MAYCEE'S HOME

MAYCEE'S HOME

Maycee had to do something ‘bout that smell. It had been okay for several days but, lately, a sharp , sour odour would catch her unawares when she came upstairs to use the bathroom. That afternoon, she’d walked to the 7-11 and returned with a whole bunch o’ room fresheners; the ones you peeled the front off and laid them wherever. The smell from Momma’s room was the worst. At least, it was so far. Them deodorisers sure helped but she still had to lay a wet towel at the base o’ the bathroom door and open the window wide open if’n she wanted to take a bath.  

Downstairs, everything was cool.  

She’d found her Momma’s cash stash but it had taken a whole day to locate it-buried under a handful of potato chips in a Pringles tube. Momma sure was sly that way. Close to two thousand dollars she’d figured though she’d had to count it several times on account o’ her brain didn’t calculate too good. That night, she had left the house and trekked to Arby’s and bought everybody’s favourite meal, drinks, extra fries -the works. Maycee’s pick was always the Classic Beef and Cheddar on account of it tasted so good but was only 450 calories and she had to be real careful with her calories otherwise, like Momma used to tell her, over and over again, she’d just explode one day. Momma was always saying things like that: “Girl, I swear you could fight for the heavyweight championship o’ the world right now” Or “If’n you was in a ugly competition, you’d take home first, second and third prize, you’re so fat”. Or “The only thing small ‘bout you, girl, is your brain”. Maycee didn’t think her Momma understood just how bad her words stung. She’d been the one, after all, who’d fed her daughter a diet of junk food since forever. Maycee couldn’t ever recall her Momma ever cooking a meal, less’n toast counted.

Maycee couldn’t help it none if she only had to look at food and the pounds would pile on. Unlike Dwayne, her brother. He was thin as a whippet but she knew why. He thought it was his big secret but Maycee had found his pipe and knew he was a full blown meth head. His Arby’s favourite was the Wagyu beef ‘cos he could eat damn near 2000 calories and not even blink. That’s when he was eating. Sometimes, his habit could see him go a week without so much as a cracker. Drugs or no drugs, why couldn’t he just be nice to her? She was his sister, after all. Instead, he would mock her weight or slowness at every opportunity; even strike her when he was feeling real mean.

As for her step daddy, Marlon, she’d had to guess his favourite Arby’s meal. He was always too drunk to care what he shoved in his mouth and, anyway, she hated his guts. That first time he’d touched her, they’d been sitting in the dark watching TV after Momma had gone up to bed. She’d been starting to drowse watching some boring cops and robbers garbage; the only channel she loved being the Cartoon Network. She’d felt his hand rest on her thigh and, slowly, creep up to her waistband and inside o’ the stretch tights she wore to accomodate her ample figure. Down inside her panties he’d gone until he’d reached that sweet spot and, truth be told, she’d kinda liked it. All the time, he’d be whispering sweet nothings in her ear; the first time in her life anybody had said anything nice to her. But, when he’d proceeded to take out his “thing”, she’d felt terrified and appalled and rushed from the room. Not that that had stopped him. Like a vulture, he’d look out for any opportunity to press himself on her despite her resistance. One day, Momma had come into the kitchen as she was reaching for the cereal in a top cupboard and had seen Marlon rubbing himself ‘gainst her ass. Momma hadn’t said a word, just walked right out again though that were the day, she’d kicked him outa her bedroom for good.

But why didn’t you kick him outa the house, Momma? Why didn’t you protect me?

Pretty soon, she’d had to stop taking baths. The smell, despite the air fresheners was just too bad for her to climb those stairs to the bathroom. Weren’t long afore she started to give off an odour, herself, but she didn’t care. She hated baths anyway and who was gonna smell her?

At night, with the light off, her precious Cartoon Network on the TV, those four meals from Arby’s all to herself, she would lie on the couch, a throw covering her bulk, and it was the closest thing to Heaven that she could imagine. Nobody to tell her to turn down the volume, nobody to nag her 'bout how much she ate, no having the remote snatched from her grasp and the channel being switched. Just her and Road Runner or Tom and Jerry. She just adored Jerry ‘cos he didn’t take no shit. Sometimes, she would fall asleep and wake up in the early hours to find that little mouse still terrorising that stupid ol’ cat, her Classic Beef and Cheddar still uneaten and the pleasure she’d felt was indescribable. Even cold, that sandwich tasted so good. Life, finally, was good.

But then they came; the flies. She had no idea how they’d got in the house. She’d been real careful to make sure all the windows upstairs had been closed tight but, still, they’d managed to get in. How? At first, it were only the odd, annoying one downstairs but, if she listened closely, she could hear the buzzing from upstairs. Maycee had a real phobia 'bout flies. The thought of a fly landing on her sandwich would make her retch. As the days passed, it built to a crescendo and more and more began to invade her space on the ground floor. She knew she’d have to do something and quick or she'd go insane.  That day, as she’d returned from the 7-11 armed with two bags of fly spray, she’d encountered Gloria, her nosy, elderly next door neighbour. Like most everybody, Gloria had always looked down her nose at Maycee whenever they’d spoken, her mouth turned down in disgust.

“Maycee, you okay, girl? You looks like shit. And you don’t smell too good, girl. When’s the last time you took a bath or changed your clothes? What is that all down your sweater? Ketchup?”

Bitch! Interfering bitch! Who spoke to a person like that? What damn business of hers was it, anyhow? I hate her for how she looks at me that way.

She had returned home, summoned up all of her courage and prepared to do battle with her enemy. She put on her brother’s swimming goggles, four o’ them ol’ Covid masks, a beanie pulled low over her greasy, matted hair and, armed with a fly killer aerosol in each hand, braved the staircase, spraying as she went, but it had been no good; the filthy pests was flitting here, there and everywhere, and seemed to delight in swarming over her and she had been forced to beat a hasty retreat. 

Somebody was pounding on her front door and, without thinking, she’d opened it to find her hated neighbour, once again.

“Lord above, Maycee! You planning on pulling a robbery or something? What you dressed like that for, girl? Hell, something real fishy is going on. Damn flies.. What in hell…I’m calling the police”.

As Gloria had stepped down from the porch and crossed over to her own house, swatting wildly at the trail of flies in her wake, Maycee had dropped the spray from her hands and, instinctively, reached out for the baseball bat, still stained red, and followed her…

As she awoke on the second morning after she had moved out onto the porch to sleep, the only place where she could escape the detested flies that had now taken over the whole house, Maycee saw the police car pull up outside o’ Gloria’s house and watched as a female officer approached. She was young and pretty.

“Hi there. We’ve had a report that your neighbour hasn’t been seen for a few days. Gloria Palmer? Would you have happened to see her?

She seemed real nice, not judgemental, not disgusted. Maycee liked her.

“Ma’am, are you okay? You have flies in your hair and is that blood all over your clothes?”

Maycee watched as the officer slowly drew her gun from her holster, her partner now out of the car and approaching also but it was okay, there’d be no more resistance from her. What was the point, anyway? Weren’t no fun having to sleep out here on the front porch; she couldn’t even watch ol’ Jerry teach Tom another painful lesson.  

The horrific scenes that greeted the young officer: the three dead bodies in the fly infested upstairs bedrooms, the battered corpse of Gloria Palmer in the adjoining house, though traumatising, did nothing to alter the sympathetic niceness of her character that Maycee had sensed on first contact.  

Young though the police woman was, she had recognised that this grossly obese young woman was, mentally, merely a child.

As they drove away from the crime scene, Maycee handcuffed in the secure rear of the police car, the officer turned to her.

“Don’t be afraid, okay? We’re gonna take you to the precinct, get you showered and into some nice clean clothes. I’ll stay with you while we take your statement.  Everything’s gonna be alright. Is there anything you’d like to ask?”

Maycee thought for a moment.

“Do you have the Cartoon Network at the precinct?”