Tied Within

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Smashwords

  Dedication

  1. Entering

  2. Bones of Birds

  3. Room a Thousand Years Wide

  4. Halfway There

  5. Sweet Euphoria

  6. Ugly Truth

  7. Holy Water

  8. Searching with My Good Eye Closed

  9. Let Me Drown

  10. Nothing to Say

  11. Mood for Trouble

  12. Rusty Cage

  13. Mind Riot

  14. New Damage

  15. The Day I Tried to Live

  Wait, Just One More Thing Before You Go

  About the Author

  Also by Rasmenia Massoud

  Tied Within

  Copyright © 2020 Smashwords, Inc.

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 9781005380052

  Cover photo by Jake Weirick on Unsplash

  Book design by Olivier Massoud & Rasmenia Massoud

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters and situations are products of the author's imagination.

  For the seekers.

  1. ENTERING

  WE’RE TALKING ABOUT nothing again when someone asks if I know what terror feels like. A familiar voice, an echo, reaches through the smoke. Behind the guitar assault grinding and growling though a blown speaker, I know someone is talking to me. I summon the effort to focus my attention on the voice’s face.

  “So, do you?” One of the twins, the one who parts his hair to the left, passes me the joint. He looks like one of those guys from A-ha. His twin brother, who parts his hair to the right, looks like the other A-ha. Holding the joint out to me, he tosses his head back, shaking hair out of his eyes. “I don’t mean a little bit startled. I mean stark terror. Unable to scream. Shit your pants scared.”

  I take the joint from him without answering.

  “I know what that feels like,” Dom says, twisting the cap off a bottle of beer. “When they brought my grandpa home after his stroke, I was still real little. When he tried to speak, it totally freaked me out. I ran away. Almost pissed myself. It took days before I’d go around him at all.”

  The sides of Dominic’s head are the color of uncooked dough, making a stark contrast with his tanned face. His Mohawk is less than two days old. When he dyed it black, some of the black dye dripped and oozed onto his scalp and forehead. If you stand close to him, you can see the scabs on his scalp where he tried to clean the dye off his skin with Clorox bleach. It cleaned so well that he ended up speckled with the evidence of his most recent transformation. That’s Dominic for you: working hard to be badass, but ending up with something hilarious and absurd.

  Dom’s like a lot of people, I guess.

  Next to me on the worn, itchy sofa, Bronwyn shakes her head. “Your poor grandpa. Jesus.”

  Dominic’s shoulders droop, and the wave of shame that washes over his face resonates through everyone in the room. “Yeah, poor old dude. But, I think all grandpas know how dumb little kids are. I bet he doesn’t even remember it, as far gone as he is now.”

  We’re on joint number three. In between hits and spacing out, I’m rubbing my ankles because my feet are killing me. “What is this we’re listening to?”

  “Soundgarden. They’re new. You can take your shoes off if you want to,” Left-parted hair says.

  “More new shit? What were we listening to the last time I was here?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t remember. Maybe it was Alice in Chains. Luke was playing that one nonstop a few weeks ago.”

  Then I get things straight in my mind again and remember that left side is Roman. Right side is Luke and I know confusing the two as often as I do makes me some kind of an asshole because I’ve been fucking Luke since graduation a few weeks ago. None of us have a plan for what the hell we'll do with ourselves for the rest of our lives, and nobody here except Bronwyn even has a job. We need the distractions. Even if we can’t remember which distraction is which.

  “Man, I don't like all this new shit.” Bronwyn picks up a plastic cassette case, opens it, and pulls out the lyric sheet. “All this Seattle stuff. Everything’s changing and it’s weird.”

  Luke laughs and gives her a nudge. “You're just sad because nobody wants to listen to Winger and Poison anymore. Is that what your terror feels like? No more hair metal?”

  Smirking, she holds up the lyric sheet from the twins' Soundgarden cassette. “Yeah. This terrifies me.”

  “So, Ivy.” Roman prods me with his elbow. “What about you?”

  I pull my shoes off. My cheap black suede — okay, imitation suede — ankle-high boots. I take a drink, trying to think of what terrified feels like, what shit-your-pants scared does to a person, besides covering themselves with their own shit.

  “This one time,” I say, “when I was maybe three or four, my sister Indra’s hamsters got loose. She kept them in one of those big plastic Habitrails they run around in, with all the tubes and shit. Well, some of those tubes, they didn’t go anywhere. They had all these dead-ends with plastic orange caps to keep the hamsters inside. Those caps, they popped right off. One day, or maybe it was night, my mom was in the bathroom, fixing herself up, putting makeup on in front of the mirror when she hears this scratching. Claws digging at the wall just in front of her, but she can’t see anything, so she starts screaming bloody murder. She ran out of the bathroom like she was being chased by a fucking axe murderer. We all started screaming because she freaked everybody out with her running and screaming and arms flailing everywhere.” I take a sip of my beer. “A few minutes later, we all laughed because my dad figured out that it wasn’t a murderer, it was just Indra’s hamster. It was funny because it was just this stupid little hamster and the fear was harmless.”

  Bronwyn reaches across me and punches Roman in the arm. “Nice going, dickhead.”

  “Sorry,” he says, handing me another beer without looking at me. “I forgot.”

  I take the beer and I know why Roman doesn’t want to look at me. I’m grateful for that because I know if he does tilt his head up, I’ll see the pity stare. The same expression that drove my sister away. It’s the way people look at you when they know you’re damaged, but don’t know how to react to knowing a thing like that.

  Dominic walks over to the guitar that one of the twins has sitting on a guitar stand. He picks it up and plucks at a few of the strings.

  Bronwyn laughs when she sees what Dominic is doing with the guitar. “Dude.” She shakes her head. “You can’t play that thing.”

  Bronwyn, her real name is Theresa, but she’s been making everybody call her Bronwyn for a couple years, now. “Theresa sounds like a fat chick,” she told me when she first came up with the idea to be a Bronwyn. “A Theresa is unremarkable. Mundane. Adequate. Invisible. Bronwyn is a strong woman. A warrior goddess. A myth.”

  Bronwyn is too much woman to be invisible by any name. She looks like a Theresa, but she reads a lot of books and just got braces to make her teeth look less Theresa-like.

  So, I sit next to Bronwyn — new and improved Theresa — and wait for Dominic to wow us with his musical skills. He takes a deep breath, and then attacks the guitar with an epileptic fury. The erupting cacophony has nothing to do with music, it’s only squeals and screeches of pain from the helpless instrument being tortured.

  The chaotic sounds pull both twins up and out of their seats. One of
them — it doesn’t matter which one — grabs the neck of the guitar and rescues it from any further abuse.

  Bronwyn’s arms wrap around her body, which quakes and jiggles as she laughs so hard that her face turns bright red. “Man, I tried to tell you that you couldn’t play that thing, you idiot.”

  Dom shrugs and takes a pack of smokes out of his pocket. “I was just curious to see if it would work.”

  “If what would work?” I say.

  “My hidden talent.” He packs the box of cigarettes a few times against the palm of his hand. “I don’t know what it is yet. I thought that might be it.”

  “Better keep looking,” says one of the twins.

  “I think your hidden talent might be comedy.” Bronwyn wipes the tears from under her eyes.

  Dominic ignores their comments. “Too bad that wasn’t it,” he says. “That would have been so fucking punk rock.”

  This sends Bronwyn into another fit. Roman shakes his head and rolls his eyes. Luke takes a hit off the joint.

  I feel a little sad for Dominic. Life might be easier if a person accepts that they can’t do anything exceptional or interesting. Maybe a person like that would be exceptional, probably more exceptional and interesting than anyone I’d met so far. I begin to wonder if I should start picking up random instruments to see if I can play them, too. It doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

  Then the door flies open and the screaming begins.

  2. BONES OF BIRDS

  THE TWINS’ MOTHER looks as though she might open her mouth and speak with the tiny chirping voice of a cute woodland creature from one of those animated Disney movies. A pair of oversized glasses distort her face, enlarging her eyes and shrinking her nose. Her diminutive frame makes it easy to imagine she holds herself up with small, hollow bones like a little bird.

  The thing about this tiny bird lady, though — she is batshit insane.

  When she opens her mouth, terrible, shrill sounds come out. She shrieks frustrated Spanglish fragments as she looks up at her identical teenage boys.

  “You little! What! Fucking shit! In my… NO! With the putas! What! Not in my! Taking my cigarettes!” She turns and points a finger in Dominic’s scabbed face. “Pendejo!”

  Thinking this means it’s time to move the party elsewhere, I stand up.

  Big mistake. My sudden movement has drawn her attention to me. She looks up at me, walking toward me, bird finger pointing up at me in accusation.

  “You dirty putas!” The twins take advantage of the diversion, stashing the weed while she’s preoccupied with wanting to kill us. “I’ll kill you, puta! I’ll call the police! What!”

  She is the frailest person in the room, with the weakest language skills, but she’s got all of us confused and petrified.

  Dominic jumps up from the couch. “Time to bail, guys.”

  Bronwyn flies out the door right behind him.

  The furious little woman standing in front of me spins around. “Pendejo!” She runs after him, banging her shin on the table. A beer bottle that had been sitting on it topples over. She snatches it up and hurls it at the two escapees.

  She throws much harder than I’d expected someone so delicate to throw anything, but she misses and the bottle smashes against the wall about two feet from the door.

  The twins move to restrain their mother. Without thinking, I run for the door, following Dominic and Bronwyn outside to freedom.

  I find them laughing in the alley behind the house.

  Dom hugs himself with one arm as he wipes tears from his face with his other hand. “Oh, man. That is the funniest thing I have ever seen. What! What! Puta! Police! Pendejo!”

  Bronwyn laughs so hard she starts coughing.

  “Fuck you, guys,” I say. “You sacrificed me to the screechy old bird woman.”

  “Hey,” Dominic holds up a hand. “It’s every man for himself in these situations. Survival of the fittest.”

  “I hate you.”

  “I know.”

  Bronwyn begins to catch her breath. She coughs. “What do you guys wanna do now? I don’t feel like going home yet.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Me neither.”

  “I kinda feel like trippin’ and stayin’ up all night,” Dom says.

  “I’m in,” I say. “Know where to get a few hits, or some 'shrooms?”

  They both shake their heads.

  “You guys know what? I’m not really into acid and all that shit.” Bronwyn says. “We could go to Kenny Robataille’s house. Maybe get him to go to the liquor store for us. Then we don’t have to lose our buzz.”

  Dom shrugs and looks down the alley at nothing because he doesn’t have the heart to tell Bronwyn that Kenny isn’t into her. Neither one of us do. “We could hitch a ride down to Boulder. We’ll find something down on Pearl Street or up on The Hill if we just walk around.”

  I don’t even bother arguing. My loathing of Boulder never matters in these situations. For Dom and Bronwyn, no place on Earth can compare to Boulder. If one of them suggests it, then I know we’re going to end up there, unless I choose to go home instead.

  I never choose to go home instead.

  The city they see is a place of bohemian freedom, a haven where every kind of person is accepted, authority is lax, drugs are easy to score and can be done in public.

  Me, I see hippies and transients. Artists far from starving. College kids and rich suburban families, funneling their wealth into over-priced granola and New Age dogma.

  They both tell me it’s because I’m cynical. The first time Bronwyn said this to me, I had to get the dictionary and look it up. The definition didn’t feel like something that described me, but if cynical means I don’t get excited about bullshit, then I guess I’m cynical.

  Cynical or not, it doesn’t matter. I’m always outnumbered two to one in the voting.

  “Goddammit,” I say. “We need a fourth friend so I can stop getting the shaft on these votes. Let’s go get a ride. I hope we get one quick, though. I can’t do much walking on the highway.”

  Bronwyn looks confused. “Why not? What’s up, dude? You sick or something?”

  I point at my feet.

  Dominic shakes his head, slaps his hand on his scabbed forehead. Bronwyn resumes her laughing cough fit again.

  “Ivy, how in the hell did you lose your shoes?”

  My shoes are still on the floor of the twins’ basement. My suede — imitation suede — ankle-high boots that cost $11.99 at that shoe store next to the Arby’s. The store where all the shoes are cheap. They hurt your feet and your imitation suede pieces of shit will end up abandoned or lost because shoes like that aren’t meant to be worn. Shoes like that make every step a chore. I should’ve bought shoes at the Army Surplus like Dom, or at a real shoe store like Bronwyn.

  If I'd spent a few more bucks for better shoes, I might not have had to take them off and then have to hitchhike on the highway in my socks for ten goddamn miles.

  “A little birdy took my shoes.”

  “Well,” Bronwyn says, “just run up to the door, or tap on the window and tell one of the twins that you need your shoes.”

  The three of us tiptoe back toward the door leading to the basement. From somewhere inside, we hear Spanglish shrieking.

  Dom leans down and peeks into the window. “Um… we could just walk the two blocks to your house and get some shoes,” Dom says as he straightens up.

  I know Aunt Stacey wants me to be home before it gets dark, but we’ve just finished high school. We waited our whole lives for the summer of ’91 and now we’re finally in it. The summer is the best it’s going to be right now, in this moment, before the heat scorches us, long before the last days of August when the reality of grown up life becomes more than just a specter we can ignore.

  I can imagine Stacey right now, sitting on the couch in front of the TV, watching Donahue in her purple sweatpants, waiting for the moment when the front door will open and she can commence the daily nagging.

 
“Nah, I’m not going there. My aunt is going to be pissed. I ditched my therapy again today. It’s cool. I’ll figure something else out. Let’s just get out of this alley. The Bird is gonna call the cops if we don’t get out of here, I bet.”

  “Yeah, okay.” He stares at me hard. I can see the debate he’s having with himself; trying to decide if he should start the lecture again and maybe an argument, or if he should let it go until next time.

  He rubs at one of his scalp scabs, then runs his fingers through what’s left of his hair. “Let’s go, then.” He starts shuffling down the alley.

  Bronwyn is right behind him. I take my time, hoping I can keep up with them and hoping even more that I won’t step on any glass or anything else that will cause a gush of blood.

  3. ROOM A THOUSAND YEARS WIDE

  I’D MISSED THE beginning of the end because I was six and Indra was ten. She’d been allowed to stay up later while I was tucked away, asleep in my little bed. Our dad puttered around downstairs in the kitchen, making the preparations for morning. Readying the coffee maker, packing lunches and snacks for Indra and me to take to school.

  The way Indra always told it, she was snuggled with Mom upstairs, safe and warm under blankets in my parents’ bedroom, watching TV.

  The first sound: a knock at the door. Then, the murmur of men's voices. The chain lock sliding. A loud boom that made Indra scream. I awoke, though I don’t remember it. My mother brought Indra into our room. Told us to lock the door, to hide in the closet and not to come out until she returned.

  We heard the thump-thump-thump of feet as our mom ran down the stairs. We heard her screaming and a man growling at her, calling her names. Bad names.

  We stayed in our closet, hugging each other tight. The clanging, crashing sounds of a home breaking echoed through the walls of the house.