Bat out of Hell
By Janet Baldey
‘You was such a lovely baby. Ever’one said so. Wasn’t just me.’
He stood on the
threshold, his hand tightening on the doorknob. His heart sank as he clocked the empty gin
bottle by the side of her chair.
Behind, the night beckoned; escape was still possible but he shook his
head and sighed clawing his stringy hair away from his eyes. It was too late for that and besides, he was
hungry. His stomach growled in
agreement.
‘Hi Ma’.
‘So purty’. His mother stroked the picture, its surface
dulled after many such caresses. She
looked up and pointed a finger, yellow-tipped with thickened nail. ‘What went
wrong boy?’ Her voice shrilled and
there was a mean look in her eyes that shrivelled his core and the huddle of
cats in her lap stirred.
Life, he thought, life is what went wrong.
‘Kids grow up Ma. They don’t stay rosy-cheeked babes forever’. He was mumbling but it made no
odds, she wasn’t listening – always deaf to stuff she didn’t want to hear. He lumbered towards the kitchen. Looked like he’d be getting his own supper
tonight.
He
reached for the skillet and cracked in eggs, one by one staring down at them
until the yolks hardened and their whites shrivelled to a lacy brown
frill. His appetite had vanished and he
scraped the leathery mess into the swill bucket.
Shoulders
hunched, he stood thinking of the good times, vanished forever now. His mother’s kiss as she tucked him into
bed. Velvet, like a moth’s wing, it
brushed his cheek just as he was spiralling into sleep. When mornin’ came his Ma’d hum softly,
combing his hair, holding up one shining strand after another. ‘Jus like gold….pure gold’. They had so many photos took. Just them two, him staring wide-eyed into
the lens and her layin’ her cheek against his head.
She’d such plans, he
remembered that. ‘My Jake – he’s going
to be a doctor, for sure. Or a lawyer,
maybe. He’s so sharp.’
But
book larnin’ didn’t come easyand no matter how he tried he was most always
bottom of the class. She took it well
at first. ‘Never mind boy, you keep at
it, you’ll get there’. Later, she swore
his teacher had a down on him. ‘She’s
so jealous boy. It’s ‘cause you’re so
beautiful.’
When
he hit puberty the light finally went out of her eyes. His soft hair dulled to a coarse brown and
scarlet zits popped out of his skin.
Worst of all, he stopped growin’.
Kids who’d been smaller sprouted and on the way up they took delight in
taunting him. Soon ‘shorty’ was the
kindest thing he was called and he started to eat far too much even though his
Ma was no cook. ‘Lardass’ soon took the
place of ‘shorty’ as the insult of choice.
It
was then, his mother got her first cat.
Black as ink, she called it Satan and just as she had Jake’s hair, she
brushed its fur morning and evening.
She took down pictures of him and put up pictures of Satan instead. When
Jake failed his third interview, she jus’ gave him a look and got another cat.
She had six now. The house smelled but
his Ma paid no mind. Cats didn’t grow
fat and ugly.
At
last he got lucky. Him and office work
didn’t get on but he liked tinkering with cars and got a job, cleaning em.
While valeting, he watched the mechanics work and when one quit, he spoke out.
‘Ah kin do that, Mister
Brady.’
‘You
sure, son?’
The garage owner barked a laugh and trialled
him one week.
Jake laboured happy as a hog in muck, arriving
home black as Ma’s cat. Of course, she
hollered but stopped when he slapped money on the table.
Soon after, he met the
love of his life. Shrouded under a
tarpaulin, she sat abandoned but peering underneath, he realized what she was despite
her peeling paint and pitted chrome. A
vintage Harley. Wow! A few dollars and
she was his.
After months of work, her chrome gleamed and
her fuselage stole the red from the setting sun. When he turned the key, her engine growled
her power although he never let her have full rein. Riding her, he felt seven-foot-tall, loving
the feel of wind on his cheeks.
Suddenly his dejection vanished;
he’d take Lady out for a spin. He turned and strode across the room. Immediately his mother rose, a black hole
appearing in the middle of her face.
‘Useless, lazy good fer
nothing. Why did I bother? You ruined ma life. Ah, could have been a singer.’
The usual heard so
often. Then, something else.
‘You even killed your
Daddy, you piece of shit’.
He froze. Had he?
She’d voiced his worst nightmare.
He’d loved his Daddy. A boy of
eight rising nine, he’d been kicking a ball in the yard. The sound of shattered glass and his Daddy
came running, face bright red, deepening to purple as he clutched his chest and
keeled over.
Hot tears blinded him as
he ran through the door and out to the shed where he hurled himself onto Lady
and roared into the night onto frostbitten roads shining under a canopy of
stars. Pitting his voice against the
wind and the blatting engine, he bawled out the words of his favourite song.
‘The sirens are screaming
and the fires are howling way down in the valley tonight……’
He felt bad. So bad.
He hadn’t meant to kill his Daddy and Lady didn’t deserve what was
coming but there was no other way.
Jamming his hands hard on the throttle, like bats out of Hell they
screamed down the icy hill.
Copyright Janet Baldey