Homework

Scratch-click-scratch-click, the vinyl spins round and round. The album ended ten minutes ago but no one gets up to change it. The half-dozen junkies slumped around the dining room table are lost in euphoria. Bobble-headed humans struggle to hold on to their dignity, as well as their cigarettes. I pick up another dropped butt before it can scorch the table. I drop it in the ashtray, losing the long ash along the way.

Burnt bottle caps, bent spoons and syringes lay scattered on the table as I pick through the rubble, pushing beer bottles and bags of pot out of the way, in search of my good pencil. Two hours prior, when life was still normal, I sat at this table doing homework.

“Stephen,” I whisper, but my brother doesn’t answer. Slouched over, chin to chest, a leather belt wrapped around his arm, he is oblivious. I pick up the empty hypodermic needle off the floor and spot my pencil near his foot and slip it into my pocket. As I place the syringe on the table, it occurs to me that Stephen was able to use his arm this time. Much better than shooting the dope into his hand due to the lack of good, working veins. Not the best path for a seventeen-year-old but this was 1971 and in the words of Timothy Leary, “If you don't like what you're doing, you can always pick up your needle and move to another groove.”

I walk to the console stereo, lift the lid and put on my favourite Doors album. In a house where you’d be hard-pressed to find milk or bread, my brothers were able to keep the music collection vast, fresh and new. Mom never asks where the new albums came from. She’s too busy working two jobs just to keep a roof over our heads since Dad up and died, leaving no life insurance. The money she stashes to get provisions if needed, disappears as fast as she finds a new place to hide it.

Finding no one completely dead in the dining room, I make my way back upstairs to check on Brian. Avoiding the creaks and groans of the old, wooden staircase, I pause on the top step to take a deep breath of courage before I enter my brother’s room. I tiptoe in so I don’t wake him. Detoxing is hard.

The shades are drawn, blocking out most of the late afternoon sun. I glance at the crucifix that hangs on the wall above Brian's bed. Jesus hangs on it, watching. I look at Him and whisper, “damn You,” before I turn my eyes away and wonder what the punishment is for pissing off the Lord.

Everywhere I move, Jesus has His eyes on me. I don’t kneel but I do mesh my fists and fingers together and ask Him for my brother's life. I've prayed to God before but never to Jesus, especially not an eight-inch plastic one with thick celluloid spikes sticking out of His palms. Poor Jesus. He died for the sins of my family, only to be eternally glued to a cheap, wooden cross, nailed high above a teenage, detoxing junkie.

Dear Jesus. Please help Brian quit heroin for good this time.

I look to the crucifix for a sign but Jesus just hangs there. His painted eyes are fixed on Brian, who thrashes, shakes, and grips his sweat-drenched sheet.

Amen.

“Suzie," Brian moans, his teeth chattering. "Get me another blanket and look inside the cross.

"No way," I tell him. "You told me not to look, no matter what. I'll get you a blanket, but that's it."

My feet are heavy with panic. I return with a thin cotton blanket. Brian whispers and I bend down to listen. "Please, Sue. I’m really sick. Please, look inside the cross.”

My eyes rise up to meet His. What should I do? Jesus doesn't move. Will he die from withdrawal? Can I watch him suffer anymore? My decision is made. I walk to the crucifix and slide up the front.

The plastic Jesus ascends towards the ceiling, revealing a hidden compartment. The candles and Holy water it was intended to hold, have been replaced with a hypodermic needle and a burnt spoon. My high-strung mind hopes to find heroin. Just a little. Just enough so he won't die.

"It's just your set of works, Brian. No stash." I am relieved yet petrified. I place a cool, damp washcloth in his hand which he brings to his mouth. He bites down like a teething baby, then drops it like it’s a boulder.

“Do you need anything else?" I wait a few seconds. No response. "Brian?" Still nothing. "Well, I'll be in my room doing my homework, if you need me." But just like Jesus, Brian is still.

I am too scared to leave him so I grab my books and sit at the foot of his bed. I try my best to study for tomorrow's test, but eighth-grade math seems absurd to me now. I look to Jesus again, then down at my brother. Similar shades of suffering appear on their colourless faces. Bare chests, shoulder-length hair, and cloth draped around their waists are enough to send shivers through me. The outstretched arms of both men reveal holes in their flesh. One man dead, the other one dying.

Jim Morrison’s voice makes its way upstairs and sings Wild Child to me.

“Not your mother's or your father's child.

You’re our child, screaming wild.”

I slam my book shut, slam my bedroom door and push the fear and anxiety down into my toes. I’m going to flunk my math test tomorrow and no one will care enough to ask me why. I’m used to disappointing looks from teachers who think I’m just being lazy. Used to being told, “my mom doesn’t want me hanging around with you anymore.” Used to being the trouble-making junkies’ little sister.

Before the tears had a chance to spill, I willed them back in. No time to cry. No time to sit around feeling sorry for myself. I had a job to do. It was time to go back downstairs and check for signs of life.

Susan Nickerson’s short stories have appeared in several publications

including Not Your Mother’s Book . . .On Being a Woman, ArtAscent Gold

Writer, Creative Writing Institute’s Anthology, Palm Prints Literary

Journal, Compassionate Friends Magazine and Open Minds Quarterly among

others. Chapter One of Susan’s novel, Amazing Grace, placed third in the

Writers-Editors International Writing Competition. Born and raised in Salem,

Massachusetts Susan, now retired, lives in Florida with her husband Pete

and their dog Sadie.