Maurice Broaddus - King's War

"You have some control issues. If any of this meant so much to you, you shouldn't have thrown it away."

The legs danced about as the owner swatted him with the broom. Merle tumbled out, an arm full of containers clutched to his chest with dirty fingernails. A black raincoat draped about him like a cloak. Unwinking, Merle had a way of looking about at the world with the curiosity of a child inspecting a new toy. His craggily auburn beard came out at all angles. A bird's nest of hair retreated from his bald spot, capped by his aluminum foil hat. His slate gray eyes — big and round, yet knowing and without innocence — cast about, but without spying Lady G.

"Go on!" The owner yelled as if to a pestful cat.

Not that Lady G much blamed the man for chasing Merle out of his trash bin. She once knew a meth head who went through people's garbage searching for canceled checks. Or she snatched bills out of people's mailboxes. She would wash the checks and then make them out to herself for hundreds of dollars.

"I eat here twice a week. It's a good time, right before the garbage truck comes. My best luck is right after the lunch rush. You can't deny a man his fried chicken. Chicken!" Merle waved a chicken leg in the air in mad triumph, other boxes tucked under his other arm. Merle cocked his head at her, quizzical, like an owl befuddled by the sight before him, then wandered off, distracted by whatever internal song that called him.

Despite the warming temperatures, Lady G dressed in layers. A thermal shirt under a T-shirt, swathed in a black hoody. Nothing form fitting as to hide her shape. She chewed on her index finger, which protruded from her fingerless gloves. Acne bumps flared along her forehead, red and swollen against her toffee-colored skin. Lady G's stomach fluttered with unease. She couldn't quite catch her breath. She didn't know what kind of reception to expect from him. And she didn't want to admit her sheer terror. Isolating herself, she rarely left the confines of her room at Big Momma's, the woman who took her in when she was homeless. Lady G rarely met her eyes these days. All of her old haunts filled her with sadness. Her life was a maelstrom of hurt. And shame. Grief flayed her. She searched, hoped, for someone to confide in, who could make things clear for her, but King was no longer there.

Lady G barely kept pace with Merle's crazed lope, following him past the Flackville building to the small stretch of woods behind it. The stand of trees grew at odd angles, a small pool of shadows signaling the entrance. A sign caught her attention: "Warning: No Trespasing! This is Merle's camp. Anounce yurself."

"I see my prayer for noble weather has not been answered." Merle hunched over a Styrofoam container of tossed-out barbecue tips.

"I have a surprise for you."

"My dear, I don't think I can survive another one of your surprises. You are a chimp with a nuke."

"I…" Lady G held out a box of caramel-filled ice cream drumsticks. Part of her hoped Merle might be able to see past the hurt she caused and realize she'd been hurt, too. Even a self-inflicted wound was still a wound. Her friends abandoned her. They shunned her and she accepted her banishment. Profound loneliness, that punishing isolation, flensed her soul. Not knowing where to turn, praying for a safe place of refuge, she sought out Merle.

"It's always important to carry a towel." Merle didn't glance up from his rib tips.

"What?"

"The world isn't a safe place."

"We're coming apart. The family." She grieved the loss of something precious. She cried because she had no self, only her own mood and whim. Self-indulgent, selfish, she had no center, and had no thought at all of causing another pain. She was shadow. Wrapping herself in sheets of innocence and victimhood, her instinct was to blame. Her naivete, she was a hapless plaything in the hands of more powerful personalities. She loved King, she really did. She longed to please him: read the books he liked, went to the places he did, learned as much about him as she could, wore her hair the way that pleased him. He read the poems she wrote, the rough sentences and poorly formed images and illconstructed rhythms, and praised her. He stared into the shadows of her soul, all of the gray and ugly bits, and loved her. Ill prepared for the possessiveness, the jealousy, she knew the totality of his love, and it broke her. "I'm doing surprisingly well for a pariah."

"That's the thing. Times like these, you find out who your friends are."

"And I have none."

"Ah, the melodrama of youth. Blind to the obvious. Complaining about being alone… to someone. Your instinct for female recklessness stalls your maturing. That and the false, hollow bravado you feel compelled to perform."

Big Momma had told her the same thing. How a teenage girl trying to get out of trouble will roll on anyone, including the very people she both loved and hurt. Big Momma's voice always had an undertone of concern, like she wanted to impart something to her. Like she was warning Lady G of her power. That she had a smile about her, trusting and innocent. And had her own strength of personality, a beguiling innocence that sucked people into her orbit. A disarming charm that caused people in her world to want to protect her. Because inside the fragility which seemed to seep from her, she truly was a bird with a fractured wing.

"Some ladies don't prize what they can have. But you have a lifetime to repair the damage. What do you have to say?"

"I have no words." Out of fear — fear of King, fear of the burdens of responsibility, fear of love and being loved — she did unbelievable things. Hurting herself to protect herself, she dragged Lott into her maelstrom of self-destruction. She loved him, too, and would know him intimately in ways she never knew King. But the men who defined her were no longer around to protect her. When it came to important decisions, she was incapable of making them, reacting emotionally and leaving it to others to clean up her mess. She wasn't the person they believed her to be, however, she didn't need anyone to catalog her list of sins. She knew her terrible acts. In her heart she feared she couldn't be forgiven. That some cracked trusts couldn't be mended. "I'm so sorry."

"Brave deeds. Honorable actions. Be the woman you know you were created to be. Let your life show your repentance. Even misery doesn't last forever. In the meantime, there's no pain like the present."

Merle sucked loudly on his ice cream drumstick. They shared a commiserating glance. Not nearly as alone as she would have believed. Both living in the crater left, the fallout of her choices. Hers. All the minds of her friends seemed now closed to her, sticking her in a story she knew she'd have to live with. Lady G could never have their lives, so she would have to forge her own.

The window latch clicked slightly as the glass slid up. An exhalation of a breeze jostled the curtains. The window screen had been easily dislodged, little more than decoration the way it was attached to the window. Many of the first-floor windows of the apartment complex had bars on them, an outof-pocket expense for the tenants which the landlord mentioned when they signed their rental agreements. The bars gave the appearance of coming home to a nicely decorated prison. But in this neighborhood, safety was a precious commodity. Better to feel safe in one's castle than worry about the many predators in the night.

He slipped in noiselessly. Despite his build he moved with the grace of a thief, light of foot and touch. The sleeping girl's mother certainly didn't lack for imagination. She wanted her daughter to have a magical, sheltered childhood. The little girl's room enchanted him. A white picket fence served as the bed's headboard and footboard. A clothesline hung between the bedposts with her old baby clothes pinned to the line (including the ones she wore home from the hospital). An unfinished toy trunk had been painted apple green, with the quilt her grandmother made for her resting on top of it. A sunshine-yellow, three-drawer wood chest had large cartoony ladybugs stenciled onto it. Stuffed animals took their seats around the small wooden table set for tea.