Harmony House - Nic Sheff Page 0,3

past her.

To get to the diner bathroom I have to walk outside and around to the back of the building. The sky is clear and cold, so I can see the steam of my breath in the early morning. Already the leaves on the trees have changed colors—from green to red to gold and brown. Smoke drifts from the chimneys of the surrounding farmhouses and there’s a layer of frost on the grass—glittering bright in the faraway sun.

The bathroom door is off its hinges up top, so it drags on the concrete. There’s a thick sludge across the floor. I almost slip, catching myself on the stained metal washbasin. I can feel the grit crunching under my boots. I go pee and smoke the butt of a cigarette I’ve been saving for a few days. I smoke and look at my reflection in the graffitied mirror.

My eyes are red and bloodshot around the blue. My skin is pale, framed by black, dirty-looking hair—since I didn’t want to take a shower at the Super 8 motel before we left this morning. In the corner of the mirror someone has scratched FUCK YOU in all capital letters. I say it out loud.

“Fuck you.”

I drop the cigarette in the sink and try to breathe, but this nausea won’t leave me alone—this nausea that’s been with me since she left. Since as long as I can remember.

There’re oil fires burning through my insides.

I dig my nails into the palm of my hand, feeling the pain cutting in. At least it’s a pain I can understand.

“Fuck. You,” I say again. This time drawing out each word—my voice shaking.

From outside I hear the loud screeching of tires on wet pavement and then the sound of a heavy impact.

I struggle against the door and go running out into the shock of cold air.

On the one-lane highway in front of the diner, a pickup truck sits idling, gray smoke rising from the road behind it. The driver opens the door and steps out slowly. He is a stocky man, wearing a flannel shirt and a thicker flannel jacket. Steam comes in great gasps from his crooked nose and wide-open mouth.

Directly under the front tire of the pickup, a man wearing tattered clothes, with dark skin and matted dark hair, lies motionless—crushed between the black rubber and the black asphalt. There is no blood. The man could very well be just sleeping there.

But he’s not sleeping.

The driver walks over to the dead man. He stares down at the lifeless body. Then he looks up at me. His dark eyes stare straight into mine. His hands make little grabbing motions in the air. And he screams out. He screams louder than I’ve ever heard anyone scream in my whole life. He screams from somewhere deep in the very center of him. He screams from the center of him to the center of me.

“GET HELP!” he screams.

I turn back to the diner and burst into tears.

My dad has come running over. He presses me tightly against him, covering my eyes.

“Don’t look,” he whispers. “Don’t look. Don’t look.”

But it’s already too late.

The driver screams again.

I press my hands against my ears.

My dad rocks me back and forth in his arms.

“Shh,” he tells me. “Shh.”

I cry and cry.

I can’t stop.

The tears are hot down my face.

I cry into my dad’s sweatshirt.

I smell the smell of him.

The driver keeps on screaming behind us.

In my mind I see my mother lying there in front of me, her face blue and swollen—her eyes wide and red and bulging.

“It’s all right,” my dad says.

But I know that’s a lie.

It’s not all right.

It never will be again.

“I hate you,” I tell him.

And when he asks me, “What?” I tell him, “Never mind.”

It’s late afternoon by the time we reach the house.

The sun is low on the distant horizon and it is still very cold.

My dad gets out of the car and unlocks the big padlock on the wrought iron gates with keys the owner must’ve given him.

We drive, not saying anything, up the uneven gravel driveway. There is a canopy of live oaks hanging with Spanish moss. The wood is thick in all directions and green and shadowy. A shiver runs through me. The car skids and rattles. I see my dad’s hands, veined and tight on the steering wheel. A mass of black crows or ravens are perched on the branches overhead. I dig my nails into the palms of my hands.

The house appears in a clearing