The beginning of another chapter

I apologize for the length.

December raced across the while plains pulling the last bits of weathered flesh from the skeletal frames of the oaks, trying in vain to strike the group gathered around the mailbox screen printed with a pair of cardinals. The snow had a purple hue to it as it fell before the sirens, like night’s haze under a full moon.
His hands were steady now, regardless what consequences might come over the next week. Even now as he recanted the events for the officer questioning him. The only unsettling affair was the officer’s lack of eye contact, but he understood when he looked back over his shoulder. There, framed so quaintly by the Christmas wreath adorning the door, he could see his father standing face to face with the other officer, saying what he could only imagine to be a line of defense for his actions, but now his hands were steady, as steady as this snow fall on the 25th.
If he needed evidence, the boy told the officer to go back around the corner and look in the recycling bin. He assured him there were at least three bottles of vodka and two of Kaluha. He loved white russians. Between the officers questions the boy would ask repeatedly if they could take his father away, even if just for the night. It was more a plea than a question, and he didn’t dare tell the officer about the alternative he was considering...

His brother wasn’t home, he had left earlier that evening to go play with the latest video games they had received as gifts. He stopped looking for something to do in this town a long time ago, not out of spite, but out of fear for what might happen in his absence. He was assured it would never. He sat, patiently waiting for seconds to come and go, ushered on by tales of family and togetherness. Laid out on the other bend of the couch was his mother who was snoring just louder than the television. When he was bored with reading the closed-captioning he would watch the snow fall within the wreath. His mother insisted that he leaved the light on for his brother, but he wouldn’t be coming home until the day broke. It was best that way, one of them ought to find some happiness.
All the specials on television left him wondering what one is to do if they don’t like their families. The few people whom he had come to confide his trust in didn’t understand. They all regurgitated the same rehearsed response: They’re family.
Ten o’clock came with Scrooge finding a heart, and the boy rose to find some rest, tapping in succession his pockets out of habit to account for his keys, wallet and phone. Each resounded response and he moved silently to the bathroom. He hadn’t noticed how cold his feet were, nor did he ever and as such never wore socks around the house on the uninsulated floor.
It would take a few minutes for the water to heat up, so he began his nightly routine: his shirt fell to the small chair behind him they had bought at a garage sale, and he leaned in to inspect the sides of his nose for blackheads. They were small, but always there to be excised. He kept at them until the steam from the sink started to condense on the mirror occluding his search. Filling his hands several times he soaked his hair and began rubbing his callous hands into his cheeks. Every night it was the same, he watched the water drip down his shoulders and chest, wondering why he was standing here.
From amidst the pile of clothes behind the door, he found where his shirt had fallen and pulled it back over his damp frame. As he passed through the kitchen he passed his father who had awoken to the sound of the water turning on. Though the electric water heater was efficient, it was significantly louder than the gas boiler it had replaced and could be heard throughout the house. His father was still drunk despite having gone to sleep some hours earlier, but placable in his grogginess. They each said good-night in passing, but the boy stopped out of sight in the dark hallway to look back upon his father pouring himself a screwdriver by light of the refrigerator. It was the beginning of his nightly routing: on the counter stood the small assemblage of pipe and the zip-lock bag. He would be up for the next hour listening to his father choke down the surreal.
When he opened the door to his room he made sure to keep the knob turned so the latch would remain silent and not wake his mother. He didn’t undress, but rather sat down on his brother’s bed and began petting the dog who occupied it in his absence. She looked up at him when he sat down as the cheap metal frame shifted under his weight, but returned her head to the pillow as he took hold of her ear and began to rub the soft coat between his fingers. He was the only one in the house who couldn’t manage to sleep through his father’s lungs attempt at flight. Perhaps it was because his head lay on the other side of the wall from the throne he dictated from. Still, the coughing was better than the bursts of excrement that sounded as if they would crack the porcelain. It never failed that they would come together though, night after night it was the same symphony while he planned his own line of flight from this, somehow. At the moment, his only comfort was that he would soon be returning to Boston, some 400 miles from the repercussions of his father’s drinking. No wonder he had problems with hemmoroids.
The small house on the Erie canal was much quieter than the house he grew up in back in the city. There were ambulances, cars, accidents, drunks, fights, the white noise of the city. He could sleep in that embrace, knowing the world was flawed. But here, it was just his mother’s snoring, or his brother’s talking in his sleep, ocassionally naming the capitals of states he was fairly sure he wouldn’t know when he was awake. And now, over the rumble of his mother’s slumber he could acutely hear his father’s actions.
The stainless pipe clanked upon being set down on the sink and the Bic lighter bounced lightly but noisily as it fell to the floor. He didn’t bother to pick it up, but focused his attention on the zip-lock bag, making sure to tightly roll its contents while forcing the air out of their container. He tucked it back into the breast pocket of his flannel shirt and stretched out to pick up the lighter, the porcelain creaking as it shifted about it’s loose base. The roll of toilet paper spun some 20 times, and then the bowl groaned as the weathered frame rose, his feet scrambled heavily in find a foundation to balance their lumbering master. Chiming out the end of the marathon was the well worn belt buckle as it ascended to find it’s place beneath the familiar paunch.
The short glass filled to the brim with ice had been sitting on the top of the sink since it began, and was sweating with condensation, letting loose a small shower as it was lifted from its resting place and spun in a circle. Its contents swirled about in an attempt to cool the drink more, but the remnants of the ice let out a series of hollow thuds as their diminished weight collided with the sides of the cheap glass. The young man thought about the wonderful sound the ice made when it hit the sides of the crystal tumblers he bought himself to drink from; they were precious enough to think twice about throwing them across the room. The ice continued to spin, and in the monotony of time being counted out the young man saw himself staring into mirror on the other side of the wall he was facing, spinning the cheap, ill-cut short glass, watching the water run down the surface, wondering how he ended up there.
The glass was still resounding its whirlpool of ice when the door opened. Still as his father’s heavy feet fell in line and his crooked toes made their way back through the kitchen. “At last” he thought, “I can sleep”, but the foot fall stopped short of the appropriate door. The ice was still spinning, faster and louder now.
“Nance” he heard quietly
“Nance...” again, louder.
The spinning stopped.
“Nance!” Forcefully. His pulse quickened as the dog still sleeping beside him woke suddenly, but laid her had back to rest when the young man’s calm hands found their way to her neck. He knew this tone too well.
A half snore, half response came out loudly as her legs flailed under the pile of heavy sheets and sleeping bags. She searched frantically for the glasses she left on the coffee table, the thin scouts bouncing around in all directions.
“Nance...” again, reserved and calm.
“Yes dear?”
“Why don’t you come to bed?”
“I’m comfortable here, and I was sleep...”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“Why won’t you let me sleep here? You can’t sleep while I’m snoring in the room, and my back feels better out here on all these pillows.”
“Didn’t I just say I wasn’t asking?”
He could hear her drudgingly pull the blankets back and swing her feet from the Thinsulate cocoon. They all slept with a sleeping bag for a comforter because it was never warm at night. The wind would thread its way through the cracked walls and laugh in its high pitched whine while the furnace could never gain any thermal gound. The ice was spinning faster with each sleep-laden step towards the light of the kitchen shining behind her husband. When she moved to step around him towards their bedroom, he cut her off by stepping heavily in her path. They were face to face and his bloodshot glazed eyes bored into hers that she kept half shut. The spinning stopped.
“Why can’t you move any faster?” he asked calmly.
She tried to utter out something but it was quickly silenced.
“How many times have I asked you that?”
“Can we just go to sleep?”
“Was that the question?”
“No...”
“How many times have I asked you to move faster?”
“A lot.”
“Give me a number”
“I don’t know...”
“Nance, it’s not a hard question. Just take a guess. Would you say its been a few hundred?”
“Yes.”
“A few thousand?”
“Maybe...”
“So what you’re telling me is that I have asked you maybe a few thousand times to move fasterr, and you can’t do that? Why do you think that is?”
“I... I’m not sure...”
“You’re not sure why you can’t follow simple directions like move faster? Do you think maybe its because you’re too fucking stupid to do anything that I ask you to?”
“Mike...” she let out meekly.
“Answer the fucking question Nance... Are you too fucking stupid to anything that I’ve ever asked you to do?
“Of course not...”
“No?! You’re telling me that you’re smart enough to not follow simple instructions? Maybe I’m missing something but you couldn’t even get the ham right, and all you have to do is pull it out whenever the thermometer says so. But you’re too fucking busy calling up your sisters instead of paying enough fucking attention to make my fucking dinner, and yet here you are telling me you’re not to fucking stupid to follow directions?”
She looked up with wet eyes that were now open, and pleaded “Can we please just go to bed?”
“We could have but since you can’t fucking move fast enough I’m going to have to try and figure out why I’ve been telling your to do the same fucking thing over and over and over, but it never gets done.”
Her eyes fell back to the flow as the tears started welling up in her eyes. They caught the light casting over the shoulder of her husband casting subtle refractions on her cheek. She couldn’t see into his eyes, only the silhouette he cast within the door frame.
“So what? Now you’re not going to say anything? I don’t know why you can’t just sleep in the room in the first place, its not like we even have sex anymore, so you think the least you could do is share the same bed with your husband and lie there like a dead fish.”
“It’s hard to be romantic with someone when they treat you like this.”
“Oh, that’s it, huh? Nance, the only reason I fucking treat you this way is because you’re too fucking stupid to do anything that I fucking tell you to do! If you would just pay attention and do the simple things I fucking ask you to do I wouldn’t have to yell at you like this! But you’ve been too fucking stupid to do a lot of things, like listen to me when I tell you to not get the fucking dog’s nuts cut off. But you thought you knew something and it would be a good fucking idea to go ahead and do it any ways and now we’ve got that cranky little bitch who tries to bite me every fucking morning.”
“Are you ever going to get over that? I’ve said I was...”
“Does sorry bring the dog back and put his nuts on him?”
“...No”
“Then no, I’m never going to get over it just like you’re never going to pay enough fucking attention to do what I tell you to the first time like making a decent fucking meal.”
He had back away from her face enough to make room for his hand to move between them. The curved, brown and broken nail at the end of his finger was stolid and unwavering in its extension. His drink splashed over her worn out robe unintentionally as he pushed the weathered digit into her sternum and asked wryly “Or are you?”
“Mike, you just spilled on me...”
He looked down slowly, and upon seeing that there was mainly ice left in his glass he looked back up and said plainly “Well then, I guess I need another drink.”