L Akers - Fight Like a Man

GRAYSIE SLAPPED at the air in front of her. After piling into yet another heap of hay in yet another empty barn stall, and gorging on a bag of GORP, washed down with a bottle of water, she’d meant to close her eyes for just a moment.

But she’d fallen asleep—again.

The night before, after the excitement of her escape from the university and the ensuing car wreck had finally caught up with her, her adrenaline had fizzled out, replaced with exhaustion. She’d drifted off on her side with one arm draped through her backpack and her gun still stuck in the waistband of the back of her pants. She’d slept for hours, and got up and walked for hours more, lost in the dark. Turned out the country roads and barns all looked the same at night. She hadn’t been anywhere near her dad’s house.

When the sun finally showed its face this morning, she’d sat down with her map and tried to figure out where she was. It was hopeless. It all looked like squiggly lines to her and some asshat had taken down all the street signs—if there’d ever been any.

Midday, she’d stumbled onto another empty barn and laid down for a quick nap. She’d overslept… and now the bugs wouldn’t leave her alone, buzzing around her face and ears.

She waved her hand in front of her nose again and pulled herself up into a sitting position, not remembering where she was for a moment.

She opened her eyes.

Moonlight shone through the spaces where boards were missing from the barn—how did it get to be night again? She’d slept that long?

She pushed herself up and screamed.

Squatted beside her, a man stared at her with buggy eyes that darted all around. Nearly buried within a baggy, stained sweatshirt, with shaggy hair and a scabbed up skeletal face, he leered at her with a crooked smile of gaping holes and rotten teeth. He reached for her bag, his arm covered in a network of collapsed veins and scabs.

His hands shook violently. “Hey, ‘lil red riding hood. You got anything to us get geared up?”

His breath was deadly. She cringed. “Geared up? No! You can’t have my stuff.” Graysie grabbed her bag and scooted back, and jumped to her feet. She felt for her gun. It was still in the back of her pants, surprisingly.

He scrambled unsteadily to his feet, too, startled by her scream.

He held his hands up, palms out, on too-skinny arms. “Yo, sorry. No, I don’t want your gear. Look, I didn’t mean to scare you. I just… need to go fast , ya know? Get scattered , man.”

“No! Get away from me.” Graysie stared at his once-youthful, but now prematurely-gaunt face with disgust and quickly looked around the barn as she hooked her arms into her backpack and slid it into place onto her shoulders. She was cornered in the stall. Her only escape was to crawl over the side, but with the heavy backpack, he’d be on her in a second.

His face changed, becoming angry. He lunged at Graysie with his scab-covered arms, grabbing a handful of her curly red hair. “I know you’ve got someth—”

She could hear her father’s words whispering in her ear dozens of times as he’d wrestled with her, or pushed her around in horse-play… fight like a man, Graysie. Don’t let me win…

She stepped into his lunge and grabbed his wrist. His eyes widened in a stunned daze as she slammed the palm of her other hand into his elbow, bending it the wrong way. She felt a snap . He stumbled away, with an ear-piercing shriek and clutched his arm. She prayed it was broken as she turned and raced out of the barn, without looking back at the screaming demon behind her.

HOURS LATER, Olivia tossed a flower—provided by Edith—onto the mound of dirt and sank to her knees once again. She covered her face, hiding the dirt and tears, as she rocked back and forth and sobbed. She wept with a force that nearly choked her.

Emma stood between Elmer and Edith, looking small beneath Edith’s arm around her slim shoulders that shook with grief. She did her best to be strong, but watching her sister cry broke her. She couldn’t hold it back; she bawled too, and Elmer quietly patted her back. The old couple sang Amazing Grace quietly, barely in a whisper as they too swiped tears from their faces.

“Well, that’s that, then,” Elmer said gruffly, once they ended their song. “Get up, Olivia. I’m taking you and your sisters home.” He walked away toward his barn while Olivia and Emma turned to watch him in confusion.

They hurried after him, stepping into the barn just behind him to find Gabby stacking hay bales onto a wagon that was attached to a John Deere tractor. The hay was stacked high into the air in a perfect square. She bent and grabbed a pile of old quilts and moved to the end of the wagon, stepping up and disappearing.

Olivia sniffed and wiped her nose on her balled-up Kleenex. “What are you doing, Gabby?”

Gabby didn’t answer. She was still mad as fire at Mei. Mad that she couldn’t stop her. Mad that they’d found out too late the pain she was in and the loss of her daughter she’d been going through. Mad that their country didn’t realize their own doctors had started an epidemic of drug addiction before it was too late. She hated drugs. In her darkest days many years ago, she too had nearly given up and lost her life to a handful of prescription drugs.

She fought back her own grief with wrath as she angrily swung one bale after another to the top row, nearly finishing it off.

“She’s building you a fort,” Elmer answered for her. “I figure you girls are only about an hour from home, the way the crow flies. May as well take you home myself and make sure you all get there.” He dropped his head and stared at his boots. “I don’t want any more blood on my hands.”

Olivia put an arm around the old man and squeezed. She looked up at him. “It wasn’t your fault, Elmer. It wasn’t even your gun.”

“Well, I’m taking you anyway,” he grumbled. He gently shook off her one-armed hug and made himself busy checking to be sure the trailer was securely attached to the tractor. Then he grabbed the heavy gas containers that were stacked against the wall and grunting with exertion, he handed them up to Gabby one at a time, and she dragged them inside their hay-fort.

He stood back and nodded his head. “Good job, Gabby. Now y’all girls go say your goodbyes to the missus. We leave in five minutes.”

Emma scratched her head. “If you have gas, why not just drive us in your truck?”

“I don’t have gas. The tractor runs on diesel. I have that. Besides, this tractor can push pert’near anything out of the way. We don’t know if the roads are clear between here and there, and even if we did have gas, we don’t know that my old truck would make it anyway. I don’t trust it like I do my tractor,” he muttered, and walked away, patting the tractor on the hood affectionately as he walked by it.

Gabby, Olivia and Emma ran into the house, gathered their things, and stood still while Edith fussed over them, handing them each a brown bag packed with food and two gallons of sweet tea. She sniffled and wiped at her nose with a fancy handkerchief while she gave them teary goodbyes.

Outside the window, they watched as Elmer pulled the tractor out of the barn and into the backyard. They stepped outside, and Elmer jumped down. He stood still and leaned over for a peck on the cheek from his wife, promised her he’d be safely home tomorrow and stoically climbed up into the seat without another word.

One more hug from Edith, and they climbed up into the hay, Gabby last. She stacked three bales in the space they’d clambered through and yelled giddy-up to Elmer, before dropping down between her sisters and putting her arms around them. Gabby looked at her sister’s hands and then her own. They all matched, covered in dirt and dotted with blisters from the rough handles of the shovels.