Tired Ears

The world outside the windshield was painted in the sun's evening glow, making my blue house look almost dark grey. My idled engine drones in the background as I stared at her hunched figure sitting on the front porch step. In my paralysis I considered if it would be easier to just drive off and stay the night at a hotel. I glanced back at the white line that runs on the asphalt, when I heard a honk from the car behind me. Her red hair parts as her head lifted at the sound. The feeling of brotherly obligation tugged at me. Another honk blares and a muffled voice yells, "Move your ass!" I pulled into the driveway.

By the time I got out of the car, she was standing draped in a baggy green sweatshirt and stained jeans. She held that brown leather purse with the gold clasp in both hands.

“Hi, Brandon,” she said.

“Hi.”

“That guy was a dick,” she continued.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Sorry. I thought you would have been home earlier but I didn’t want to go back to my apartment, so I just stayed.”

“Is there something you want to tell me Jane?”

The tie around my neck felt like a noose, and my slacks were a dry-cleaned prison.

"Sorry, yeah, there is, but it looks like it's gonna be dark soon, so I was hoping I could tell you inside."

It always started with apologies.

“Fine, come in.”

“Thank you… sorry”

           As soon as the deadbolt locked she immediately started running her mouth. The words were hurled at me while I loosened my tie and slipped off my black dress shoes.

“Brandon! Are you even listening to me?” she said hastily.

“Yes, I’m listening.”

"OK, it's just that this is an important part of the story, and I don't want you to be confused later when–

"Jane," I said, "can we please at least sit down? I've had a long day."

“Oh, yeah… where?”

I led her to the dining room, lit by the fading sun. We sat across from each other at each end of the table. A long stretch of dark wood extended between us. When she placed the glossy brown leather purse on the table, it made a soft pop.

“Uhhh OK, what was I saying?" she said with a furrowed brow.

“You were talking to some guy at a bar, you gave him your phone number, and now he’s obsessed with you. Right?”

“Yeah. I keep getting calls each from a dif–

"Just block the number."

I saw her lips curl in like she was trying to hold back words. Then she took a slow, shaky breath and continued.

"I already tried that, but a new number comes through each time, and I know it's him cause every call it's the same weird shit."

Mom had always said Jane had an active imagination.

“So, what have the voices been saying this time, Jane?”

She moved past my comment unfazed.

"The man on the phone," she said, correcting me.

"OK, the man on the phone, what has he been saying?"

“I don’t even know, like one time he said ‘She will be a great home.’ That’s not the only thing either, it sounds like he’s calling from a fucking zoo or something.”

"What does that even mean?" I said.

“Well, there’s like whining, yelping, some squawks; I thought I heard a cat once.”

“No, Jane, not that, the whole ‘great home’ thing.”

“How the hell would I know? That’s why I’m here Brandon. Every time I answer the phone it’s him, raving about how warm I seem.”

           It has always been something with Jane. Whether it’s her swearing that her pills were poison or when she stopped paying her bills because she thought the mailman was filling them with anthrax.

“I know what you’re thinking Brandon.”

My heart tensed. I had forgotten she was my sister and could probably look right past my forehead and into my brain.

“This isn’t like the other times.” She said

“It’s never like the other times.”

"It's not." she said.

Her voice cracked a bit at that moment, and I feared the tears that would follow.

I still hear her wailing in my nightmares.

“In the past, I thought it was because I was special, like I had something that others wanted. I don’t feel that way now. When he talks, it’s not even at me.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry your delusion isn’t making you feel like a princess.”

“It’s not fucking delusion! He’s been in my goddamn apartment!”

The force of her words caused a faint ring to resonate from the glass light fixture above our heads. There was stillness for only a moment.

“Your lying.”

“No. I lost my keys maybe a month ago, and ever since, I’ve been waking up to things not where they were when I fell asleep. Plants have changed tables, cups are in the wrong cabinets, light bulbs are missing. The fucking book I was reading before bed was in toilet when I woke up.”

“So? You did some stuff you forgot during one of your stupors. That doesn’t prove anything.”

Her body shifted with contemplation, then seeming to have made up her mind, she spoke.

“I would never do the things he’s done.”

“And what would that be? Where do you draw the line, Jane?”

“Brandon I’m scared. I don’t even want to say it.”

“Well, I’m not really seeing where the problem is yet, so if that’s all you have to say.”

My chair trumpeted against the linoleum as I stood up.

“Wait! No, no no no. Please!”

I turned around and walked towards the light switch on the wall. The orange glow had been slowly leaving the room.

“I don’t have time for this. I have to make dinner, and I wake up–

“Dead animals…” she whispered.

My finger hovered over the switch.

“I’ve been waking up to…carcasses…at the foot of my bed”

I flipped the switch and sat back down.

“And they’re young,” she hardily uttered “baby raccoons or possums.”

I could feel my face getting hot

“Jane, really, can you just–

“I didn’t know something that was alive could be so small,” she murmured.

I waited for a lie to surface. Some twitch of her nose or a moment of hesitation. But it didn’t come.

"OK, you either have to start making sense or…

Her eyes developed a haze.

"One morning, I woke up, and it was still moving. It took me a second to realize it was a bird because it didn't have any feathers. It had these large purple eyes that were shut tight. When I picked it up, it weakly lifted its open beak. It was like holding a ghost, I could barely feel its weight in my hands. I placed it in some towels and fed it for two days, but when I came home after buying a heat lamp…it was dead … its mouth was still open.”

Jane sat there with her hands cupped in front of her on the table. I don't think she even realized she was doing it.

“I’m… sorry that happened.”

She became lucid again and fumbled with her hands for a moment.

“Thanks.” she said.

I tried to keep my guard up but could feel myself slowly slipping into routine.

“Do you still have them?”

I don’t know why I felt the need to ask.

“Have what?” she said.

“The little, well, you know.”

“No, Brandon! I didn’t fucking keep the dead baby animals … I buried them … it was the only thing that felt right.”

"It could be evidence or something. Have you told anyone else?"

“Who would I call? I’m not exactly on speaking terms with many people, it took me coming here for my own brother to even acknowledge I exist.”

"OK but what do you even want me to do? I'm not gonna stake out your apartment.”

"I just want you to drive me."

“Where?” I said.

My throat tightened as the words came out.

“It’s not that far and you won’t even have to say that much.”

I already knew what she was going to say. It just felt easier to ask again.

“Where, Jane?”

“The police station.” She said.

“No. I’m not wasting their time again.”

“Please, Brandon”

“No.”

"I’m begging you."

"We’ve been through this too many times Jane."

"I can't go in that place alone. They'll –

We both froze as the sound of her phone ringing reached our ears. Its muffled melodic tones created a fog of silence. She didn't even reach toward the purse. She just sat there and winced with every chime.

“You gonna get that?”

"He's calling," she said, as if someone else was listening.

With every ring, I felt something getting closer and closer to being lost forever.

“Give me that.”

I grabbed the purse from across the table and ripped it open. I shoved past ChapStick, old receipts and medication bottles before I could feel the phone vibrating in my hand.

"Hello?"

Shifting cloth filled my ears, along with the echo of heavy footsteps in puddles. The noise continued, only to be interrupted by deep coughs and the clanking of keys in locks.

“What is he saying?” she whispered in fearful anticipation.

I put my hand up to keep her quiet and listened closer. I heard the sound of a thick zipper, buckets being placed on metal surfaces, some empty, some hitting the surface with a dull thud, and another wet cough. In this mass of unrelated sounds, it came to me– she was lying.

“Brandon, tell me something, please.”

"This is real elaborate Jane."

“What do you mean?”

“You really got me twisted up in your little world.”

"Please don't do this, please. I don't know wha–

“Jane stop it, just stop."

“Brandon give me the phone."

"No," I said as I snuffed out the sound. "you want to know what I heard? Nothing, absolutely nothing! No evil plan, cryptic message, scheming laugh, voice of god, no demon hiss, or conspiring threat, nothing. It's always been nothing.”

I stood up and walked out.

“I feel like I’m gonna die!” she cried.

“Oh don’t be dramatic.”

"I need you."

“Well I don’t need you. You’re the only one who ever comes out of one of these things unscathed. It’s the people who are dumb enough to care about you who are left bruised, beaten, and bleeding out! You drove our mom into a grave. She was constantly worrying about you, you were all she talked about, but even she was smart enough not to trust you. Why do you think the only thing she left you was that stupid bag?”

I saw it now: the inconsistencies, the flawed logic, the self-absorption. All those broken pieces of her mind that should have been suffocated with pills or a pillow.

"I have proof… I can show you where they are." she said weakly, barely getting the words past her trembling lip.

"No, I'm done."

I saw tears dribble past the curtain of red hair; I thrust the phone into her chest and walked to the door. But the whimpers followed. They called to the child that lay dying inside of me, so I buried him deeper.

“It’s time for you to leave.” I said as I opened the door.

Her feet brushed the floor as she walked. Strands of hair were now sticking to her tear-soaked cheeks. After passing the door frame, she stopped, and I began to close the door on her hunched shoulders and knotted hair.

"I came here because I still love you." she said, pushing the words out.

My mind tumbled into memory. The vision showed me her thick red bangs clumped from the pillow she was sleeping on. She stood at my bedroom door holding a Winnie the Pooh blanket damp from drying tears. Her missing front teeth came in and out of view as she described the claw that reached out from behind her bedroom door. I saw those missing teeth make up the larger part of a smile as we sat in a castle of pillows and sheets where nothing horrible could ever happen.

The door closed with a thud, like a guillotine, and she was gone.