Page 50 of Getting It Twisted
She gave me life, but she damn near killed me.
“Jagger! Come here, girl!” Ennis yells in the distance.
I stand from the chair, flick the joint to the floor, and snuff it out with my boot. Jagger emerges from the darkness and runs up to me, tail wagging.
I kneel to run my hands over her coarse fur. She smells the way wet, unwashed dogs tend to smell, but I don’t mind. She licks my hand, my fingers, and my face when she can reach it.
Ennis hobbles over the yard with his walking stick. His cloudy gray eyes peer at me from the darkness. “You still here, boy?”
“Guess so.”
“Jagger doesn’t like you being here.”
“She seems to like me just fine.”
“I don’t mean she doesn’tlikeyou. She doesn’t like you beinghereis all. And I don’t either.”
“Well, where else would I be?” I mutter, taking refuge in Jagger’s warm, soft fur and encouraging whines. She sits on the porch while I ruffle her sides with both hands.
“Young boy like you, surely you’ve got places to go and people who care about you. You don’t want to become like me, an old man who no one gives the time of day.”
I roll my eyes. Will this geezer give me the same tired old spiel as Daniel?
“It’s not good for you to stay here, kid.”
There it is.
“I know.” The words settle like a heavy weight in my gut. “I know it’s not.”
“So why’re you still here?”
“Didn’t you say you don’t stick your nose into other people’s business?”
Ennis smiles with a broken mouth—half his teeth missing and the rest crooked stumps. “I’m just trying to look out for you, boy. I didn’t do it before. But your mama’s dead now, and this place is of no use to you.” He looks above me, gaze roaming over the house, and a frown creases his wrinkled forehead.
For a moment, his eyes widen, and his face twists into an expression of horror. I look to where he’s looking, but there’s nothing there. Nothing but an old house with old, dark memories.
He clacks his walking stick into the mud and shudders. “What went on out here was the devil’s work.”
A cold feeling settles in my gut, and images threaten to flood my brain. I clench my teeth, refusing to let them come.
Damn this old man. I need Daniel. Where the fuck is he?
“If it was so bad and all,” I say, “why didn’t you do anything?”
“Like I said, I don’t stick my nose into other people’s business.” Ennis points with his stick at the dog. “Now, Jagger here is a good girl. She’s mellow as an old horse. But as soon as we get within a hundred yards of this place, she always goes mad, whining and barking her head off.”
I rub Jagger under the ears and stroke her silky-smooth forehead. She looks up at me, and those large brown eyes feel like they’re staring into my soul. She starts whining again, as if she doesn’t like what she’s seeing.
“Listen to me, boy,” Ennis grumbles. “There’s no use dwelling in what’s dark and what’s evil. What’s done has been done. All you can do is move on and seek greener pastures.”
I shake my head. “There are no greener pastures, old man.”
I’ve tried to find them. I’ve tried everything in my power to feel better, to be better. But still, there is that darkness. Still, there is that fear. From what haunts me there is no escape, and what’s twisted in me cannot be unraveled.
I might as well deteriorate out here, in the place that made me this way. If it gets too much, I can always take my grandpa’s sawed-off shotgun and put an end to it. If everything goes to shit—like things tend to where I’m involved—I have my way out. My exit plan.
Further down the yard, a car enters the driveway, and my chest deflates with a tingling rush of relief.Finally.