Where my Chase Ended

How many ways could a person be maimed by a peach?

A man walked by eating one not long ago. He made a face. He was uncomfortable. So, I'm trying to work it out.

I’m leaning against a concrete wall at the edge of a green-space. There’s a bench beside me connected to a footpath, but I don’t want to sit on it. My butt’ll get wet. On the other side of the wall, across a mat of dirt and drubbed weeds, cars roll by with perturbed patience. A lazy cop has his radar gun out a little down the way. He's hunched over his unmarked vehicle door, trawling for suckers in a school zone.

It’s a cloudy Saturday, the sort that makes you want to hide under the covers. It’s late afternoon. The park is expansive, lined by houses on all sides but this one. It’s not quite brown, not quite green. The conifers are keeping thoughts of spring and summer alive, even though we’re smack in the middle of the mildest winter I can recall. Pockets of snow are patchwork, clinging beneath pines, sloping naturally along the crest where shade is most ample. The grass is so dead it looks pissed-on, especially beside the footpaths.

Peach-eater wasn’t even wearing gloves. I was, but I pocketed them in my coat, one to a side. My hands are cradled around them. I exhale loudly and hotly, just to see if I can see it; the breath is a whiff of car exhaust. Probably smells like it, too.

I think there’s a protein, or something, which causes an irritation of the mouth. Like an allergy. Maybe that’s what got him. That could sting, maybe. I didn’t pay much attention in biology.

A child goes by on a bike. It has a purple flag on a telescopic wire swinging around behind it. I listen to the spokes until the kid’s out of range. Only cars keep me company. I keep feeling my jeans-pocket vibrate, but it’s merely a weak shiver. A hallucination of contact.

My cell phone is in that pocket. It’s dead. I forgot to charge it overnight. Late-night gaming to the point of exhaustion wasn’t my best move, and I didn’t have time to get it some juice before I left. I think about sitting on the bench, again. My knees are starting to hurt. Resting my legs would be nice, even if the wood is soaked through. I’ve been here for hours. Standing. Leaning. Crouching for a moment, when needed.

I can’t leave this park, though. I need to stay.

I can’t go home again.

I had a terrible morning. Technically, I had an awful evening the night before. We all did at my house. Hence the late-night game sesh. It was preferable to the ambiance.

You see, I have an older sister. Like, way older. Like, her and my mom seemed more like siblings, back when my sister was in junior high and I was a plucky grade three student. Now she’s in college. She takes a bus to get there, and still lives with us. I mean, maybe.

I’ve been told she’s as difficult for my mom to deal with as my mom was for my grandparents. Mom made that comparison to comfort me when my annual check from grandma and grandpa arrived. The last one was for $38. There’s no card attached; the memo said “birthday.” It always came in early March. My birthday is in July.

The last thing I did before my phone died this morning was look at a picture of my sister and I. She hangs her arm around gawky little me like someone leaning on a railing. Her smile is easy. Her hair is long and wavy and blonde. Her cheek-dimples are deep. Her eyes are bright blue, but there’s something else there, if you stare at it for too long.

I think it’s hate. Not for me – for the photographer.

One time, I found an old box of five-by-sevens under my mom’s bed in a shoebox. It was filled with pictures of her in happier times, when she was in high school. She’s always in groups with five or more people. The backgrounds are always dark. The guys wear varsity jackets and stand a head or more taller than my mom. My sister’s her spitting image. Same smile, same hair. Same cheek-dimples.

Somewhere along the way, my mother’s youth went out for smokes and she realized it probably isn’t coming back. I think she’s started to realize it. My sister must have caught on already, too, and knows the youth-snatching ghoulie is coming for her, next. Maybe she resents that.

I wonder if peach-eater caught a tooth or his gums against the pit. That would leave a cut. Ouch. I’m getting hungry. I shouldn’t think about food.

Behind me, a horn honks in sharp, repetitive bursts. A car is getting flagged by the officer and pulled to the shoulder. Someone else must think it’s hilarious, because the horn fades away. The officer saunters to the window of the pulled-over vehicle – it’s a red Tesla – and leans in to ask questions.

I realize I’m staring. Why’s this cop here? Doesn’t he have more important things to do? I swing back round, checking to and fro, momentarily terrified that I missed something.

A couple with a pair of toddlers and a baby has entered the park. The toddlers are perhaps three. The baby is in one of those harness things on the mom’s chest, like a tiny Hannibal Lecter. No one comes from the other direction. One toddler falls down. The father helps. The kid keeps going. Lucky you, I think.

The first time my sister ran away, she was about as old as I am now. She’d been crying; her mascara did that French clown thing under her eyes when she stepped in the door. She’d been in a fight with a good friend. The friend, my mom would say later, was her last good influence. My sister had a drink at this party. The friend had refused, then left my sister there.

Mom had also had a drink that day, around noon. Then at least two more. I remember because she had a far-away look in her eyes when I came home from school. She greeted me warmly enough, until I dropped my bag on the floor. I saw her hackles rise. Anger sparked in her gaze. I corrected my behaviour. She had another cocktail. Diet Coke and rum, with ice. It looked like a black pool with glacier tips swirling about. It jingled when she scooped it to her lips with a slurp. The TV was off. It was the only sound. When I close my eyes, it’s still the only sound.

It was already after dinner when my sister came through the door. By then, the wrathful, wasted furnace had been stoked. I watched through the bars beneath the banister, imprisoned by fear of that abuse turned on me, while my sister was chewed up and down. My sister froze. She stood there, and just… took it. But something changed. No – died.

My sister turned her back, facing the open doorway. I couldn’t see what she was doing. Neither could mom. Oh, how mom howled. She slammed her glass down on the kitchen table, shattering it. The inky, fetid contents spilled out and dropped on the floor amidst the tinkling of glass and drippings of poison. She demanded my sister clean it up.

Instead, my sister fled into the dusk.

Mom called out after her. It wasn’t anger; it was confusion, like she’d temporarily snapped free of fury. She became surprised at the damage she’d done. She took a cocktail napkin and feebly dabbed at the drink splotches on her pajamas.

I scrambled down the stairs and ran after her. Mom cried out for me, too, but the air whipping by blotted her words. I could see my sister ahead. So far ahead. I shouted to her. I knew she couldn’t hear. My words echoed over neighbor’s houses, whose bedroom window lights flicked off in concert with my futile chase, as streetlights went on, casting my sister’s shadow across the road.

She ran around a street-corner, beyond my line of sight. Still, I trailed her. I came round the corner and saw her taking another turn-off, to a catwalk between houses. She’s walking now, though quickly. By the time I reach the turn-off, she’d broken into a run again. I’m wheezing. Exhausted. She’d sprinted through the whole park. It felt like a waking nightmare. How is she that much farther ahead? Didn’t I give it my all? I stopped. I couldn’t keep going. I sat down on a bench. I caught my wind. I went home, defeated.

I’ll never forget how mom yelled at me that night.

That same bench is beside me right now, years later. I look down at it. It’s just wood and a cheap metal frame. It pisses me off. I feel a frothing rage in my heart when I look at it. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I have to stay here. I just do.

The family passes. The husband and wife with their three kids are bickering quietly about something. The baby’s ambivalent. The one that fell is whining, just ahead. The other is well out in front, like she’s trying to get away from the noise. Her little pink toque has a little pink pom on top. It bobs when she steps. The couple realize I’m listening and quiet down, if for a moment.

My sister didn’t run away last night; she left. I walked by her room. She was feverishly stuffing a duffel bag. Her back was to me. When I asked her where she was going, she spun. Her eyes had that baleful, crazed, borderline-drunk look.

“I’m done here. I can’t do this anymore.”

I waited for a long moment, watching her. I didn’t speak. I waited for her to – I didn’t know. Something. Tears welled. Not for her. Not really.

“What?” She barked, realizing I was still there.

I didn’t say it. I wanted to yell at her, too. For being selfish, and a bad big sister. For leaving me here, helpless and alone with the monster in the bottle.

I walked away. I gamed. With headphones on, I barely heard the muffled argument. The front door slammed so hard I felt it from my bed.

I took the headphones out for a moment. Instead of silence, I heard my mother sobbing.

I put the headphones back in.

I finally sit on the bench. Instantly, it soaks through my jeans and sends a shiver running up my spine. These jeans were hand-me-downs from my sister. She offhandedly said I looked dorky in them. It hurt. But she was right.

I wonder if she’ll be by. I know it’s in vain – I never told her I chased her, that first time. I tried to, once. She yelled at me. Then mom yelled at both of us. She’s not a runaway anymore. She’s too old for that, now. Still, a small part of me knows she’ll come. She’ll be here. She’ll come try to find me. We’ll get to talk, just her and I.

I want her to know that I love her, even though we were never that close. I want to tell her I hate her for the same reason.

Mostly, I hope she’s okay.

I don’t know how long I sit in the cold, staring at a patch of blank earth where the grass doesn’t grow. Daylight’s fallen away. The police officer has moved on. The streetlights are on along the road behind me. My breath is now the plume of a smokestack. I'm not dressed for the cold. That, and there’s something menacing about this big, empty space with no one around. At least it’s less lonely than home.

Still, I can’t leave. I won't. Not yet. I’ll be safe soon. I look at the entrance to the park that brought me here. In my mind’s eye, she’s just around the corner. She’s come looking for me. She's about to step onto the catwalk. She’ll appear through the encroaching murk.

We’ll talk.

Everything will be all right after that.