Balance

BALANCE
By Fred Venturini

Before the maggots, before the retreat of the sun lowered a merciful
curtain of darkness weary day, before his usually stable temper was
obliterated, Sheriff Jim Miller was thinking of his daughter,
Samantha.
The heels of his Danner boots rested on a sheen of neglected papers.
They rested on a thick, glass blotter that protected his mahogany desk.
Jim stared at the boots-they were black, not shiny, like the backs of
his eyelids and he treated them as such, imposing images of his
smiling, laughing, just-turned-sixteen daughter on them. The lens of
his mind intensified the colors-her hair was shiny blonde, like
Dottie's, his late wife. Her eyes were azure, her teeth pearl. She was
perfect, and loved him. He loved her, not only because she was
beautiful, smart, and a source of pride-he loved her for selfish
reasons. Raising her kept him alive. Jim's visions of Samantha served
as a dreamcatcher, warding off memories of Dottie and the failure of
settling down as a small-town Sheriff-hideous thoughts that could
burrow into his softest, most vulnerable places, poisoning him,
destroying him from the inside like greasy, hungry rats falling all
over themselves to feed.
He liked the way his boots soaked up his daydreams and still allowed
him to look awake-he polished them twice daily, carefully repairing
nicks, scraping away dirt. Smiling, he glanced at the gold rimmed clock
that hung above the door to his office-a habit. The clock had been
broken for months. Jim tilted his head down, checking his cellphone
display. Quarter til. Time to go home.
"I'll have my pager on Kathy," Jim said, sliding into his brown
windbreaker as he shuffled out of his office. She had her feet up as
well, boots spattered with dirt and mud from the slush that gathered in
the gutters all week. She didn't need the boots for visions-a National
Enquirer was perched in front of her face. She tilted away from it to
look at him with tired eyes.
"Have a good one, Jim."
"Too late for that. Don't let dispatch get too busy for ya."
"Yeah. There'll be all kinds of people out tonight, it being a post-ice
storm Thursday and all."
"Aww hell, there'll be a fender bender or two, I'm sure of it. Take'er
easy."
"Mmm hmmm."
Jim couldn't get to his car fast enough. Icy winds shooed him along,
the temperature and the sun in an enjoined free-fall. Safe inside a
1984 Chevy Celebrity, Jim began rolling home, reciting in his head how
to steer into a skid should he lose control. He needed home, needed
Samantha, needed the warmth both could provide, but Jim fought the urge
to hammer the accelerator.
Scooting along a side road towards his country home, Jim noticed a
filthy-white Ford Escort resting on the shoulder of the road. Jim
detected no distress since the emergency flashers were dormant, but
damn those cop instincts-he slowed as he passed and noticed the
driver's side seat was kicked back, a sign that someone was potentially
inside.
The radio announced the temperature had crept below zero, and would
sink as low as twenty below by the time the bitter evening ended. This
urged Jim to take a closer look at the Escort, as someone freezing to
death in the middle of the night was a surefire way to get him paged at
three in the morning.
Jim guided the Celebrity in front of the Escort and flicked on the
emergency blinkers. Still in full police uniform, he stepped out,
wrapping his coat tightly around him-the hungry cold gnawed at his
exposed face.
The hood of the Escort was slathered with equal parts primer paint,
equal parts scratches. There was no license plate on the front of the
car.
"Jesus Edna," Jim whispered, recognizing the car. "You're fuckin'
killin' me here."
Peering into the driver's side window, sure enough, Edna was reclined
in her bucket seat, wrapped completely in the same clothes Jim had
always seen her wear-a baggy red bonnet hat, and what looked like a
gaggle of badly knitted blankets that used to be white and now looked
like grayish drapes hanging from her body. In the summer, she would
ride her massive tricycle through town, the basket on the front
brim-full with aluminum cans. Winters summoned her ancient Escort, and
with it, at least three breakdowns that required response from Jim or
his deputies.
He tapped on the glass. Edna didn't move. After the second tap garnered
no response, Jim opened the door and released a reflex cough.
"Edna . . . are you trying to be a first ballot bag lady hall of famer?
It smells like a sackful of cats and assholes in here." He took a step
back, drawing in a breath of clean, cold, February air. The stench in
the car reminded him of pepper spray training, when his powerful,
non-smoker's lungs were crippled by a mist of oleoresin capsicum.
Edna still didn't stir. He feared her dead, and tapped on her leg, to
which she responded with a weak groan.
"Edna? You ok? You can't stay here tonight. Supposed to get real cold.
Dangerous cold. You broke down? Can you get home? Edna?"
She groaned again-a rough sound, as if she gargled with broken
glass.
"Don't let out my heat," she finally said, her mouth muffled by her
blanket-garments that were pulled up over her nose. "I needta make it
'til morning."
"You won't make it until morning," Jim scolded. He was bent over beside
the open door, hands on his knees, trying to stay upwind of her
bag-lady stench. He looked towards the horizon, where the fleeting sun
crept behind the edge of a snow-covered field. Darkness was
coming.
"Damn it Edna, let's get you home," he decided. She didn't respond, but
Jim did. Holding his breath, he leaned inside the car and turned the
key, getting no response from engine nor starter. The car was stone
dead, and Jim felt like he would be in similar condition if forced to
take a breath. Drawing fresh air from outside, he leaned back in and
tried to get his arms around Edna's rotund torso to help her out of the
car. He was already forsaking himself for stopping-she couldn't have
smelled worse dead.
She moaned but moved along with him, rising upward, perhaps realizing
that she'd die if she tried to sleep in the Escort all night. The
blanket-garments slipped away from her face, revealing a guise tortured
by age, rife with not just wrinkles, but cracks and fissures that were
just as gag-worthy as her smell.
Jim had dealt with the dead before, so the sight-scent combination
didn't phase him-much. He wanted to move things along. She was now
sitting upright. He turned his head for a whiff of fresh air, then
returned to her.
Edna's left foot found the icy pavement with Jim's guidance, and now
the hard part-he would have to support some of her ample weight as she
eased the other foot over to exit the Escort.
Jim succeeded. She was on her feet, but only for a few seconds. As Jim
gave her his arm, but she slipped down, face first onto the ice beside
the Escort. The impact was far from tremendous, and he didn't think she
was hurt badly, yet she released gravelly coughs and sobs.
Jim felt desperation, anger, and frustration begin to rise inside of
him. He quashed the feelings, as he'd done time and time again during
his years as a police officer. Despite this, he found himself moving
frenetically, trying to get around her waist and help her up-all he
wanted to do was stuff her in the back of his car, drop her off at
home, and get home. Get home. That was all that mattered. Get to
Samantha, but first, get Edna off the road. He slid his hands until
they locked into the front of her pelvis. Confident in his grip, he
tried to pull her up with a more violent, desperate move than he used
while she was in the car.
He came away with nothing but a handful of blanket-garments and almost
lost his footing. The wraps were coated with cat hair and
unidentifiable crumb-looking pieces that were a color he'd never find
in a crayon box, even a big one that had a special sharpener in the
side . . . the thought of crayons at that moment made him chuckle
softly, until he looked down. The batch of blankets really was her
clothing-he had stripped her naked from the waist down, and below him
was a tundra of gray, dented flesh that composed her large rear
end.
That was enough to illicit a dry heave, but in the center of the right
buttock was a perfectly circular sore, the size of a silver dollar,
framed with a crust of scab, raw in the inside, with what looked like
two dozen or so maggots writhing inside of it.
Jim upchucked a portion of his lunch, but then swallowed it back down.
His nose and throat burned from the acid. His stomach turned. He was
cold. He wanted to go home, and this person . . . this thing was
keeping him from Samantha.
The anger wasn't as easy to contain as the vomit-true anger, the
variety that is born fully realized, sending a fault-line of heat
thundering down the spine, spackling vision with dots and requiring
immediate satisfaction. He released a viscous kick that embedded the
steel toe of his perfectly clean Danner boot into Edna's ribcage.
"You filthy cunt!" he screamed.
He could almost feel the bone splinters explode into her lung, and the
act quelled him, but sparked his sense of alarm and wrought his
adrenaline gland dry.
"Damn," he said, a single word exercising the pity and guilt that
replaced the anger. Then, he felt nothing. The night had almost taken
over. Jim scurried back to his Chevy Celebrity and eased it back onto
the street, wanting home, a shower, and to make dinner for his
daughter.

* * *

When the sun was still out and Jim was leaving the station, Samantha
was on her back, her white, cotton shirt that exclaimed simply "Cheer!"
pushed up over her bra, and Jake was kissing her tummy and the tops of
her breasts.
"Do you love me Jake?" she whispered.
"You know I do," he said, returning to work. His fingers pried at the
waistband of her jeans. She knew what he wanted. Her. Just her, which
she liked. She spared him the effort, unbuttoning her jeans, unzipping
her fly.
Jake stripped them away, pausing in awe. She wore no underwear. She'd
shaved for him. A smile crawled across his face. He kissed her on the
lips, which felt tender to her. His clumsy fingers did not.
Jake worked his kisses all the way down, and Samantha was hoping he'd
say that he loved her before instead of after, to say the L-word
instead of saying "you know I do."
His tongue was twice as clumsy as his fingers. She'd made love to him
before-he was all clumsy, but she loved him. She knew she loved
him.
Dying sunlight wandered the room, carved into slits by the shades. It
would be dark soon. And cold.
The door to Jake's room crept open, startling Samantha. She pushed
Jake's head away and curled up into the blanket on his bed, trying her
best to scramble into a position that concealed her nakedness.
"Hello hello," Markie said through a smile. She saw Doug's face too.
She waited for Jake to scold them, to tell them to leave, to be angry
for interrupting the one night his parents were out until late without
even knocking. He didn't. He looked at her, and he was smiling
too.
"Do you love me, Samantha?"
She looked at Markie and Doug. "You know I do," she said, pushing away
the blanket, knowing there was no other way to show him.

* * *

"Jeez Dad, you must be slipping a little. You always make cheesy rice
when you make chicken breasts!"
"Oh, I just didn't feel like rice tonight," Jim said. "What? You have
a problem with tater tots?"
"No, I'm just kidding dad. You know it."
"I do," he said, forking a piece of chicken into his mouth. "So what'd
you do after school? You were a little late for dinner, that's unlike
you."
"Nothing, just went over to Jesse's house," Samantha said, never
looking away from her father's bright, adoring eyes.
"It's just that you eat like a trucker, always hungry . . . and never
late. But that's ok. I like Jesse."
"I'd never miss dinner when you're cooking. Maybe I don't tell you
enough daddy, but I really appreciate it. I know how hard it is to
cook, I've tried it. I'm no good. Not like you."
"Awww . . . I love you baby. Really. I like making dinner for
you."
"I love you too daddy. Thank you."
A buzzing sound made them both jump. The pager skipped across the
table until Jim's calloused, hardened hand swallowed it. He looked at
it, raised both eyebrows, then tossed it into the sink where it
vanished into the hot, sudsy water.
"Whoops, looks like I dropped it in the sink! What do you think of a
game of Monopoly tonight?"
Samantha gathered herself, grinding out a counterfeit smile that could
easily be tabbed as false in every way. Jim didn't notice, as he was
too busy faking a smile of his own.