Black Lies

“What?” I reach a frantic right hand out as my left pulls the wheel hard enough to turn through our gates. Tugs at his knee as I careen down our driveway. Pull at his shirt as I shift into park. Try to break through, but he ignores me, gripping his head as he shakes it from side to side.

“October 12th,” he whispers. “Oh my God. October 12th.”

I say nothing, wait, as he repeats a date that means nothing to me. Then, he stills. His head stops moving, he slows his frantic rock, and drops his hands, a calm settling over him as he raises his head and looks at me.

“I remember.” He says softly. “I remember October 12th.”

Chapter 62

Brant

There is not a moment when I feel the switch, when it bubbles through me and replaces one person with another. There is nothing to fight. Nothing to struggle against. I simply open my eyes to a place I don’t recognize. Stare around, take in my surroundings, and then continue.

Our minds are unique in that they are like infants in their acceptance of what is shown. I don’t wonder that I don’t remember yesterday, because I have always had no yesterday. It, to me, is normal. That personality has never lived another way. I don’t find it strange to be suddenly awake and at a restaurant and midway through a meal because that is what I know. How I know life to be. The regular world, as a species, doesn’t question the fact that they close our eyes and—for eight hours—time passes in literally the blink of an eye. Doesn’t question the fact that they may have said things in our sleep, held a brief conversation in the middle of the night with a spouse—a conversation that they remember nothing about. And just as they don’t question that, I never questioned the two decades where things didn’t always make sense. Blamed any gaps in memory or sudden changes in location on my medication’s side effects.

But now, suddenly, I remember something. One glimpse into a day I have wondered about for twenty-seven years.

I didn’t know much about my world when I opened my eyes on October 12th, other than a few simple facts. I was Jenner. I was eleven. There was a girl down the street named Trish who had a pet mouse and wouldn’t let me play with it. She’d shown me the tiny, trembling figure a few weeks earlier and I had touched it. Pale white with red eyes, and I had poked it too roughly and she had pushed me away. Pulled it close to her chest and screamed that I’d never touch it again.

I digress. I was Jenner. I did not know who this woman before me was and had no interest in her brand of authority. I wanted my mom. I wanted my blue house with the broken porch rail and the iced tea pitcher that collected condensation in the fridge. I didn’t want to be in a basement with a woman whose mouth was tight and eyes were black, who smelled of vinegar and coffee and whose finger wouldn’t stop jabbing the paper before me.

“Focus, Brant. Multiply the fractions. We don’t have all day.”

I’d never seen this pile of crap before. Numbers above and below lines. The crooked cross, which I knew meant to multiply but I didn’t know how to multiply. I pushed the paper away and looked at her. Said the only truth that didn’t make me sound stupid. “I’m not Brant.”

“You certainly are Brant. And you did three pages of these yesterday in the time it took me to use the restroom. So don’t tell me you don’t know how to do it.”

I don’t know how to do it. I said nothing, only stared in her face. “I want my mom.” It wasn’t so much as wanting my mother as wanting to get away from this woman.

She looked at me. “Your mother is at work, Brant. You know that. She’ll be home at six. Until then, you’re stuck with me.”

She was a liar. This ugly woman opened her mouth and all that spewed was a lie. My mother didn’t even have a job. She stayed home all day. Spent time with me. Let me watch TV and slipped me Hershey’s kisses and glasses of milk during commercial breaks. I closed my mouth and stared at the paper. Hated this stranger.

“Do you want to work on your computer for a bit, and then return to this?”

“I want to watch TV.” The clock about the shelves showed that it was almost four. My mom would let me watch TV anytime after three.

The stranger frowned. “You don’t like TV anymore, Brant. It hurts your head, remember? Why don’t you work on your computer.” She pulled at my arm and I snatched away, her grip slipping off, the return of her hand harder, her nails digging into the soft skin in a way that hurt.

I didn’t know what she expected me to do with a pile of junk stretched out, a computer screen hooked to a chain of pieces. There was no computer there, just a jumbled mess of wires. The only computer I’d used was my father’s, which was simple, the first step being the large and easy-to-find power button. There was no power button there, and that only served to make me feel more stupid. I shook my head.

“Then we’re back to fractions,” she sighed. “Do these four pages now, no excuses, Brant.”

I looked up, away from the worn page that had been pushed and pulled between us until it had a small rip in the right corner. “I’m not BRANT!” I screamed, the anger pushing out of my throat like it had legs and arms and would fight to be heard.

The woman started, her head jerking back, and I saw a change in her eyes, a hesitation of sorts. A look I liked. I pushed away from the desk, standing, almost as tall as her, a growth spurt already putting me a head taller than my classmates. Giving me strength over others. Over this woman.

“Shush, Brant!” she scolded, regaining her footing and putting a hand on my shoulder, digging in her nails and trying to push me down, into the chair, the muscles in my legs fighting her attempt without struggles.

“I’M NOT BRANT!” I screamed and reached out. Shoved both hands into her chest, having a moment of adolescent pleasure at the forbidden feel of female br**sts, even if they were attached to an old woman. She fell, stumbling, her hand leaving my shoulder and waving wildly on its way down.

I moved closer, sitting on her stomach, like how Rowdy Roddy Piper had done to Hogan on TV a few weeks earlier. The move worked well, she struggled and yelled but went nowhere. Hulk had done an athletic spring jump that had thrown Roddy off and across the ring, but she only squirmed underneath me like an overanxious dog.

“Brant!” she yelled, hitting my chest and using the voice that my mother did when she was really serious about something.

“I’M NOT BRANT!” I swung with a fist, the way my father taught me, in our garage, against his baseball glove, my thumb safe, my wrist strong. Saw her head snap, her yells stopping as her hands flew up to protect her face, swing after swing breaking easily through the fluttering of her hands, her voice becoming a river of sobs, finally quieting by the time my hands tired.