Chapter 3: Momma

Some thirty odd years ago.

Young Russell Meeks at twelve years old is a bleak child, a sad-looking version of his adult self. He shuffles into his parents’ bedroom to where his mother, Luisa Meeks, is hastily packing a suitcase. She is a pretty woman with onyx black curled hair. This morning she is sporting two black eyes.

“Get some clothes,” she tells Russell.

“What’s wrong?” The words emerging from Russell’s throat are a squeak from a still young boy.

“Do as I say.”

Russell has no idea what to pack though he has a solid understanding of why he needs to. He rifles through his dresser and packs a day’s clothing. He takes no toys, isn’t the type of boy to play with them though he thinks to take the single bolt action 22 with them. When he arrives at the car with it, his mother shakes her head vehemently.

“No guns. You put that back now.”

Russell doesn’t argue. He knows it will be useless and there is no time. He feels her urgency.

They drive away and all the way Luisa steals worried glances through the rearview mirror. She is shaking like Russell has never seen her shake before.

“Everything will be fine,” she says. Russell thinks she is talking more to herself than to him. He doesn’t believe everything will be fine.

They arrive at her mother’s trailer, Russell’s grandmother. She’s a tiny bent Mexican woman with streaked hair and worn lines in her face. She greets them outside as if expecting them.

Later that night Meeks sits outside the kitchen doorway and listens to them speak, out of sight, and they squabble.

“You have to go back,” his grandmother tells Luisa.

“Look what he did to me. He’ll do it to Russell.”

“You can’t take a boy from his father.”

“You have to. It is a father’s right.”

That night Russell sleeps a restless sleep in the suffocating silence of the guest room. His mother is beside him, gripping him close, and at some point he loses her when he drifts off to sleep where he dreams of being alone and being free and being unafraid.

He is torn from this strange and pleasant dream world by terrible screaming and yelling. He trips off the bed and stumbles through the trailer to the bathroom where he finds his father shouting from the hallway. Inside, his mother stands in the bathtub and holds a straight razor to her wrists.

In her eyes a madness rages like a hurricane and she is beyond reason, beyond hope. Grandmother wails in half English, half Spanish, none of it intelligible.

Russell’s father, Arky Meeks, gnarled as a man can be, spits at Luisa’s feet.

“Why did you call him, Momma?” Luisa cries.

“He’s the boy’s father!”

Arky Meeks reaches for his wife but Luisa presses the razor steadily into the skin and blood beads up there.

“Stay away from me!”

“Goddamned bitch!” Arky’s voice drips with contempt. “You’re not going to kill yourself.”

“We’re never going back with you.”

“Quit testing me. I’m taking the boy regardless.”

A fury builds in Russell’s father like a spring coiling. Russell has seen this before in the man, many times, and never a time was it good. Arky Meeks rushes Luisa but she swings the razor at him in wild arcs until he backs off.

“Fuck! I’m taking you home!”

“Never!”

Arky Meeks sets himself and his gaze is deadly serious. “I’ll take you home if it’s the last thing you ever do.”

Frantic and out of her mind, Luisa does the unthinkable. She slashes her own wrist. Blood spits from her arm in a thin red arc and splatters the wall. Her eyes fly wide with shock.

She reels and Arky grows cold.

“Jesus Christ,” he says.

Grandmother shoves her way into the bathroom and she’s crying but Luisa screams at her in words that make no sense.

Arky leans against the wall and he treats the situation as if dealing with a spoiled child. “You’re fucking nuts.”

For the first time Luisa sees Russell standing there just passed the door jamb and this moment freezes in Russell’s brain forever as she looks at him with realization of what she’s done and she can’t go back now, can never go back.

“Russell, I’m sorry, baby.”

Russell can’t resist his tears. He runs to her and she takes him in her arms.

“Call an ambulance,” she says.

Grandmother turns to leave but Arky shifts and blots out the doorway so she can’t pass.

“No.”

“She’s going to die!”

Arky is unmoved. “She did it to herself. Look at her. You want to die, you dumb bitch? Go ahead and die you weak little whore. Go ahead and show your son what you are.”

Russell is numb and he doesn’t know why. He can only stare dumbly as his grandmother wails for Arky to let Luisa go but Arky won’t budge. He’s forcing Russell’s mother to die.

Luisa squeezes Russell into herself and Arky spits on the floor.

“Say goodbye to your mother.”

Russell clenches her and she grips him to herself and her shoulders heave as she cries. Russell breaks and he begs his father.

“Call an ambulance! Please!”

Arky Meeks replies with a hateful stare.

“She’s bleeding to death! Why won’t you stop it?”

But it falls on deaf ears.

Luisa slumps weakly and she whispers in Russell’s ear. “I’m sorry for what I did, honey. I didn’t mean to. Get away from him. Run away to Mexico. You’ll always be safe there. Down in Mexico. Do you promise? Promise your mother.”

Russell nods and he holds her until she slumps over. Dead. Like she is only sleeping but she is gone forever.

Arky clears the doorway. Grandmother flees and calls the police but it is too late.

##