Brightside, Mark Tullius [philippa perry book .TXT] 📗

I WAS FIVE, TWO DAYS after I’d been lost in the snow, my cheeks burnt and basted with butter. Mom took me to church wearing her tightest red dress, the one that pushed her boobs up, the thin black bra straps peeking out from the shoulders.

Dad never went to church with us. “No, I think I’m going to pass,” he’d say. “Maybe I’ll go later.” But he never went anywhere with large groups. I didn’t understand why.

Mom opened the church door super slow, loving the loud creak that made almost everyone turn around and look. Especially the men.

All I wanted was to not be noticed, embarrassed of my cheeks. Not Mom. She wasn’t there to blend. She was there to be coveted so she got her hips swinging back and forth even further.

Teenage boys sat up straighter. Men pretended they were looking at the sorry little kid behind her. Women shook their heads.

When we got to the third row, Mom did something with her hand, touching her face once, her chest three times. The row was full. No one moved, just pretended they didn’t see Mom standing there in her blood of Christ red dress, the black beneath.

Mom squeezed in, pulled me beside her, my shoulder rubbing her arm, the closest we’d been in a while. The bench was harder than anything I’d sat on, the reason I thought so many people were on their knees.

Mom saw me looking at the exit and pointed down by my feet. She whispered, “Pray for your sins.”

I got down, glad to be further away from her perfume and thoughts. But I heard the others, all the scary shit they were thinking. I heard them pray for the dying, the dead, for a piece of my mom’s ass, for forgiveness of sins, for winning the damn lottery, swearing they’d donate some. Some guys were thinking about sex or their fantasy football teams. A teenager thought I was lucky I got to suck on Mom’s tits.

I blocked the voices by doing my own thinking, wondering what a sin was, figuring I probably had a bunch of them, way more than my share. I wasn’t sure how to pray, but guessed it was like wishing, just another thing that wouldn’t come true.

Mom said that was enough and pulled me back towards the people behind me, all their thoughts filling my head, making me want to smash it.

I pressed my hands to my eyes to help quiet the voices. Especially Mom who was thinking about the man in front of us, the one with two kids, but no wife.

My cheeks still stung when I pushed on them. Mom hit my arm. I put my hands back on my lap and there were huge flakes of skin sticking to my fingers.

I rubbed my hand on my pants then touched my face to see if there was more. Every time my hand came down, more pieces came with it, each one bigger than the one before. My cheeks were shedding skin. I prayed my whole body would do that. Just rub away. The whole thing.

I kept trying until Mom saw the mess covering my pants. She grabbed my hand, jerked it away from my face, and squeezed it, hard. She looked right at me, at the big patches under each eye. “I can’t take you anywhere,” she said.

“I’m sorry.”

Mom didn’t hear me. She was too busy pushing me out of the pew, saying excuse me as we stormed out, some people thinking what a terrible mother dragging her diseased son.

* * *

WHEN I STEPPED OUT onto the Square, I kept thinking about Mom, Krystal, their tits and asses. That’s what I was thinking when I almost bumped into Wayne King.  His eyes smiling above all that beard, spilling over his orange jumpsuit.

Mommy and your girlfriend...fucking nice.

Wayne leaned on his snow shovel, his eyes never leaving me, not even when the guard took notice, started walking past the dozen other people in jumpsuits. The people who’d snapped long before Brightside. They’d killed people, robbed banks, tortured. Everyone’s thoughts infected their brains, turned them into savages.

Most Brightsiders cheated. They scammed, got women into the sack, drained a guy’s life savings. Some just used it to win at charades.

Nothing violent.

Not like the ones in orange. The only people here kept behind bars, allowed to work outside if they were good. Normal prisons couldn’t hold them. They always found a way out.

Wayne knew the Brightside guard was coming, already telling him to get back to work.

At just four feet away, I heard Wayne’s thoughts loud and clear. That I looked like his favorite victim. The one he gutted real good and scooped out the insides. Turned the belly into his outhouse. The one he filled up then left for the bears.

The victim had looked at him wrong. Thought he needed a bath. That’s the kind of sick fuck Wayne was.

Wayne said, “We should find some time to talk more about your mom.”

The guard ran up. “We have a problem, King?”

“No problem at all, sir.” Wayne went back to shoveling snow. He whistled to the image of my mom and Krystal’s naked bodies rolling around on the bed.

I tried not to run back to my place, tried to get Wayne’s sick thoughts out of my head. Everything was spinning, my head, stomach. I couldn’t breathe. I’d heard enough twisted shit in my life to fill a canyon. People weren’t as innocent as we’re led to believe. They think about horrifying acts. But they’re just thoughts, fleeting desires. Wayne King followed through.

That image of Mom and Krystal knocking around my brain. I’d never thought of Mom that way. Other men had. So many others. Did I crave that attention? Is that why I chose the women I did?

My thoughts were interrupted by the strangest thing: a present at my door. A medium box wrapped so poorly I assumed it was from Danny. Then I noticed it’d been opened and rewrapped. Brightside inspected every gift from the outside.

This was from my dad.

CHAPTER SIX

DAY 100 AND I’M POURING bleach. I have no idea if it’s covering the smell. I’ve been inhaling it too long, even with the shirt wrapped around my mouth. There’s just so much blood, all the little hunks of flesh. On the ceiling, the floor. I just need this to buy us some time in case they come looking.

Two air fresheners are on that table. I plug the first one in beside the dresser. Can’t even glance at the closet when I pass by on my way to the bathroom.

The closet. The fucking closet...

I take a deep breath, clear out the bad thoughts. I get in the shower. Scrub so hard I think I’m going to peel off my skin like that stupid kid in church. Soon, everything is wiped, as good as it’s going to get. My watch says I have ten minutes to make it to work. The last day I’ll ever step foot in that place.

My shirt’s hanging on the chair. Blood-free. I put it on, ignore all the cracks overhead, and step in front of the full-length mirror. Need to make sure I don’t look like someone who just stepped out of a slaughterhouse.

My shoes are beat up but have enough tread to make it through the snow, up the hillside. My wrinkle-free khakis aren’t slacks, but they’re ironed. My pearl-white button-down with its crisp collar the only thing making me feel like the salesman I used to be. The guy I’m really going to have to be today to pull this off.

I check the contents of my bag: sunglasses, iPod, my oversized headphones. Necessities for surviving Brightside.

I look back at the closet. If anyone comes in here, we’re screwed. I’ve been running through the plan in my head, but every time it ends badly, so fucked up it makes me think I should just grab the shotgun now.

But I still have to come back.

I head for the door. The knob is cold. Nothing compared to the little world on the other side, but I’m going to face it. Day 100. Ready or not.

My beat up shoes crunch two pieces of broken gifts on the floor. So many pieces I had to puzzle together. What Dad really wanted. My chance to get out.

To think it all started with that fucking fish.

* * *

I DON’T REMEMBER HOW long I sat on my bed with Dad’s gift on Day 44. Fingering the re-taped paper, that sad little bow mashed down and frayed. He’d never wrapped anything when I was a kid. Just handed me the Rite-Aid bag, the contents visible through the cheap, white plastic.

I’d been in Brightside a month and a half and my parents hadn’t written, hadn’t called, so seeing this gift filled me with dread. My father loved to lecture. I pictured some hand-carved sign that read, “Told You So!”

Finally, I unwrapped it. Tore off the paper. That stupid fish staring at me, head twisted to the left, that tiny red button telling me to press it. I did, and Billy Bass sang, “Take Me to the River.” Tail flapping, mouth opening and closing to Al Green’s words.

My father wasn’t known for practical jokes. I’d only seen him laugh a few times as a kid. He never bought me anything fun to play with, unless it had to do with hunting or fishing, but even then, he lectured me on responsibility and sucked all the fun right out of it. We went on a few fishing trips to the Black River in Ohio. Father-son weekends because Mom said it’d be good for us. I knew it was just so she could have men sleep over.

* * *

I WAS SEVEN THE FIRST time I saw a real fish. Dad dressed the part in full-length waders and a black vest with pockets so he could stay in the middle of the river all day. I wished he would have.

Dad had just reeled in a fish the size of my forearm, brought it to the bank. He pointed at the flopping flounder. “See that, Joe? Look at it.”

“What’s it doing?”

Dad took off his hat to wipe his forehead. He knelt down beside me and put his hand on my shoulder. “Its finale.”

Even though Dad never got this close, all I could think about was the fish. I knew fish couldn’t talk like Billy Bass, but this one was screaming, trying to snap its spine. I told Dad, “Put it back.”

“No.”

“PUT IT BACK IN THE WATER!”

The fish flailed and Dad caught it in mid-air. He put its wriggling belly a few inches from my face. “You see that hook? Look, son, I want you to see this.”

“I don’t wanna.”

“Open your eyes,” Dad said.