Page 1 of Stronger Than Blood

The old dirt road wound through the pine trees that hung menacingly overhead. The driver, a man who looked to be in his early forties, hadn’t said two words since Mom had shoved me into the back of his car.

It seemed like ages since we’d turned onto the road, and I was feeling nauseous as I bounced around the seat.

At least I knew where I was since I’d been here twice before.

The first time had been filled with good memories.

When I was little, my mama had brought me home for some reason I no longer can remember.

There had been more food than I’d ever seen before, and my grandmother had made me a small stuffed dog.

I’d prized that little dog, the only toy that survived my mother’s frequent moves, until one of the drug addicts Mom seemed to collect had used it to wipe his face after eating pasta and tossed it in the trash. Of course, Mom had laughed along with her other stoned, crackhead friends.

As a child, I’d learned not to hold on to hope. Don’t love anything or anyone. Everything on the planet was temporary, and when you cared about something, someone eventually took it away.

Nothing about the second time I’d come here had been good. Even now, the visit was the source of my nightmares.

The little white house sat perched off to the side of the old road. I was a bookworm and knew that any author would have called it picturesque and romantic in its simplicity. I could even imagine reading the words in my head. But as it came into view, all I could remember was the blood.

When the car pulled up in front of the house, panic gripped me for a moment. I could almost hear Mom’s screaming, the roar as the bullet was fired, the metallic smell of blood that slowly dripped onto my head and shoulders.

I pressed my eyes shut, practicing the breathing techniques I’d read about in a library book on meditation. But even with deep breaths, my brain shut down, closing off so I didn’t have to deal with the trauma of the past.

When I reopened my eyes, an old woman was sitting on the front porch swing. I knew her, although only vaguely—my great-grandmother, Ida.

At first, I didn’t move. Instead, I watched, letting my mind memorize her. I did that whenever I met strangers: I’d memorize people. Then, I knew who to run from or who to avoid if they got to be too much.

My great-grandmother’s long, gray hair hung loose around her shoulders.

The woman represented all my fears and, if I’m honest, all my hopes too.

She had shot the man Mom had brought with us that day, and though she hadn’t managed to save my grandmother, there was no doubt she’d saved Mom and me, as well as herself.

The maniac had gone there with a purpose: to kill everyone he could, and he’d almost succeeded.

Memories flooded me like when they released water at the Pickwick Dam where my mom would sometimes take me.

I was little, small enough I fit snugly in my grandmother’s lap. I can’t see her face, don’t even remember what she looked like. Just that while I sat in her lap, I felt safe, loved… In a way I never usually felt.

She smelled like cookies, and the shirt she was wearing had some kind of fluffy substance on the collar. I wasn’t sure what it was, I just remembered that it was white, and it tickled my ears, which caused me to giggle.

When I did, she’d bend down and snuggle into my neck, kissing me there, then tell me how much she loved me. Something no one else had ever said to me.

It’s strange how those memories stuck in my head, especially after what happened next.

I don’t know what prompted it, but I just remember one minute I was being held, and Grandmother was promising me a cookie early before we ate. Then… BANG

At first I thought rain was pouring down on me, when I looked up into the face of the man Mom had brought with her. He was ugly. I didn’t like him. I never liked Mom’s men friends, but this one really made me feel sick in my tummy.

His face was scarred, and his hair looked like Chucky the doll’s. Mom had watched that with one of her other men friends and let me stay up to see it with them. I cried by myself for nights after watching it. Funny how much he was like Chucky. Or not funny, not really funny at all.

He was holding a gun, and in my memories, there was smoke coming out of the hole at the end. I read on the internet that smoke really didn’t come out, but even now, I can clearly picture the gun with white smoke pouring out the end.

I don’t know if I understood that I was about to die, at least not until my grandmother’s hands fell to her sides.

I looked down and realized the rain that’d sprayed over me was red.

Red as in blood, but not like the blood on television.

This was brighter and thicker and dripped down my hair onto my arms.

I looked back up at the man, who was still smiling. I remember at some point someone, probably a social worker or a policeman, said he’d likely been trying to shoot me and missed. I always wondered if that’s why he smiled? He was getting to try again?

I remember watching as his head exploded, blood and pieces of flesh blown from his head—his brains?

—splattering onto the far wall. My current nightmares still included the sight and sound of that goop hitting the wall, while Ida, this woman, my great-grandmother, stood in front of him holding a larger gun and looking fierce.

I know now it was a hunting rifle and she must’ve had experience using it.

My only way of dealing with that day was to research and research. Looking for any information I could about what’d actually happened, at least relating to the things I could remember.

But I don’t recall what happened next, only blackness with some sirens, lights, strangers—all men in uniforms surrounding me. At some point I was in a hospital, but… it’s mostly blank. Dark, scary, empty memories…

The knock startled me. I looked up and saw my great-grandmother standing at the car window. How had she moved so fast? “You should come in before the driver charges me another month’s wages.”

Did she still work? I hesitantly opened the car door, and after she’d paid the driver, I followed her up to the old house.

As I reached the door, I froze. Blood. I remembered… so much. On my hair. On my arms, and… on the walls… what I now know was both blood and brain matter! My stomach flipped.

“Come on, standing there won’t make it any better,” she said like she knew exactly what I’d been thinking.

I drew a deep breath and forced myself to go in, pushing down the fear and the memories of death.

It was different now. “Thank God,” I said under my breath.

She sighed from not far away. “It all had to be redone,” she said, reaching over and taking my elbow to lead me out of the living room— the room where it had all happened. The blood. I flinched, more from her grabbing me than from being back inside this house.

“You come on in the kitchen, now, boy. We’ll deal with all that shit later,” she said.

I bit back my instinctive fear of her, and then I noticed the smell in the air. Food? She was cooking?

We always ate fast food if Mom had enough money.

If not, we ate granola bars ‘cause Mom could get those by the dozen at the shelter’s pantry.

She had a weird thing going on with the man and woman who ran the pantry, so they gave her all the granola bars she wanted.

I didn’t want to know, and I’d never asked what that thing was.

“Come on in here and sit down.” The old woman pushed me toward a stool behind a bar that protruded from the kitchen wall. “I’m just about to pull the cornbread out. Then you can eat,” she said as she stirred the pots on the old stove.

The smells were foreign to me, making my mouth water, despite not knowing the contents of the pots. Home-cooked meals—a home without drugs. I’d been in enough homes where meth was cooked, and that was not what was being cooked here. But cooking food? No, that was a foreign concept.

This woman, my family, although someone I didn’t really know and was afraid of, pulled the steaming hot cornbread, in an old cast-iron container, out of the oven and placed it in the middle of the stove, the only place that didn’t have a boiling pot.

“We’ll just let that cool,” she said, turning toward me.

“Now, let me get a good look at ya. Whew, Lord, you have grown! Been a bit since I’ve laid eyes on you. Reckon last time was when you was still a little boy.”

When I didn’t respond, she moved her progressives up and down to get a better look at me.

“You’ve turned out handsome enough. Reckon you got that from your granddaddy; he was a looker and a good hard worker as well.

Pity your grandma…” She took a deep breath and shook her head.

“Well, don’t reckon this is the time to get into that. Tell me about yourself. You in school?”

I hadn’t spoken since I arrived. My tongue refused to form words and I wasn’t sure what I could say to this stranger whom I had last seen holding a gun.

I hadn’t known where I was going this morning when Mom put me in a car, saying I needed to be gone and quick. If I had known it was here, I might have disobeyed her and locked myself into the bathroom instead.

Well, that wasn’t true. I never argued with my mother, went against her, or contradicted her. I never said anything. No one ever expected me to say anything. Disappear in the corner. Try not to be seen. Hide in a closet if I had to. Being asked a question surprised me.

“Um… yes’m. I’m a… I’m a freshman,” I managed to stammer out.

She smiled for the first time. “Oh, I remember when I was your age. Those were the good old days, son. Well, reckon we’ll go on down to the schoolhouse tomorrow and get you registered.

Your cousin Joann is the principal down at the high school these days.

She’ll know what to do. ’Sides that, what do you like to do? ”

“Um…” I didn’t really have an answer. What did I do? Not much. Hide?

“I like to read.”

“Oh, that’s good, son. Got lots of good books here from… well, from when your great-grandaddy was alive. Man kept his nose in a book. But you don’t wanna hear about us old folks, I’m sure.”

She jumped up from her seat, surprising me at how spry she was. I flinched before I realized she only wanted to stir the pots again. Then she slipped a plate over the old black container with the cornbread and flipped it before bringing it to the table.

It smelled amazing. I can’t remember ever smelling anything like that.

She grabbed another plate from the cabinet and began filling it with stuff she’d been cooking on the stove. When she placed the overfilled plate in front of me, she cut a pie-shaped piece of cornbread and put that on top.

“That oughta do ya,” she said as she turned back to the stove. “You go on and get started. A young man like you, I bet you’re starvin'.”

She had no idea. I hadn’t eaten in a week. Mom had gotten into it with some woman living across the hall from us. Then the law had shown up, and the woman had been arrested and all hell had broken loose.

I stayed in the bedroom, hidden from view, as it seemed that my mother screamed at every neighbor we had.

Every time the shit hit the fan, Mom would leave and then come back. She came in with a bloody nose once, and the cops had come again—that time, she left for a whole day. I’d been afraid to move. Not that it would’ve done much good. All the food, even the damn granola bars, were gone.

Mom had come into my room in the morning, told me to pack, stuck me in the car with a man I’d never seen before, then sent me away.

I decided to ignore the memories and because I was no longer able to resist, I dug into the food. I went for the cornbread first. It was a strange taste. Musty? Could you describe food as musty? It was bitter too… but sweet at the same time. I put the cornbread down, not sure I liked it.

There were potatoes, some kind of bean thing, and a pile of green something. I tasted it all, and each had a distinctive, odd flavor. All completely foreign to me.

Pushing my fears to the back of my mind, I let my hunger take over and I ate everything on the plate. When you never knew when food would be available, you sure didn’t spend time being picky. If it didn’t have maggots or smell rotten, you ate, and you ate fast.

The old woman sat down across from me, watching, but not touching her own food, and when I finished, she leaned back in her chair and laughed. “Lordy be, child, I ain’t seen someone eat like that since my little brother Eddie was around.”

I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and apologized. “I’m… I’m sorry,” I said in the quietest voice I could manage without whispering.

“Sorry for what? Eating the food I prepared for you? Ain’t you been around any womenfolk?

Ain’t one compliment so great as a young boy enjoying the fruits of yer labors.

” She chuckled and said, “Well, I ain’t gonna wait on you again; you’ll run my legs off.

Go on over there and fix yerself another plate. I’m gonna enjoy what I’ve got on mine.”

I debated whether I should, but not knowing if or when I’d eat again, and knowing she was busy eating her own food, I decided to take her up on her offer and filled my plate with the same amount she’d given me before.

I figured if she’d given me that much once, she might not get mad if I ate the same again.

She rattled on and on throughout the meal, talking about people I didn’t know and had never met.

My cousin so and so, or my aunt this or that.

Those people had never been a part of my life.

I had never heard their names mentioned before, and to be honest, I couldn’t have cared less one way or the other.

What I cared about was that this stranger in front of me wasn’t mad, she didn’t have her gun with her, and she’d fed me so much I felt like I might puke. But my stomach was full for the first time in a long time and I was thankful for that.

If I hadn’t been so freaking scared of her from my last visit here, I’m sure I’d have felt something akin to happy…

but “happy” wasn’t something I trusted. No, you watched your back, and you watched it every moment you could.

Otherwise, you might as well accept the fact that somebody was about to put a knife in it.