There’s something beautiful about cigarette smoke. Gray spindles that twirl out into the air, a dance of foggy vapors that slowly fades away into nothingness. It’s quite enchanting, especially when your mood is as sober as Danny’s is. He can hear the laughter around him like loud hypnotizing reminders of things that he can never feel. Happiness is for fools anyway is what he tells himself, but there’s another voice inside of his head that speaks. It doesn’t belong to him and it calls him foolish. It taunts him with a soft whisper and he has to hold his breath and grit his teeth just to silence it. The taste on his tongue is toxic, a bitter flavor of staled whisky and cranberry and vodka tonics gulped down too fast, stinging his throat and bringing tears to his eyes with every swallow. He taps the breast of his dark gray shirt pocket, feeling the two blue pills tucked down safely, he brings the cigarette back to his lips. If the voice tries to come back, he’ll medicate it away.

They’re all at Marty‘s tavern. It’s different night, but the experience is as similar as the night before. Shawn’s sitting at a booth in the corner, he’s his roommate or rather the man that lets him live for free in his house. His girlfriend Chloe’s is in his lap and is smiling softly tossing back her soft red hair off of her thin exposed shoulder as Ethan sits across from them. Olivia’s at his side, her long dark hair swept back into a messy ponytail that hangs low, falling down her slender shoulder like a dark brown waterfall against her dark brown skin. She doesn’t notice the way Shawn’s cobalt blue eyes keep traveling to the man that she refers to as her husband and Chloe doesn’t notice the sly grins that Ethan keeps slipping her fiancé in return. They’re both too busy talking about a vacation that they’re all planning. It’s to the Bahamas and it’s quite clear that Danny hasn’t and won’t be invited. It’s only for the four of them.

The music on the jukebox is something loud and rock from the 80’s that sound like a bad imitation of Bon Jovi. Benny’s sitting at the bar five stools down from Danny. He’s trying to hit on a girl who looks don’t equate to her intelligence. She’s gorgeous, built like a fine Italian sports car with a tapered waist, empty brain, breasts that are small, but perky and a flawless cherubic face framed by coal colored eyes and raven hair. She’s out of Benny’s league, but he’s a doctor with more money than he can count so she’s smiling and flipping her hair back pretending that she’s enjoying his company as her eyes flutter from his expensive watch to his deep brown eyes hidden by thick glasses. Her dress is too tight and too small. There’s snow on the ground and she’s wearing open toe stilettos. She’s fast company and normally Danny would be at her side, smiling and spiting slick words inside of her ear. But tonight, he’s not in the mood for a few minutes of pleasure. Tonight he wants to wallow.

He takes another sip. His eyes squint as he hears the static inside of his mind start to crackle and pop. It gets so loud that soon the music becomes muffled and his vision starts to blur with obscure smudged shadows sharpened by a heavy dimness. He taps his pocket again, silently telling the voice that it better not come back, but the static gets louder. It’s almost like a deep whisper that screeches like nails being dragged across a chalkboard. It makes Danny’s heart start to thump and beat so loudly that he can literally feel the pulses travel to his fingertips. He takes his shaky hand and grasps the glass of liquid comfort, as he demands that the static leave. But the noise continues to get louder and louder until the static dissipates and a meager murmur breaks through the confusion.

Daniel, make it burn….

Danny touches his pocket again. The pills are still safely tucked inside and he calls the bartender over.

“Shawn said not to give you anymore alcohol.” The bartender says. His name is Paul and his hair is a light shade of brown and cut too short on the sides and too long at the top. He tries too hard to be hip Danny muses to himself.

Daniel, make it burn!

The voice yells this time and Danny grips his hand around his glass again and squeezes his eyes shut tight as he clenches his jaw. The bartender asks him if everything is all right, but the voice is getting louder and louder. The whispery hiss is shouting.

I said make it burn Daniel make it fucking burn!

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Danny yells. The voice goes away. He taps his breast pocket again and opens his eyes. The bartender is staring at him, his eyebrow is cocked up in the way that Ethan does when he’s getting annoyed.

“Yo, fuck you too!” Paul grumbles. He starts to walk away as the music slowly begins to drown back in.

“Wait!! Come back bro, talk to me for a minute.” Danny states. His voice is calmer now. The voice has retreated. Sometimes all he has to do is yell at it and it goes away. Paul looks at him with his eyes narrowed. A girl from across the room is calling him over. She wants another drink and he holds up his hand and tells her to wait as he keeps his eyes on Danny waiting for him to continue, “Let me get another shot.”

“I can’t do that man. Shawn said to cut you off after five.”

“Man fuck him! Just give me a fucking shot man, my money’s good here!” Danny is getting annoyed. Shawn owns this bar, but he doesn’t own him. He glances over his shoulder and sees him laughing again. His hand is gripping Ethan’s wrist as his short dark brown hair is spiked up and away from his face that’s turning red from the hilarity. Ethan’s leaning his head back against the wall laughing too. Olivia and Chloe are staring at the both of them bewildered. They didn’t find Ethan’s lame joke all that funny and they’re looking at Shawn as if he’s crazy to be laughing so hard.

“You never pay me! Shawn does so when he says cut you off, I cut you off.” Paul states. A slow grin spreads across his face and Danny wants to take his empty glass, break it against the wood of the counter top. He wants to watch the glass shatter into ten little pieces, picking up one of the shards and jabbing it into Paul’s eye. He smiles to himself as he imagines what Paul’s screams of anguish would sound like. His imagination is so vivid that he can almost feel the warmth of Paul’s blood coating his fingertips.

“Look, here’s a twenty, just give me three shots of Russian, a Crown Royal and a bottle of water and we’re squared up. Shawn don’t have to know shit if we don’t tell him.” Danny watches as Paul’s eyes travel over to the booth where Shawn sits, still laughing and gripping Ethan’s wrist and he looks back at Danny and nods.

“Two shots and the water.”

“Three shots and the water.” Danny counters and Paul bites down on his lower lip and sighs as he walks away. He comes back a few seconds later with two shots of vodka, one of whiskey and a bottle of Poland Spring still cold to touch.

Daniel…

The voice starts to whisper again. Danny can hear the music levels fade once more. The vision from the corners of his eyes makes everything unclear and hazy, like a smeared canvas of blurred out faces and velvety objects. His heartbeats start to escalate as he feels someone come up on his side. The heat from their body is warm and they’re talking to him, the words that they are saying sound like one long unintelligible moan that makes Danny swig down one of the shots of Vodka. He shouldn’t be mixing his medication with the alcohol, but he doesn’t care what the doctors warned him about adverse reactions. He digs into his pocket. The two pills are small and look like hits of acid that sting his tongue as he places them down upon it, chasing them with a swig from his cold bottle of water.

“What the fuck did you just take bro!” Danny can hear Shawn’s voice. He turns towards him. His vision is still slightly blurred, but he can hear things better now. He knows the medicine never works this quick. He thinks maybe his mother might have been right to tell him when he was eleven years old that the voices he would hear were all pretend people that never really existed. She told him that if he didn‘t want them to be there, then they wouldn‘t be there. She always did say he would do anything for attention. A brief memory of her yelling at him when he was thirteen comes to play, flashing quickly through his mind silencing the voice.

Her dark hair is in curlers. She’s only thirty-seven, but looks fifty with wrinkles around her face. She’s wearing a dirty stained short black summer dress. The material is a cheap imitation of silk that clings to the pockets of fat layered around her stomach. She not a very large woman, but grossly out of shape. The red strap from her brazier hangs down against her arm and she holds a cigarette to her lips as she orders him out of her bedroom. She has a man sleeping next to her and doesn’t want Danny to wake up the man who will become his new daddy for a few months by his yelling that the girl in his head is telling him to burn the curtains. Danny leaves the bedroom and runs out into the backyard. He’s angry with his mother, she never listens and he wants to listen to the girl that tells him to hurt her. But he doesn’t. She scares him because sometimes she calls herself the devil.

The sun feels warm against his skin. It’s July and the afternoon is humid as he keeps running and running towards the woods that his backyard bleeds out into. He runs and he runs and he runs as the evergreens begin to provide slight shade and he stops when he reaches a bend. To the left are more houses. To the right the woods deepen. The voice is gone now. He tries to catch his breath. He reaches into his pocket and takes out the matches that the girl told him to take a few minutes earlier when she told him to burn the curtains. The girl doesn’t come back, but a man’s voice penetrates. He doesn’t come around too often because there is another man that keeps him away.

He whispers softly for Danny to strike the match. Danny listens. He’s afraid that if he doesn’t, the other man will come back and make him hurt himself again. The matchstick holds a flicker of orange at the top. It’s so small that it’s almost beautiful, like an orange-red diamond that glitters against the shade of the forest. The voice yells for Danny to drop it to the ground at a pile of broken tree branches and when he does, the small orange-red diamond erupts into a ball of bright orange brilliance. He can feel the heat at his toes and he jumps back watching the orange luminosity erupt with a rich radiance like molten lava, charring any and everything in its path. It’s going so fast that it startles Danny and the girl that lives behind his eyes tells him to run, but the man yells for him to stay. It’s the man that he’s afraid of most, even more than the girl who says she’s the devil. This man says he’s his father and Danny screams to himself to shutout both of them. Both voices silence as he runs out of the forest, the trail of smoke that surrounds almost suffocates him.

The firemen that came a few minutes later had to struggle to keep the fire from spreading to the surrounding homes. During the battle seven men were injured and three dogs perished.

“Nothing.” Danny replies coolly as he snaps out of his reverie. He looks up at Shawn and can feel a wave of nausea that turns over in his stomach like flickered sputtering of soft light. He has everything that Danny wants and Danny doesn’t think that Shawn deserves it. He has the money thanks to a rich dad; he has the girl--and the guy even if no one knew about the latter. But Danny knows. He’s always known about Shawn and his best friend Ethan. They’ve always been too close, ever since high school. No one ever thinks too much about him so they do or say certain things in his presence that they assume he won’t notice.

Everyone thinks of him as the friend that fucks up; the friend that had a drug problem for six years, the friend that’s been to rehab nine times and even now, at the age of twenty-three and two years sobriety from hard drugs still wants to feel a needle in his vein and the screw up that quit college so he lives check to check and rent free in his spoiled cousin’s house. But Danny always notices. He notices the way sometimes Shawn’s hands will run the lower most part of Ethan’s back. He notices the way sometimes Ethan’s fingers will trace a trail down the side of Shawn’s neck when they’re all too drunk to talk coherently so they sit around basement slurring rehashed stories told three thousand times. He’ll notice the way Shawn’s head will fall into Ethan’s lap when it’s late and they’re watching television in the living room and the girls have all fallen asleep. He’ll notice the way Shawn makes up bad lies about having to run out and do an errand and then he’ll be gone for hours at a time. Conveniently his cellular phone will be off as well as Ethan’s and neither can be reached until they allow themselves to be. No one else has put two and two together and Danny may not be a mathematician, but he knows how to add shit up and he does. He does better than anyone will ever give him credit for.

“Don’t fucking lie to me bro! I just saw you take something! Do I have to get my dad to send you to yet another fucking rehab?” Shawn hisses. His eyes spit fire that makes Danny want to laugh. Shawn always makes useless threats. Danny knows he could lie, he could steal and probably even commit murder and at the end of the day, Shawn wouldn’t do anything about it. He may make a few threats, break a few promises, but in the end he’ll wind up turning the other cheek and pretend shit away. He feels guilty just like the rest of his mother‘s side of the family for what he‘s been through.

“Look Shawnee-boy, I wouldn’t fucking lie to you. It was my vitamins.” Danny states and then he smiles because he knows Shawn won’t ask any more questions. Ethan’s walking over putting his sleeve through his coat and Shawn grins like the idiot Danny thinks he is.

“You guys ready?” He asks once he comes over. Danny notices how close he’s standing behind Shawn. He laughs out loud when he imagines the other things that he knows Ethan does when behind him and they both look at him like he’s just lost his mind.

“I’m staying for a while.” Danny states through his smile.

“How are you going to get home?” Ethan asks. He’s always the only one of a hand full of people who ever genuinely seems concerned for his well-being. That thought makes Danny smile even brighter, but when he sees Shawn unconsciously begin to sway back and lean against him, he wipes it away. Shawn has everything that he wants. He has the nice house, the fancy cars, and the great friends and secretly, Danny loathes him. He hates him almost as much as he loves and longs to be him.

“Yeah, how? You can’t drink anyway, just come with me and Chloe.” Shawn interjects.

“Yeah I know, thanks for cutting the fucking booze flow!”

“You don’t need anymore! Dude, the whites of your eyes are pink!” Shawn laughs and when Danny hears Ethan laugh too, he rolls his eyes and stands. He digs into his pocket, pulls out another cigarette and holds it between his teeth. He has his own matches, but is afraid to take them out. He knows what the voices will say if they see them.

“Can you give me a light?” He asks Ethan as he leans in. He sees the smile wipe off of Ethan’s face as his eyes flicker something curious. Danny’s always been good at reading people and he knows that he can make Ethan nervous when he wants to. He wonders if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but judging from how Shawn’s jaw is clenched shut and his eyebrows are furrowed, maybe it’s a little bit of both.

“Whatever. We’re leaving. Come on!” Shawn states as he begins to walk away. Ethan flicks his lighter and cups the flame as Danny leans in. His lips purse around the cigarette and he looks up at Ethan as he allows it to be lit. He stays there, his head bowed and two sapphire eyes flashing and holding against two hazy green with just a hint of blue-gray. Ethan’s fingers tremble as he pulls the lighter away and tucks it neatly into his coat pocket. Their eyes stay locked as Olivia comes up behind him and wraps her arms around his waist. She kisses his cheek as Chloe takes Shawn’s hand. Shawn’s staring at Ethan, his eyes squinted and angry as Ethan is staring at Danny and Danny’s looking back with a wicked grin.

You should fuck him later…

Another voice comes in. It’s one of the girls. It’s the one with the thick Spanish accent that sometimes he can’t understand. Danny closes his eyes shut and downs the shot of whiskey. He knew that he shouldn’t have hoped for the pills to work so fast.

“Later.” Danny states softly as he opens his eyes slowly. He watches as Ethan licks his lips across the lower part of his beard and does a deep sigh as he salutes a goodbye. Shawn doesn’t even look twice. He’s walking away angry, pulling Chloe along by the hand. She’s too much of a sweet, nice girl to question Shawn’s behavior so she allows him to lead her.

As the door to the bar shuts, Danny downs his last shot. He’s trying to ignore the man yelling inside of his head to go into the room with the pool tables and touch the dingy curtains that hang from the windows,

Make it burn….

~*~

“Yo, who the fuck would try and burn down the bathroom? I don‘t get it!” Benny’s voice penetrates through the darkness of the car. Danny leans his head back against the headrest. The rocking of the vehicle almost lulls him into a moment of quiet reflection. None of the voices have spoken in almost an hour. He thinks it’s because he’s taken the blue pills, but then he feels the small blister on his thumb from striking the match and he knows that they’re only silent because he listened to them.

“Beats me.” He replies lethargically. He looks out of the window. The road is bleak and black. A harsh and almost violent snow is falling down in thick, downs of white fluff that tumbles against the glass. The swooshing sound the window wipers are making reminds Danny of the days when he would be so broke that he would stand in traffic just begging for someone to stop and let him clean their windows for whatever spare change they may have had in their glove compartments. He goes back to being silent. His thoughts can entertain him more than a long-winded conversation ever can and he’s not up to listening to Benny boost his own ego by bragging about his forthcoming date with the brunette in the tight black dress.

He closes his eyes as he feels his stomach begin to cramp. It’s only when he feels a sharp shooting pain dance up his spine like lightening that he remembers one of the effects of mixing his medication with alcohol along with ulcers are hemorrhaging.

“Yo, you alright?” Benny asks as he takes his eyes off of the road for a moment. He notices how Danny’s skin looks a little pale. The car is dark and the snow that coats the image of the night does little to reflect light so he hopes that he’s only imagining the sickly gray tint to his skin.

“Just get me home.” Danny moans. His head is throbbing. He’s trying to remember just what all the other side effects of mixing alcohol with Clozapine are. He knows fatigue is one of them; hell even without booze taking the blue pills would make him tired. Only right now he doesn’t feel exhausted. Right now he’s feeling a burning cramp shoot up and down his spine like spider legs pitching and prickling and stabbing with the crawl. He’s starting to feel cold and inside of his head, he hears one of the voices. It’s the girl’s voice. She’s the girl that calls herself the devil.

You want to make it stop?

She teases. Her accent is Spanish.

“Shut up bitch!” He hisses to her.

“Yo, what the hell is your problem?” Benny screeches. His voice is nasally and Danny chooses to ignore it as he clutches his hand on the door handle gripping it firmly as if it will help ease the pain away. It’s so sharp and sudden that his eyes water, and the back of his throat is dry. Not dry like old paper, not dry like sand left to bake in the sun, but dried out dry that makes his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth.

Open the door Daniel! Jump out! You can make it stop!

“You just want me to kill myself! Fuck you bitch!!” He groans as he balls up his fist and bangs it down on his knee. The pain is growing worse as the seconds tick by.

“What the hell is your problem? Danny--Danny! Your nose is fucking bleeding! What are you on?” Benny’s voice seems to be in a panic. Danny cracks open his eyes as he continues to groan. He doubles over in the seat feeling himself being restrained by the seatbelt. He wouldn’t even have the three-inch strap across his chest if Benny hadn’t refused to drive off without him wearing it.

Do it Daniel! Make it stop!

“Shut the fuck up!! Shut up bitch!”

“Daniel! I’m taking your ass to a hospital! Your nose is fucking bleeding! Your nose is BLEEDING!!” Benny’s voice is becoming thicker and thicker with fright. The slow pour of crimson that at first only fell down in a small and almost tender trail of dark ruby is now thickening. The trail has turned into a stream and the blood runs down Danny’s chin and neck. He looks like someone has slit his throat and Benny pulls over to the side of the road with his stomach in knots. Only one car passes them before the road is empty again. They’re near a farm somewhere on the outskirts of Boston. It’s the winter, but Benny can still smell the thick stench of cow manure as he rolls down the window hoping that the wind will blow away the stench of blood. There’s a wooden fence to the left that stands as tall as the car and through the darkness he can see a field that stretches out for miles and miles. On the right side of the road it‘s black, a pure black void with a glaze of white.

“What the hell are you stopping for?” Danny whispers. Immediately after the words have slipped from between his dry and cracked lips he clamps them shut. It hurts to talk. Almost as much as it hurts to breathe.

Make him drive the car…make him drive so you can make it stop!

Danny tells her to shut up as he groans and leans his head against the window. Benny turns on the overhead light and the car is coated with a deep sprout of soft gold. Danny cracks open his eyes. They’re two tiny slits of blue sapphire. He can see his reflection in the window. He blinks and he sees that his hair is blonde. It’s cut short into a bob that falls at his shoulders. His eyes are a brighter shade of blue and round, framed by black kohl and the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth make him look aged to fifty when he’s really forty-three. He blinks again and the pain starts to leave. He sits up straight and looks back at the window. The blonde woman smiles back at him and leans in to kiss his forehead. She’s the woman that he’s always imagined to be his perfect mother. She has a sweet disposition with a southern charm. When she hugs you she smells like cake and honeysuckle. She’s the only one of his voices that he’ll listen to. She’s mother. You always listen to mother, even if mother says bad things.

He blinks again and the smile leaves her face as her hair turns jet black like midnight and the blue of her eyes scratch away into black, pure black that even encases the sclera of both eyes. Her chubby face thins out until it’s gaunt, almost skeletal and she grins. Her teeth are decayed to yellow and gray with cracks and splintered pieces that look sharp to touch. Danny closes his eyes again. He can’t look at her. She’s the girl that calls herself the devil and she makes him do things. Bad things. Almost as bad as the things that his father who doesn’t live in his head used to make him do.

“You need to go to a doctor! Here, clean yourself up!” Benny yells as he fumbles underneath his seat for a napkin. He’s scared. He doesn’t know what to do with Danny. He sees him shaking, his shoulders tremble and his eyes are squinted shut as his lips purse open struggling to take in breaths. In Benny’s eyes, he thinks he’s watching him overdose. He’s never watched anyone overdose before and everyone in the crew knows that as much as they all want to believe that Danny has stopped using, no one really does. Benny’s a doctor or at least he will be officially in a few more months, which means his mind is scientific and works on logic and logically thinking he knows that Danny’s mind is wired to always be submissive to addiction.

“No! Drive!” Danny yells. He closes his eyes once more, squeezing them shut and hoping that the devil will leave. He counts to ten silently and when he does open them again, she’s gone. All he sees is the white downy of a harsh snowfall as discordant flakes surge from the sky disturbing the peaceful softness of a quiet night.

“You need help, let me take you to get some man!” Benny continues to yell as he slams the napkins down in Danny lap. Danny picks the bunch up and brings them to his nose. Wiping away the blood he’s surprised that so much has spilled. He didn’t even feel the first drop.

“No! I don’t need no fucking help! Just take me home!”

“No Daniel, something is fucking off with you. I’m taking you to a hospital asshole!”

“What I need is for your pussyass to fucking take me home! If I wanted to go to a damn hospital, I’d tell you, now drive!” Danny yells. He grits his teeth and knows that he Benny doesn’t deserve to be yelled at. He just wants Benny to hurry up and get him home before the girl with the dark hair and decrepit smile starts to talk. And he doesn’t need help; he can help himself better than anyone else ever could anyway. His mind wonders and he thinks of Ethan, wondering if the girls have passed out and if he’s in one of the spare bedrooms with Shawn. He wants to get home. He wants to find out and disrupt.

“You need to see a fucking doctor!”

“You’re a doctor.”

“You know I‘m still interning! I’m taking you to the hospital!” Benny yells. He presses his foot on the gas and with a turn of the steering wheel, they’re back on the road going in the opposite direction of Shawn’s house.

“I said no! I don’t need to go!” Danny yells. Benny ignores him and keeps his eyes focused straight ahead and Danny gets angrier.

Don’t let him ignore you! Be a man Daniel, make him listen!

“Shut the fuck up!”

“What? Who the hell are you talking to?”

“Take me the fuck home!” Danny grunts. Benny peers at him through a wild mane of bushy light brown hair that is as unkempt as his rumpled shirt and dirty jeans are.

“Whatever man, you are fucking insane!” Benny replies as he makes a U turn back in the direction towards the Shawn’s home.

Another voice speaks. It’s male. This voice makes Danny’s blood run cold and he cannot speak. He cannot think. This is the voice that makes him hurt people.

He thinks you‘re pitiful! Do you hear him laughing? Make it stop Daniel, make it stop.

~*~

There’s blood on Danny’s hands. He can feel it drying between his digits, the smell on his clothes. He stares down at his fingers wishing that he could see them, but his vision is blurred from unshed tears. Fuck, he hates to cry, he rarely ever does. His feet are cold and he’s walking through snow, thick bundles with smooth ice underneath each layer that causes him to slip every odd step. Snow’s in his hair too, on his shoulders, but it’s no longer falling from the sky. It just makes him feel colder.

Somewhere up the road a car sits. The driver has been hit so many times in the face that it’s starting to swell to grossly large proportions. Danny has broken the driver’s nose with the first punch from a balled up fist. Benny didn’t even see it coming. Danny thinks that he’s killed him, but he hasn’t. He’s only knocked him unconscious and when Benny wakes up, the last thing that he‘ll remember is leaving the bar with Laura‘s--a waitress at Hooters, phone number. He‘ll think he’s gotten into a car wreck and belittle himself for falling asleep while driving as he calls his father to come and get him. He‘ll forget that Danny turned the steering wheel to make him crash it into a fence.

You showed him boy!

“Why the fuck did you make me do that? Whhyy?” Danny’s voice is strained as he drudgingly tramps through the thick carpet of whiteness. The air around him is chilly, freezing and he’s only wearing a light black blazer that couldn’t keep a polar bear warm. He’s almost home though so he knows he’ll just have to grit his teeth and tolerate the cold for only a few moments longer. If he could manage to raise his fuzzy gaze from the road he would see that the sky is clear and stilled. Time is something that at the moment is inconsequential, but it’s long after midnight and a few hours shy of a breaking dawn.

You done did good son, real good!

“You proud of me pop? You proud?” Danny’s mood changes. If he’s made his father proud of him, then everything would have been worth it. Everything would be okay. If he’s made daddy proud, then he doesn’t care about the ache in his fist and the way Benny’s blood has dried underneath his nail bed.

You could never make me proud, never!

The stinging reality of letdown makes Danny’s heart fall heavy. He can feel sadness caress his cheek. It kisses his face, slowly makes love to his body and he can feel something warm running down his legs as he struggles to keep his footing on the road. He hasn’t seen one single car in twenty-minutes, but the gateway entrance to Shawn’s house is only a few more feet away.

You pissed your pants sissy! You pissed your fucking pants!

“I’m sorry--I won’t do it again! I won’t! I won’t!” Danny yells. He’s no longer the man of twenty-seven. He’s a child of eight. He’s at home, back in Philly in the house that he shared with his mother and father for the first ten years of his life. It’s a Sunday morning and there‘s a draft that flows. Danny knows mommy has forgot to pay the electricity again. At first he doesn’t feel the wetness in his sheets, but when he flips the covers back, he can smell his urine. He knows daddy gets angry when he wets the bed. He shouldn’t be wetting the bed anymore. Daddy says he’s a big boy and big boys don’t piss in the bed like little sissies. Afraid, Danny jumps up throwing the pillows off quickly and trying to take off the sheets. He’s not quick enough and before he can pull them off the bedroom door is thrown open.

“You pissed the bed again boy? You pissed in the bed that I paid for!” Danny’s father yells. His hair is long and dark, falling at his shoulders and his eyes are the same shade of blue only Danny knows that his don’t bug out the way his dad’s is doing as he yells. He’s big too. Not tall and not fat, just big and scary like the monsters his older brother says live in the basement.

“No! No!” Danny tries to plead, but daddy’s rushing over to him. Daddy has his son’s thin little arm gripped too tightly with his wide fist. Danny whimpers. He’s too scared to open his eyes because he can smell the breakfast on daddy’s breath and the scent is bitter like mommy’s dinner from the bottle.

“You want to be a sissy? HUH!! YOU WANT TO BE A FUCKING SISSY!” Daddy keeps yelling. Danny’s so scared. He hates it when daddy yells because then daddy takes off his belt and when daddy takes off his belt, daddy hits him with it. Sometimes daddy makes him bleed on the outside. Sometimes he bleeds from the inside when daddy comes in his room late at night or early morning and tells him that mommy won’t give daddy special kisses. Sometimes daddy makes his son gives him special kisses. And Danny will do whatever his daddy wants because he wants to make daddy proud, he wants daddy to love him.

Danny’s at the gate now, he can see the light from the porch way out in the distance at the end of the driveway while the rest of the house is hidden by trees and consumed by shadows. The little girl that lives behind his eyes with the older girl is running away from his daddy now. He can hear her crying and he can hear daddy yelling. The girl sounds like his sister, but she isn’t. She only looks like her and likes for Danny to read her stories.

The damn gate is locked and Danny can’t remember the access code. It’s somebody’s birthday and it’s not his. It’s not Shawn’s. It’s not Chloe’s. It’s not his uncle Mike’s or his Aunt Pat’s. He can’t remember if it‘s Shawn‘s sister Holly‘s, but he thinks that the code might be that because she was the one who made it and no one’s changed it yet.

The fence is not the kind of fence that you can climb over because the bars are wrought of iron, long and straight. His head hurts again. It hurts so bad, but his father must have caught the little girl because they’re both silent now. Everyone is silent and Danny’s eyes start to droop as he begins the trek to the woods nearby. He’ll get to the house by taking the four-wheeler trails.

It takes him ten minutes of walking through the slippery forest before he reaches the front door. He sees Ethan’s car parked off to the side next to another car that Danny doesn’t recognize.

He’s not quiet as he bursts in through the front door. He’s so cold and knows that there’s a bottle of Crown Royal just waiting in the cabinet for him. The lights are all off down here on the ground level, but up the stairs he can hear the soft mumble of a movie playing. Besides that everything else is hushed as he flips the light on to flood the kitchen.

He takes long, dragged steps to the cabinets. One of the cats is asleep in the sink again. He can hear the cat’s soft purring. He takes the bottle of whiskey out and unscrews the top. He takes one long sip and doesn’t bother to savor the bitter taste. His blood caked hands make it hard to grip the bottle so he has to slam it down on the countertop before he drops it.

The cat jumps out of the sink when he turns the water on. It comes out cold at first and then warms up until it’s scorching hot.

Be a good boy for mommy. Rinse the dirt away….

The soft feminine voice with a country twang almost sings to him. It makes Danny smile as he reaches for dishwashing liquid and makes sure to scrub his fingers clean.

He brings the bottle back to his lips. His steps are unsteadied. He sways and winds up missing his lips. The alcohol pours down his shirt, drenching him and he laughs. It’s soft. It’s whispery. It sounds almost immoral or anomalous. The blinks of his eyes are prompt and rapid. He’s staring at the staircase. It’s dark and looming, but he knows once he breaks through the darkness, he’ll be in the light upstairs. But he doesn’t want light. He wants to finish this bottle. So he takes another sip. It burns like the first five. His body is so used to consuming so much alcohol, so he’s drunk, but not as drunk as most people would be.

He takes another sip and another. He wonders where Ethan’s at. He knows he’s up those dark and lonely stairs, probably with Shawn sneaking off and doing things that Danny can only desire. He’s going to have to stop it. Shawn shouldn’t always get to have all the fun, that’s what the girl that calls herself the devil always says. Usually Danny ignores her. She’s not talking now, but when she does, he’ll listen.

He slams the bottle down only to quickly pick it back up to take another sip. Grasping his hand on the edge of the countertop he holds himself up. He wants to fall down and collapse to the red tiles, but he wants another sip. He doesn’t need it, but he wants it. He doesn’t want it, but he needs it. He takes another sip and another. It’s disgusting yet he takes another. He goes to take one more sip, but his tongue is greeted with the slow slide of one single drop. The bottle is finished. He still wants more. Whiskey, vodka or beer, it doesn’t matter, he just wants more booze. He goes back into the cabinet. The little girl starts to whimper. Daddy’s making her kiss him. Danny thinks about more blue pills that are in his bedroom stashed behind a poster that covers a hole where he’s hidden all of his medications. The doctors call them antidepressants and anti-psychotic stabilizers. Danny calls them ‘bums’ because sometimes they don’t work--just like bums.

It seems like time is moving slow. He finds a bottle of red wine. He hates how it tastes, but that’s all he can find for now so he takes the cork between his teeth. It hurts to try and pull it out, but he keeps on trying. He only gets half out and he wants to throw the bottle against the wall in anger. Maybe if he breaks it, he can lick up the liquid after it’s spilled. But instead he sees a knife sitting in the sink. He hasn’t noticed this before now. He’s not careful when he goes to pick it up. It’s a carver’s knife so immediately three of his fingers are sliced as he grasps it. It doesn’t hurt though. He barely feels a pinch. He’s numb all over. He doesn’t even feel how wet his socks and the bottom of his jeans are anymore.

He taps at the cork with the knife and with one long pull, he only gets another little piece out. His swears, cursing whoever is listening. In anger, he stabs at the cork again and he pushes it down so far that it falls into the wine. Eureka. Triumph. Relief. He smiles and brings the bottle to his lips. It’s a little too sweet for his liking, but the alcohol content is stronger than beer anyway. So he sips and he sips and he keeps on sipping until his throat is raw. He keeps sipping. Inside of his head, the soft southern drawl of the woman speaks again,

Don’t drink so fast honey. We have a long night ahead of us. Make it last.

~*~

Each step up into the black velvet brings him closer and closer to the muffled sounds. Those sounds of something dramatic in Technicolor projecting off of the forty-four inch screen of the plasma television set. He stumbles with each rise. His feet seem to feel like lead and they thud with every pound up sixteen steps as his hand grips the wooden banister in hopes of preventing a fall. He can see the light just above his head. It’s a soft dust of golden shadows that somehow feel like hope as he struggles towards it. He can smell the piss and booze off of his clothes and the pungent stench of his odor makes his nose recoil as tears sting his eyes. He smells like death.

He hasn’t realized just how hazy his sight is until he’s up in the living room. Olivia and Chloe are passed out against one of the leather sofas. They look like two blobs of white and blue blankets at each end, both passed out drunk. Danny can tell because when he bumps his leg against the coffee table and screams out, neither woman stirs. Maybe they were drugged because Chloe never drinks more than two beers.

He blinks so he can see better. It doesn’t work because with each flash of his eyelids, his vision only seems to worsen. He keeps trying though. He keeps on trying and he’s walking over closer to the couches. He bumps into the coffee table again and as he yells he throws off all the magazines that lay so perfectly neat and orderly at the corner. His Aunt Pat must have come over earlier in the day. She always cleans for them like they‘re all teenagers instead of twenty-three and twenty-four. She’s great. If she had a southern drawl instead of Bostonian to her speech she’d be the perfect mother. Olivia and Chloe still aren’t moving. Danny closes his eyes as he stands above Chloe and when he opens them, he still can’t see. In his eyes she looks like one soft blur of freshly washed red hair that looks black. He might be above Olivia, he can’t tell with the foggy discrepancy.

Kill that bitch!

It’s the voice of the man again. It’s the father that lives inside of his head. He must have been finished with the little girl and has come back to play with him Danny muses to himself.

“No!” Danny yells back. The force behind his voice is so strong that it makes him stumble. He falls down on the couch. He can feel leather in his palm and a tiny body underneath him. Soft hair brushes into his face. She smells nice. Like sweet cream and flowers, she smells nice. He’s still not sure if it’s Chloe or Olivia, but he thinks its Chloe because he’s smelled this scent in Shawn’s bathroom before.

Kill that bitch!

“With what? I don’t fucking want to!” Danny moans this time. He’s trying to pull himself up. It’s just she smells so nice. Her hair is so soft. He brings his fingers to stroke her temple. She does not stir.

The knife is in your back pocket! Don’t be no sissy!

“I’m not no fucking sissy! You can’t make me be one! You can’t!” His convictions are weak so really, they’re just meager statements. He’s trying to hold onto his sanity. It’s long gone. He reaches into his back pocket. He’s afraid. He doesn’t want to do it; he can’t bring himself to do it. Chloe’s not his enemy. She’s one of the nicest people that he’s ever met. She’s a good person. She shouldn’t be with Shawn. He doesn’t treat her right. He’s fucking Ethan up in one of the spare bedrooms right now is what Danny knows is the truth. Maybe he’ll be saving her. Maybe he can be a hero if he does it. He rolls off of the couch and down to the floor. In the background he can hear a trumpet sound. It’s from the television set of whatever movie the girls have passed out watching.

He’s smiling now. He doesn’t know why. He can’t find the energy to move. He thinks that he’s dead and he’s laughing because he can’t hear his father’s voice anymore. He turns on his stomach. He knows he should try and move, but he doesn’t want to. He wants to lay in his own filth as the sound of someone on the screen is crying. He wonders what they’re crying about, but he doesn’t have the energy to turn around and find out. He wouldn’t be able to see it anyway.

You feel like you’re dreaming baby don’t you?

It’s the mother that protects him inside that’s speaking. Sometimes she’s nice and takes care of him. Most times she’s not and is just as bad as his father. He doesn’t answer her.

Go and clean yourself up. You’re dirty.

She speaks again. Danny thinks she’s most definitely from Georgia because her voice is soft like peach fuzz. If he tries, really, really tries he can roll over. If he tries, really, really tries, he can use the coffee table to pull himself up. But that’s too much work. He wants to lay lazily in his blood, piss and alcohol stained clothes. He wants to lay in death, a blanket of suicide.

He’s laughing again. He thinks he can hear a moan coming from the next landing. He imagines that it’s Ethan‘s. In his mind he can see Shawn’s mouth kissing all the intimate places of Ethan’s body. Shawn’s mouth is expert, his tongue is fluid and he has learned all the curves of Ethan’s flesh with his teeth.

Danny’s laughing again. He’s laughing because he wants to go up the stairs and break Shawn away. He wants to peel away each layer, taking only one for himself. Shawn has too much of everything anyway. He shouldn’t have Ethan too.

If he tries, really, really tries, he can roll over on his back. If he tries, really, really tries he can use the coffee table to pull himself up. But that’s too much work. He doesn’t feel like trying. He just wants to smile at the clouds behind his eyes. He feels like he’s dreaming. He is dreaming. Everything is peculiar.

Touch your pocket!

It’s the voice of the girl. She calls herself the devil. Sometimes her accent is so thick that it’s hard to understand. Danny touches his back pocket. There’s a handle to a knife that he pulls out. He can’t see it, only the shadowed contours that surrounds it. He wonders how it got there. He’s waking up from his dream now.

You want him for yourself.

“Fuck!” Danny yells. He’s not even sure what the devil is saying. Her words are almost as foreign as the knife he’s dropped back to the floor beside him.

They’re up there Daniel.

She states. Her voice is low and whispery. It’s almost seductive. If he tries, really, really tries he can make himself stand. He doesn’t try. He feels like he’s dreaming again. Nothing is real…nothing is real. But the knife is in his hand again. He knows he didn’t pick it back up. The devil must have.

Go and make it real.

~*~

The voice fades in and out from and echo to a mumble. A mere reverberation of muffled indistinct sounds. His eyes are closed and he can see colors. He wonders what time it is. His jeans are stuck to his thighs and as he tries to roll onto his stomach, he freezes. His pants get caught on a nail that rises up from the floorboards like an overturned coffin caught in a Louisiana rainstorm. He can’t find the strength to try and pull it away so he stops moving.

The colors are bright. Danny can see green, orange, blue and yellow. He even sees a little bit of pink that darkens into a red. It’s not dark like blood, but arid like dusk or high noon in the desert. Just like the red that dances beneath a sunrise . He can feel a tickle in his nose and scratches at it. He’s way too out of things to notice the blood on his fingers. Another nosebleed. Above him he can hear deep breathing, one in unison with the another. The colors are talking to him. They’re luring him to sit up with an extravagant display of beauty. Fireworks burst right in front of his eyes. It’s so vivid he swears he can feel the heat from the sparks. Again he hears deep breathing and he laughs softly. He thinks he’s partially dead because he can’t hear his breaths.

Get up!

Danny’s not too sure who’s talking to him, the colors make the voice sound distorted. The display of pinwheel rainbow sparkled explosions lure him to sit up. He yanks his leg and doesn’t hear the tear in his jeans. Once more a lazy grin plays indolently across his face. That engaging aroma of sweet cream and flowers is strong again. He can feel hair touching his face. He reaches out his hand and brushes it away. He feels leather in his hands and when he feels the strain on his legs, that’s when he realizes that he’s standing up. The couch is his aide.

The television set blares. Danny turns and looks at it. He’s not surprised that his vision is clear again. He’s dead now. Death allows him to see. He’s laughing. He doesn’t know what’s funny. Nothing is funny. A new movie has started and it’s something from the early nineties. It’s funny because the girl on the television set is crying. Danny sees Shawn on the screen. He’s the one sitting in a garden, holding a pot of flowers as he’s screaming at the sky. Good, Danny muses to himself. He’s glad that Shawn’s not happy. He’s always happy. He doesn’t deserve it.

To the left!

The voice yells and Danny’s head snaps in that direction. He’s not sure who’s talking. The voice sounds like his. Maybe it’s his conscience, the demon of self that lives in his heart. On one of the couches lays two pocketbooks. It’s in his nature--even in a drunken, self-medicated stupor to walk over towards them. His legs still feel heavy and the wet jeans weigh him down. The laces on his boots are untied. He almost trips. He catches himself.

Inside the first one there’s only lipstick and perfume. Danny grunts as his eyes travel towards the couch where the girls are sleeping or passed out or drugged. His heartbeats thud erratically, with the fear of them waking. But they are no longer there. There are two small pigs with closed eyelids sitting in their places. Flies dance above their heads as the skin is pulled back just above the eyes. They’re carcasses. He blinks. The image leaves him. Chloe is on one end of the couch, wrapped up in white. Olivia is on the other end, wrapped up in blue.

In the other purse, the one that’s smaller than the first, there is money, lots of money. Too many bills, that he cares to count. He just grabs the whole lot and stuffs them in his pocket. He looks in it a second time, just to make sure that he hasn’t overlooked anything. Only his vision is getting blurry again. He can smell the odor of his clothes again. He smells like a rotting pig. He drops the purses and looks towards the second set of stairs. They lead up to the second level. That’s where the spare bedrooms are. That’s where he knows Shawn and Ethan are.

Kill them.

“Shut up.” Danny mumbles. The voice he silences is his own. His pace is steadied, one foot in front of the other, careful as to not fall. The living room is lit up like a match, but the second landing is dim. Only one light shows and that’s from the top of the stairwell.

He takes the steps one by one. He’s feeling anger. His pockets are full with stolen money and his body is numbed by the blue pills and alcohol that are making him sleepy. But still, through his anesthetized state, he still feels anger. Why does Shawn always get to have everything? Danny thinks Shawn isn’t a good person like he is.

Danny will help people and not ask for anything in return. Shawn doesn’t do that. Shawn will only help if it helps him. Everyone knows it. Ethan’s not like Shawn though. Ethan’s just like him. Ethan will help without asking why. Ethan won’t make you feel bad on purpose. If he does, it’s only accidental. Ethan is like him, only instead of being dark, imperfect and arcane, he’s bright and all knowing and infallible. Danny knows Ethan better than anyone else because Ethan is he. He’s just like him and they would fit perfectly together. They would fit like a glove or a pair of worn-in shoes. Shawn’s like a new belt. He doesn’t fit well with Ethan.

You know what they’re doing don’t you?

This is the voice of another man. This man isn’t his father, but he’s just as mean.

“Fuck off!” Danny grumbles.

He’s fucking him up the ass! Shawn has everything and you have nothing! Nothing…

“I said shut the fuck up!” Danny yells again. The man in his head laughs. He’s quiet now.

There are four doors all lined up in a lone, long neat row like teeth that are too straight. But at the end of the hallway, there is one crocked tooth that sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s painted the same shade of relaxed brown just like all the others, but it’s way down the hall. Danny is drawn in that direction.

He walks. His jeans make a funny rustling noise and his boots scuff. The carpet underneath his feet softens the sounds so no one can hear is approach. He stands in front of door, not sure what to do next.

Open it.

He tries to. The knob turns easily. The room is dark, but the blankets are moving. Danny can hear moans. Someone is on top and their head is thrashing back and forth. Their hair is dark and cut short. Danny’s breathing is short as his hand grips the doorknob unsteadily. He sees a hand juts out from underneath the covers. This hand is pale and rips into the dark hair. It pulls and Danny can hear a laugh. It’s Shawn’s laugh and he watches Shawn lean down and kiss Ethan. He watches as Ethan laughs and flips Shawn onto his back.

“I’m gonna ride you like a bronco!” Danny hears Ethan snicker. His speech is dragged down by five too many beers and three too many shots of Remy.

“I’m on top ass!” Danny hears Shawn’s jovial response. His voice is even more towed. He’s annihilated, three sheets to the wind and shit-tossed drunk. Danny can feel something inside of his chest throb as he watches from the crack of the doorway. No one notices him because the crack is so shallow and both men are romping around like spoiled children, drunk and careless.

It hurts don’t it baby? Momma knows.

Her words are soft in his ear. They make him close his eyes and imagine hugs and words of love and protection.

You know what you have to do when it hurts baby?

“Share it, right mom?” Danny whispers. His jaw is set. He can hear them play fighting, wrestling around and laughing. They don’t even notice him. No one ever notices him.

And when you do, you got to make it sting.

~*~

It’s a dry ache that spreads from his chest down to his stomach. It pulls like the morning tide of a California ocean, drowning him in the undercurrent. He can hear them. Their pants, their moans, their laughter intertwining with the sound of sticky fleshing being drawn into warm mouths. He can see the way the dark comforter shifts as the four hundred thread count sheets rustle. The sound scratches inside of his ear like prickled needlepoints, poking and jabbing. Danny watches silently as his breaths come out short and dragged. He thinks he’s a dragon that’s run out of fire. The room is dark with only the light from the adjoining bathroom shining one violent stream of luminosity that stops just short of the foot of the bed. Danny doesn’t have to see them to actually see them.

He imagines that he can see Shawn’s lips pressing onto Ethan’s shoulder blade. He can see Ethan’s lips part as he moans. It’s an almost quiet yet strained gasp that makes Danny’s heart throb. He can see the way Shawn’s fingertips are gliding across Ethan’s chest with his palm pressing into the dip of his stomach. Ethan laughs as he flinches away. Shawn’s mouth latches on to Ethan’s ear as Ethan continues to laugh. He sounds like a child. Danny can see Shawn’s hand moving lower and lower and lower until Ethan cries out for Shawn to stop teasing him.

Danny can feel a surge of hazy awareness flourish inside of his stomach. It’s a heat that spreads down to his groin staining everything below the waist with a light rose blush. He’s getting turned on. He doesn’t want to be, but he can see Shawn slinking his body down against Ethan’s. He can see Ethan’s fists attack the sheets, throwing them in chokeholds as his hands clutch at them. Shawn’s head is inside of Ethan’s lap. Danny can hear the sounds of his mouth suckling. It’s loud. It’s aggressive. It’s almost needy.

“Oh that feels so fucking good!” Ethan grunts. The sound of his penis dislodging from Shawn’s mouth reverberates between four wallpapered corners.

“Yeah?” Shawn teases. His voice is drunk, muffled, his head still underneath the covers almost like he’s hiding from the world, or at least himself.

“Why are you stopping?” Ethan laughs.

“Cuz I want to suck you off while you suck me off!” Shawn replies. There’s so much amusement in his voice. The sheets rustle again until Ethan is flat on the bed and he’s holding onto to Shawn’s thighs. Shawn’s hips don’t move fluidly, they move aggressively as he pumps his cock in and out of Ethan’s mouth. Ethan lips smack together almost rudely as the pleasure of Shawn’s mouth becomes too much.

Danny closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to see anymore. His hand is rubbing the back of his neck and his eyes are closed. Ethan and Shawn are gone now. They disappear under a blanket of black. It will be their refuge of comfort, their safe place, their sanctuary, their havened place of protection that isn‘t made for people like him.

There are no more words now. Danny can’t hear them if there are. The voices inside of his head are quiet, but they’re congregating.

He doesn’t realize that he’s pressing his palm flat against the bulge in-between his front pockets, right where the zipper runs down the middle of the dark fabric. His jeans are wet damp with urine and from the snowfall that he’s walked in, but he ignores the moisture. He can feel that his cock is firm. It’s not very long and it’s not very hard, but it’s firm and filled with a heat that makes Danny not think twice as he digs his hand almost crudely down into the denim. He can feel the rough hairs on the lower most point of his stomach scratch into his palm as he fumbles to feel his cock.

He doesn’t feel perverted or sick or twisted and corrupt as his hand encloses around his most intimate place. It’s warm and he doesn’t even have to squeeze before he feels a dab of semen slicking between his fingers. It’s not much, but it’s something. His breaths are tight. Not tight like ponytails, not tight like elastic, but tight like the way his fathers hands used to be around his arms as he would hold him down to the bed or up against the wall or pushing him over the countertops or grinding him deep down into the dirt floor of the cellar in the house on Muller Street. Sometimes when Danny used to cry that it was hurting, --what daddy was doing hurt-- his father would give a whiskey-induced cackle and tell him that it was supposed to.

Whiskey smells, it’s retched, but Danny still loves to drink it.

Now he can hear Shawn cry out as the blankets are thrown off the bed. Danny’s eyes flash open. He sees Ethan’s silhouette jolt up out from the sheets like a deep smudge against the dim canvas of the room. Danny can see everything now.

They are like two animals feverishly attacking skin with warm mouths and sweaty hands. Shawn is at the foot of the bed resting his body effortlessly on top of Ethan’s who lays at the head. Danny sees Shawn’s head bobbing up and down as Ethan’s hand tug and pull at his cock. Shawn’s grunting and making a funny high-pitched sound like he’s angry or mad or happy and sad all wrapped up with a ribbon of excitement. Danny’s father used to make that sound after he would make him bleed. That sound isn‘t beautiful; it’s distorted into something viscous, malevolent and dark.

The lights flip off. They’ve disappeared back under the blanket of black. Danny’s eyes closes as the feeling of desire seeps away. Like tapped out veins, dried moss, the lust and passion has become desiccated as his penis softens into something gentle in his palm.

“Fuck! I’m gonna cum! I’m gonna cum!! Pull off, pull off!!!” Ethan yells. His hands are gripping something under the cover. It’s Shawn’s head. The sting of knowing that Shawn has accomplished yet one more thing makes Danny burn with an almost jealous and hateful angst. But that goes away when he blinks.

He can still hear Ethan moaning as he’s struggling to breathe. Shawn gasps from underneath the covers. It’s that funny sound. Shawn isn’t Shawn anymore. He’s making the ‘daddy’ sound. Shawn has become Danny’s father with that sound. Not the father that lives inside of his head, but the father who went to jail for ten years for raping him and his brother; the father that would sell his children to other dirty men. Danny can’t remember what those men used to do to him. All he can remember are their scents.

Some smelled like car batteries, bitter and electric. Some scents were sharp with the stank odor of unwashed bodies--under the arms were the worst. Some smelled sweet, like expensive smell goods. One man used to make him take baths and he’d have to wash with a soap that smelled sweet. Not sweet for kids, but sweet like the grown-ups would wear. And as Danny blinks again, he sees daddy in the bed. Daddy is laughing and pulling Ethan’s face close to his. Daddy is running his hands through Ethan’s hair, kissing Ethan’s mouth, touching Ethan’s stomach.

“STOP!” Danny yells. The two figures on the bed seem not to notice him. He goes ignored.

Open your mouth sweetheart.

The voice is soft and motherly; the hint of a southern accent making Danny find the strength to rely on her words.

“STOP!”

Darling, you need to open your mouth and say it.

“STOP!” Danny’s voice is scratchy and hard, almost too loud and it makes Shawn and Ethan jump apart. Shawn scrambles out of the bed and frantically steps into the pants he has left discarded to the floor. Ethan pulls on his boxer shorts while under the covers and flips the lamp on.

“Wait! This is NOT what---Danny?” Ethan states. He’s getting out of the bed. He looks almost like an angel with flaxen hair that the kisses the tips of his exposed shoulders in thick ringlets. His skin is pale with etched lines of every color of the rainbow. His arms have motifs of flags from Ireland and crosses with Jesus hanging from them, but there are only a few that can be hidden by long sleeves. Danny watches as he walks towards him. His hands are outstretched like he wants to embrace him.

“Get the fuck out of my room!” Shawn’s voice interrupts. He must break something in Ethan because Ethan stops walking towards him. Danny turns and looks at Shawn. The face he sees is his father. The hair is dark, but long to his shoulders and greasy tied back with a rubber band. A few pieces of slicked hair fall against his face. There’s a scar above his eyebrow--something from a bar fight in his teenage years. He’s tall and not very wide, but his thin arms feel heavy when they hold you down.

“Why you gotta hurt him too?” Danny asks his father. The light from the lamp is making his head hurt. He tries to blink away the sore, but it’s getting harder and harder to keep blinking.

“Mind your fucking business!” Shawn yells. He charges at Danny, pushing him with all of his might. Danny’s like a blowup doll with a lever that has just been released. He crashes against the wall in slow motion. Time stops. He’s like a piece of paper that has been crumpled and no longer of use to anyone.

“Shawn, what the fuck did you do that for?” Ethan yells as he rushes over to Danny. He puts his hand on his Danny‘s shoulders, burning their eyes together as he studies his face. Danny likes how he feels as Ethan looks at him. For a moment, he feels at ease as his head throbs with a dull ache that makes him tired.

“What? I don’t know! God! Is he bleeding? What the fuck? What are you on?” Shawn yells. There’s blood dripping from Danny’s nose again. It’s a shallow river of something crimson.

“What the fuck are you on Danny?” Ethan’s angry. He thinks Danny has been using drugs again.

You’re so fucking stupid!

“Fuck you! You hear me dad, fuck you!”

“It’s Ethan! What the hell did you take!” Ethan repeats. His voice is almost frantic and Danny’s eyes feel heavy. It’s getting harder to see. The back of his head is throbbing and something warm is running down his chin.

So fucking worthless!

“Leave me alone! You don’t know shit mother fucker, you don’t know shit!” Danny yells at the voice.

“ Ethan, get him out of here or I’m gonna kill him!” Shawn yells. Only Danny doesn’t hear Shawn’s voice. He hears his father’s voice. He’s getting confused because the father in his head is laughing, but the father in his ear is yelling and talking to Ethan.

“Give me your shirt will ya?” Ethan asks. He wants to wipe away the sweat dripping off Danny’s face. He wants to wipe away the blood that trickles from his nose. He doesn’t like how sallow Danny’s skin is looking.

“Oh god! He’s fucking doing coke! I knew he was using that shit! I fucking knew it!”

“YOU use coke dad, not me!” Danny mumbles. His head still hurts. It hurts so bad. It’s not sharp, but it’s cloudy-dull. He lifts his head, but it’s only because Ethan’s hand is guiding his jaw. His body feels tired; so tired, more tired than it’s ever been.

“What? I’m not your--you know what, Ethan you deal with this! I’m heading up to bed!”

“What? You’re just gonna fucking leave me here?” Ethan yells. Danny can feel the heat that Ethan’s body was creating leave as he stands.

“I don’t want to deal with this shit!”

“You always fucking leave me to do everything!” Ethan yells even louder. He’s tired of having to play fuck buddy and parent. The routine is five years too old. He’s not asking for any decelerations because honestly, he’s not sure if he’d give them himself, but he just doesn’t want to be the one that does all the hard work.

“And I’m leaving you with this dipshit too!”

Ethan’s getting up: he’s walking after Shawn and slams the door behind him. There’s muffled words thrashing about in the hallway now. Danny pulls himself up, bracing his palms flat on the floor. The carpet feels dry in his hands.

You’re all dirty.

It’s the voice of the mother again. She makes him feel so good….so good.

“I’m sorry. I washed my hands.”

Now Daniel you know you need to wash your body.

“Where?”

There.

The adjoining bathroom is a few feet away from him. He can feel the warmth from his nose drying and when he licks his chapped lips he can taste blood.

“I’m bleeding?”

You’re dying.

She’s lying to him. Mother’s aren’t supposed to lie.

“I’m already dead. I died downstairs.”

Take your shower darling and momma will take care of the rest.

He unbuttons his shirt and lifts his hands high up into the air so she can pull his t-shirt above his head. He kicks off his boots and feels how wet his socks are. His jeans go down his cold and clammy skin with a bit of a struggle, but soon he’s free of them. He’s standing naked in the room as the door opens.

“Oh, naked and drunk again! What else is new?” Ethan sighs.

Don’t look at him baby. Keep on going to the bathtub. Wash behind your ears now.

“I gotta wash my ass.” Danny states softly from behind his shoulder. He’s like a rogue solider escaping away from the conversation before it even begins. His steps feel hauled, almost like the stale air of the room wants to knock him down. Out of the corner of his eye he sees a flash of golden hair right before he feels arms wrap around his waist.

“Whoa! Easy!” Ethan whispers in his ear.

He’s gonna do to you what your father used to.

“No he won’t!” Danny yells. Mother goes silent. “Mom?”

“Why do you keep fucking up your life?” Ethan asks him as he slings Danny’s arm over his shoulder so he can lead him to the bed. Only Danny doesn’t hear him.

“Mom?” Danny cries out. She’s gone. She’s not answering. She always answers him when he calls, “MOM!”

“Would you calm down! God! Is it heroin? For the love of God, please tell me that it ain’t that shit? After seven years? Seven years man?”

“MOM!!! DON‘T GO!! PLEASE!!!”

“I‘m not your fucking mother!” Ethan mutters. He’s angry as he leaves for Danny to crumble down on the bed.

Get up.

It’s the voice that scares Danny the most. It’s the girl that calls herself the devil. She has no face. Her teeth are rotted like meat that has been left out in the streets for the rodents to devour. Her hair is like endless midnight and her voice has an accent, like she’s from another world.

She scares him. He wants to move, but he’s feeling sleepy again. His head is still throbbing. He feels cold and tries to pull the covers over him, but he’s pulled Ethan. It’s Ethan’s chest pressed against his that makes Danny open his eyes. It’s the feeling of Ethan’s hair scratching at his neck as he’s trying to get up that makes Danny hold him down.

“What the fuck!” Is Ethan’s surprised gasp. He’s a lot stronger than Danny and he’s drunk, but he has more control so it’s easy for him to pull away.

Get up!

She yells again. Still, it’s hard to move much. The devil gets angry and pulls him up with a yank. His hands are at Ethan’s throat. Danny’s not sure of what he’s doing. He doesn’t want to hurt Ethan. He can’t hurt Ethan. Ethan’s a nice guy, the only one who’s ever nice without a reason. But his hands are around Ethan’s throat and he’s squeezing. He’s squeezing so hard that his knuckles are cracking. But Ethan…. Ethan’s not choking. He’s laughing and flinching away from his touch.

“Are you tickling me? Ha! Oh God, get away from me!” Ethan laughs.

He’s laughing at you. He’s no different and you know it, don’t you?

“No.”

You know it’s true, don’t you? You‘re nobodies nothing!!!!

“No! You’re fucking wrong! Shut your mouth bitch!”

Hurt him! Hurt him like the men hurt you!

“Why? No, please, no!” Danny pleads. His knees feel weak. He can taste the bile rising up his throat like a harsh rainstorm.

“What? Danny? Dude? Come on, you’re having a bad trip.”

Because everyone should hurt, why should you be the only one?

Ethan’s arms are around his waist again. Danny feels safe. Ethan’s arms are strong and gentle, his hands are firm and he’s touching him as if he’s a flower that might wilt if it’s not handled with delicate care. He’s leading him to the bed and Ethan pulls back the covers for him to lay under. Danny can smell the mingled scent of Shawn and Ethan’s spilled semen on the sheets, but he lays down in them anyway. Ethan’s almost like a brother or a father or a very close best friend who’s being dreadfully nice and especially compassionate. He’s saying something to him, but Danny can’t hear him. All he sees are Ethan’s lips moving as his eyebrows are furrowed. He feels Ethan touch his forehead with an upturned palm. His eyebrows arch and he’s saying more words to him, but all Danny sees are lips moving--two, cherry pink lips hidden beneath a ginger kissed beard that’s an inch too long.

Daniel! You know what you have to do!

“No! I can’t--don’t make me…” He pleads. He closes his eyes hoping he can shut out her voice. He knows resistance is futile; she will always win. All the voices always win. He’s just a puppet on a string, a distorted and crippled man, made of wood with no real emotions, left to be toyed with by forgotten hands.

The alarm clock--do it!

Danny starts to scream. His eyes are shut and he sits up. He feels his stomach twisting with the sting of a burn that makes his fingers feel numb as he reaches on the nightstand and grabs the alarm clock. He keeps his eyes closed and takes one swing. It’s weak. He opens his eyes and Ethan’s staring at him in confusion. Fear plays across his hazy shade of smoky green eyes that have been kissed by the sky on its warmest summer day. He’s not trying to run away. He’s looking at Danny like he’s sad, like he’s truly sad and he reaches out his hand and tries to pry the alarm clock from his hands. Only Ethan’s being too slow, being too gentle. Ethan’s is naïve.

Danny hits harder this time. The small black digital box smacks against the side of Ethan’s head with a sudden force that makes Ethan’s eyes do a delayed blink. He’s only stunned but Danny hits him again and again and Ethan’s too shocked to do anything but fall against the bed. He makes the sound that Danny imagines that the giant from Jack And The Beanstalk made when he fell down from his castle in the sky.

Danny’s shaking. He sees blood on his fingers. It’s only a little and Ethan’s face down. His back is smooth and bare of any marks except for one tattoo. It’s a bumblebee. It’s winking at him. The lines of ink swarm and transform until the face of the devil appears against Irish flesh. It makes Danny leap off of the bed, but he’s so unsteadied that he falls flat on his face. He turns on his back to see the face rising up from the bed in an enigma of black lines, etched in the shape of her face. She’s the devil and she’s winking at him.

You are your father.

“No! No I’m not!” Danny pleads. He uses the nightstand to help get upright. He looks down at Ethan. He’s only wearing boxers. He’s face down, but the back of his head is beautiful. His hair is bright and kissed by the heavens. There’s only a little bit of something pink just behind his ear, but it’s not much. It looks like spilled red wine. The face smiles; urging Danny to do what comes natural, what feels natural.

Slowly he reaches out his hand. He touches Ethan’s back. It’s warm and soft and slippery from a soft sheen of sweat that glides across his fingertips. Ethan has always been so untouchable, unattainable, ethereal even. But now, in the quiet of the bedroom as Ethan’s face digs down into the mattress, he is touchable, he is attainable. He knows he shouldn