The Slob Read online

  The house had come a long way, however, the people inside it hadn’t. Mentally, everything was almost identical to when I’d begun the purge. Actually, Lisa was much worse. Her always bizarre thoughts and behavior had taken an even darker twist once she discovered alcohol. She was now of legal age so there was nothing much that any of us could do except hope the monster stayed in its room.

  One thing was certain at the time, the monster was showing up more consistently since Lisa had turned twenty-one. It was like our ears were hearing a constant pulse emitted by the house. When we heard her start slamming things around upstairs, we knew this would usually lead to an incident of some sort.

  Most of the doors in the house no longer locked as they’d been broken down or punched through during her endless rages. If you just took a glance at her, you’d never believe how powerful she was or the terror she was capable of instilling. The concept of the doors not being operational in itself was adrenaline-inducing. Knowing that there was no real barrier between us and her fostered a mood of never-ending discomfort.

  Whatever thoughts might be running through her mind in the evening could be put on full display at any moment. Most of the time, we were just tired. We still had the responsibility of performing our mundane daily tasks to stay afloat, but there was no break from the sinister nightly rituals we were constantly forced into. There was never a second to relax, never a moment when the question wasn’t there: what or who was going to get broken tonight?

  Mom was always too afraid of what might happen if she called the police. Due to her bipolar disorder there was no way to be exactly sure how it would play out. Would Lisa be arrested and “come back and fucking kill us all” like she threatened on so many occasions, or would they be able to pacify the situation? Delay the grim reality just a little bit longer. The gamble was uncertain, so most evenings saw us walking on eggshells, praying that nothing we did would set her off.

  We were just entering the 70s and mental health and its myriad of deficiencies were still mostly a mystery. The only other alternative in those days would have been to commit her, but Mom viewed that option as a death sentence. She knew the people in those places were treated inhumanely and without concern. They were treated like specimens, like some sort of low budget science project that would only serve as data to fatten their studies. No one ever came out of those places better. In fact, no one ever came out of those places at all…

  Those were questions we had to ask ourselves every day. Stresses that we had to push through for what projected to be our whole lives, at least that is what we always assumed. There was a very realistic chance that she might take her own life too, we’d had a handful of close calls already.

  She’d been clinically dead several times only to be revived and wake up with a perverse disappointment painted across her grimacing face. The undeniable appalling comprehension that death couldn’t be spellbound and contorted to appease her. There was no way to tame or beckon it with total accuracy, no, it was only the malicious shrouded skeleton that could beckon you. Mr. Bones wasn’t quite ready yet.

  The brutalization of her body during the span of these attempts only served to make her quality of life uglier. It was a terribly dispiriting thing to watch unfold gradually but unfailingly over and over again, only to output the same traumatic results.

  I can’t even remember how many nights I fell asleep with tears in my eyes and fear in my heart. Visions of her screaming at us in a drunken stupor, her throat hoarse and her eyes bloodshot and crazed polluted me. The threats felt more probable with each successive day of destruction.

  The final incident was oddly the exact opposite of the outbursts at max volume and vulgarity displayed on the road that had led us there. Mom found Lisa one afternoon in August when she came home from work lying dead in her bedroom.

  The last thing anyone would want is for their mother to see that. She’d broken down many times explaining to me just how backwards it was. “Children aren’t supposed to die before their parents. It’s not a natural cycle,” she’d cry to me. All I could think was that there wasn’t a tremendous amount that was “natural” about our family.

  No one knows exactly where she got the gun. Lord knows my mother wouldn’t have allowed it in her house. She’d gone so far in her attempts to shield Lisa from harm that all of the sharp cutlery and piercing objects had been confined to the trunk of her car.

  Not that anyone was really coming over for Thanksgiving anyway, but Mom and I had kidded privately about the thought of all the guests only having access to a butter knife. It would have made for some humorous, or at the very least, interesting dinner conversation had one been able to take place. But that was life, sometimes you had to laugh, otherwise, you’d only cry.

  The funeral was a guilty one. We all knew that Lisa had never wanted to be on Earth. During her bipolar mood swings she often said that she never asked to be part of the world we were born into and, in turn, held hostage by. In a way, we understood that she was in a better place now. That she was never fit for the sort of lifestyle that most people enjoyed. But I could tell, even though it remained unspoken, there was still that bit of unending guilt gnawing inside all of us. Because we each knew deep down that we were a little bit glad she was dead.

  We were downtrodden but also ashamed to admit the relief we felt that the burden was over. That the fear and abuse had finally evaporated. It took a horrific, scarring event to reach that point, but realistically, we all knew there was never going to be a cure. There could be no magic day that she would have woken up and suddenly everything would be alright.

  We’d been holding out our hope for much too long. That fantasy concept had rotted away long ago, in turn, giving showcase to the grueling, unpleasant reality. The terror and dysfunction had become our way of life. Moving on from that was a bizarre process.

  After the funeral, things were quiet in the house. So much so that the new silence felt deafening. I thought it would be easier given that I had been preparing myself for it since I was a child, but it wasn’t. It felt incredibly strange—the quiet, the freedom, the absence of terror and bodily harm. I had to do something to take my mind off of it, so I did pretty much the only thing I knew how to in our house. Clean.

  My sister had left a vibrant mess all over the walls and floor of her room. What most people don’t know is that, when someone dies violently inside your house, the paramedics or the coroner only take the body. But until it happens, no one really understands that they don’t take the mess.

  We just finished paying for her funeral—money we didn’t have to begin with—so there was no way we were going to be able to pay a professional to clean up the gory remnants. I wasn’t about to let my parents be the ones to clear their child’s brains and face off the wall. As much as I didn’t want to, I had to clean it.

  When I entered the room, I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. Of course, I’d seen things like this in the movies, but in person, it was a whole different feeling. I felt queasy looking at the mashup of tissue strewn about; there was even still one of Lisa’s eyeballs surrounded by meaty slop and wedged inside the partially cracked heating vent.

  I had a rather weird moment with myself, closing my own eyes and thanking my brain for keeping them in there all those years. After a few more deep breathing exercises, I paused and composed myself, summoning the willpower to push my way through.

  I poured some of the potent liquid soap into a bucket of hot water and dipped the scruffy sponge inside. Once I was able to accumulate some suds and had gotten the mixture right, I wrung it out with both hands. My fingers were sweating profusely, trapped inside the yellow rubber gloves, as I began to wipe down the splattered walls.

  It ended up being a fairly quick clean, which was surprising but far from easy. Scooping out the hunks of brain matter from the vent was wince-inducing. My fingers struggled to grip the battered fractions, further mushing them even as I restrained the application of pressure. Aside from that, the wall along the
vent was manageable, save for dealing with the remainder of the eyeball. Once that was finished, I felt better. I was still crying but a moment of reprieve stirred inside me… until I looked down.

  Those awful, godforsaken fucking rugs. I scrubbed them ferociously and wiped them repeatedly for hours and hours. Despite the elbow grease, there was so much of her blood and skull contents saturated inside the cheap flooring that there was no way I was going to be able to get it all out.

  My effort was not completely ineffective, the rugs showed some signs of letting go of the stains but it was still obvious that something evil had transpired in the room. It seemed that aspect would be irreversible. Regardless of the less than perfect outcome, I’d done what I could. It wasn’t ideal but it was a massive upgrade from no action at all.

  From that day forward, everywhere I lived was always shining and spotless. The nastiness that was my childhood was something I would always be trying to clean up. From the used dishes to the disorder and dirt, moving forward it all always had to be sterile and unmarked. If I started to see the filth then it brought back the memories. The horrors, violence, and despair that I tried so many times to wash away. It was like an endless juggling act, everything needed to be just right for me to remain one step ahead of my past.

  THE PERFECT STORM

  When the Bissell SC (self-contained) 1632 model was released, it changed everything as far as carpet maintenance was concerned. There was a newfound, revolutionary way to absolve your carpets and rugs of the disgusting murkiness that we’re all ashamed to admit somehow accumulates in every household. The experiences of my youth made my adult encounter with the machine more than life-changing. Little did I know at the time that it could potentially become the lynchpin of my demise.

  Yes, the SC 1632 was a more than fabulous product. It was similar to the others that Bissell had released over the course of its remarkable history, which had begun back in 1876. For a company that had been doing business over the century mark, they still hadn’t let their foot off the gas. The SC 1632, more so than anything prior, solidified that notion. Mainly because it was their first deep cleaning device that wasn’t required to be tethered to a water source.

  Now free of its proverbial dog leash, there was no need to feel restricted. You could leave any room sparkling effortlessly without the hassle of running an obnoxious length of water hose throughout your home, hence the “self-contained” moniker. The more I learned about it, the more excited I felt.

  Certainly, when our porch was first occupied by a salesman dressed in a shabby black vest and a turquoise sports jacket, I had no intention of purchasing it. Not because I didn’t want to, of course, the reasons were of a more financial nature. However, contrary to the depth of our bank account, by the conclusion of the evening, all of the carpet throughout our recently purchased home would be spotless.

  That outcome was relatively unlikely given the situation at hand. The sales pitch came from a hungover, disinterested man who failed to articulate any of the features or benefits of the superb product he represented. Basically, all he did was distract from them; jutting a disheveled greasy persona that made me itch. I felt like taking a bath just looking at the sad fellow. An Irish shower seemed like it would be the closest he’d be getting. The repellent aroma smacked of neglected hygiene and Old Spice unified with Evan Williams and Marlboros.

  The man wasn’t the type you’d want in your home or around you in any way really, but I’ve always had trouble saying no to people. The homeless folks always seem to get a buck out of me. The people that just wanted to ask you a question at the department store, they always got their way.

  Just like I felt empathy for them, I felt empathy for the salesman. It wasn’t hard to tell that he was a few sips away from his own vagrancy. So, of course, I played the role of the complete pushover when he requested that I allow him to perform a brief demonstration. I didn’t provide him a verbal ‘yes’ but I allowed him entry nonetheless.

  He took a final deep drag of his cigarette before flicking it behind him carelessly. My husband, Daniel, wheeled himself into the living room having overheard some of our conversation. He probably wanted to have a look at the less than ordinary salesman who I permitted to enter our home. He was never one to hand out his trust, regardless of how innocuous the individual might appear.

  His life experiences had left him a more reclusive and antisocial version of the prior ‘life of the party’ character I’d always heard about but never witnessed. It all started with God. Daniel had always trusted God, but after the war, all that changed.

  Daniel’s paralysis could have been avoided at least twice by his count. Alternatively, his ability to walk was the unfortunate casualty of several very specific circumstances which came together to place him at Saigon’s Tan Son Nhat airport at 4:03 AM on April 30, 1975.

  The history books will always show that, ultimately, we lost the war that day. With the North Vietnamese Army reaching the outskirts of Saigon, they’d already begun to evacuate Americans via helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft. Shortly after, the South Vietnamese president surrendered in what he described as an effort “to avoid bloodshed.”

  They pointed to the fall of Saigon as the final brick to tumble, which would lead to a total collapse. The mass evacuations of over 1,000 Americans in addition to over 7,000 South Vietnamese refugees spanned just over 18 hours.

  The last Americans to die in the war were two US Marines that were killed by a rocket attack that day. One detail that was mostly omitted, understandably so due to the deaths of his comrades, was that a portion of the fatal rocket shrapnel had spiraled into another nearby soldier’s spine. Daniel’s spine.

  When the twisted metal burrowed into his back flesh and connected with bone, he dropped to the ground and lost all feeling in his legs immediately. Then after his own unconscious airlift, he awoke in a medical tent days later. Sadly, he would never regain the feeling from his waist down again.

  As he laid silently, he isolated himself mentally and descended into what would be the deepest reflection period of his life. Simmering for weeks unending on the conditions that sparked the “perfect storm” as Daniel had often referred to it. The whirlwind of fate that had swept him up and spat him out seemed even more ludicrous considering all the idiosyncrasies.

  Everything had finally started to slow down from breakneck military pace and he suddenly found himself with enough time to dissect the bigger picture. Once he did, he realized the horrible derailment of his life and future. His overflowing potential had been smothered, and the downward spiral could have been avoided on any number of occasions.

  To start with, he’d been a part of the last draft class in ‘73, which was the final year America had chosen to implement a military conscription. He’d just made the age window; men born from January 1st, 1944 to December 31st, 1950 were eligible.

  In his twenties at the time with his entire life ahead of him, regrettably, he just happened to have been born two days after Christmas. It wasn’t long until he got word that he’d be leaving his friends and family behind to go and kill for the government.

  Daniel had never aspired to go to war. He was a mechanic like the rest of the men in his family and quite content with his routine. The news drove him into a rut, a stomach-churning tension left him without appetite or even the most remote feeling of purpose.

  He’d heard the horror stories. The ones about people who had their loved ones delivered back in a black bag of pieces or maybe even worse. The ones who had come home so mentally fractured that returning in chunks might’ve been a better alternative. Neither path seemed particularly promising.

  He could only have wished for the lethal alternative. Instead, he was significantly injured and one of the last people to leave Saigon on the final dreary day of the war. It was a cruel game of inches that had not leaned in his favor. It had left him stuck in a cycle of sadness, constantly crying himself into exhaustion.

  I didn’t become privy and learn all of t
he details about my husband right away. It took time to build our slow-developing relationship. Any sort of relationship didn’t come naturally for him post-war, let alone one with a woman.

  I was volunteering at an Alcoholics Anonymous group for wounded veterans when we had our initial encounter. Since my father had also served during the prime of his youth, his situation was similarly sour like Daniel’s after enlisting. Whether we like to admit it or not, girls always look for a little piece of their father in the men they seek. Something that can hopefully bring back the memories of youth and a feeling of comfort and protection.

  My father was the reason that I had a soft spot in my heart for those who sacrificed so much for our country. Many of them would only come back broken and brimming with disturbing memories. At least my father’s plight during World War II wasn’t forced upon him. It was his choice to enlist, although he most definitely regretted volunteering.

  He didn’t lose his full walking ability like Daniel, but what’s worse; missing a piece of yourself, or having an even larger piece still there but rendered completely useless? Phantom limbs always seemed like a creepy concept to me but the idea of having these useless masses attached to yourself bothered me even more.

  I grew up understanding that they were different when they came back. Soldiers often needed the help of others. It was the least we could do after the nightmare they’d endured to protect us.

  It was likely that remembering some of our family struggles during my adolescence drew me closer to Daniel. There was a certain culpability that I was never quite able to shake. Knowing that I’d never found a way to fix Dad or break him out of the funk that incased him with more layers than an onion left something inside me to be desired.