Sudden Bleaks

No one knew Kirk like I did. He was soft and sensitive. He had had his moments for sure. Like, he could be very paranoid and was always convinced somebody had it out for him.  He thought that I was cheating on him with his friends, the neighbors--shit, even my own blood. I couldn’t be too close to anyone, so it felt a little isolating at times, but it was worth it. He was worth all of it. 

One time, he picked me up from work for a lunch date and we ended up hiding away at this campsite for three days in the Allegheny Forest. I told my job that I got food poisoning. I was the best damn server in there, and it’d be suicide for them to fire me. That’s what Kirk said. He always reminded me of how smart, capable, and beautiful I was. Every day, he told me that I deserved more than the world had to offer. He gave me everything he had. More than any friend I ever knew and more love than my own mother ever showed me. Kirk was my safe space. 

We moved in together some months after our first date. It just made sense. We shared my car and carpooled in the mornings. In the afternoons I rode home with a coworker. He worked in a warehouse and his hours were brutal. They didn’t appreciate him there. They didn’t treat any of their workers the way they should. Morale was low and the employees had turned into a bad bunch, one apple at a time. Kirk was the last to spoil. Everybody else was already rotten by then. Still, he went in day after day. Never late. Always at his best. 

I grew up in a small town called Sudden Bleaks. A rural suburb on the banks of Lake Erie. It’s a close-knit community in the middle of a bunch of bustling factory towns. Cleveland and Pittsburgh to the southwest, Buffalo and Rochester to the northeast, Canada up ahead. When I was younger, I could only dream about seeing those places. With Kirk, those fanciful dreams became a reality. 

On our three-month anniversary, we went up to Niagara and he proposed to me under the falls. The rapids were all lit up in purple, blue and pink. The mist coated my cheeks as he got down on one knee. I stood stunned with my plastic poncho blowing in the wind, flapping rather loudly really. It was quite the scene. I could hardly hear him. Can’t recall a word he said in that moment, but I never admit it. Just know he wanted forever with me and I couldn’t wait to explore more of the world with him. 

At seventeen, I got my first tattoo. It was classier than a tramp-stamp and hidden on my right hip. My mom inevitably spotted it one day and was absolutely appalled. She made a spectacle of me afterwards, gossiping to all of her friends. 

In church, people stared. They whispered and shook their shame at me. Just the thought of my autonomy was enough to kick up a dust that didn’t settle for months. I was a freak, loose, an atheist, even. It was rumored that my ink was  a picture Jesus fornicating.  Some went as far as to think that I worshipped the devil. All over a tiny tattoo that no one had seen. All thanks to my mom.

If only they blamed Pastor O’Connor for molesting me when I was four, or m​ y third-grade teacher who always saved a spot for me on his lap. It’s funny, actually. I never hear rumors about either of them. Never a word about my best friend Darcy’s dad either, who often beat her mom. Though people talked about Mrs. Deneau like a dog. Especially after Darcy ran away. 

The SB police chief had seen at least eight civilian deaths over non-violent offenses during his tenor; all people of color, all accepted un-protested. Even now, he barely gets so much as a second look when he walks into a room, no matter how many black people he murdered. How was I the real threat to morality in Sudden Bleaks? 

I met Kirk my second year of undergrad. He was new to town from Albany. We chatted first online in a singles group. He was always posting the most beautiful poetry. I usually went in to talk shit about SB and find hookups. Once we started talking outside of the chat room, we decided to meet up in person at a bar near campus.  I got plastered. I don’t remember seeing Kirk drink much, but he must’ve. I was six or seven shots in by 10:30 when we left. He said he was taking me by Lake Erie to read poetry. I loved the thought of being someone’s muse. I didn’t question it when I woke up to breakfast at his place the next day. The night, a blur. 

I was hung over and totally missing my Human Behavior final, but I didn’t have a chance of passing anyway. I washed my face and joined my new friend out back. The smell of sausage and French toast guided me to a spot on his porch. The place was almost right on the river. The rocks along the bank glinted in the delicate sunlight. The cool water flirted and winked. Its subtle current like expensive silks waving and making their own wind. Crunchy, burgundy leaves all around us. The whole thing was one beautiful sonnet. Poetry, everywhere. Especially, in his eyes. I fell in love right there. 

That was the only time I was ever at his place. We mostly met out or at my house where I still lived with my mom. Right off the bat she didn’t like him. She said, “he had too much of the white part in his eyes,” but she would probably never like anyone who loved me. That’s why she hated my dad. He’s been gone since I was eleven or twelve. More plainly put however, he offed himself one winter break before Christmas.

No one knew why, but I could guess. It must have been hell being married to mom for fifteen years. After that, everything changed. My mom gossiped about him too, but I’m sure he would have been the talk of the town even without her help. It hit me hard. Suddenly, I was alone with no one in my corner. I took to sneaking beers and sneaking out. Learned how to numb myself early. 

My dad was actually a lot like Kirk. I remember he used to make up songs for me when I was little. He’d sing me awake and back to sleep again at night. I can remember the potty song word for word and I still hum the one about bunny ears when I’m tying my shoes. It hurt missing him. But after Kirk, every moment we spent together was one where missing my dad wasn’t so painful. 

The two of us got into our first real fight the night we moved into our apartment together. Kirk thought I left some things behind at my mother’s on purpose as an excuse to go back for them later without him. I can’t remember what was lost, but I remember thinking how crazy I’d be to ever want to go back to my mom’s for anything. I hated her and  planned on living the rest of my life without seeing her again. 

Whatever it was, Kirk found it later in a mislabeled box. He apologized for blaming me, said he hoped he didn’t scare me too much, and reassured me that he rarely got like that. I had forgiven him already. We made love and went to bed. He certainly over-reacted, berating me and calling me all types of tramps and liars, but I know he was nervous about our big move and feeling insecure about his ability to provide for me. In lieu of our move to West Seneca, I dropped out of school and left my job at the restaurant in SB. Kirk encouraged me to stay home and write, but over time he grew increasingly concerned and bothered by the things I could be doing without him all those hours he was at work. 

Our rent was reasonable, but we spent a lot of money partying. I eventually had to get a job to help cover bills and I knew he would feel a lot better knowing I had less idle time on my hands. I have a lot of restaurant experience and am a relatable person, so it was easy to find a new serving gig. I landed one quickly and swiftly rose in the ranks amongst the staff. As their top server, I made more from a week’s worth of tips, than many of the local salaried teachers brought home in a month. I was also making a lot more than Kirk, but he didn’t need to know. 

Whenever he drank, he got angry about everything, but mostly work. He talked about how he was basically enslaved at his job. He resented going in every day to be demeaned and bossed around. Management constantly talked down to the hourly workers and rewarded productivity only with more product to sort and package. They did get time and a half for holidays, but it was also mandatory to be present on those days. Kirk would start of his drunken rants with how one of his coworkers, mainly Paul, had been rude or asking him for favors. He’d work his way around to how bastardly the rest of the crew had become, basically fucking off their shifts and leaving Kirk to pick up the slack. In enough time, after enough drink, he’d get started on how I was probably just like everyone else. I’d lock myself in the bathroom and cry for hours until the angry bangs opposite my door turned into muffled lullabies. We always worked it out one way or another. 

About six months into our relationship and two months into our move, Kirk started seeing a psychiatrist. Dr. Maze was some kind of wonderful. I’ll admit that I thought it was all a little weird at first. Kirk started up with all of these random confessions. He told me that I’d actually never been to his house. That the first night he took me home, he rented an Airbnb because he was homeless at the time. Turns out, he was homeless the four months before we moved in together. He said that he wanted to impress me. He also admitted to a few other things like occasionally stealing stock items from work and kissing one of his coworkers the day before he proposed to me at Niagara. He said something about how she had a hook-up there and got him the free passes which undoubtedly turned out to be not-so-free. That one stung a bit more than the rest, but I wasn’t mad. I couldn’t be. He’d been through so much already and everything he did, was done for me. 

​            Anyhow, somewhere along the line the drinking stopped. With that, ceased all of those wonky nights of chaos. I stayed happy and he stayed healthy. He stopped complaining about work altogether. Even seemed to enjoy being there at a certain point. He apologized for all of the accusations and genuinely started trusting me. I can’t imagine that things could have gotten more wonderful. Then I got pregnant and he didn’t even think to question if it was his. Not once. Within days, he decorated the spare bedroom for our little girl and started singing to her in my belly every night before we went to bed. We were living some kind of dream. That’s the thing about dreams though--you’ve got to wake up. 

A few weeks before Charlotte was born, Kirk lost his job. The factory let his whole team go. He lost his benefits and his confidence. I quit the restaurant seven months into my pregnancy and by then was physically unable to work. News traveled fast back to SB and I got an unexpected call from my mom just a couple of days later. We were keeping in touch a bit more since the pregnancy. I guess the idea of being a grandma had changed something in her. Once she got wind of our situation, she welcomed all three of us into her home with open arms. In my opinion, although things weren’t going as planned, everything was still working out as best as possible. I was grateful to not be out on the streets. I was a new woman at twenty-five, returning to the bleaks. People noticed and it seemed like the whole town was happy to have us back. I almost forgot how terrible everyone was to me all those years ago. 

We joined the church. Kirk got a job at the local plant. My mom and her friends completely gushed over me and the baby. They waited on me hand and foot like I was some kind of royalty. Had I known all this was possible, I would have gotten knocked up years ago. Unfortunately, Kirk’s new job didn’t offer the same benefits as the old one. He went through a lot of switching doctors, trying new and different drugs. None of it worked the same as before. His mental health began to deteriorate rather quickly. When he slept, I could hear him crying and shaking one minute and calling out for baby Charlotte the next. When he said her name though, it was in a deep, angry voice I never heard before. He started drinking again... heavily, and now, when Kirk came home from the plant at night, he started up about how the guys back in West Seneca were surely talking about him. He’d go into how none of them deserved to keep their jobs if he didn’t, wrapping up with accusations about me and my mom plotting to take Charlotte away from him. 

One Saturday, he got drunk early and stormed out. He said he was going hunting and took my daddy’s shotgun. Kirk was no huntsman, but he went out into the woods and shot at birds from time to time. I didn’t hear back from him all day and started to get worried around supper. I made his favorite meal and texted him to come home and sing to the baby, but the airways were silent. Me and mom decided to whip out the metal trays and eat in front of the tv. When she took our emptied plates back to the kitchen to clean up, I found myself enveloped in this warm and fuzzy haze. I swear I felt my daddy’s arms wrapped around me plain as day. Then I heard him singing that song he used to sing me to sleep. Before I knew it, I was out. 

My mom woke me up the next day at the ass crack of dawn with five words I’ll never forget: “You’ll want to see this.” With that, she flicked on the TV and tuned it to SBTV news. I sat groggily waiting to make sense of her waking me up at this God-forsaken hour. On the screen was a nighttime news clip. Sirens were blaring, lights flashing, would- be people sleeping under white sheets being loaded onto stretchers or into black bags. 

The newscaster began to speak. “Ten dead and five wounded in warehouse massacre. Former employee uses old badge to gain entry into Amazon warehouse in West Seneca, where he used a shotgun to unload on workers. Gunman reportedly called out to a Charlotte before fatally shooting himself. No leads as to why the attack happened. The shooter appears to have acted alone. Families will be gathering for a candlelight vigil at West Seneca Community College tonight at 6pm. This is Steph Daily with SBTV news.” The camera cut back to last night’s scene as I sat stunned. 

I woke up later that day in the hospital with unfamiliar parishioners all around me. Some were sighing and shaking their heads. Others ladled their pity upon me, crossing their hearts and saying silent prayers to Jesus. “Daddy? Kirk… Charlotte,” I whispered, my voice brittle and barely escaping, the air of consciousness rushing back inside of me. A strange woman dressed in jeans and a linty old blouse hung her head about me. “Oh, honey. You lost the baby,” she said. Her voice ladened with an unforgivable certainty. “Charlotte? No!” I wailed and wailed trying to spit my heartbreak out at the intruders around me. The pain, however, was an ocean that would not escape me. Pastor O’Connor stood over me and across from the strange woman.  One of his hands was on my chest and the other on my sweaty forehead, pushing me back against the bed. His hips were nearly sitting on my shoulder, but I was too weak to fuss. My blood ran cold. I was in Hell. 

A few hours later, I had a stillbirth and passed the baby. They cleaned and dressed my Charlotte before handing her over to me. We took a most dreary picture. Then, they wrapped her in a blue saline pad and a white blanket and just carted her away. I slept for two days straight. Then, they let me go home.

I tried getting out and around at first. I took walks to the park, aimlessly paced the grocery store aisles, went to church. The scene was the same everywhere I went. Woeful stares that lasted too long from strangers with whispers on their downward lips that tried to decide between pity and disgust as their judgment of choice. Eventually, I just stopped leaving the house and resigned to being whomever my mom said I was. I try to remember the good times; so short lived.

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