Chapter 1
Breaker James Collins
“It’s disgusting,” I
parroted her; she always got nasaly when referring to all things
pestiferous. The top items on her list
of foul objects: Ground beef, roaches, carpet of any kind, and of late,
me—well, my growlery in particular.
“Don’t you sass me
Breaker James. I could care less about
your detest for my meddling. Get it
cleaned up before I show up next week or I will hire a maid myself,” she
quipped.
The shudder ripped
through me at the thought and she knew it.
Damn her for knowing how to hit below the belt.
“Fine. I’ll take care of it, Mom,” I groaned back at
her. It wasn’t that bad. Yes, the dishes were piled up in the sink and
something growing a fur coat on one plate in particular—I think it was
spaghetti, was being the operative
word. And maybe the dust could be seen
flying in formation when the sun shone through the splice in the curtains. But there was no soap scum ring around the
bathtub, but that was because I never took baths, that has to count for
something. If I were a regular person, I
would keep up with the everyday chores. I
would keep up with chores like emptying the dishwasher and washing my clothes.
If I were a regular
person, I could actually walk out of this prison—house, it’s a house.
“Test me not.
Breaker. I will not be moved on
this. And I get what you’re going
through, I do. But no son of mine will
live in filth—period.” She hung up the
phone, unwilling to hear my response. I
had to clean this place up. I had a
week.
I didn’t used to be like
this. I was that guy who did the dishes
after dinner because someone else had cooked.
I spent Saturday mornings cleaning the house and making sure the grass
was mowed. I got dressed in the morning and ran—outside. I went to visit my mom and my sisters. There
were lots of things I used to be and
do.
During the week that
followed, I did some things, none of which I would call cleaning. I wrote.
I journaled. I stayed in chat
rooms constantly, my only method of social interaction. I expected a knock at the door telling me I’d
been catfished any day now. I studied
and worked on classwork. I didn’t
clean. In fact, I would say the mess had
doubled in volume and stench.
I did do my laundry,
mostly because I was out of things to wear.
And my bedroom was clean for the most part. The rest of the house—no one came over, so
why would I care if it was presentable?
Anyway, she wouldn’t hire a maid.
She knows how I feel about—people.
I really didn’t mind people one on one for short bursts of time, but eventually they wanted to go
out into the world. And that was where
my part ended. I never left this house, not
even to go to the mailbox. It had been
two years, three months and nineteen days since the party. Subtract three days spent in the hospital for
monitoring and that’s the length of time since I’ve been out of these
walls.
I threw a t-shirt on, since
Mom would be at the house any minute and tried to scroll excuses through my
head, picking the most lucrative options as to why I hadn’t obeyed her request
as I tore down the stairs. I plucked ‘I
had a ton of schoolwork’ out of the mental pile and decided that was my
story.
I heard her car in the
driveway; it was the only car which made an appearance in my driveway. I smirked to myself. She was
soooo not hiring a maid. I had this
in the bag.
She walked in and I
hugged her, kissed her cheek and smiled that gooshy sweet grin I knew she
loved.
“It smells like a
garbage dump in here,” the look of determination on her face terrified me.
I laughed it off, “Come
on, you’re being dramatic.”
She closed her eyes and
exhaled, “Breaker, I have to.” She looked
down and shook her head.
“No, Mom. I’ll take care of it,” I could feel my
innards begin their quaking and quivering at just the thought of a new person
in my house. An elephant sat on my chest and the little beating mouse thumped
furiously against the weight. God, what
if I had a panic attack in front of them and they thought I was a freak?
“No Breaker, I’ll take care of it. This,”
she pointed to the kitchen behind me, “is what happens when you take care of
things lately. This was not part of the
deal. I’m sorry if you don’t like
it. Just one more thing to talk to
Angela about. Tell her your mother
forces you to be hygienic.”
She always did
this. She thought that the psychologist
came to the house and all we did was talk about how bad of a mother I had and
that must be the root of my challenge.
That wasn’t it at all but there was no convincing her lately. She’d convinced herself if she’d paid more
attention to Holly’s antics she could’ve prevented my downfall.
“What are you gonna do,”
Come on logic, work your magic. “put
an ad in Craigslist? What would it
say? Wanna clean for a guy who is a slob
and—insane?”
“Don’t do that
Breaker. Do not do that. But yes, that’s exactly what I
intend to do. I’ll have to ask Navy about it since I’m not good at the computer
stuff. She’ll know what to do. I’m also going to put some flyers up at LSU. So,
I will narrow the people down to a few and then I will send them over here for
interviews,” she held up her hand before my mouth could protest, “I will
schedule it so you know they are coming but this is happening, honey, so just
get over it.”
She left me silent and
stunned until the reality of what she said crashed down on me, “Shit!”
