by Ali Seay
(950 words)
They wouldn’t shut up and that just irritated him. Tate stalked into the garage and looked around. His right hand worried the very edge of his jean pocket. It was frayed there. Feathery bits of cotton tickled his fingers. His left hand rubbed the sparse growth of hair at his chin.
Almost a beard! his father always said. And that made him furious.
He patted his pocket for his phone, remembered his mother had taken it, and a fresh rush of rage flooded him.
He spotted the threadbare and stained loveseat by the garage door. Set there to go out when bulk trash pickup came. That would have to do.
Grabbing the end, he took a deep breath, lifted it, and dragged.
The murmuring was still audible all the way out here.
SATs…
Responsibility…
Almost a man…
What were you thinking?…
The Oxy was making him itch, but so was the yammering.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!”
He walked backwards the whole way, dragging the loveseat. He clenched his jaw and heard his teeth groan under the stress of so much pressure.
He knew the feeling.
In the spare room he studied the growing pile of junk.
The party he’d thrown after dealing with his folks had broken up. It was five in the morning but he could use a drink. The problem was, now that everyone had gone, he could hear what he didn’t want to.
Even dead they were still hounding him.
Why, son?
He took a deep breath, refusing to answer. Instead, he yanked the loveseat into the room and managed to heft it atop the pile of stuff.
An arm somehow managed to fall through the debris. Painted fingernails. A wedding ring. Mom.
He stared at it and then stooped and removed the engagement ring.
He might want that later.
“There.”
Tate went out in the hall, pushed the door to the room shut, leaned against it.
Silence.
Somewhere in the house the dog was whimpering. He’d have to find her and take care of that.
You need help, Tate. You didn’t have to do—
He cut the voice off with a primal scream. Head tilted back, banging against the guest room door. His hands scrabbled at the wood. A chip of paint wedged under his fingernail. The bit of pain bringing back reality like a smack in the face.
He froze.
“You were supposed to stop when I killed you,” he growled. He beat the door until his hands went numb. “You were supposed—to—stop!”
Tate…
His mother.
He wanted to die. The sudden urge overwhelming every other thought.
Instead of ending it then and there, he went into his parents’ bedroom where he’d been sleeping. He found two big bins of laundry. All his mother’s stupid throw pillows.
Humming to drown them out, Tate marched into the spare room with a load. He ignored the sticky brownish red goo on the floor seeping from under the door. He threw the laundry on the growing mountain he’d built and went back for more.
What was he humming? What was that? The Battle Hymn of the Republic? Maybe. Something he’d learned in school. The militant cadence helped him to focus. The Oxy did not.
He stood in the doorway throwing pillows in one by one. And yet he could still hear his father weeping. Just like he had when he’d found Tate standing over his mother’s body.
Why, son?
What was his answer?
Because.
You took my phone.
You pressured me.
I was never good enough.
Maybe E) all of the above
Tate kept moving.
Keep going. Don’t slow down. Don’t listen.
He stormed into the living room. Red plastic cups and pizza boxes everywhere. Cigarette butts on the carpet because when it started to get too loud, he was afraid of the cops coming and maybe they would pay attention to the sticky brownish red stains that weren’t soda. He’d made everyone come inside.
It didn’t matter about the rug and the garbage. His parents wouldn’t be back. They couldn’t ground him for the party. And the party was supposed to drown out their constant yammering from the bedroom.
And it had worked.
At first.
But now the party was over. All the loud drinking kids were gone.
He grabbed all the couch cushions he could carry and hurried back.
He opened the door and started to toss them in one at a time. His tower of stuff was growing.
We loved you, Tate. We tried to get you help. You fought us every tur—
Tate slammed the door. He went back for more cushions and then cranked up the TV as an afterthought. The noise might help.
The action movie blared so loud it made him wince. And yet back at the guest room, more pillows being placed, he heard his father sobbing. His mother pleading. His own guilt bubbling inside him like a cauldron of poison.
Rapid gunfire from the movie.
There was the sound of the hammer hitting skull playing in the center of his head where he couldn’t turn it off. The screams of his own mother. The pleas of his dead father.
Tate…
He went back to the kitchen, found the bottle with the remaining Oxy. Poured them out. Six. That should do.
He tossed them back.
“In the meantime…”
He found the “gadget drawer,” as his mother called it. Pushed aside the watermelon knife, the cookie cutters, the meat thermometer, a metal straw, and found it.
Tate picked up the ice pick, regarded it. Then he shut his eyes, tilted his head, and felt the cold metal slide along the ear canal.
All he wanted was some fucking silence.
END
For the last fifteen years, Ali Seay has written professionally under a pen name. Now she’s running amok and writing as herself in the genre she’s always loved the most. She lives in Baltimore with her family. Her greatest desire is to own a vintage Airstream and hit the road. Her novella Go Down Hard was released in 2020 by Grindhouse Press. For more information visit aliseay.com.