Too Much Love

A ten-year old boy struggles in a tiny community in rural West Virginia.

David heard his dad banging his black coal boots against the underpinned tin of the trailer. Usually, if sleep had incapacitated him to the fullest extent, the trademark boot banging was his alarm clock on Saturdays. On most mornings, his dad’s whistling would wake him. Fresh from work, he would whistle his way to the rabbit pin and feed the bunnies beneath the wide-leaf maple tree – pellets that differed very little from those that exited from the critters after a hefty meal - then the cheerful whistling made its way to the wooden steps at the main entrance to the trailer, where the boot ritual began. In most days of David’s life, little variation existed for this pattern to change, but this morning was different.

His dad wasn’t whistling.

The door opened normally and shut with care and the boy heard the boots settle against the floor by the door.

“Pearl, I’m hungry,” the miner stated to a lump directly at his end of the hall beside the door where he now stood. He heard his mother shift about until her soft feet slapped quietly against the floor and hunted (without the benefit of eyes) the slippers she knew were below somewhere. When she found them, she rose and shuffled them toward the black lump with white eyes at the door. The black lump was removing his socks, also sooty with coal dust, revealing the whitest part of his anatomy at present; but he rose toward his wife and lightly kissed her on the cheek as she passed by on her way to the kitchen. David quickly turned toward the door opening of the shared bedroom (his brother only awoke to extreme acts of God), propping his head on the pillow just high enough to see past his brother’s head into the hallway. He eased his eye open just enough to look at his mother passing and nearly giggled when he saw the black mouth print on her cheek.

His dad had moved to the bathroom now and was climbing into the shower. Cara’s room was between his room and the bathroom, but as is the case with most cracker box homes, the walls only hindered the optical and never the auditory aspect of life. Every noise seemed to be accentuated by ten thousand. David lived here relying on those noises to anticipate the household temperature, knowing when to fake sleep for the sake of saving him a few skirmishes…all of which he lost eventually with extreme consequences, causing everything in David’s life seemed to be multiplied by ten thousand.

“Yesterday…all my troubles seemed so far away…”

His dad was singing now, and on the periphery, that was good. When his father was in a reflective mood, he sang “Yesterday” with a tone of sadness that satisfied his boy with the thought that human existed under the mounds of coal dust that eventually swirled down the drain and made its way to the visible cess pool in the midst of the yard. The container designed to care for the waste had long been dissolved, creating the largest eyesore in the seven-acre yard.

(He’s reflecting about something,) David thought quietly to himself, almost afraid that the paper thin walls of the trailer would somehow betray his thoughts to its inhabitants. (That means he’s hovering somewhere between Jekyll and Hyde.)

The only purpose for the thoughts at all was about whether or not he would brave the climate outside of this semi-sanctuary. His dad was shaving now, humming slightly. The noises were not overt, so David kept the bed with caution.

Meanwhile, his mother had begun to cook his Dad’s regular regiment of food for the typical weekday morning. She would prepare him four eggs, a few pieces of bacon, a couple of pieces of toast with butter and strawberry jam, and a whole pot of coffee. His mother was quiet when she moved about her tasks, at times pausing to do exactly what her son had learned from her – to listen. Her inborn sadness was one reason David had any care at all about his mother.

His dad had finished and was making his way down the hall toward the living room and kitchen, so David flattened the pillow as much as possible to hide behind his brother’s naturally larger frame, holding his breath so tightly that not even an eyelash would move. He thought it best not to draw an early bid for warfare so early in the morning, and if he played his cards right, his dad would be in bed and asleep long before the boy would rise and try to quickly get outside without any incident until 4:00PM that evening, which was the time his father automatically resurrected.

The chair leg scraped across the floor and his dad sat down. David’s curse was the ability to see everything going on in these surrounding rooms as if he were watching a television program being broadcast against the dingy yellow-white ceiling. He saw his mother carefully set both plate of breakfast and steaming cup of coffee before his father, who launched immediately into the meal as if he had had nothing to eat the entire night. He heard his mother sit wearily into a chair across the table with her own cup of brown fluid, lightened with milk, and she held a lit Winston cigarette. He heard three quick pats into the plate, which would be a piece of toast being jabbed into the soft yellow yolk of a runny egg…and the subsequent stretch of clothing as a muscular arm bent the daub toward the confines of his mouth.

The breakfast was quick, and the conversation painstakingly non-existent.

(I wish he would say something,) David thought softly. (At least when he’s talking I know what’s on his mind.)

When his father spoke, he almost immediately retracted the inward statement:

“One of the rabbits is dead.”

Horror began to edge into the decade-old boy’s mind.

(Oh, God…please…don’t let it be Peter…pleeeease, God!)

“What happened to it, you reckon?” asked his mother, easily neglecting the need for the name of a simple rabbit.

Silence seemed to rule for the next half minute between loud slurps of coffee.

“It was swole around the neck. Look like it been choked,” his father commented, right before a cautionary slurp of coffee.

David’s heart beat very quickly and painfully. It was Peter…his rabbit. Even without the benefit of the title he knew. He had killed his own pet.

“Most likely was the bastard that did it,” his mother said coldly, with edge in her voice. He knew that she was being empowered for a coming conflict.

(You deserve it too…you little bastard! You killed your own pet!)

David was already in tears, but he knew that the walls would no longer hide him.

“Get up, you son of a bitch. I know you’re not asleep.”

David rose, already in his summer shorts, reaching for a slightly soiled horizontally striped shirt and pulling it on, aiding the wiping of his tears. That first step toward that doorway was the heaviest, because it meant that he was on his way to face the firing squad, and with each subsequent step beyond its safety, he grew infinitely smaller, until he appeared at the head of the table between his parents as small as the eye of a needle. He didn’t bother looking into either set of eyes, because it wouldn’t matter. The end result would always be the same.

“What happened, son?” asked his dad. The voice surprisingly wasn’t as edged as he had suspected. He tried to answer, but as hard as he could think, not a single thought would come to mind…so he supplied the usual answer for any inquiry into his wrongdoing.

“I don’t know.”

His mother would speak next…he knew it…even before the words burst forth.

“Oh, don’t give us that shit! You choked it to death, didn’t you?”

Still he had no answer. If she would have asked something simple, like the state capital of West Virginia (Charleston!)…or the state’s bird (cardinal!), he would have readily obliged her. He didn’t choke the rabbit to death…not intentionally…but he knew that he was the one that was the cause of death.

“Answer me!” his mother shouted. “You choked the rabbit to death and laid him back in that cage, didn’t you?”

“No, ma’am,” he answered weakly…and it was the truth…he had not put that rabbit back into the cage dead. It was alive and well…even nibbling at the artificial pellets in the pie tin in the corner.

“You may have put that thing back in there alive, but you killed it, you son of a bitch,” his mother sneered, snatching his inner-most thoughts away from him.

David started crying softly. He felt the weight of his dad’s arm rest on his shoulder and nearly flinched…but resisted that urge.

“Why don’t you go bury him, son? I hafta go get some sleep. I warned you it might happen.”

The boy found the door quickly, crying so hard now that he was no longer able to see. He tripped on the second step down and fell with a slam to the ground, but it didn’t hurt anything like the pain twisting and skewering his heart.

(My Peter…gone! My very own rabbit…and I killed it!)

His dad had given him the rabbit over a month ago, and had taught him how to care for it. He took the boy to every weed patch in the yard that had fit fresh greens for open, watchful feeding.

“You musn’t ever leave Peter alone. You gotta stay with him or the dogs’ll maul ‘em. You hafta feed ‘em ever day or else he’ll die. Oh…and you can’t hold him too tight…or else his neck’ll swell and he’ll die.”

His father had told him everything he needed to do in order to care for the pet. It was true…he knew better.

Yesterday was hard on him though.

Tommy had cornered him at school…the last day no less…and presented David’s bloodied face as a reminder that when school started in the fall…no one dare cross him or think that they did enough hay work to be as strong as he was. Jed Maury only laughed and told Tommy that even geeky Manchester (who never would raise a paw to hurt anyone…and who no one would want to mess with on account that his daddy was big money) could produce similar results. They all had a good laugh. Everyone except Tracy Reynolds…and she was the crème de la crème of class dweebs. Even her sorrowful, apologizing stare agitated him to cry harder, causing him to hate her even more.

(No matter where I go…who I’m around…it’s always the same. Don’t no body love me. No one.)

The words were as cold as the rabbit, which he drew tenderly from the box, much to the delight of the two survivors who had been sharing the cramped space with a corpse going on six hours. David slipped the rabbit into a trash bag, which he had obtained from the shed…along with the shovel…and headed toward the swamp bottom to find a good resting place for Peter. The grass was high in the swampy portion of the property, because the Gravely mower would dig into the soft, wet soil and bog down to uselessness if the machine trespassed too far. He walked through the thick cutting grass in his bare feet, cursing himself for not remembering to put shoes on, but knowing there would be no return trip to the house until his errand was done.

David straggled through the high grass, eventually losing his way, but happening upon a small cleared place with minimal weedage.

(This is it,) he thought, as he lowered the rabbit’s dead weight to the side, instantly parting grass in a neat circle. (Don’t want no grass growing over Peter.)

He pushed the spade into the soggy ground about a half a foot, and then he pulled against the handle backward, causing a sloppy, sucking sound to issue wetly from the clod. His mind was only on Peter and yesterday.

He had come home after the fight with Tommy and had run straight to the rabbit pen to see his pet. David had carefully removed the straggling creature from his prison and brought him to the greenest and most lush portion in the yard and set him to nibble gently among clover. Gently he stroked the pet, who seemed more interested in the green life before him than the hidden woes of the child who tended him. David eventually stopped and laid prostrate face up toward the clouds in the bluest of skies. At times, he wished he were able to ascend to such places, high enough to be out of everyone’s way for good.

Prissy barked loudly at Peter…and the rabbit began to run.

David had forgotten about the dog and his father’s instructions to pen his mother’s pet in the shed before he let the rabbit out to feed. He jumped quickly to his feet, following the flight of both creatures for ever…in what seemed to be an endless circle. Finally, Prissy had Peter pinned between the corner of the house and the shed, which joined hard at the corners with but a shotgun barrel’s space between. Peter was out of breath and trembling. Prissy was a step away from a good meal.

David’s foot caught Prissy’s underbelly hard and the dog’s squeal sounded almost like his mother’s (like after his Dad would have his way with her after one of their patent quarrels and words were no longer the criteria for winning). The dog ran away howling in intermittent yelps of temporary pain.

David fell toward Peter and grabbed his warmth to him, the fur resting comfortably against his formerly worried cheek. He held him tightly for a long time…until he felt Peter’s claws digging at his shirt to be free…and he loosened his hold while rising to carry the rabbit to safety.

"It’s okay, Peter," he had called softly, "Everything is gonna be alright."

Except it wasn’t. He had loved Peter way too much.

(Clink)

The shovel found something hard below. He had lost track of time in thought but had unconsciously dug a foot and a half into the swamp. Now the shovel refused to go any further. The boy absent mindedly placed his heel onto the shovel’s top and rammed it forcefully into the ground…meeting with the same clink as before…as well as the deep pain of a quickly forming bruise.

David sat down immediately, rocking his foot close to him, hoping that the comfort of the motion would be enough to drive the pain away…but to no avail. Finally, David crept on his boyish knees toward the hole, thinking that he had found a treasure that could make him rich and eventually send him to a new place where people didn’t have to hurt other people and rabbit’s necks were made of steel and could never die.

What he found was a cold bloody rock.

He recognized the object almost immediately after he wiped the remainder of the wet soil away…and it weighed upon his heart so heavily that it nearly stopped.

He had held that rock before…and as he pulled it from the hole, he gasped at the litter of white below.

The white was the bones of nine two-week old pups that Prissy had given birth to more than a year ago.

(I forgot all about it,) David whispered. (How could I forget that?)

*************************************************

One year ago, two weeks after the pups were born his mother had asked Cary and David to carry the pups to edge of the swamp, kill, and bury them. The boys had been obedient…gathering them together and placing them in a five gallon bucket. After Cary had grabbed the shovel they set off into the swamp, eventually coming to the place where David stood now, but for awhile…neither of them did anything.

“We ought to kill ‘em, first,” Cary had said, matter-of-factly.

David said nothing.

“I’ll tell you what. You kill the first one…then I’ll kill one…and we can take turns.”

David stood quietly, looking away.

“I ain’t killin’ these things all by myself! You have to help!”

David turned to his brother and finally spoke:

“We don’t have to do no killin’. I won’t kill ‘em. You can smash every last one of them to bits if you want…but I won’t touch ‘em…and you shouldn’t either.”

Cary bit his lower lip, reflecting on his kid brother’s words.

“Let’s go talk it over with Mom.”

“Okay.”

The two of them trekked back to the house and found their mother in the kitchen, sorting pinto beans into an old green strainer.

“You boys killed them things, yet?”

“We can’t do it, ma. We just can’t.”

Their mother stared at the pair, recognizing sympathy for only a brief moment before lying to them:

“Your daddy told me to tell you two to do it. Now…do it.”

Cary bit his lip, and David loved him hard at that time…for seeing through the lie.

“You reckon we ought to carry the bitch down to the hole and bash her over the head, ma?” Cary said it without a single flinch and as cold as Cranberry River in Richwood in winter.

The woman was stunned at the ten year old’s words and for awhile she said nothing, choosing in the end to believe the words were never spoken.

“What did you say, Cary Loyd?”

“I said…you reckon I ought to carry the bitch down and kill her too. All she’s gonna do is give birth to more just like them…and I’ll only do your killin’ for you once, mom…and then that’s it.”

His mother’s lips had begun to quiver.

“You get down there and do what yer told, you bastard! Then we’ll see to that mouth with some soap when you get done.”

Cary wheeled around and walked down the steps with David tagging along behind close. His steps were deliberate and hard…like the new lines etched on his face…almost cadence-like.

“Watcha gonna do, Cary?” David asked, before they ever made it to the high grass.

Cary whirled quickly on his brother, shoving him hard to the ground and shouting, “You stay right there and don’t move!”

David heard him wade the high grass…and after a moment of silence…he saw the heavy rock levitate above the tall hollow reeds…before descending again and again. There were times when the boy could not tell his brother’s crying apart from the squeals of the dying pups. Finally…it was only Cary’s sobs that he heard as nine distant thuds echoed from the deep hole…followed by one final loud thud as the older brother sealed the family beneath the red-stained rock…

*************************************************

…the one in his hand now. He had uncovered something that had no right to be remembered. David sighed, his breath weighing ten thousand times heavier than his scrawny body weight.

He pitched the rock to the side and buried the rabbit on top of the pups.

*************************************************

Cary felt an added weight to the bed and looked toward the figure beside him with dimmed eyes, full of sleep. After rubbing away the night, he saw his brother looking at him strangely.

He looked at the weight on the bed. It was a rock with dark-stained edges.

“You a rock collector, now?” Cary asked smartly.

The younger brother said nothing, but simply bowed his head and fell on his knees toward the sleeping place. His face buried into the edge of the bed and his hands rested at either side of his ears.

“Take the rock and smash my brains out,” his brother requested, faintly muzzled by the mattress.

Cary shook his head in a gesture of insanity, looking stupidly at his brother.

“Wad you say?”

“I said…take the rock and smash my brains out…”

This time, as David spilled his words, he turned his face toward Cary, full of tears and the seriousness of a face too old for a body so small.

“Please…” begged the boy, fresh wetness erupting in huge drops from his eyelids.

“Please…”

Cary swept the boy into his arms…something he had never done in his lifetime before that moment. He held and rocked David as lovingly as any mother had ever held her newborn baby and whispered, “Now, now…there’s to be no more killin’”

The younger boy broke into fresh sobs at the tender expression.

“Tighter,” he whispered, just loud enough not to be a whisper.

Cary constricted his arms slightly.

“Tighter,” David said in a whisper, hiccupping and slightly sobbing.

Cary obliged a little more.

David brought his mouth to Cary’s ear and slightly breathed:

“Tighter.”

The wrongness of the boy’s last words seized Cary with sudden repulsion. He pulled at his brother’s gangly arms until they crumpled into his own frail lap and shoved him forcefully toward the bottom of the bed. The boy slid off the bed and landed with a thump at the bottom in the floor…thankfully out of sight.

For a while, nothing was said. Cary only stared at the bloody rock.

“You should have hit me in the head with it,” came a disembodied voice from nowhere.

“You should have hit me in the head with that rock.”