The Hungry Ghost

Happy April. I apologize in advance, but this month I am a little busy working toward completing a revised draft of a project I am working on, tentatively titled, Soul Kiss. Because of this, I have decided to share a story I posted this time last year, a short tale about love and family ties - I call it Freedom.

M

*

For three days now, the Santa Ana winds have rocked Petal La Fontaine’s small travel trailer. Just an hour ago, a strong gust shook her trailer so hard Petal thought it would break away from its wooden foundation and roll free. Last night a strong gust tore her screen door from its hinges and sent it flying into a long overdue and rusted demise. The sand, omni present and hot in the blazing Riverside sun, blasts the white paint from the trailers aluminum frame and blows in through the cat door Petal had cut into the wall; the persistent flapping of its little plastic cover reminds Petal that Sammy, the last of her four cats, has been missing since the winds started. Last night, just after the screen door broke free, Petal heard a pack of coyotes calling to the moon and now in remembering this, she begins to worry.

Petal tries her best to look out her window, pressing her oily face against the dirty and scratched glass, hoping she might catch sight of Sammy, and wishing that her son Frankie, her only contact with the outside world, would stop by with some food. It had been almost 24 hours since Frankie’s last visit and all the groceries – a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts, three six-packs of coke, a package of microwave pancakes and a family size bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken were all gone. Petal wished she could go out for groceries herself, but for two years she has been without a car and even then, she could no longer fit through the doorway and out of her trailer. When going outside was an option, Petal found there was nothing really to see or do.

Petal recalled how she hated the desert. She remembered it looking the same then as it does now, a vast emptiness of barren, windswept terrain, a few dry or dead trees and an endless sunburned horizon under a white sky. The only living things Petal remembered, besides rattlesnakes and a few translucent scorpions was a scattering of brittle creosote bush colonies with their prickly branches and tiny grey leaves. Even they would give up hope in the heat of the summer, often breaking at their base and tumbling like beach balls for miles in the wind, in search of freedom, Petal thought. Petal envied the creosote bush. ‘I am like a sardine trapped in a tin can,’ she thought to herself.

Deciding that neither Sammy nor Frankie would stop by any time soon, Petal opened a can of Friskies brand Tuna Delight cat food and made herself a snack. Another gust of sand and wind hit the trailer, rocking it and causing Petal to lose her footing and slip, convincing her to go back to the safety of her bed. Slowly, cautiously, she hobbled on swollen, diabetic and cracked feet over to the barren mattress, sat down, and fluffed a soiled and stale pillow. Petal let out a sigh and lay down to finish her Tuna Delight, careful not to cut her tongue, licking the inside of the can and then finally the lid. Petal made a mental note to ask Frankie to stop by Wal-Mart for more cat food. Wiping tuna juice from her chin Petal laid back, stared at the ceiling and thought about Frankie and Riverside.

*

Moving to Riverside from Van Nuys seemed a good idea at the time. An earthquake had destroyed Petal’s one bedroom apartment, leaving her and Frankie homeless and smashing the last relics of her past – a vast, iridescent collection of Carnival glass. A week of aftershocks, looters, Santa Monica do-gooders, and living at the YMCA rattled Petal’s nerves and convinced her to give up on L.A. She made plans to leave California and live with her sister in New Orleans, but when Frankie came up with the idea of stealing a travel trailer and moving out to Riverside, she jumped at the opportunity. When Frankie placed the trailer near a burned and abandoned shack at the farthest end of the ten-acre parcel he rented and illegally hooked up the electricity, Petal started to doubt her decision. Now, alone in the desert and dependent on Frankie, the situation no longer felt ideal.

Things with Frankie were no longer ideal, either. Everything seemed fine until six months ago when he met up with Rusty, a nervous and skinny man who kept his sandy hair shaved with the exception of a curiously long tuft of hair at the base of his skull. Petal noticed how Rusty never looked anybody in the eyes when he spoke, choosing instead to look at the ground or into the distance. She also noticed a tattoo of a swastika on Rusty’s throat and this more than anything else bothered Petal, providing her an excuse to distrust him. Soon after meeting Rusty, Frankie’s schedule became unpredictable. Daily visits have become sporadic. In the last month, Petal noticed dramatic and often daily changes in Frankie. Always lean to begin with, he had rapidly started losing weight. Petal suspected he had lost at least fifty pounds since he met Rusty and although she was not a specialist in such things, loosing that much weight in such a short time seemed wrong.

There were other changes, too. Frankie’s skin looked red and it was raw in spots; some of his teeth were missing, and conversations were often incoherent. Frankie, like Rusty, now preferred to fidget and his temper would turn ugly for no apparent reason. Most of his time at the trailer was spent with Rusty, smoking, drinking and digging a hole in the desert for a septic tank – a task Frankie called “Project Shit-Hole.” Petal didn’t care what he called it; she was just looking forward to flushing the toilet.

Petal suspected other things, besides the physical, were going wrong for Frankie as well. She worried when he started keeping the change from her grocery money and this month he claimed her welfare and disability checks had never arrived. Petal worried that Frankie was lying and a call to her friend Bernice, the manager at Mail Boxes Plus, confirmed her suspicions. Two days later, Petal’s cell phone service was disconnected. When she asked Frankie if everything was OK, he snapped. “Stop naggin’ you fat-fucking Carnival Freak!” he yelled.

Petal cringed at Frankie’s insult and retreated to her bed. It had been years since she worked in the Carnival and every time somebody called her a freak it brought back bad memories of sitting in a airless room, forcing a smile as people lined up to pay seventy-five cents to see her. Petal remembered how people treated her, often taunting, laughing or making crude remarks as though she weren’t in the room. Children, Petal recalled, were the worst offenders and often brought her to tears. Children were the reason Petal retired from the Carnival.

For three days after Frankie’s outburst, he didn’t bring Petal any food and it was during that time she first tried the taste of Friskies. When he and Rusty returned, they brought Petal a bucket of chicken and resumed work on Project Shit-Hole.

*

The sound of the wind and metal shovels scraping against the dry earth awoke Petal. “Frankie, honey, that you out there?”

“Chicken and groceries on the kitchen table,” Frankie grumbled.

“Baby, why didn’t you wake me?”

“You was snoring so goddamn loud you’d not hear nothin’ anyway,” he said.

Petal held her tongue, fearful of another three or four day fast without food or human contact. It seemed to her that the key to Frankie these days was Rusty. ‘Maybe,’ she thought, ‘I should offer an olive branch.’ The idea comforted Petal. She sat up in her bed and smiled. It had been so long since she and Frankie spoke eye-to-eye. “Deep down he is still a good son,” She said, wiping dust from a picture of him hanging on the wall above her bed. ‘Yes,’ she thought, ‘I’m going to stop resisting Rusty.’

“Frankie, Honey, is Rusty out there with you?” She called. “You boys should come in for a beer. It’s hot out there. Please come in and say hello to your Momma.”

Through the aluminum wall, Petal heard muffled talking, the sound of digging, and then loud laughter. There was a scuffle of some sort, like the two were hitting one another, and Petal was about to look out the window to see what was going on, when the shrill, nasal voice of Rusty answered her invitation. “It smells like ass and chicken inside that trailer,” he said. “I would rather die from heat out here in the sun, than breathe your foul air!” He and Frankie broke out in hysterical laughter. Petal, stung by Rusty’s words silently cried, aware that Rusty’s comments were based in truth. She said nothing more, squeezed into the kitchen and helped herself to chicken leg and thigh. The chicken was cold and tasted stale. Petal bitterly noted that it was “Original Recipe,” and not her favorite, “Extra Crispy.”

An hour or so later Frankie knocked at the door and looked in. His dilated pupils reminded Petal of a coyote. “We’re done diggin’ he said. “Be back tomorrow with a truck to install the shit tank.”

Petal paused, wiped her greasy hands on her soiled yellow and red flowered dress and held back tears, fearful of angering Frankie. “Can you please pick up some Friskies from the Wal-Mart?” She asked. “I think Sammy might want something to eat. He likes the Tuna Delight.”

*

That night Petal stayed up late, consumed the entire bucket of chicken, the mashed potatoes, most of the coleslaw, drank a gallon of milk and watched the local news on the television with a bag of Oreo cookies in her lap. The satellite signal, like everything else Petal relied on for comfort was stolen, so for now, she thought, ‘I at least have that pretty blonde weather girl with the big boobs to keep me company.’

“The high tomorrow in Los Angeles is expected to reach 85 downtown, the low 90’s in the valley and mid 100’s in the deserts and it looks like another Red Flag day due to the winds, so stay inside and stay cool. Ann, Johnny, back to you in the studio…”

Rusty’s comments earlier in the day still bothered Petal. She rolled off the bed, brushed crumbs from her lap and went to the window. She remembered when Star, her in-home “technician”, abruptly stopped showing up and after three days of wondering, Petal found out that Frankie had fired her, claiming she was a thief. “What on earth do I have that is worth stealing?” Petal pleaded. Frankie ignored her, said nothing and drove off in a trail of grey dust with Rusty at his side. That was three months ago and since then, Petal had not had a bath and her laundry was filthy. The garbage in the kitchen was piling up and smelled so badly that Petal started throwing it out the window. ‘Maybe that is why the coyotes come by at night,’ she thought, her face pressed to the glass, now covered with resting flies, looking at a stinking heap of empty cans, fast food containers, milk cartons and bones she threw out that morning. The wind would blow most of the garbage away – the bones it seemed, always remained. Petal looked into the darkened desert hoping to see Sammy, then gave up and went back to bed. “I am going to ask for another nurse tomorrow,” she said.

*

Petal tried, but did not sleep well. Several times in the night she awoke, convinced she had heard someone or something trying to scratch its way into her trailer. Once the wind was blowing so hard a large object, probably desert debris, or perhaps her missing screen door, hit the trailer so hard Petal thought she would die of a heart attack. When the power went out the only luxury Petal was allowed, an ancient swamp cooler of suspicious origins, stopped rumbling and the cool, moist air was quickly replaced by dry, stifling heat. Within minutes, Petal was soaked in sweat and the saltiness of it burned the sores that were forming on her backside and inner thighs. The sensation caused her such discomfort she started to cry. An hour later, worn out from tears and exhausted from the heat, sleep deprivation pulled down the veil, allowing Petal to forget her day and her problems.

*

The violent thump of the trailer falling off its wooden foundation awoke Petal. The sound of metal crashing on the ground and scraping across the sand and gravel hurt her ears. Petal tried to block out the sound with her pillow, but it did not prevent her from hearing a truck engine revving and tires skidding and straining to gain traction. With each spin of the tires, rocks and dirt pelted the front of her trailer. When the tires gripped she felt the trailer slowly scrape in jerks and jumps across the earth.

Petal tried to stand up, but a sudden shift of the trailer threw her back on the bed. She started to scream, at first just a small call for help, and then a loud wailing sound from deep within her soul, unleashed by a lifetime of suffering filled the empty desert.

“Shut yer fuckin’ mouth, Carnival Freak!” It was Frankie. “Ease up on the gas, Rusty. You almost got it!”

“Frankie, what is going on out there?” Petal screamed.

“I told you yesterday. I am filling the shit hole!”

Just then the trailer tipped, the front into the hole, the back into the air, and slid with a thunderous thud into the void Frankie and Rusty had been digging. A large cloud of soil arose, caught the wind and formed into a swirling dust devil, temporarily blinding Frankie before it trailed off toward freedom into the desert.

Inside, Petal fell to the floor, the bed rolled over, lamps, dishes, and garbage, chicken bones and the dried corpse of Sammy, hidden and trapped beneath the bed fell atop of her. Petal screamed. Her heart pounded inside her chest. Her lungs hurt. A table hit her, breaking her shoulder and arm, sending a firestorm of pain through her body. “Frankie, baby, you can’t do this to your Momma!” she pleaded. “Please, what ever you’re plannin’, stop! Give me another chance, I’ll show you. I’ll try harder to be better. Let me out of here!”

Rusty laughed. “Take care of your Momma! She’s gonna be good this time!”

“Don’t you worry none, Carnival Freak. This won’t take long.” Frankie said.

Petal shifted under the rubble and in doing so, nudged a precariously perched bookshelf, sending a pile of Christian-romance novels onto her chest. One of the books, Redeeming Love, hit her in the head.

While the dust and debris settled, Frankie unhitched the trailer from the truck and grabbed two shovels, handing one to Rusty.

Petal, semi conscious and lying on the floor inside her trailer - the temperature rising, dust and the smell of garbage filling her nostrils, stopped sobbing long enough to hear the sound of Rusty and Frankie laughing. She wondered what she could have done to deserve such punishment. She prayed to the Lord, Jesus Christ. She wondered what would come next. The sound of sand thumping the top of her trailer like stones answered her thoughts.

*

Copyright© 2007-2008 Mark B. Papale All rights reserved