mrs. Charpiot and I toured the outside of the house, meeting the dog that would be barking outside my doors, and seeing the garden that I would later pass out in while trying to crawl away.
But while the sun was still lit, the hope of happiness still clung to every descending ray.
She let me get settled in. I think her name was Joan. Yes, Joan Charpiot, and later I met her husband Richard. I did not like him, but he liked me.
When the sun settled and her husband, Richard, along with several of his construction co-workers, entered the threshold of such a warm and cliché house, I was thrown off balance. There was such cordiality, such invitation, such overtly calm emotion towards the house and my initial welcome, that I allowed myself a glimmer of optimism.
That night I was introduced to the true hospitality of the Charpiot’s and was taught again never to allow optimism to have a foothold.
After the longest hours of my life, I found myself crawling through the garage door and gingerly in the flowerbed. I opened the red door with the stained glass and ran through the house. Up the stairs, into my room. For what seemed like an eternity, I hid on my bed behind a shitty lock on a hollow door. The sounds of laughter and the barking family dog could still find my ears even with the bloody comforter pulled up over my head.
