[thevisionarybutterfly]

Part 1
Incinerator of our tortured soul


On the way to San Jose the car gave up on us with an unceremonious clang before the grand finale came, silence; leaving us in the most disconcerting of all places, a dry desert road in the middle of nowhere. I glanced at Bessie crammed in the backseat beside me, felt the anxiety rise within us both covered in heavy sweat from intense summer heat and a/c that never worked from day one. Father tried furiously to resurrect the dead thing twisting the key in the ignition. Sputter-choke-nothing.

‘Why we stopping for Daddy?’ Bessie’s little voiced asked with a wide innocence but in her dark eyes there is fear. She leaned forward in the seat to get a better view of our parents faces and perhaps even the situation causing further stress on my hot body. I elbowed her hard sending her flying backwards.

‘It’s uncomfortable as it is without you doing that!’ I hissed. The fear in her eyes mingled with a hurt surprise as she nursed her shoulder and stared silently but accusingly. Annoyance peaked. ‘Cant you see we broke down!’

‘Claire!’ My father’s voice stern as a brick wall about to come falling down on you took my attention away from Bessie and my fury to the fear I now felt. My eyes met his in the rearview mirror.

‘I did talk to you about talking to your sister like that, right?’ I felt a tremor in my hands. The heat of the sun came full on through the untinted windows. My flesh involuntarily summoned the memory of the sting of a switch.

I swallowed the lump in order to speak. ‘Yes sir.’ I told his steel black eyes in the mirror. Then they cut me off the way he’d cut a car off on the highway hours earlier. He glanced an unveiled annoyed look to mother seated beside him. She’d dozed off half an hour earlier and was oblivious to our distress.

‘Woman can’t you see what the fucks happening!’ The volcanic eruption sent mother into the air. She jumped awake looking around the cramped cabin with sleepy brown eyes.

‘What’s happening Charles?!’ Her face crumpled into its usual position of worry, except for when she sleeps-then I see the little girl from the photos of her as a child.


“Nothing we just sitting here for fun.’ He spat sarcastically. ‘What the fuck you think? The damn thing quit!’ He got out and slammed the door so hard it bent on its hinges. A few minutes later he had to climb through the window because it was a two door and mothers door already didn’t open. He cursed and swore even harder.

‘…. I fuckin give up! I can’t win so why even bother tryin? Am I just some glutton for punishment?’ he flailed his arms to the indifferent heavens and when no satisfactory answer came beyond the silent road and the echo of birds calling in the distance he kicked up the hot dry dust.

We sat in the car afraid to breathe let alone move. I watched mother’s face, her eyes darting from my father standing a few feet away to our sweaty faces in the backseat. She was in damage control mode, thinking of how she could diffuse the inevitable.

‘You children hungry?’ she feigned a convincing smile and dug through the bag of food she’d prepared for the trip.

‘Momma what are we going to do?’ Bessie asked biting into her sandwich for comfort.

‘Not to worry Bessie. That’s my job.’ She smiled harder. “just little breakdown is all…car start running….or help will come along.’ Her eyes grew wider as did her smile at such hope. When her eyes fell on me the expression, the smile-it all froze. Her voice took on a defensiveness. ‘Wake Albert see if he wants a sandwich.’

My eyes roved over to my brother Albert asleep on the other side of Bessie, his bottom lip hung open emitting soft snoring sounds. This was the way I liked him, asleep. For when he is awake-what terror. I look back at my mother. ‘Please no he’s sleeping. If he’s hungry he’d be awake climbing all over the car while eating the sandwich. ‘

‘Don’t let your father hear you say that about your brother.’ Mother’s eyes went out the car window. I saw them cringe with mild horror causing me to follow her gaze. Father was on his knees crouched over in the dirt a few feet away from the car, a sweating sobbing mess. With his large fist he beat the earth. Demanded to know why she’d birthed him into such a troubled life filled with suffering and we would all be better off dead. I shuddered.

‘Oh lord’ mother pleaded softly to herself then proceeded to climb out the window. I reached out tugging the sleeve of her blouse. She pulled her head back inside the car to look at me.

‘maybe…maybe you should just leave him be, you know?’

‘Nonsense girl.’ she was out the window trotting towards Charles. Bessie and I leaned to get a better look and watched as she reached him. Her purest intentions was to be there for him, to overlook this man-boy and all his short comings; offer unconditional love and support as if it was her sole duty. She wanted to help him to his feet, offer him a sandwich and as he ate it she would tell him like she told us ‘the car will start…or help will come.’ and ‘everything will work out.’ I watched them both with pity and disgust.

When they were on their feet, father suddenly became angry tearing away from mother’s embrace.

‘You! You fucking did this!’ He shook his finger in her face, his gaze turned to us inside the burning car, the incinerator of our tortured souls. ‘You tie me down with these three fucking kids, I never wanted not one of them. Who the fuck knows if they are even mine!’ He made a loud snorting sound of a bull.

Mother made feeble attempts to thwart the accusations. ’Charles you’re talking crazy.’ Her eyes darted to us quickly then back to Charles who’s anger only boiled over as pot filled to the brim.

‘You give me this fucking retard Albert. The boy can’t learn, don’t listen, he just like a damn animal. I want to know who’s bastard children I been busting my ass for all these years?’ He grabbed a tight grip on the collar of her blouse. She screamed out terrified ‘No…’



“ I‘m tired of you playing me bitch‘ In a single motion he knocked her out with his fist.

Bessie cried out. ‘Momma!’ and went for the window. I held her down, covered her mouth and pressed her face into my chest. ‘You can’t make noise-you can’t…’ I looked back and saw father kicking her limp body screaming ‘dirty whore!’

I wanted to go to her rescue but fear paralyzed me, instead I watched the horror play out like I’d done a million times before, imagined I was invisible, and prayed invisibility offered protection.

Part 2
The road to somewhere

Not a single car came along the road in the four hours we’d been stranded. How can this be? Are we being punished deliberately by God? Seated on top the trunk I can only look to the two avenues of hope, the Sky and the road. Mother is laying in the backseat, her right eye bloodshot, encircled by black and blue rings, her lip is busted and she lays there clutching her side. And me? I want to die. No, I am dead for this cannot be living. I cannot bear to look at her and she cannot look at me. I hate her for being weak, for letting this continue.

Albert is awake running circles around the car, screaming ‘bang bang’ as he chases an imagined bad guy with his cheap plastic pistol. Oh if the gun were real…

Night falls quickly. I cannot bear to be in that small car but father is ordering everyone back in mumbling something about coyotes. I look to the road still visible in the fading light, not one single car….

‘I have to go to the bathroom.’ I say afraid he will say too bad.

‘I give you one minute.’

‘…what if I have to…you know…’

‘Three minutes. That’s all.’ He watched me menacingly. ‘Don’t mess around now, you see I’m in no mood. Three minutes.’

‘Yes sir.’

I head toward a scrub of brush glancing back over my shoulder at father chasing Albert around the car in order to get to go in.

‘Boy come here!‘ He commands but Albert isn’t listening, he never listened instead he screams and resists. I think of his future, what did it hold for him?

Father gets his hands on him and whoops him bad before flinging him into the car. Poor Bessie with her head down as timid as a mouse climbs in without so much as a peep. Her eyes track me from the window pleading to me like the lions I saw in cages once…. I cant go back there, not to that.


Suddenly I am running, sprinting through the scrubs of brush, sobbing but unaware only my feet moving fast beneath me and a hot dusty wind on my wet face. I look back frantic, had father seen? Is he looking for me now? Was he close behind?

Maybe I reached twenty or so yards when I saw it. It’s headlights illuminating and blinding me at once. I ran to the side of the road. ‘Help!’ It was a desperate cry. Not just help our car broke down but help cause my life is broke down.

The car came to a screeching halt. I saw the old couple peering cautiously from their seats. I leaned into the window. ’Could-could you help me? I’m lost-my car broke down and I need to get somewhere.’ I stammered the words through tears and sobbing.


The old lady looked around. ’But where’s your parents?’

‘I’m alone-I was traveling alone-when the car broke down. I was on my way home from college’ I added quickly fearing they would leave me.

‘Well get in sweetie you’re lucky we came down this route’ the old woman chuckled.

I climbed into the spacious backseat. The windows rolled up and cold air from the a/c vent s rushed all around me drying sweat and tears.

From the darkness of solitude, from the abyss, you could not see the car stranded by the side of the road. I tried to locate it by the mental image of where it had come to a stop, tried to imagine my mother laying in the backseat, bruised and bloodied. How will she survive this? Was this the choice she made? What she wanted out of life? I recall asking many times why she allowed him to treat her this way, to beat her up and she would get so angry and defensive. ‘He’s a good man, you hear? A good man-provide for us. They hard to find…’

I thought I saw the headlights reflect off the chrome on the broken down car. We were passing it I was sure of it. I shook my head to stave off the guilty thoughts. It’s them or me. It’s them or me…I told my myself repeatedly.

‘Honey where’s your car?’ The old woman was straining out the window in the darkness too. ‘We have some rope, we could tow it instead of leaving it out here, sure it could be fixed.’ She glanced to the old man and then at me. The car began to slow down.


‘Don’t stop please!’ I cried out for fear father blended among the darkness waited ready to snatch me out. ‘You worthless girl, you just like your mama, no good. Who will want you?’ As his fists rain thunder.

‘Dontcha want your car?’ The old lady asked watching me strangely, concern in her eyes. There was more to the story.


‘It‘s worthless, we can never be fixed.’ I answered but then a silent voice within me asked ‘What about Bessie?‘

Bessie’s face came to mind, sweet little Bessie, she didn’t deserve this life either. Sometimes she felt like my child. Albert meant nothing to me but I had abandoned Bessie, my sweet child. I didn‘t always treat her right... A tide of guilt and sadness bored down upon me and I wept for this selfish desire to be free, to leave behind what is dead and broken.