Goose

*Content includes: substance use, physical violence*

Sunlight smacks the oak coffee table with the enthusiasm of a Saturday morning. Lemon and vinegar bleach the air. The sink gargles, chugging down its morning blend of soap, crumbs and crusty egg. Reba’s vocals dance on dust motes swirling in the light.

Mom’s dainty wrists are lost in elbow-high rubber gloves. Her wispy hair is tamed into a neat bun at the nape of her neck. She flies through the living room, the vacuum cord wrapped three times around her waist. I lift my feet.

The thunder of puck pelting puckboard bellows from the basement where my brother is training his slapshot.

Golf clubs clink behind me at the front door. Dad stomps his feet into his shoes.

He’s not loud about it, but I can hear the effort in his breath as he bends to tie the laces. His knees are stiff from his days as a professional goalie, and one of his shoulders has a tendency to seize and freeze.

He claims his physical therapist is an idiot and that golf is the best medicine for his problems.

I peek covertly over the back of the couch.

Proof that last night wasn’t just a fevered nightmare spills down his cheek like an upside down sunset, an angry splash of purple, yellow and green.

His bloodshot eye doesn’t meet mine.

There's a smart rap at the door.

We all freeze.

–--

The night before began with an eye roll. I was already embarrassed by them both. We’d been through this over and over for months.

“Didn’t COVID do away with hand-shaking?” Gray grimaced at my dad’s reluctantly offered paw as they faced off at the doorstep.

“If you can’t shake my hand, you can’t kiss my daughter.”

“Come on, man…”

“Mr. Wallace, or ‘sir’ will do fine.”

“Dad,” I brushed past him into the sweet June evening. Gray’s hands were still shoved deep in the bowels of his hoodie.

“Back by ten, Goose.”

“Goose!” Gray honked as we meandered down the driveway to his truck. “My loose goose!”

I forced a chuckle, but some part of my insides curdled and died as my familial childhood nickname was stripped of its innocence with a single scoff.

The door banged angrily at our backs, letting us know Dad had heard.

Gray offered me a joint from across the cab of his grumbling old Chev.

I took it, even though weed makes my ears ring.

Gray said he liked the taste of it on my tongue, and it was always easier just to give Gray what he liked.

“Where should we go tonight, loose goose?” He accelerated through the stop sign at the edge of town.

I squeezed my eyes shut in the brief second that he gambled with our lives. “There’s a party down at Mulligan’s. I think Channy and Becka and some other people are there.”

I hadn’t seen the girls in ages. I could hear the tones of our friendship begin to echo less with concern and more with apathy.

“Nah,” he flicked the still-lit joint out his cracked window. “I know they’re your friends or whatever, but ugh - you know what I mean? Besides, don’t you want some alone time?”

He tossed me a lazy, sultry grin and a wink of dark lashes. My heart somersaulted in response. He reached over to squeeze my thigh and turned down the lake road, away from the bright lights of town.

We drove over what was left of the ‘no trespassing’ sign and parked a ways down the old logging road under a canopy of reaching pines. The sky over the lake melted from lilac to plum to indigo.

I was on his lap before he’d turned the key.

His hands roamed up my shirt.

I gasped into his mouth.

He chuckled.

I dragged my lips down his neck.

He grasped my hips and flipped me to my back on the bench seat.

This.

I spent every waking and dreaming moment thinking about this thing with him that I couldn’t get enough of. The heat between our bodies. The urgency in our breaths. The exhilaration of his attention to my skin.

I clawed at his shirt.

He sat up and smirked, catching my shaking hands in his. “I know it’ll be hard, but you’re going to have to wait.”

“Wait?” I propped myself up on my elbows and stuck out a pout.

“Business first.” He glanced out the back window. A silver beater had pulled up behind us. It flashed its lights impatiently while I scrambled to stuff myself back into my shirt.

“Come on,” he said, jumping out of the truck.

“I’ll just wait here. Hurry up though.”

“Can’t keep it in your pants, can you, loosey goosey?” He laughed.

I adjusted the rearview mirror to watch the exchange like a silent film. This was as close as I was interested in getting to “the business”.

Hands waved, fingers pointed, palms sliced the air. Gray threw a fist and knocked one guy across the hood of the car. The other guy stepped in, both hands up signalling peace. A few terse seconds later and the car’s headlights were sliding away into the night.

Gray climbed back into the truck with a handful of cash and stuffed it in the glovebox.

“Saved some for us,” he said, shaking the little plastic bag in my face.

I’d never had any before. I’d drawn the line at the weed.

I shook my head. He rolled his eyes.

“Lie down,” he demanded.

Eager to get back to it, I complied. He leaned over and dusted my chest with a trail of fine powder, then buried his face between my breasts to lap it up.

It was wrong.

It was hot.

I lost myself in him again and again as the clouds that snuck in under the cover of night let loose.

The dash glowed 12 a.m. when Gray started the truck again, turning up the fan to dispel our fog.

I pulled my top back on. “You should take me home. You know my dad already doesn’t like you.”

“Why should he?” Gray shrugged. “No one’s parents like me. Not even mine.”

He smirked, but I could see the sliver of vulnerability offered under the cloak of his joke.

“Gray…I’m–”

But then I was spluttering in the rain, legs kicking as I was dragged from the truck.

I found my feet, toes squishing in the cold muck. My scalp screamed where my assailant’s fist tore at my hair. Something cold kissed my temple, and I froze.

“Hey man,” Gray rounded the hood of the truck in a too-casual stroll. “We don’t gotta do this.”

“You don’t think I mean business?” The stranger’s voice sneered at my ear.

“You won’t,” Gray said. “You don’t have it in you.”

A sigh.

Then, black.

It was still dark, still raining, when I resurfaced to reality in the mud with double vision and singing ears.

My attackers were gone.

So were Gray and his truck.

No phone. No coat. No shoes.

It was a long limp home.

The street was asleep, save for the single porch light standing sentinel for my return and Gray's truck idling a few houses down from mine.

I ignored him and focused on my front door. One foot in front of another.

He jumped out of his truck to intercept me.

“Get the fuck out of my way,” I snarled.

“Listen, I’m so sorry–”

“DON’T!” I screamed.

“But I had to–”

“FUCK OFF GRAY!”

We reached my driveway. The door slammed open.

I could only imagine what they thought as they saw me–barefoot, soaked, bleeding, screaming, caught in the grip of a boy they held in the lowest regard.

Dad didn't need the details.

Gray got one good swing in.

I wanted my mother to intervene. I wanted them to ship me away to boarding school.

Instead she held a stoic vigil under the midnight deluge and bore grim witness to what needed to be done.

“I’ll kill you.”

Dad’s sentences were written in flying spittle.

“I don’t care if they throw me in jail.”

Every punctuation mark was defined by his thundering fists.

“If you come near her again, I. Will. Kill. You.”

Every promise was signed with Gray’s blood.

I was on my knees, lost in conflicting loyalties, drowning in salt and fear.

Gray was a trembling limp puddle at my dad’s feet. The storm drain slurped up the black saliva and broken tooth that he spat out with a groan.

Mom stood barefoot on the sidewalk beside me, arms crossed over the periwinkle pajamas plastered to her body. Mascara streamed down her cheeks like angry black scars.

“Daddy!” I shrieked through the roar of the rain, “Please! Please stop.”

He didn't.

He couldn't.