My Mojo

“No. I shouldn’t have allowed this. I’m done with your bullshit. You are to be at my house tonight, and you won’t be leaving again for the rest of the year. End of discussion.”

The phone call with his father that morning echoed through his mind as they came over the hill into town. As lights came into view a million places he’d rather be flashed behind his eyes. Anywhere but where he was headed would do. Clif had no intention of obeying his fathers orders and returning home though, or of staying in town at all for that matter. He’d been gone for a month, and if it was all the same to him he intended to be gone for another. Yet the knot of anxiety in his gut grew as they drew closer. He knew exactly how it would go and he’d have to do it alone, same as always.

When he didn‘t walk in the door, his father would ring up and start with personal threats towards his mother. A monologue about “ruining her” or “getting her”. When it failed, the threats of calling the sheriff down on him for being a disobedient youth would come. After he received the same “go on ahead” reply Clif had been giving for years; his father would start threatening to commit suicide, and wouldn’t stop until morning.

“No” Clif thought to himself, “I won’t be going back there tonight.”

As soon as they pulled into the driveway his phone erupted with notifications.

“You’re not here”

“Where are you, son?”

“I’m not going to stand for this”

“I’m coming over there now, it won’t be pretty”

”If you don’t answer, I’m calling the police”

The last one received a familiar reply before he shut his ringer off...

“Go on ahead”

Clif brought his bag and guitar inside, stowed them away, then sat on his wooden cot for a moment. The clock on his desk read 9:00 p.m, only ten hours before he figured it would be best to leave again. No sense in getting comfortable. Although he knew his father wasn’t going to physically show up, as that would be too confrontational for his character, he didn‘t want to be there if he was wrong. His father had guns and one too many screws loose in his head. As nervous thoughts continued the powerful need for a cigarette arose, so he changed out of his greasy road clothes and snuck out the back door for the gas station.

He found the town to be exactly as he’d left it a month prior, still stuck somewhere in the mid-20th century. The sound of his boot heels echoed across the faces of brick buildings on Main Street. Not even 10:00 p.m and the place was stone dead. He’d half hoped to find something different about the place, something new or some exciting event that had happened in his absence. But it was all the same, the crushing loneliness he’d felt since childhood bore down on him still. And it did not help that no matter how far he went from his father in this town, the distance would never be greater than a mile or so. All he could think as he walked was of the road by his side, and how far it could take him away.

At the gas station he slipped two bottles of beer in the inside pocket of his jean jacket while the attendant mopped the bathroom. He slowly paced up and down the three isle ways of junk food for a few minutes afterward, trying to act like he belonged. For a moment he considered eating something, as he couldn‘t quite recall the last time he choked something down. But there was only enough bills for cigarettes in his wallet. Finally he stepped up to the counter and rang the bell a few times. The attendant came out of the back, eyed him up and down when he asked for a pack of Marlboro 100’s, and handed them over. Clif, aged sixteen, easily looked twenty; and he played it to his advantage.

Once outside again he didn’t know quite where to go. Nowhere sounded best, but not home would have to do. He wandered down to the edge of town, past quiet townhouses smoking cigarettes and trying not to remember. Then came the last house, a dilapidated tombstone of a dwelling on the edge of town. The closest to nowhere he could go for the night. There was a place at the edge of a neglected field a little past it where the road split off north that seemed best to sit. Clif slid down the ditch, hopped a small stream, then climbed the other side and sat leaning against a log. He burrowed down, wrapped his jacket up around his neck, and twisted the top off a beer. The road stretched off north ahead of him and over around a hill, off into nowhere. As he drank he pieced together some coastal logging town on Lake Michigan to head for come morning. But the town would have to wait, because now he was there, dozing against a log drinking beer in the closest place to nowhere.

He drank the rest of the beer and the next one, then smoked cigarettes; lighting each one with the last. He’d been gazing north down the road and up the hill for some time when he heard a rustling in the patch of grass at the end of the log. At first he assumed it to be some possum or coon come out to enjoy the night. Then, through the light breeze, his ears picked up a faint mewing sound. No coon or possum he’d ever heard made a sound quite like that. It mewed weak and short and high pitched. He stood, stretched his knees and walked down towards the sound; striking his zippo to shed a bit of light. As he came to the patch of grass the mewing grew louder, then stopped when he came to the head of the log. With the toe of his boot he parted the grass a bit and kneeled down to see two little eyes reflecting in the darkness. It was a calico kitten, or at least a sorry excuse for one.

Clif picked the little ball of fluff up by the scruff of it’s neck and brought it back to his spot. The poor things fur was matted and smelled like roadkill. It was a she, and she was more fleas and mites than cat. The epitomize of what it meant to be helpless and pitiful and alone. Despite the smell he wrapped the poor thing up inside his coat, feeling the little bag of bones breathe slow and heavy against his chest. Eventually she came to poke her head out under his chin, trying to offer some sort of thanks. He sat smoking and thought more, about skipping town in the morning and his father and now the little one he’d found that now stunk up his only jacket. Suddenly his father seemed a lot farther off than a mile. Something about the ball of bugs and fur now snuggled against him brought a light—however faint—into the situation. There was only one thing he could do, one thing that his conscience would allow. He put the last butt out on the log and stood, still cradling the kitten in his coat. As he walked back towards town he talked, half to himself and half to the cat.

“Alright little one, first things first... you need a name. Mojo, you’ll be called Mojo. Now lets get those bugs off of you and get some food and a good sleep. There’s a town and a lake and a beach waiting somewhere for us come morning.”