Some Place Better Than Here

Chapter 19: Space Oddity

19
Space Oddity

==========MARY==========

Most of what I feared came true when Jim and Danny met.

Danny didn't know about that part of my life. And Jim wouldn't like any guy I brought home. No boy had ever seen the walls of my room. But, unfortunately, Idiot had to show up at my house. Which ended up being a pointless shit-fit with me and Jim anyway.

Jim was out (probably drinkin' at Cat's or Gypsies) when Danny dropped me off after the gas station, and so I took advantage of that miraculous timing and locked myself in my room for the rest of the night. Telling myself: "To hell with the mess," as I kicked Mt. Pile of Neglect onto the floor and caught up with Tumblr until I fell asleep.

After waking up from a disturbing dream well past midnight, (I was trapped in an iron box with an open roof deep in the ground, and the rain kept falling; filling the box up until I drowned), I finally crept out of my room to grab cold chicken strips, or whatever nutritional dinner Jim would've brought home from the bar, and noticed that the house stunk like an ashtray. Curiosity got the better of me.

Why does the house smell like smoke?

I peered around the corner to the living room and saw that Jim had passed out in front of some late night cop show, with (get this) his work jacket slung over the couch. An empty carton of Newport cigarettes sat on the coffee table.

The next morning when I went to pour myself a bowl of Cheerios, Jim came in from seshing on the porch, or waking and baking as some may say, and sang: "Good morning! Good morning! All night you were snoring!"

This guy—Jim, a lot like Danny—loved a good fucking rhyme. "How's my beauty queen?" he asked.

"Good," I answered.

Jim yawned and grumbled as he dug through his pockets, pulling out a fifty-dollar bill.

"Queen Mary! As your father, King Jim the Third, I command you to go down to the mall and buy yourself something pretty. Like a nice blue dress, maybe? Or new shoes? Girls love new shoes. Right?" Then, like a fucking court jester sang: "New shoes cure the blues!"

And with a loud smack, palmed the fifty-dollar bill on the kitchen table and hobbled towards the stairs to his basement lair.

Just as I grabbed a carton of day-old expired milk out of the fridge, telling myself I'd give my gastric durability a run for its money, Jim turned around at the top of the steps.

"Didj'ya figure things out with your boyfriend?"

"I don't have a boyfriend, Dad," I said, answering truthfully.

"No? Not that nice fellow with the hair? Daniel?"

"Danny," I accidentally corrected him.

"You met Danny at work?"

My tongue slid down my esophagus and slapped my heart with its moist pink flesh on its way to my stomach.

"H-how do you know?"

"I don't!" Jim bopped and I felt stupid. "He works at the Wright Bros?"

"Oh. Uh, no. Next door—"

"Oh! I see I see." Jim then mumbled some indiscernible gibberish to himself. "You know my buddy, Greg? He's barbecuin'. Maybe I'll bring home some steak, maybe some corn on the cob, too, if ya like that?"

"Sounds good," I said.

"Yes, Miss Mary!" he bellowed, before descending down the basement stairs, singing something about "Corn on the cob from a farmer named Bob" on his way down.