Peanut Butter and Sugar

(Sensitive Content: Drug use and violence)

I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes and the rage building in my chest. Like a fireball squeezing my heart until everything was blurred. My face was hot. I put my hand to my cheek and could feel a handprint welting up over my skin. I pressed my lips together and my body shuddered. I knew my brothers heard the smack of Aprils hand across my face from the living room, over their cartoons over their crunching cereal. They knew better than to move from where they were. My sister was mean. I couldn’t blame her. Our mother was on another bender, we hadn’t seen or heard from her in nearly four days. Marco and Jacob were finishing the last of the milk with their cereal. This wasn’t the first time April was left to figure out what to do with us while mom disappeared for weeks at a time. Mom first left her alone to care for us when she was just 14, I was only 12 and the twins were barely 6. Sometimes I wondered if my mother was still alive. Most of the time I didn’t give a shit. I was sick of her crap. I was tired of being let down. I was simply over being left behind as a last thought. April couldn’t handle us. The house was filthy. No one had any clean clothes left. The sink was full of dishes, which was what started the argument in the first place. I was told to wash the dishes, again even though Marco and Jacob were perfectly capable. I started helping by the time I was 9, same age the boys were now. April never expected the boys to do anything.

     “It is just easier if we do it ourselves, Nora! They aren’t going to do it right anyway. I don’t want to hear them whine and I don’t want to hear YOU whine either.”

    “They can learn, April! I am sick of you telling me what to do! I hate you!”

That’s when she smacked me. At first, I felt bad for saying it, but that quickly turned to shock, then rage. How dare she smack me! Over some stupid dishes. I guess she didn’t notice we didn’t even have clean clothes or laundry detergent left to wash them. We were almost out of dish soap as well. Maybe she also didn’t see the overflowing trash can with no bag in it because we ran out of those last week. I didn’t hate her; she was doing all she could.

    I hated my mother. What was she thinking, leaving the four of us to figure things out by ourselves, again? We were lucky it was summer. At least we didn’t have to figure out school stuff on top of everything else. Knowing where breakfast and lunch would come from would be nice. I could steal money and deodorant from the gym lockers. Last year I almost got caught, but I cried to Mrs. Michaelson that it was an emergency, that I was only looking for a tampon, so she sent me to the nurse and never told a soul. I never went to the nurse, though. Instead, I snuck into the boy’s locker room and found forty dollars and a joint in Conner Johnsons jacket pocket. Conner was a jerk, so I really didn’t feel bad. Once, in fourth grade, he tripped me while I was walking to my desk. Of course, everyone laughed, and he acted like he didn’t do anything at all. Payback, Conner.

   I started stacking dirty dishes while I filled the sink with hot water. Dried ketchup, macaroni and cheese, bits of hot dog and congealed mustard clung to the dishes. They needed to soak. I set the dishes into the soapy water and grabbed an empty laundry basket, rounding up stray socks and tank tops and shorts we’d left around. Once I had a load I put them in the machine, topped it with some baking soda and used a knife to cut a sliver off the bar of Ivory soap. A trick I’d learned from mom when she didn’t have money to buy detergent. Somehow, she always had money for Gin and pills. I could feel that ball of fire squeezing in my chest again. Thinking of her made it grow. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and slid on my shoes.

  “I’m going to turn in cans, April. We need milk.”

   “Whatever.” She mumbled.

She was still mad at me, and I didn’t care at all. We’re just too different. Out back, I loaded up a wagon. Coors, PBR, Mich Ultra, a couple Pepsi cans, too bad they don’t do refunds on liquor bottles, I smirked to myself. I was already sweating. It had to be close to 100 degrees outside. I started to walk the several blocks to the gas station where they would pay cash for the cans. I could feel sweat running through my black hair and down my neck. Eight blocks later I turned a corner and there she was, Jessica Rupert. Great.

    “Hiiiiii Nora the whora! Trash collecting is the perfect job for you. No reason to come back to school this year, you’re exactly where you belong” Jessica sneered.

She popped her pink bubble gum, tossed her blond hair behind her shoulder and laughed with her mouth wide open. I rolled my eyes and secretly hoped she would choke. Turn one corner and two more blocks to the gas station. Hopefully she would be gone when I was finished.

  The cashier was about 80 years old and moved slower than anyone I’d ever seen before. His hands shook as he picked up and inspected every can, but honestly, I didn’t care. I was glad for the air conditioning. Eight dollars and twenty cents is what I got for the cans. I had to walk another four blocks to the grocery store, gas station prices wouldn’t get me much. A gallon of milk was $2.50 at the Piggly Wiggly, store brand mac and cheese was on sale, two for a dollar, so I got 4. A pack of hot dogs for $1.50 and a loaf of bread. We still had peanut butter, but no jelly. Cereal and jelly were a luxury we couldn’t afford today.  

    “Seven forty-nine” the cashier said with a thick southern drawl. She was a brassy blonde with too much purple eye shadow and pale pink lipstick. Her jeans were so tight around her middle, she had a double gut. I handed over eight dollars and waited for my change. I shoved the 51 cents into the pocket of my cut off jean shorts and left.

    “Hotter than hell out here.” I sighed to myself.

    Jessica was still there when I rounded the turn close to the gas station. She immediately began in on me.

“Your mom run off again, Nora? If I were her, I’d run away too.”

Her friends laughed. It was too damn hot for their shit today.

I dropped the handle to the wagon, looked Jessica square in the eyes, balled up my fist, and punched her in the mouth. I felt her tooth scrape against my knuckle. Blood trickled over her lip and down her chin, it dripped to her lavender tank top with little white roses on it. She wiped the red smear off her face with the back of her hand.

“YOU’RE SUCH A BITCH, NORA PRESTON!” Jessica screamed and lunged at me.

I punched her again. I grabbed her shirt and shoved her against the brick building.

“NEVER come near me again, Jessica!” I snarled at her.

Tears rolled down her cheeks, mixing with blood from her trembling lip, leaving pinkish red, watercolor-like droplets on her shirt.

“Leave me alone you psycho” she sobbed quietly, as her friends stood silent.

 I shoved her against the bricks one last time. I grabbed my wagon and rushed home, red-faced, panting and still furious. Inside the house, April was right where I left her on the couch, now watching Jerry Springer. I rolled my eyes. The boys were in the back yard dragging toy trucks through a mud pit they created with the hose. More laundry for me. More anger flamed in my chest. I threw the laundry from earlier into the drier, put away the groceries, washed the dishes, and made myself a peanut butter and sugar sandwich. I briefly thought about stupid Jessica Rupert and smirked remembering her blood staining that pretty, lavender top of hers. My knuckles had little scrapes from her teeth.

“Worth it” I thought to myself wryly.

I climbed the stairs and flopped on my bed. It was the only place in the house that didn’t need more cleaning. I fell asleep, grateful to still have electricity and air conditioning, for however long we might.

April knocked one loud hard knock on my door before opening it.

“Moms back” she said flatly. She looked exhausted.

Downstairs mom was back alright. Loud music flooded the house. She and about 9 other people were downstairs. Gin bottle in hand she clumsily wrapped her arm around my shoulder.

“There she is! There’s my Nora!” she slurred.

I gave a half smile and squirmed away from her. Someone had ordered pizza, so I grabbed a slice and sat on the couch. Next to me was a tall rail thin man. He was leaned back on the couch, nodding off. His dirty cut off shorts, sandy feet in flip flops and no shirt made me inch away from him. His skin was sun burned, bumpy and scarred. His arms had deep pits in the crooks of his elbows and his fingers were bleeding and scabby in the webbing. My mom looked disgusting. Her face was ruddy, eye liner smeared under her bloodshot eyes, shoulder length dark hair was stringy and oily. She was wearing the same clothes I last saw her in days ago. She smelled like sweat and old beer. Her jeans were sagging and dirty in the rear and on the knees. Her white tank top was dingy and yellowing at the arm pits, no bra. She had to be down to 100 pounds or less.

I watched her roll a twenty-dollar bill, close one nostril off and snort a line of cocaine from hexagon shaped mirror on the kitchen table. The fireball in my chest was back again. The helplessness and hatred creating a heat in my heart and on my face. I bit my nails and looked away. It was better when she was gone.

The party went on for hours. I put the boys to bed around 10. I knew all too well that restless, loud music, booming voices, spontaneous laughter, noise filled sleep they would be getting, but I stayed and read to them until they passed out. April was nowhere to be found. When everything died down, I came back downstairs and rummaged for money or drugs. I found seventy dollars, some weed and a few pills that I knew were speed. I left the baggies of white powder, since I couldn’t tell what they were and wouldn’t be able to sell them. I ate another slice of cold pizza and went to the back yard to hide my stash under a rock behind the shed. I had to be prepared for the next time she left us. Before I went to bed, I checked moms’ purse. FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS! Where the hell did she get that much money? I had never stolen from my mother before. My stomach was heavy, and I was sweating. My breath was slow and measured, nervous. I felt like I was suffocating. I peered around the house, the man on the couch was still where I left him. I wondered if he was alive, he barely looked alive. The floors were trafficked with mud, kitchen counters were dirty with food, ashes, and half empty beer bottles with cigarette butts in them, empty little baggies with remnants of white power. My mom was passed out on the floor, legs tangled with a mans I had never met before. Her shirt was pulled up and his hand was on her breast. I looked away. My chest tightened again. I took the money and shoved it into my pocket. I went back to the shed and grabbed the money and drugs, climbed the stairs, packed a bag and left. At the gas station I used a pay phone to call my Aunt Mary. We hadn’t spoken in years, even though she only lived a few miles away.

“Aunt Mary, its Nora. It's bad there, Mary. Please go get the boys.”

Aunt Mary promised to pick up my brothers with the police right away. I hung up, walked to the bus station, bought a ticket, boarded a bus to Savannah, Georgia and never looked back again. I lied about my age, got a job at a motel cleaning rooms for a little cash and a place to stay. I heard mom died of an overdose a year later. Aunt Mary still had the boys, I wrote to them often. We reunited years later. April got a job at the Piggly Wiggly and put herself through college.

I spent a long time wresting with the fire in my heart. There were many years of anger and setbacks. Time passed, I fell in love, married, had children, worked hard to keep them safe and provide for them. Eventually the fire died out. It was replaced with joy, security, hope, and love. I never, ever forgot where I came from and how my fire made me who I am.