Peter Pumpkinhead

Where the Sunbeams End: Chapter 9

Photo by Jilbert Ebrahimi on Unsplash

As Christmas encroaches, I find myself at my father’s mountain home. Eager to inquire about his own memories. I am curious to hear if he carries similar visions of days gone. But it’s also a way to distract myself from the onslaught of my own visions.

I’ve been trying to ease into the dark place from a distance, slowly inching forward, dipping my toes into the pool of murky memories. It is only now that I realize there is no safe distance to observe the vortex or quagmire of my mind. It’s eating at me now, pulling me deep into its depths. 

I have hope, perhaps even faith, that by recording my travels into the dense waters of my subconscious, I will be able to find my way out. And at the same time, clear out the dark oily shadows which pollute my mind. But I am frightened. Perhaps there are some things better left forgotten. 

~~~

I smiled slightly as I reached my red Acura. My grandfather’s car. He took care of me, always. The girls had dragged their fingers across my dusty bumper. Leaving little hearts and we love you’s traced in the grime. I popped the trunk and dropped my soccer bag inside. The wind picked up, blowing leaves across the parking lot outside the stadium. 

It was a short drive back down the hill towards Hunters Ridge apartment complex. Most mornings I would simply walk along the river to practice. But this was a Friday night, game day. Mom was in town with Ray, which meant easy access to booze. We’d left a list of requests from the liquor store for Mom, so I was excited to get home where we were planning to have a small party. 

Mom and Dad would throw a Fourth of July party at our country home when I was a kid. All of Dad’s work friends, old college buddies, and other parents from the community would show up. 

“I gotta go jerk my meat!” Dad would call out regularly. 

It had turned into a kind of tradition that he would grill up Jamaican Jerk Chicken. I’d mostly spend time in my room playing video games with Ray and the other kids whose parents had brought them along. Or we would go out and throw the football around. Us kids would let the parents do whatever it was they were doing. I was always happy that Mom and Dad still had friends to hang with. I just thought they were excited to see each other, which I’m sure they were. It was only later that I realized that the grownup’s giddiness could also have been due to the free flowing booze. 

I had grown into what you may call a weekend warrior. I would go to nearly every class, spend a large majority of time reading and studying, plus I was a member of the men’s soccer team. There was always practice and we’d often travel for games. I was sober throughout the week, but at least one night every weekend I would get rip roaring drunk. No one likes to drink alone, so I would rope my roommate Brian into the weekend festivities. 

Sometimes we’d play drinking games with cheap beer, although my father proclaimed that drinking was not a game, but serious business. Beer was always more difficult to get drunk off, or at least it took longer. We were at our finest when there was a bottle of liquor shared between us, most likely rum. Brian and I would polish off a fifth while jamming out to our favorite tunes. The bottle would be done within the hour and we would scamper up, closer to campus, in search of a party where there would be women. Most of the time we were far too drunk to be a real candidate for any woman, but successfully hooking up with the ladies was not at the forefront of our minds. Or maybe it was, but we were too shy to go at it sober. 

This night would be a different proposition however. The women would be coming to our place. 

The apartment in college was a four bedroom and two bath, which sat on the first floor of the complex. It was just one open room which included the kitchen. There were a few old couches and recliners, plus a circular glass dining table with four blue backed chairs. The bedrooms branched off in twos, to the right of the apartment. Each set of bedrooms shared a bathroom. 

First thing I noticed upon my return that night was the numerous liquor bottles on the counter. Mom had come through with the party supplies. Then I looked up to see Mom in one of the recliners, I could tell she had already begun her own party. She was holding two rats in her lap. 

The rats were not my idea, in fact I never touched them. My roommates had decided that we needed some pets around and somehow they settled on a pair of rats from the pet store in town. The rats’ home was a small enclosure inside the large closet near the front door. 

Mom said something about feeling sorry for the rats, the rest of the night is intermittent flashes but mostly absolute darkness. I do recall that my drink of choice for the evening was the legendary concoction known as Jager-Bombs. The girls did show up, I have a brief flash of all of us in the bathroom with the music blaring, dancing and singing. However, at some point in the shenanigans someone had decided that it was a great idea to drive up to another party. I may have tried to plead my case for everyone to stay, but then I was in Brian’s car, spitting on the floor. And then I was in another apartment, again spitting on the floor. 

I remember trying to get up. We were outside the apartment now and he kept pushing me down and kicking at me. Yelling something that I couldn’t quite make out. My brother was watching on, he must have been. He was yelling something too. 

Then Ray was yelling at me to stop. The other guy must have gone back inside. I was kicking at car doors and punching mirrors. The other guy had broken Bro Code and I was piss drunk. In my eyes he had lured the ladies from our place up to his. I didn’t much like him for some reason and this small breach of etiquette had set me aflame. Of course, this is just what I imagine was going through my head at the time, trying in a way to explain away my behavior. 

I was then staring at my reflection. It was the rear window of a large white van. Ray says I slammed my forehead through that rear window, and then backed up, just staring blankly. It took a moment for the blood to start pouring from the middle of my head. Ray took off the Radford Men’s Soccer shirt he had been wearing and wrapped my wound. Mom was back at my apartment, still petting the rats.