Solis left the box open on the kitchen counter, "We don't talk about your brother enough." states Solis.
"I don't want to." says Hazy,
"Well we should." Adele crosses her arms over the table. "He's a rapist."
"A cultist.
"A murderer."
"And confused."
"Now how the hell is in confused, DANIEL!" Hazy exclaims. "I mean child toucher." he squints. "We don't talk about that enough."
"Why the fuck does anybody wanna talk about IT!" Hazy bangs the table with his fist. "I don't wanna think about it!"
"You were in jail." says Adele. "Gregory came into the house and said he would care of things in your place."
"I never told him shit!" he gawks at his wife. "That's what happened." she laments.
"And we don't talk about your parents--"
"Dead!" he snaps at Solis. "We don't talk about your parents but our parents," he gestures at himself and Adele. "Is here and your brother shot him. THEN your brother kills a little girl, defiles a young girl; my goddamn niece who ran off just to be trapped by a fucking bear spring and chewed up by damn dog!" I can see fury in Solis but he refuses to unleash it. I'm just hear listening.
"He rapes a child of God, murders another, and you go to jail." he puts a hand up, "Wait for this. I need to knock on wood for it." he knocks on the table. "That you escape from! For two muthafuckin' years!"
"Barnaby... where did you go..." Adele states softly.
Hazy pinches his hound nose. "Why are we talkin--"
"BECAUSE IT'S A GODDAMN HAND IN THE BOX!" he sits straight up.
"A little black girl's hand in a box under the floorboards of my mother's house that you moved with magic!"
"What about the magic you got--"
"Nigga! I got the magic because my damn body cut the fuck up!" Hazy shuts his eyes to Solis's yelling. "Can I ask about that?" I sound. "I ain't familiar about mangles."
"I wanna jack off some fucking time. All I got is thoughts!"
"I don't remember, I think I was sleep." says Adele. "And that's supposed to be peaceful but I'm just confused." her cow ears say lay down. "I'm a cow. I'm a woman." she frowns. "I've never been so ugly as if God is punishing me." she takes a breath.
"Adele, don't do that." Hazy says. "I'm a cow. I don't know why and God bless it all but my baby ain't got no feet!" and rivers start falling. "I still cook. I clean. I kiss my daughter to sleep. And I'm a fucking cow! She's not a turtle!" her voice brittle but loud. "She's my daughter! And I don't know who killed her! Or brought her back!"
"Adele..." Hazy holds her hand. She strikes his cheek and he whines. "What the fuck did you do!"
"Baby, I swear!"
"You're a fucking liar! You planned it!" Adele takes Hazy's neck and squeezes. "WAIT! SHIT!" I can't find space to separate her fingers. He's gagging. She takes his head. "ADELE LET GO!"
"I HATE YOU SO MUCH! YOU'RE A CRACKHEAD!
"ADELE!" Solis throws a pot her face. Hazy comes out the hold gasping. "WOMAN!"
"WHERE DID YOU GET IT!"
"I found it!" Hazy bellows. "I found the shit!"
"WHERE!"
He breathes and crosses his arms over the table. "WHERE BASTARD!"
"It's a family heirloom."
"Are you sick?" grimaces Solis. "An heirloom is like my mama giving her good recipe. You just said yo' mama gave you crack!"
"My mama was a crackhead and my daddy was a pimp. The two go together. One controls while the other provides."
"You mean take!" Solis gags. "You are sick. I hate I even guessed!"
"My daddy is a vampire. He had an agency!"
I roll my eyes. "Daddy I have a book."
"For God's sake, Lynndie!" Hazy fusses. Adele slaps him in back of his head. "You just said yo' mama was a hoe. And I'll be damned if you treat me or Lynn the same. I'll fucking kill ya." she seethes.
"I wouldn't do that to Lynn, Adele. If anything I gave her, her first gun."
"That's probably just the start of your bullshit." she looks hard at him. "She'll running with the gun and firing it in the air just like you used to!"
"Mama, I'm not dumb." I hear Lynndie. "He left a book in my room." she looks at the cover of a black book with a grey puzzle piece on the front cover. "I can read it but the other piece is missing." She flips it over revealing a brown puzzle piece that is a circle and triangle overlapping.
"Lynn give me that." says Solis. He looks at the book, "The Noponoc Vade Mecum?" he looks at the child. "He gave you this?"
"It's a book on ignorant beast. When God made angels he said, For he will order his angels to protect you wherever you go. They will hold you up with their hands so you won't even hurt your foot on a stone."
"What does that have to do with mangles?" I question.
She shrugs. "It's basically in the name. Man created the calf and made the mocks of God, such as the angels. Angels in the bible are described as they had a human likeness, but each had four faces."
Solis looks at his brother. "And you call her stupid."
Hazy just exhales. Lynndie goes on, "Cherubim have the face of an ox, a lion, an eagle, and man. Mangles, in the Vade Mecum are divided into four pieces. They could hold, they could walk, drink, and talk. But just like man, they were equal in the head. Forgetting their place."
"That's in the Vade Mecum?" I ask. "Yep..."
"You head arms, legs, a mouth, and a head." I say.
"Ironically, nobody does it right. They just get the head and random stuff cause that works..."
"And that's what you did!" shouts Adele. She starts beating his neck with her fist. "Goddamn it, woman!"
"You fucked us up!"
"I went in the damn church! Shit now, I'm dead!" he bolts out the chair. "I was gone, gone. I don't wanna be a king! I fucked up, Adele!"
"What...?"
Why am I here? That's right, his nasty brother killed a damn town. "What do you want me to do!" he flings his arms out beside him. "I fucked up! But at least I knew how to put you back together! I did that!" his voice quivers.
"We'll never get to heaven like this..." Lynndie mopes. I'm just a stranger I don't matter. "I had to give you a body!" his eyes shimmer pink and oice deepens. "You should be grateful!"
"Grateful!" Solis's eyes glow. "Wait! Wait!" I shout. "Before anybody start slinging blood across the room. What the fuck does the book say about mangles. What I mean is, if his brother is a damn ostrich. Is it important! If he made you this way--"
"He make me!" Adele roars. "My daddy made me!"
"I lifted you up!" he snarls at her. "You ungrateful bitch!"
"So you have a church!" I roll my eyes at this noise. Here we go again. "You have a fucking church!"
"Why don't they protect the house!" Adele yells. "The church is gone!"
Wait... "Is the chuch near Uikpoc."
"Uikpoc?" Solis stares at me. "The high road?"
"Yeah..."
He faces his brother, "What was you doing up there?"
"The jail was there, fool!" he cusses. Hazy averts all eyes. "I turned the jail into a church and cut some people up. The dirt is cursed."
"Why?" asks Adele. "Because..." Hazy mocks. "I put a thing in the dirt. UPSET. I thought I could make an IDOL." he crosses his arms.
"Make a fuckin--" Solis points at him. "That's heresy! You a heretic!"
"And!" he sneers. "What you finna do, lynch me like Jesus." he looks up for a minute. "The other one..."
"What the fuck you mean, 'the other one'"
"The fuck you mean, the 'other one'" he marches up to Hazy. "There is only one."
"Well now, we have two and I didn't know when I got in the game!"
"Hazy what the fuck did you do?" I allege.
He looks down, "I didn't know..."
"You turned yourself into a bitch..." Solis says slowly. "No, she sitting over there--" Solis seizes Hazy's collar and hoist him in the air. He pins him to the wall. "CUT!" the word comes out and Hazy's head is on the floor. Lynndie screams, I hurry and grab her out the room. "CUT! CUT! CUT!" I hear Solis. I put Lynndie in the bed. She clings to my clothes. "Hush!" I rub her back. "DADDY'S DEAD!" she bawls. "Lynn!" Solis comes to the door holding Hazy's head and leg.
"Give me the doll..."
I cast my eyes on Solis. "What are you doing?"
.
.
.
"You got a car?" he asked me, and I wasn't in a position to lie. I told him I did and then he went to the back and shouted fire. I don't have to pay off my car loan.
"Uncle Daniel..." Lynn grips Monique. "You wanted her to come back and now she will." he holds out his hand, and she hands him the doll, but Adele snatches her away. "This is stupid!"
"Adele!"
"It's just poison in poison on top of poison!" she yells. "How the hell did you fix anyhing, cuttin' up Barnaby!"
"Greg is next. Give me the damn doll!" He says the word 'Loose' and the doll drops out her hand. He picks it up and tells Lynndie to get her backpack. "What are you doing!" I say. My damn ride.
"We can't leave tracks, you said you had a motel."
What the fuck did I say that for? "You got a motel. You a vampire with clout?"
"Yeah..." I roll my neck. "What you want with that?" In my head this nigga is planning something against me. "Take Lynn and Adele to the motel!" he says through his teeth. "But uncle!"
"I heard from Willa before she died that it's something in the woods. Remaadaamun Woods, this is the realm. It's a native american enclave and Greg might be going to it."
"So you want me to take them back to the motel?" I flinch, the audacity. "Yes!" he says matter-of-factly. "Lynn needs food. Not people." Other people live over there. "I agree but also this child would like a whole family." I say.
"We can go together!" Lynndie hops. Adele lays her hands on her child's shoulder. "What about giving her some new legs?" Lynndie shakes her turtle feet. Solis stares at her toes and rolls his eyes. "Guess I could have grab some legs from the town..."
Lynndie gets her backpack and Adele gets the wheelbarrow and a potato sack. She gets knives, food, and extra gun. Lynndie takes her blanket, and a canister of water. Plus some candles.
This nigga set my car on fire. Now that I think about. I'm missing 20 dollars, some change, a map, and some tickets. We left the house around dusk. Lynndie rode in the wheelbarrow as we headed to Tanko Cartman.