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Title: Southern State
Series: none
Rating: PG13ish
Word Count: 2444
Summary: You can live in the desert, but the mountains will always be your home.
Notes: Originally written as a fanfic in, like, 2004. Kept for sentimental value.
There are few pleasures greater then the slow, settling, contentment that comes with watching the stars rise as a quiet evening turns into a quiet night at home.
It's closing in on almost-nine territory and you're sitting in a porch swing with your sister, watching one of her dozen cats pounce at fireflies, and you’re smoking. You've finished what she had left of her Jim Bean, and now she's offering moonshine, and you're just wondering where the hell did she get moonshine? She falls quiet as drunken fishermen start yelling again. You can't tell if it's the ones down by the creek that flows behind the house, or the ones across the road, at the bait shop – the valley the house is settled in echoes too much to be sure.
It's the end of Memorial Day weekend, and you have to go back to Vegas tomorrow morning. You aren't sure you want to. Even though you never actually lived here – your parents left before you were born – and even though you've been in cities all your life, and you kind of like it that way, it's just like your sister says – Kentucky is in your blood. That's why you come here every Memorial Day. Even if it weren't for that, and even if you didn't know she would welcome you like every run-away she's put up over the years – which is pretty much what you'd be, if you ever actually did settle here – you'd still come.
There's a St. Bernard puppy – only a few weeks old – sitting in your lap, sleeping, and Ophelia the Psycho-Neurotic-Hellcat let you pet her an hour ago, and didn't even try to rip out your throat, when you'd out-lived your usefulness. Life is good.
Your sister leans forward and stabs out her cigarette (American Spirits because that's her favorite brand, even though she has to drive those three hours to civilization to get them).
"Tell me about your friends," she says, and lights up another.
"Friends?" you ask, because you're an asshole. "What is this word?"
She looks at you over her glasses; looking very Jewish, and very motherly, and that's a very threatening combination on any woman, but especially one who knows all your secrets.
You sigh, defeated.
"You know all my friends, sweetie," you tell her.
She blows out her smoke in a thick, impatient stream, and it's still flowing as she speaks.
"You have friends besides those crazy-assed reporters, kid," she says, and flicks ash at you. "You have to, or you'll become like them."
Since you can't flick any ash back – you're too twitchy and neat to let it accumulate any appreciable amount – you stick with glaring. The friends she's referring too are a small swarm of conspiracy theorists, one of whom might be that guy who went missing a couple years back. You met them years ago, in college, and now you hang out with them on days off and run errands for them when they're too freaked out to leave the house. They probably are your only friends, and that thought makes you a little bit sad.
"No, I don't," you insist. "Sorry to disappoint you, darlin', but I wasn't so blessed as you, with your spectacular social graces."
"Or my looks," she replied, ironically – back in the androgyny of early childhood, the two of you were mistaken for identical twins every time you set foot outside and disturbingly little has changed with maturity. Even the lines around your mouths and eyes follow the same patterns. With that thought, she begins cycling her smoke – breathing it slowly out through her mouth, and in her nose, and so on to infinity; or at least until she gets bored. Once that happens, she allows the smoke to float away in slow, sad tendrils around her head and into the night sky, and stabs out her cigarette. Some smoke still lingers, possibly catching on her hair – you don't know that smoke can do that, but you're kinda drunk, and fixating, so the possibility is very real – or maybe it's just picking up on the melancholy of the moment and feeling too apathetic to go on. It does eventually, and she lights up again.
"Put Rhodie down," she says. "The smoke is bad for her."
"The smoke is bad for us." You love Rhodie, a lot. You would take her home with you if you didn't know she's that soon she's going to get huge and maybe eat you in the night.
"She's small," your sister insists. "One cigarette is like ten for her, and she doesn't need to be getting doggy cancer because of us." You suddenly realize that she's about as drunk as you, because she just said 'doggy cancer', what the hell. "Go give her to Richie," she says.
Richie's not a run-away, surprisingly – her boyfriend died, and his mother kicked her out last Wednesday, so she's staying with your sister for the week. She loves Rhodie too, maybe more then you do, because she wants Rhodie to get big. She only smokes pot, but not right now because now she's watching Starsky and Hutch for some damned reason, and rhapsodizing to no one in particular about Paul Michael Glaser's ass, and how hers will never be that pretty. It occurs to you that she might be stoned already. But you're sloshed, and so who are you to judge?
You return to the porch, sans puppy, and sit back down.
"You know," your sister says, thoughtfully, "I let Ghandi sleep in my bed."
It takes you a moment to realize she's not referring to the pacifist leader. Ghandi, who used to be Gandalf until she got too lazy to pronounce the 'lf' sound, is another dog. He's small, and well-mannered, and a potential meal for Rhodie, when she gets big.
"Mm-hmm," you say. You're wondering where your cigarette is. When you realize she's stolen it, you do something that is definitely not pouting, and steal one of hers. When she doesn't hit you, you know she's either very drunk, or very depressed, or both and look to see if she has the moonshine out, again.
"I do that so I don't have to wake up alone."
"That's sad," you say, softly, halfway between sincerity and cynicism.
"Says the kid who flew halfway round the world and followed me through ancient graveyards for seven hours just to get out of spending another weekend staring at the apartment walls."
You consider lying, but, no. She knows you. She's been waiting to say that. Been waiting for both of you to be drunk enough and melancholy enough; and getting rid of Rhodie meant getting the kids out of the room while Mommy and Daddy talk. You don't say anything. Neither does she, so you think about Vegas again and your empty apartment, and how nights like this make up for the rest of Kentucky and the stupid shit that goes with it.
In Vegas, there are no humid nights on porch swings, and hills made dark by huge trees, and graveyards put into the sides of mountains, and your sister isn't there, either. You don't have any family in Vegas.
You wonder how they would take it if you just didn't show up, next shift. You could go write out your resignation right now, and it's not like you'd be missed.
She pokes you with her elbow, and gestures through the door. The dim sounds of gun battles and burning rubber are gone, and the drunks have stopped yelling, and now Richie's blasting Bob Dylan as loud as the computer speakers allow. You can see her sitting on the floor, crying into oblivious little Rhodie's fur. You look back at your sister, and she shrugs. The fishermen start yelling again, and glass shatters too loud. Your sister sighs mournfully, and produces a flask from one of her pockets. She takes a drink, then hands it to you.
"Moonshine," she offers.
You stare at her, and wonder again who she got it from, and if it'll kill you both by morning. You take it, though. It's not like you'll be getting another offer.
The next morning, Richie makes very strong coffee for you and your sister, and gives you Excedrin, and then you're out of the house. Your sister mutters that Richie probably hasn't slept all night as you pull out of the driveway. On the way to the Cincinnati airport, once both of your headaches have subsided a little, you argue over movies and actors and whether The Pretender was a better show then MacGyver, and if The Sentinel deserved to get canceled. You stop off, and she makes a tobacconist very happy by buying as many of her favorite cigarettes as she can without feeling the cancer-ridden ghost of your grandmother hovering over her head.
At the terminal she tells you, "Come back whenever the apartment gets too big." You tell her you will; then you hug and kiss each others cheeks and exchange 'I love yous’.
You hand over your ticket to be scanned and look back, but she's already vanished into the crowd. She'll be listening to Bob Dylan and Bright Eyes and maybe the Violent Femmes on the way home, and that makes you feel good for some reason, just knowing, until you take your seat, and then you're on your way back to Las Vegas.
After the Worst Shift Ever, you get the best-timed pick-me-up ever. Your sister's sent you a new batch of Rhodie pictures, and she's beautiful. You're planning a repeat performance of last year’s Memorial Day – go and wander through the graveyards, visit all the old family friends, and get drunk before coming home. It's going to be a lot like last year, maybe including Bob Dylan waking you at odd hours, and penetrating your showers.
The pictures of Rhodie demonstrate how big she's gotten in several ways, including the ease with which she overpowers Richie, whose week hasn't expired, yet. Rhodie's not full grown, yet but Richie's tiny – maybe five feet, and skinny. At least Ghandi hasn't been eaten yet, or hadn't been when the photos were taken, but it would have been easy enough – his head fits in Rhodie's mouth, and she's tall enough that he can stand underneath her.
And then, you get a phone call, which is surprising. Your sister called yesterday and your friends are scared shitless of phones, (Or, rather, it's your phone they're scared of. Other people – those who don't work with the cops – receive calls from them all the time. You just get envelopes taped to your car windows.)
When the caller ID doesn't know who it is you sigh as you pick up.
It's Smurph, one of the girls from work, which is even weirder, because you and her don't exactly run in the same circles. (It's circle, really, since she's got one and you don't so that plural is probably inappropriate but your pride insists on it.) She sounds terrible, like she's been crying or trying not to, and she probably hasn't slept much. She wants you to go and do something with her – get some food, maybe, or just hang out. You realize that if she hasn't slept, she probably hasn't eaten, and probably won't if she doesn't get her way. Whether or not she's your favorite person in the world, (and she's not – that's a tie between your mom and sister, since Dad and Papaw died, and Rhodie beats them all) it would bother you if she started wasting away on the basis of you saying no to dinner with her. Trying not to think too hard about why she's asking you, and rather then someone who's not an asshole, you say sure.
On Memorial Day, you're sitting on the porch with your sister, smoking again, on a hot, humid night in Kentucky, and Smurph's there, too – but not on the swing, because it only fits two people, comfortably. She's in the yard, looking happy and playing with Rhodie (who jumped on you when she saw you, and gave you some nice bruises, so you're not so sure that she's your favorite any more). Rhodie's happy, too, and the cats are too scared of her to chase the fireflies, this year, but this is plenty interesting, anyway. The drunken fishermen are being loud again, but this time they're singing along with someone's staticy radio, and not accusing one-another of screwing wives and stealing tools, like last year.
Smurph likes it here, it seems. She was fascinated – or at least pretended to be with a lot more effort then you ever did – by the graveyards, and the old stories about their occupants, which you learned from your Papaw in other summers long ago – stories of when the men sat vigil over the graves, drinking moonshine and telling tales.
The bar scared the shit out of her, but that was was sort of the point, especially when you told her that they'd had three stabbings in two years, which is accurate, or maybe kind. She wasn't comforted much, when your sister admonished you for scaring her and said, "They were all around the winter holidays, honey. You're plenty safe."
Then the old guy who runs the place pulled Smurph up on stage to introduce her as your sisters future sister-in-law, which was sort of odd, as you and she haven't been together more then a month.
Your sister took you and her to Wal-Mart to meet the old men who've been old for as long as your can remember, and are always sitting out there, because there's no place else to go. They were friends of your parents, and of your Papaw and Mamaw, and that's the important thing. You went for breakfast at the same old diner, Saturday morning, to make sure you hadn't missed seeing anybody.
Amazingly, Smurph didn't dump you as soon as you two were alone. Instead she just kissed you for a long time, and then did some other things that aren't really suitable for polite company.
You tell your sister this and she smiles. "That's why you brought her here, honey," she says.
You agree, and keep smoking. The next morning, as you sit hunched over your coffee and pain pills, you see something that snaps into focus all of your half-formed suspicions. Hellcat Ophelia is lying on the counter next to Smurph, purring softly, and Smurph is petting her, casting confused looks over at the three of you as you and your sister and Richie stare.
You hope you're really as in love with her as you think you are.
Series: none
Rating: PG13ish
Word Count: 2444
Summary: You can live in the desert, but the mountains will always be your home.
Notes: Originally written as a fanfic in, like, 2004. Kept for sentimental value.
There are few pleasures greater then the slow, settling, contentment that comes with watching the stars rise as a quiet evening turns into a quiet night at home.
It's closing in on almost-nine territory and you're sitting in a porch swing with your sister, watching one of her dozen cats pounce at fireflies, and you’re smoking. You've finished what she had left of her Jim Bean, and now she's offering moonshine, and you're just wondering where the hell did she get moonshine? She falls quiet as drunken fishermen start yelling again. You can't tell if it's the ones down by the creek that flows behind the house, or the ones across the road, at the bait shop – the valley the house is settled in echoes too much to be sure.
It's the end of Memorial Day weekend, and you have to go back to Vegas tomorrow morning. You aren't sure you want to. Even though you never actually lived here – your parents left before you were born – and even though you've been in cities all your life, and you kind of like it that way, it's just like your sister says – Kentucky is in your blood. That's why you come here every Memorial Day. Even if it weren't for that, and even if you didn't know she would welcome you like every run-away she's put up over the years – which is pretty much what you'd be, if you ever actually did settle here – you'd still come.
There's a St. Bernard puppy – only a few weeks old – sitting in your lap, sleeping, and Ophelia the Psycho-Neurotic-Hellcat let you pet her an hour ago, and didn't even try to rip out your throat, when you'd out-lived your usefulness. Life is good.
Your sister leans forward and stabs out her cigarette (American Spirits because that's her favorite brand, even though she has to drive those three hours to civilization to get them).
"Tell me about your friends," she says, and lights up another.
"Friends?" you ask, because you're an asshole. "What is this word?"
She looks at you over her glasses; looking very Jewish, and very motherly, and that's a very threatening combination on any woman, but especially one who knows all your secrets.
You sigh, defeated.
"You know all my friends, sweetie," you tell her.
She blows out her smoke in a thick, impatient stream, and it's still flowing as she speaks.
"You have friends besides those crazy-assed reporters, kid," she says, and flicks ash at you. "You have to, or you'll become like them."
Since you can't flick any ash back – you're too twitchy and neat to let it accumulate any appreciable amount – you stick with glaring. The friends she's referring too are a small swarm of conspiracy theorists, one of whom might be that guy who went missing a couple years back. You met them years ago, in college, and now you hang out with them on days off and run errands for them when they're too freaked out to leave the house. They probably are your only friends, and that thought makes you a little bit sad.
"No, I don't," you insist. "Sorry to disappoint you, darlin', but I wasn't so blessed as you, with your spectacular social graces."
"Or my looks," she replied, ironically – back in the androgyny of early childhood, the two of you were mistaken for identical twins every time you set foot outside and disturbingly little has changed with maturity. Even the lines around your mouths and eyes follow the same patterns. With that thought, she begins cycling her smoke – breathing it slowly out through her mouth, and in her nose, and so on to infinity; or at least until she gets bored. Once that happens, she allows the smoke to float away in slow, sad tendrils around her head and into the night sky, and stabs out her cigarette. Some smoke still lingers, possibly catching on her hair – you don't know that smoke can do that, but you're kinda drunk, and fixating, so the possibility is very real – or maybe it's just picking up on the melancholy of the moment and feeling too apathetic to go on. It does eventually, and she lights up again.
"Put Rhodie down," she says. "The smoke is bad for her."
"The smoke is bad for us." You love Rhodie, a lot. You would take her home with you if you didn't know she's that soon she's going to get huge and maybe eat you in the night.
"She's small," your sister insists. "One cigarette is like ten for her, and she doesn't need to be getting doggy cancer because of us." You suddenly realize that she's about as drunk as you, because she just said 'doggy cancer', what the hell. "Go give her to Richie," she says.
Richie's not a run-away, surprisingly – her boyfriend died, and his mother kicked her out last Wednesday, so she's staying with your sister for the week. She loves Rhodie too, maybe more then you do, because she wants Rhodie to get big. She only smokes pot, but not right now because now she's watching Starsky and Hutch for some damned reason, and rhapsodizing to no one in particular about Paul Michael Glaser's ass, and how hers will never be that pretty. It occurs to you that she might be stoned already. But you're sloshed, and so who are you to judge?
You return to the porch, sans puppy, and sit back down.
"You know," your sister says, thoughtfully, "I let Ghandi sleep in my bed."
It takes you a moment to realize she's not referring to the pacifist leader. Ghandi, who used to be Gandalf until she got too lazy to pronounce the 'lf' sound, is another dog. He's small, and well-mannered, and a potential meal for Rhodie, when she gets big.
"Mm-hmm," you say. You're wondering where your cigarette is. When you realize she's stolen it, you do something that is definitely not pouting, and steal one of hers. When she doesn't hit you, you know she's either very drunk, or very depressed, or both and look to see if she has the moonshine out, again.
"I do that so I don't have to wake up alone."
"That's sad," you say, softly, halfway between sincerity and cynicism.
"Says the kid who flew halfway round the world and followed me through ancient graveyards for seven hours just to get out of spending another weekend staring at the apartment walls."
You consider lying, but, no. She knows you. She's been waiting to say that. Been waiting for both of you to be drunk enough and melancholy enough; and getting rid of Rhodie meant getting the kids out of the room while Mommy and Daddy talk. You don't say anything. Neither does she, so you think about Vegas again and your empty apartment, and how nights like this make up for the rest of Kentucky and the stupid shit that goes with it.
In Vegas, there are no humid nights on porch swings, and hills made dark by huge trees, and graveyards put into the sides of mountains, and your sister isn't there, either. You don't have any family in Vegas.
You wonder how they would take it if you just didn't show up, next shift. You could go write out your resignation right now, and it's not like you'd be missed.
She pokes you with her elbow, and gestures through the door. The dim sounds of gun battles and burning rubber are gone, and the drunks have stopped yelling, and now Richie's blasting Bob Dylan as loud as the computer speakers allow. You can see her sitting on the floor, crying into oblivious little Rhodie's fur. You look back at your sister, and she shrugs. The fishermen start yelling again, and glass shatters too loud. Your sister sighs mournfully, and produces a flask from one of her pockets. She takes a drink, then hands it to you.
"Moonshine," she offers.
You stare at her, and wonder again who she got it from, and if it'll kill you both by morning. You take it, though. It's not like you'll be getting another offer.
The next morning, Richie makes very strong coffee for you and your sister, and gives you Excedrin, and then you're out of the house. Your sister mutters that Richie probably hasn't slept all night as you pull out of the driveway. On the way to the Cincinnati airport, once both of your headaches have subsided a little, you argue over movies and actors and whether The Pretender was a better show then MacGyver, and if The Sentinel deserved to get canceled. You stop off, and she makes a tobacconist very happy by buying as many of her favorite cigarettes as she can without feeling the cancer-ridden ghost of your grandmother hovering over her head.
At the terminal she tells you, "Come back whenever the apartment gets too big." You tell her you will; then you hug and kiss each others cheeks and exchange 'I love yous’.
You hand over your ticket to be scanned and look back, but she's already vanished into the crowd. She'll be listening to Bob Dylan and Bright Eyes and maybe the Violent Femmes on the way home, and that makes you feel good for some reason, just knowing, until you take your seat, and then you're on your way back to Las Vegas.
After the Worst Shift Ever, you get the best-timed pick-me-up ever. Your sister's sent you a new batch of Rhodie pictures, and she's beautiful. You're planning a repeat performance of last year’s Memorial Day – go and wander through the graveyards, visit all the old family friends, and get drunk before coming home. It's going to be a lot like last year, maybe including Bob Dylan waking you at odd hours, and penetrating your showers.
The pictures of Rhodie demonstrate how big she's gotten in several ways, including the ease with which she overpowers Richie, whose week hasn't expired, yet. Rhodie's not full grown, yet but Richie's tiny – maybe five feet, and skinny. At least Ghandi hasn't been eaten yet, or hadn't been when the photos were taken, but it would have been easy enough – his head fits in Rhodie's mouth, and she's tall enough that he can stand underneath her.
And then, you get a phone call, which is surprising. Your sister called yesterday and your friends are scared shitless of phones, (Or, rather, it's your phone they're scared of. Other people – those who don't work with the cops – receive calls from them all the time. You just get envelopes taped to your car windows.)
When the caller ID doesn't know who it is you sigh as you pick up.
It's Smurph, one of the girls from work, which is even weirder, because you and her don't exactly run in the same circles. (It's circle, really, since she's got one and you don't so that plural is probably inappropriate but your pride insists on it.) She sounds terrible, like she's been crying or trying not to, and she probably hasn't slept much. She wants you to go and do something with her – get some food, maybe, or just hang out. You realize that if she hasn't slept, she probably hasn't eaten, and probably won't if she doesn't get her way. Whether or not she's your favorite person in the world, (and she's not – that's a tie between your mom and sister, since Dad and Papaw died, and Rhodie beats them all) it would bother you if she started wasting away on the basis of you saying no to dinner with her. Trying not to think too hard about why she's asking you, and rather then someone who's not an asshole, you say sure.
On Memorial Day, you're sitting on the porch with your sister, smoking again, on a hot, humid night in Kentucky, and Smurph's there, too – but not on the swing, because it only fits two people, comfortably. She's in the yard, looking happy and playing with Rhodie (who jumped on you when she saw you, and gave you some nice bruises, so you're not so sure that she's your favorite any more). Rhodie's happy, too, and the cats are too scared of her to chase the fireflies, this year, but this is plenty interesting, anyway. The drunken fishermen are being loud again, but this time they're singing along with someone's staticy radio, and not accusing one-another of screwing wives and stealing tools, like last year.
Smurph likes it here, it seems. She was fascinated – or at least pretended to be with a lot more effort then you ever did – by the graveyards, and the old stories about their occupants, which you learned from your Papaw in other summers long ago – stories of when the men sat vigil over the graves, drinking moonshine and telling tales.
The bar scared the shit out of her, but that was was sort of the point, especially when you told her that they'd had three stabbings in two years, which is accurate, or maybe kind. She wasn't comforted much, when your sister admonished you for scaring her and said, "They were all around the winter holidays, honey. You're plenty safe."
Then the old guy who runs the place pulled Smurph up on stage to introduce her as your sisters future sister-in-law, which was sort of odd, as you and she haven't been together more then a month.
Your sister took you and her to Wal-Mart to meet the old men who've been old for as long as your can remember, and are always sitting out there, because there's no place else to go. They were friends of your parents, and of your Papaw and Mamaw, and that's the important thing. You went for breakfast at the same old diner, Saturday morning, to make sure you hadn't missed seeing anybody.
Amazingly, Smurph didn't dump you as soon as you two were alone. Instead she just kissed you for a long time, and then did some other things that aren't really suitable for polite company.
You tell your sister this and she smiles. "That's why you brought her here, honey," she says.
You agree, and keep smoking. The next morning, as you sit hunched over your coffee and pain pills, you see something that snaps into focus all of your half-formed suspicions. Hellcat Ophelia is lying on the counter next to Smurph, purring softly, and Smurph is petting her, casting confused looks over at the three of you as you and your sister and Richie stare.
You hope you're really as in love with her as you think you are.
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