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 Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 10:37 pm
He cringed when she said it, just barely: a closing of his eyes, the slightest turn of his head away from her. It hurt, a sharp physical pain under his ribs, and it hurt more coming from her, for all the obvious reasons and because he hated her, hated her, for doing what he hadn't been brave enough to do. (If it had been her, he thought, she wouldn't have simpered and submitted. She'd have fought until they tore her down.) "It's not a pet that I want, America Jones," he said quietly.
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 10:58 pm
There was, a small, nagging part of her that wanted to snap when he was like this and make demands like, sit up straight and look at me when you talk. And it was less that she wanted to be cruel or harsh to him, despite all current aggravation, and more because it always hurt to see. She just hated that he so often seemed to lack pride. If America was to pinpoint the exact moment she began to give a s**t about the man in front of her, she could accurately state that it was in the seconds between one small, hidden smile and the quiet pride he'd shown when she'd complimented how neatly he kept his room.
Instead she just sighed, because he was who he was and that person was surely getting better, asking plainly, "And what is it that you want, Taym?"
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 11:02 pm
He hesitated, and he neither sat up straight nor looked at her. He was obviously considering his answer, not just handing her the first irritated snap or morose self-deprecation that occurred to him, and then, finally: "Stability."
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 11:09 pm
The girl smiled at him, pleased with the answer. Getting up, she moved to sit next to him instead of across. "Yeah." And maybe he sought it out while she'd rather create it herself, but they could both agree on this much at least.
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 11:41 pm
It was hopeless: she would hear what she wanted to hear and he would never be brave enough to say what he wanted to say. She would hear: I want to be here, I don't want you to lose people; I want you to have things you can hold onto indefinitely because he could not bring himself to say: I want you to hand it to me; I want you to give up the things you think you want and be the axis around which all my ******** chaos rotates; the anchor against which all my neuroses pull. He'd thought of writing her a letter in the Sahara, before things went badly: broken up 140 characters at a time, about erratic waves trying and failing to stay ashore and how ******** grateful they are for some reliable stone to dash up against. But he'd realized halfway in that he didn't have the words for it, and that anyway the ocean doesn't do a thing for a stone but wear it away and he'd told himself that it was a ******** fool's errand and unmanly and pretentious bullshit opened up for her mockery to try and write high-flung metaphors, especially with his clumsy inability to ever, ever articulate what it was that he really meant. He'd deleted it unsent and taken a picture instead. He hazarded a nervous, exhausted glance at her ( no, sir, don't was Fiona's tired plea) and at her hands, at the corner of her mouth where she had a drop of pink begging to be effaced ( we talked about this, sir) and he tried to imagine her with a hammer and nails fashioning a little box in the crook of a tree branch while she dreamed of balustrades and window seats and garden fences, and he failed spectacularly. And he thought of April-that-wasn't, distractedly examining a menu in a room-that-was-nowhere, and saying: this isn't about America Jones. And it wasn't. He knew it wasn't. It was about a crown of moths and a feeling of power and the need to sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, and it was about the fact that he'd just realized that he'd missed Father's Day. He did not know if America had realized it too; if she had whether she'd thought of a shy and fumbling poet or if she'd thought of a little girl who would grow up thinking her father had succumbed to the brutality of his own whims and the weakness of his own character and left her parentless and it was about all of those things and a graceful, plate-glassed house on a cul-de-sac ruined by decades of neglect and an angry lecture delivered by a madman who held his leash and most of all it was about him craving, needing, debasing himself incessantly for some shred of approval and validation and for forgiveness for the never-ending transgression that was his entire existence. It was not now, nor was it ever, about America Jones. He should say that he wanted to go back home. He should gather her up desperately into his arms. He reached for a bottle, glad of the dim light in the too-warm box of the treehouse that would hide the shine of his eyes; grateful for years of experience in keeping it out of his throat, for a voice that never failed him: flippant, casual. "Tell me a story about one of your uncles," he said.
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Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2014 2:23 pm
She grabbed another freeze pop and leaned back, knee knocking into his as she thought back for a good one. Even if he was a s**t who upset her half the time, she wanted him to have some of her best stories, 'specially after having admit all sorts of her not-best. After a few minutes, she grinned around the remains of the formerly icy treat, and began.
"Well, one year when was 'bout five or so, round Christmas my Uncle Sampson was watching me. His girl had just left him earlier that week for a carnie with three nipples and he was in a terrible state of woe and hurt pride at the time so he was watching me but I was also watching him get wasted in a bar outside of town. Sampson, well he was the one I told you 'bout who went to prison. Every family's gotta have at least one person who always has both the worst ******** ideas and the idiot go-to gumption to actually go through with them. That's Uncle Sampson.
Anyway, we were at the bar and in walked Santa and one of his little helper elves. Apparently they'd got a winning lotto ticket earlier that day and had just decided to quit. Now we're not a very big town, so unless we head to the city, we have one big day for the whole "Meet Santa Clause" hullaboo. That day, by the by, always coincides with the big church Christmas pageant. So Uncle Sampson, realizing that these two were gonna ruin Christmas for all the little boys and girls the next day, decided it was up to him to save the day. So he bought the clothes off Santa's back, and his little helper's for good measure.
Now, it was a sweet thing to do, and Sampson has always been just the sweetest of men, god bless him, and things might have turned out if he hadn't decided that we were gonna wear those costumes right then and there. Gotta get into the part n'all. So we dressed up at the bar and Uncle was happy drinking now instead of woebegone country song drinking and of course they wouldn't let him drive home. Fortunately the walk back wouldn't be too long, though what a sight we must've been on the side of the road. Enough of a sight that a few cars stopped because kids would see Santa and decide that rather than waiting in a huge line all day tomorrow, they could just get their requests in right then.
Bout a half hour in to the drunken roadside Santa gig, a truck pulls up and out comes another Santa and his helper. I was pretty sure they'd been drinking too, gotta say, Santa's should probably lay off the juice. And for a moment it looked like they were gonna start up some sorta...y'know, Brotherhood of St Nick or some s**t. But then the other Santa hauled back and punched Sampson! he honest to god said, This town ain't big enough for the both of us!"
She paused and laughed, still incredulous years later, "Can you believe that s**t? Styker wants me to get a chance to say that some day but I'm trying to draw some lines and that's one of them. Turns out he's been called to fill in for the one that quit. The other little helper tried to pull at my ears but I bit his hand and punched him in the d**k. Uncle Junior had been keen for me to know exactly where to hit a fellow early on. So there's two drunk Santas brawling, parents screaming, kids bawling, an elf puking on the ground and then...a big old van pulls up and out pours half a dozen choir boys fresh from practice, robes n'all.
Y'see the Christmas Pageant vs. Santa has been a time honored tradition in our little town, and this wouldn't be the first time blood had been spilt over it. But it would be the biggest and most public as those boys saw a chance to remove the competition the day before and laid right into both Santas. The parents who'd just been kinda watching and being loudly offended by fighting Santas, well, they couldn't have that! So they joined right in and it was a ******** riot by the time Uncle Junior and rest arrived.
It all worked out in the end, kinda. Sampson spent a lot of that night bawling behind bars because he'd wanted to save Christmas but everything went to s**t, just like always. But then the boys began to sing in their cell and the parents joined in, and that other Santa had a big rich baritone, and so the the Sheriff's department was filled with all sorts of festive good will and s**t, because it's hard to be mad when your singing Christmas carols and hymns, right?"
She shrugged and gave him a look and concluded, voice all sorts of reasonable, "Florida."
There was another pause and then America raised her brows at him expectantly. He was either going to have to answer the question about Cami or offer up his own story, because now it was his turn.
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Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2014 6:50 pm
Taym didn't laugh often, not outside of eerily hysterical bouts that seemed more like his succumbing to momentary despair than to actual amusement: she'd heard it out of him a handful of times, and every time but one or two it had been short-lived, fleeting, quiet. He was much more (on the rare occasion that he felt safe enough; on the rare occasion that, in a cocoon of shared privacy, he dismantled the walls) prone to little grins that wrinkled up the corners of his eyes, little grins turned away from her or pressed against her hair or the slope of her neck. So maybe it wasn't much of a surprise, especially given the conversation they'd just had, that that was all he had for her now: a little grin, hidden behind the lip of the bottle. " Florida," he repeated with sympathy, toeing off his boots superficially for comfort and subversively because of an idiot thought (Fiona's contribution, irritably) that if he did maybe she would too, and the occasional brush of her knee against his would be a friendly, chaste tangling of ankles that wasn't really that at all for him, but he didn't care. "It's a good thing you don't lie, America Jones, or I'd call so much bullshit on that story. Even if it did happen in Florida which, yeah. Some credibility." It had given him time enough to steady himself, to resign himself, to shelve, as best as he could (which was not very well) a lingering wish that he could start a screaming, raging fight at her that in the stupid, incredibly male (Fiona's contribution, drily) world of his head somehow ended up with the two of them tangled up on the floor. She needed a shower, he thought absently, not particularly caring. "We took Tuesday to see a mall Santa Claus once," he said after a lull. "When she was three. Mom wanted pictures. She--Tuesday, not Mom, god--went into hysterics and threw up in the poor b*****d's beard." He said this with a dim trace of pride, as he might have relayed the news that she had made Honor Roll. "I told her it was good to know an imposter when she saw one and I thought Mom was going to skin me alive because of course she asked what 'imposter' meant and of course I ********' told her." It was not a story but a distracted aside; he suspected it would not satisfy her, but he was not in the mood to--well, that wasn't strictly accurate. He wasn't in the mood to give her what she wanted, at least. He took a contemplative drink and for an instant it seemed like he was going to offer up some pensive segue into another bout of morose, accusatory mooning. "Three nipples, huh?" he said. "No wonder he was in such a state of woe, as you put it. How can you possibly compete with that?"
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Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2014 8:35 pm
Her own shoes, simple white canvas edged in grass stains, were slipped off without thought or even her taking notice of the action, and there was something that had grown very typical in the way his small actions easily led the way to dress and undress, even in the smallest increments. It was not an area she put much importance or thought into and thus it allowed him what sometimes passed as a fleeting sort of control. Also she just didn't like wearing shoes if she could help it. There was that.
America laughed brightly and freely where he kept his own subdued and often hidden, and grinned, "I bet she made good use out of that one." And how perfect really, for him to gift his girl with all the words that would wreak sweet hell on adults not nearly ready for them from the mouth of a little girl.
She rolled her eyes at the drama of The Carnie, and further explained, "Sampson's thoughts exactly. Except he did try to compete. He tried to take up fire breathing, like somehow that was the logical course of action. Nearly burnt my ******** hair off and his trailer down half a dozen times in the learning." The girl sucked the last bit of juice out of the plastic wrapped and admitted, "Probably why I'm less scared of fire than most."
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Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2014 10:31 pm
He let a few seconds slip by in contemplative silence, drinking with more speed than was strictly necessary. Taym did not drink to drink: Taym drank to get drunk, as America probably knew by now, and his habits were those of an alcoholic's: drink fast, drink whatever it is that you can get indiscriminately, drink until you physically can't any more, except that the latter had been difficult if not impossible to manage within the confines of the island. "Your hair's a mess," he said quietly, finally, and he did twine his ankle with hers, and she probably wouldn't even notice, not really, which was both a relief and a slow-burning ember of anger. lizbot Sorry I neglected this WOW THEIR MINDSET IS SO DIFFERENT NOW crying WHAT HAVE I DONE
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Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2014 10:49 pm
She nearly always noticed because of course she'd notice every bit of contact granted. Even had she not been such a tactile creature herself, the rare nature of it gave it a certain value he would never, ever, let her take for granted. But America also thought of Taym as shy and skittish and easily spooked and to name the actions, to point them out always seemed like the shortest way to make them stop completely.
If she was a bit more fanciful, she'd compare him to some sort of faerie folk. Don't look directly at them, follow the special rules and you'll find treasure and more along the way.
"Couldn't sleep no matter where I tried, last night," she answered quietly, picking and piecing her truths into a less upsetting picture. "Went for a swim and got tired enough to just pass out, sea hair and all." She shot him a wry smile, "This isn't nearly so bad as it was." A pause, and then lightly, "And that not nearly as bad as the time first time I went swimming after my Uncle Billy put my hair in a permanent."
She shook her head, "We went to the circus later and folk kept asking to take a picture with me."
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Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2014 12:17 am
"You and your hair adventures," he said. Often when they were alone--especially in the dark, but any time, really--he would find himself speaking in a voice that was barely above a whisper, and he was doing it now and just like always he wasn't sure why. He almost told her again, and suddenly: I'm so ******** tired, America. But he bit back the words, forced them down, knowing that they would inevitably surface in some far worse way, once that was ugly instead of vulnerable, and angry instead of weak. For now, though, he memorized distractedly the touch of her ankle, the arch of her foot against the top of his, thinking about not being able to sleep no matter how hard they tried, and realizing that it would never be a thing he could fix for her no matter how easily (he told himself, wrongly, forever wrongly, but told himself nonetheless) she could fix it for him. He had one hand not occupied with a bottle, and it was tempting, so ******** tempting, to wind it with hers or into the knotted mess of her hair, and so after a pause he pushed it into his pocket. "You're full of ********' stories," he said. "Give me another." And she'd try to get them out of him (tit for tat) and he'd reciprocate just enough to keep her happy, but not enough to make her complacent, and he'd half-listen to her stories and half-tune them out, his hand aching, his head full, and every bit of him exhausted while America Jones--resilient and funny and demanding and infuriating--handed him more and more of herself, and took more and more away.
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