May 17, 2019 - 4:25 PM

Eury Morrissey

"Do you need a hand, miss?" It was the first time I saw the ancient bus driver, speak or stand since we had left Spokane ten hours prior. Actually, I still hadn't heard him with my headphones still blasting my music. I got the gist of it though, from the helping hand he offered.

"Thanks but I'm good," I said while I struggled to untangle my headphones from my cannula's tubes I understood the cause for his concern, but it didn't mean I had to like it.

It wasn't the first time that I had been stared at by someone who looked like a cross between the crypt keeper and colonel sanders; growing up with a skin tone slightly darker than milk would've been enough to warrant that in Sentinel. The fact that I stood at five-two, looked the way I did, and had a cannula stuck up my nose was more than enough reason for people to stare at me on the best of days. And more than enough reason for them to pretend to ignore me most of the time. That is, except on the occasions where their sense of pity finally got the better of them, then, they would all rush to help so they looked good by assisting the sickly black girl.

After losing my fight with the mess of cords and tubes, I decided to take my headphones off.

"Do you need a hand, miss?" the man repeated.

"I'm good, thanks." There was no doubt that he was just trying to do what he thought was the right thing. The problem was, I didn't need the hand. Nor did I want a man who looked about three hundred years old dropping my oxygen concentrator.

The driver nodded as he walked back to his seat and sat down. I'm sure there was something that he was supposed to be doing outside, but instead, he was sitting there watching me untangle myself just waiting for me to give up.

Fat-chance.

All and all, it took me two-minutes and the majority of a song being shouted out at nearly-max volume by my headphones for me to get all of my shit in order. Upon my standing, the bus driver visibly relaxed.

Calm down, dude. It wasn't like it was life or death, I just didn't want to have to go through the actual struggle of resetting my concentrator.

I lugged my backpack, concentrator, and the rest of myself past the driver and down the steep steps. My legs shook worse than a newborn deer. I somehow managed to make it without falling.

Wow, I really need to work out.

"Is this your final stop miss?" The driver called out to the back of my head.

"Yeah, it is," I said surveying the empty lot. "As disappointing as that is," I mumbled under my breath.

"Well, just make sure you're careful." I raised an eyebrow. It was late spring and the only danger in the parking lot was the rain puddles, not exactly pitfalls I needed to keep my eyes open for.

"Thankfully, I haven't completely forgotten how to walk over the last few years," I said as I turned to face him. I did my best impression of people who say funny things without the intention of hurting people's feelings; the forced smile felt almost natural.

"Oh, you haven't heard?" The man's sagging face folded in on itself as he churned over the words.

"Heard about what?"

"Well, I'm not some reporter or anythin', so I only really know the scuttlebutt."

"Then what's the scuttlebutt?" I cringed as the word came out of my mouth.

Oh lord help me. It's infectious.

"Well... It's just that I heard that there was some junkies runnin' 'round doing god knows what."

"Isn't that what most 'junkies' get up to?"

"I don't know 'bout that. There's been some rumours of folks getting attacked and the such."

"Do you know who got hurt? Like their names?" I couldn't help but be worried for the few people I actually cared about in this dump of a town.

"Nah, sorry honey. Didn't catch any names or 'nothing like that."

"Well, thanks for the warning then. I guess."

The driver looked away like I was scolding him. "Sorry miss."

"It's alright." I shot him the classic sucked-in-lip-and-nod smile to conclude the conversation, and started my way over to the bus terminal.

Sentinel was significantly wetter than it was in Spokane. My socks were soaked through my converses before I crossed the parking lot. I made a mental note to change into my boots the first chance I got.

My luggage was waiting for me beside the service counter inside the small terminal. After showing my ID to the attendant, she promptly returned to her phone that she had so graciously looked away from for the moment. I rolled the luggage over to a bench near the doors leading back out into the blue, cloudy afternoon. There, I sat myself down and took a well-deserved break. I could hear my oxygen concentrator at my hip kicked into overdrive as soon as I sat down.

A little late to the party.

Opening my suitcase, I grabbed the plastic bag that held my rubber soled boots and swapped them for my wet converses. As I leaned over to change my shoes, my concentrator kicked into a higher gear again filling my nose with the sweet, sweet, absolutely-dry-as-fuck, oxygen that my lungs were screaming for. I side-eyed the tank that I had stored in the suitcase, and toyed with the idea of going through the hassle of switching to it to get some relief from the concentrator's judgement.

My contemplation was cut short by Alaska Bell barging through the entrance of the terminal.

"Eury!" Alaska flung her arms open like a venus fly trap and enclosed them around me. I was smothered near to death against her chest. "Hey there, slowpoke. You ready to bust a move?" The smile stretching all the way across her face, betrayed her excitement.

"Sure, grandma. Sorry to keep you waiting."

Alaska pulled her light blonde hair out of the way of her beautiful face. The same almost perfectly symmetrical face that made her as popular as she was back when we were in high school. And the same one that must make all the teenage delinquents in town giddy with puberty-fueled glee at the sound of her deputy's sirens.

"Wow, this is coming from the girl still wearing the same boots she wore in high school? And in university, and—"

I pouted. "Hey, leave my boots out of this," I said, making a point to quickly zip my bag up to hide the rest of my outdated wardrobe.

"Leave them out of my sight and I might just stop ragging on them."

"With all this rain, I doubt that'll happen."

"True dat," With her second outdated phrase in a row, I felt a look of mild disgust cross my face.

"Now we're getting hip, are we?"

"If you're planning on being a high school teacher, you really should be aware that is like the opposite of hip."

"...Then why say it?"

"Because being ironic is hip right now," she said, almost like she was baiting me. I decided it would be easier not to engage. That would at least save me from hearing Alaska 'ironically' use and misuse outdated slang. After a half second of conversational dead air, a smirk split her mouth. "Do you want me to teach you how to be cool?"

"I can teach you about biology in return?" I said with a laugh.

"Ew."

Alaska snatched the luggage from my hands as she started toward the door.

"Hey! I had that."

"And now I have it. But seriously, we could count it as job training. Did you need to pad your resume at all? Or does a recommendation from your mom mean that you've already got a job lined up at the school?" Alaska talked as fast as she walked, and she walked too fast to be considerate.

"I'm not planning on staying in Sentinel. I only told her that I'd check the high school out."

"So..." she said tilting her head from side to side, "you're saying that I could convince you to stay and be roomies or somethin'?" Her valley-girl impression was scarily spot on, made even more believable by her looks.

While it wouldn't be the worst thing to live with Alaska, the idea of staying in Sentinel longer than the two weeks I had already agreed to made my stomach twist a little.

Can I even make it that long?

No answer came to mind while we crossed the parking lot to Alaska's brand new cherry red truck. She had already thrown my luggage into the bed before I had crossed the parking lot.

"What, did you get a boyfriend who needed to compensate for somethin' and didn't tell me?" I called across the empty parking lot to her.

"Oh, ha ha. Make your jokes now, but just remember who you're going to call when you need to move something." Alaska lifted my backpack off of me like it was nothing and slung it over her shoulder as she turned back to the truck. The bag was weightless in her hands, and her long strides meant that she left me behind again. One of the many perks of being an Amazon, I'd say.

"You can stop doing that at any time," I said as she haphazardly dropped my backpack onto my suitcase, like there wasn't an oxygen tank in it.

"What? Helping you out? Stop being so you, and just let me pamper you a little. It's been what, almost a year since I've seen you? Let me look after my little doll." Her smirk turned into an obnoxious grin that made it all the worse.

There it was, "little doll". Without a doubt, the worst, most annoying nickname, that I had ever been saddled with in all of my twenty five years.

"You're going to damage my tanks," I said flatly as I waited to climb into the truck and out of her view.

Alaska dropped her smile, realizing her mistake. "I'm sorry! It just kind of slipped out," she said. I heard the locks on the truck disengage so I pulled the door open as quickly as I could. I wasn't quite sure what it was that I was running from or where I was running to, because the quicker I got into the truck, the sooner I'd be forced to listen to Alaska's apology. "I really do mean it. I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to, you know that, right?" The words flew out of her mouth faster than the time it took me to sit down.

"It's fine," I said as I settled into my seat. My concentrator kicked into a higher gear to fuel my angry huffing.

"Obviously it's not."

"I said it's fine." The whine of my concentrator betrayed how I felt though.

"How can I make it up to you?"

"How about you take me out for a drink?" I said, in spite of the fact that I couldn't drink because of my oxygen.

"Don't you wanna see your parents?" And there was the second best reason for me to be drinking.

"There's a reason I'm staying at your place, Lask. Let's just go to O'Brian's."

Knowing I couldn't be reasoned with, Alaska frowned and turned on the truck. Then her brow wrinkled.

"But wait. I thought you couldn't drink?"

Of course she would remember that little thing.

I sighed. "Can I at least get some bar food then? A bit of grease and some dancing?" I said deflecting her good sense. Alaska looked back at her flatly cut nails as they curled around the steering wheel. "And maybe I can find a little bit of non-alcoholic stress relief while I'm there," I added.

Hearing that, she smiled, "okay. That I can get behind. You have been gone for a while, and missed out on some of the better cuts of meat 'round here. But I need to get changed first," Alaska said as she pulled the truck into reverse.

"I don't mind a little bit of a wait," I said, as I watched the small bus station shrink away from us.

***

It was a solid three 'deep' breaths before the oxygen from my tank made it to my nose. I never did like switching to the tank with the gas already running so that left me in the awkward limbo between the concentrator's oxygen flow and the tank's where I was forced to actually breathe in—shock—the surrounding air!

How do you normal fucks do it all the time?

The thought was an odd one, but after having a few good nosefuls of pure Sentinel air, it couldn't be helped. The town didn't smell good. It was an unsettling combination of industry and nature that settled on the brain and stuck there until you left. After several consecutive months away, I was keenly aware of it again. I guess that is one of those things that you instantly forget the moment you stop thinking about it.

"Are you ready to get going?" Alaska called out to me from the other side of the balcony doors. "Hello? Earth to Eury? What are you doing?"

"I'm taking in the view," I said admiring the better part of the single street that Alaska's balcony looked out over. The majority of the houses on Alaska's street were at least ninety years old, making them some of the newest in town. They lost that title if one took into consideration the half-finished long abandoned development on the edge of town that nobody lived in. But for obvious, plumbing related reasons they were left out of the count.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Alaska asked as she stepped out beside me.

"It isn't," I said as I slung my bag back over my shoulder. Cleared out of everything other than my oxygen tank, my iPod, my headphones, and my wallet, it was significantly nicer to carry. Still heavy as hell, but nicer.

"Oh come on. Do you need to be so negative all the time?"

"I do have a need to be accurate, yes."

Do you? Why do you have to be like this, Eury? Constantly so severe, like a gun to someone's head. Oh right. It's because you can't help it, right?

"You know, if you just dropped the sass for a moment, you'd notice that this town isn't so bad."

"Lask, that's literally why I'm back in this bomb site." Alaska looked at me, confused. "What I mean is that, sure, I do plan to drop my sass, better judgement, and good-taste and give Sentinel another look."

"That's great! I can—"

"But! That begins tomorrow. Tonight, I want to be crabby. And only greasy bar food and moderately intense dancing will bring me down to defcon none."

"Oh Jesus, you really haven't changed all that much, huh?"

I walked back into Alaska's bedroom before answering. "If you looked at me with a microscope maybe not. But compared to the me from a few years ago? It's been a big change."

"I guess so," she said as she followed me, "you are ready to go though, right? Happy hour's 'bout to start."

"Don't worry, I'm a cheap date. Free, actually."

I popped into the guest room over where I would be staying for the next two weeks. The room was small and smelled stuffy, but it was quiet and the only window faced away from the street. Perfect for me.

Alaska poked her head in from the doorway, smiling. "You're not the problem, short stuff. Problem is I'm not. And I'd like to squeeze the most into your first night home." I took out the concentrator's batteries and plugged them into the charger beside the other four. As I turned I saw Alaska admiring the large blue liquid-oxygen tank my dad had brought over earlier. She must've felt my eyes on her because she snapped back to attention like she was expecting me to yell at her. Her posture softened as I adjusted my bag's straps, blending them with my top's few black pleats. I tried not to make eye contact as she mulled over her next words.

"Your dad sure is a good guy, hey?" she said as she rapped her knuckles against the tank.

As the most overprotective, overprepared person that I knew, I guess it made sense that he could be seen that way.

"Sure," I said, while trying my best not to look at the tank. The sight of it severely soured my already less-than-stellar mood.

"Sure? Do I even want to ask you what your problem is?"

I walked past Alaska toward the stairwell at the opposite end of the bannister overlooking the living room below.

"But I still get the feeling you're about to pry," I called back to her as I tried my best to run down the stairs away from her and the conversation.

"Only because I think you're being an idiot. I made a vow that whenever your smarty pants became too tight, I'd come in with a crowbar and pry you loose."

I saw the front door downstairs, my escape from this conversation. "I don't need any more of your help." I made my way down to my boots and began struggling to slide them on.

"Are you really trying this hard to run away?" Alaska said from the landing of the stairwell. The window behind her encircling her in the sunset's soft orange light.

I hobbled with one boot on while starting to force the second one on. "I'm not running. I'm getting ready to go."

"Sure, and I'm the reincarnation of Princess Diana. Oh sorry, were we not saying things that are obvious lies?" she said in her most obnoxious voice, descending the stairs.

"Oh shut up."

"Just remember, you're stuck with me for the next two weeks," she said in her best sing-song.

"Don't worry, I'm already dreading it." I said mimicking her. The thick zipper got caught halfway up the boot.

Alaska slipped on her red one-inch heels. "I'm just worried about you."

I admired her get-up rather than acknowledge her words: black leather jacket, cherry red blouse all on top of tight-fitting ripped jeans. In comparison to her, I felt practically childish in my dress. And rude like one too.

"I'm sorry. I just..." What was my excuse? "I'm just not all that excited about being back here. I'm especially not looking forward to seeing my parents."

"Well then don't think about tomorrow, or the day after. Just think about having fun tonight!" Alaska said, as she playfully nudged me.

After sharing a small smile, I returned to the struggle with my boot. "We're going to O'Brians, not a runway. You know that, right?"

"Don't try and change the topic by appealing to my wonderful fashion sense," she said looking away. "But, you can keep on complimenting me."

"Maybe after you get a few drinks in me. You know how loving I can get after a few ounces of tequila."

"Oh, you can be such a harsh mistress. If I must, I will abide by your request," she said holding the back of her hand against her head like she was a Victorian fair-lady.

The boot's zipper finally gave, and with that, I was ready to go.

"So, you ready to get walking?" Alaska asked as her hand froze on the door handle.

"Alaska..."

"I'm kidding! Obviously!" she said with a phony joviality. "It's no problem. That'll just mean I'll be a cheap date too. But whatever!" She sung in the same cheerful-ish tune.

"I'm sorry."

"It's not like it's your fault, Eury. I'm just being stupid."

Not my fault. Sure.

May 17, 2019 - 8:38 PM