TROUBL

The porch light went off. Final remnants of the gathering had driven off. And the street was numb. Under a crescent moon, Maurice eventually dragged himself to his car. Unbuttoned, his collared shirt revealed a stained white under shirt. He shut his car door and placed a beer in the drinking holder within its center console. He collected his keys, struggling to place the appropriate one in the car ignition. Following amounted seconds of fumble and frustrated breaths, an unstable hand released the car from a parallel position, jolting the vehicle behind it. Signs for stopping were ignored and traffic lights were forgotten as he traveled home. Maurice pulled into a park, barely missing a curb that aligned the avenue. He stopped the engine’s horses and closed his eyes.

“Where you goin’?” Jacob asked.
“Ran out,” Rip answered and walked away.
“Oh, a’ight,” he watched Rip’s back. It was a bit pass Night’s middle. The corner stores were latching its gates. Less people were outdoors, and fewer vehicles moved by. “‘Nough of this,” Jacob thought to himself. Reaching in the car, he put a package in his palms, and then crossed to another corner.
“Black and mild,” he requested through a protective glass. A bearded man reached to the side of himself. On the counter, a complete carton of Jacob’s preference was in a plain view. “Giv’ me two.” The man grabbed another and slid it to Jacob, standing amongst gas station lighting. He unwrapped one and placed it in his lips. He lit it and took up th street, leaving a train of smoke. Jacob saw Maurice’s car in the driveway when he got home. His feet stepped beyond it and ascended the two steps that led to the door. Fried eggs were in Jacob’s nostrils as he went across the threshold. He went to the kitchen, checking it to make certain appliances were closed down. Lights were not off, but no bodies occupied the living room space.
A thin layer of light snuck out into the dim hallway. Going through it, Jacob knocked as he pressed his bedroom door. Jason was in fron of the computer, passing the time with solitaire. “He here?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been sleep,” Jason answered, still paying attention to the screen.
“All you do is sleep.”
“Ain’t nothin’ else to do.”

Maurice’s foot rolled when he removed his sleepy self from the car. His head swiveled in a sluggish manner. His eyes wandered in wonder as he went indoors. Furniture spun. He had to lean his head against the wall when he went to his bedroom. His sons’ room was open all of its way. “What ya’ll doin’?” he stumbled over his tongue. The rustle of Jacob misplacing clothes from himself and Jason’s mouse replaced any answer.
Moving towards the screen, Maurice took a spot above Jason’s shoulder. “Here we go,” Jacob said to himself. He turned his back to them, sliding the closet in order to hang his coat. A vibration through sound startled him. It was as if two palms were in applause. Jason fidgeted in his seat. A cascade of pain rolled from his pupils.
“What you doin’? What if I hit you like that?” Jacob spoke in an inquisitive agitation.
Laughing gently, “Shut up,” Maurice said as he slapped Jason’s head with three quick and dense jabs. “Stop cryin’.”
“Wha’ the fuck? That shit ain’t cool,” Jacob stepped between his father and brother.
“Stop cussin’.”
“Fuck you. You need to leave. All you do is start shit.” Jacob paused and looked at Jason, quiet, in his seat.
“You do shit for sake of doin’ shit. Grow up.”
“What? You bigger than me now?” Maurice wrapped his hand around Jacob’s forearm, tugging him violently.
Jacob took back his arm. “Just ’cause you big…” before his sentence’s end, Maurice threw a right-handed blow into Jacob’s left rib cages. His side contorted around it, taking him back into the desk. Maurice wavered across the hall, smiling and digging into his pockets with intoxicated hands.

The doorbell rang. “Who is it?” Jacob rose from the burgundy chair. “Who is it?” he said once more for amusement.
“Open the door,” Grace’s hand jiggled the door knob with a particular assertion. “It’s Momma.”
Jacob unlocked the door. Grace was smiling but her eyes sagged. Her daily uniform was nice around her, pressed in precision on Wednesday morning’s three o’clock hand. Under the overpass created by Jacob’s arm pressing against the front door, Grace went to the bathroom and Jacob reset in his chair. His eyes were one-half drooping at a random television program. They shut themselves for an instant. Jacob’s head nodded. He awoke and decided to join his mattress on the bunk.
Soap and a towel had washed her face. A tight, rippling material made the neckline and wrist line of her mandatory coat, and a red patch was sewn over both shoulders, staying bright against the coat’s overall grayness. She laid it over a chair that she had taken from the kitchen table’s underside and stationed it in front of the heater. Black footwear was taken off. Hair was unpinned from a bun. And a tie-like neck choker was untied, showing out of Grace’s lapel of her shirt. She took a load off, and then exhausted a bulky sigh. In her thought, “Dag.” Standing, she walked herself towards the thermostat. The red line marking degree setting was stopped halfway in between seventy and eighty. She took up her seat again and nodded off into the warming heat.

“Mom? Mom?” Her eyelid fluttered. “Mom? Get up,” Jacob rocked Grace’s right shoulder. “Get up.”
“What time is it?”
“Seven.”
Widening eyes and body, Grace rushed from her seat. Jacob carried the chair that she had slept in into the kitchen. He looked in the refrigerator. Milk in spoiled lumps clung to a plastic gallon container. Colored water sugar can lay in the farthest corner, close to the tiny bulb. Bread, eggs, and day archaic chicken dumpling all took their respective places. An unsuprised dissatisfaction went with Jacob to the burgundy chair, waiting for Jason to ready himself.
Without an iron, Grace put a dark and lengthy skirt on. After she stocked her legs with stockings, her face looked at itself in the mirror while it looked at hands apply women’s facial adornment. She rubbed rose colored lipstick on and stuck her feet in black high heels prior to taking a white blousse out her section of the closet. “If you want a ride, come on,” she said pacing to the front door.
“We catchin’ the bus.”
“Okay, see ya’ll later tonight,” a slammed screen door followed her.
“Hurry up.” Nightclothes were on Jason. Cold was in the corner of his eyes. “The bus gon’ be here,” Jacob yelled. Jason continued to take his time. Time read a half hour beyond the seventh. From his chair, Jacob heard the bathroom door crack. His feet began to follow. A second guess loomed over, and it returned him to his sitting. Jason came through the living room. “Let’s go.”
“‘Bout time. Got you keys?”
“Yeah,” he replied while rummaging through his pockets. “Yeah, I got ‘em.”
Because of the cool morning, their breaths came before every step on their way. When Jacob bent his path around the corner bend, the bus was arriving. He and his feet took off, being irresponsible about the oncoming traffic. Jacob ran across the avenue and stood in front of the parting bus. “I see you later,” he gave his brother a handshake. Jason rose through the bus’ automatic door and the engine groaned through the air, coming even after two complete blocks.
“What’s up?”
“Shit,” Jacob replied. Rip was posting at the bus stop, backing his back against the sign. The two turned the corner. “What hap’ned?”
“Las’ night?” Rip returned with another question.
“Yeah, I lef’ after a hour. Shit start slowin’ up.”
“For real?”
“Yeah…” Jacob inhaled a cigar he had just lit, “and you know me.”
“Yeah, lazy.”
“Fuck you,” he flexed his mid-finger.

On the toilet bowl, Maurice’s head hung in a throb. Cigarette fog grew to the overhead fan. His toes, sweating, left behind outlines when he took them place to place across the bathroom tiling. Long pulls from his single dragged his state into an uncertain stupor. Toilet flushed, taking the butt of the cigarette into the pipes.
He rotated the sink dial. He faced the face that reflected in the mirror. Dots of sweat rose from beneath his forehead’s skin, and some rolled to his nose’s bridge. Surfacing more and more, Maurice held his upper body over the sink. Food from the previous night spilled from his throat. It looked like a delicate red. He scooped water to his mouth and sent in tumbling against his cheeks, tongue, and teeth. Specs of rotten insides swam in the now clogged drain, and saliva stained the chin staying within the mirror.

Tracing moving faces, Jacob’s elbow elbowed Rip. His crown twisted. “What?” Rip was irritated after Jacob threw his concentration from a woman’s passing behind. Jacob pointed their direction to the signal light. Third in file amidst fumes of a car in front, a mid-aged female made herself patient. Her elbow was against her vehicle’s window. Every now and again, her mouth spoke at two children in the backseat. They directed themselves in child play, pouncing and slapping one another. Seh set her untwined, false braids on the unoccupied passenger chair and placed her hands on the dusty dashboard. A green box of smokes was one-hald unpacked. She put the car lighter next to one and waited for the augmenting light.
“Bet she got three different daddies,” Jacob laughed. He looked at his friend who was in a daze. He wanted to ask about Rip’s matter, but he chose to let it pass. Jacob raised his head at the sky and a flame to the cigar that he had taken out. Breathing in, he looked once again at Rip then released inhale from his lungs.
Jason came in disrobing himself of backpack and coat. Messy, his items hit the carpet together and remained similarly in door’s walkway. He stepped over them, leaving the screen door not absolutely shut and the door absolutely open. Quick into the bathroom, he relieved himself. He zipped his pants. He cleansed his hands. Residue of Maurice’s insides crusted near the sind drain. Not sure of it, Jason scraped it away with his nails. He looked into his parent’s room when he parted, noticing Maurice’s face first into a pillow. Over washed black jeans were on his legs. One shoe was dangling off his heel; the other had fallen, landing sole first on the carpet. His left arm limped over the bed edge. And muffled snores slept in the room.
Jason closed Maurice’s door. When he got to his belongings, Sun filtered through the screen, and a warm breeze flew by the porch. He hung his backpack over a single shoulder and gathered his coat into his arms. Ease came over him. Jason took himself to the kitchen, lounging his belongings on its table. He took out a chair, but a second thought forced him to move. He turned on the television and viewed it from the burgundy chair.