I can’t remember a time I didn’t keep Aunt Rose from killing someone. Me first memory happened when I was still a moppet. Me mum left Aunt Rose home alone one cold winter morning. I was tight about leaving her, but I had to get to school, or the nuns would clip me ears.
It took me an hour to get to that bloody school. I trekked a half mile across rocky terrain and unpaved roads, stumbling over pebbles and cursing me way into potholes. The nuns cared a fig’s fart what happened to me; the old bitches smashed me hands with a ruler if I was even a minute late. Fuckin’ school!
Aunt Rose wrapped herself in a stained, beige quilt stinking of dog piss. Her High and Mighty Madness wore it as if it was the Queen’s robe, and with the airs she put on you might think so. She rifled through a kitchen drawer like hell’s three hounds were chasing her hind end. I sat and watched, eating me brekkie.
She didn’t find her fool’s gold; she snarled and ripped the drawer out, hurling it across the kitchen. It almost took me damned head off. I ducked hard and cursed at her, then I sat up and kept eating. Aunt Rose found her stinking treasure, a bottle cap, a girl’s plastic ring, or some worthless bit.
Stepping over the carnage, she stomped outside in her bare feet, making her way to the shed. I got up from the table and stood at the door, watching her through a windowpane. Open-mouthed I breathed on the windowpane, drew little bits and bobs in the fog, then wiped it away with me hand. I watched as Aunt Rose squatted in the frost like an old toad and held out a bloody book of matches. I rushed outside wearing only t-shirt and shorts. It was fuckin brass monkeys.
“Stay back Billy!” her dark eyes flashed as she lit a match.
“Auntie, what are you doing?” I cupped me hands and blew into them.
“I’m burning meself alive, Billy.” She might have been planting petunias.
“Why Auntie?”
“I hate your mother and father and uncle. I hate you, Billy.”
“Give me the matches Auntie. Come back in and watch telly.”
“Let me go, Billy.”
“No, Auntie.” I jumped from one skinny foot to the other.
Aunt Rose watched me and giggled. She put her hands on either side of her head and held up her second fingers like a bloody rabbit. “Hop! Hop! Little Billy bunny!”
“Give me the matches Auntie.” I shivered so hard me teeth clattered in me head.
I held out a shaking hand for the matches and got ready to jump back. Last time I reached at her, the dumb eijit nearly bit me small finger off and the doctor had to patch me up.
Aunt Rose dropped the matches into me hand and curled into herself, rocking back and forth. She mumbled, “deliver me Lord. Deliver me.”
“Come on Auntie.” Me fingertips were blue.
Aunt Rose raised her arm as if it held a thousand years of grief. Her hand was bony and brittle with skin like a spider’s web. I could see every vein. I led her back inside the house and settled her into a red plaid chesterfield that sagged in the middle from years of fucking and farting.
“I’ll get you elevenses then I’ll be off, Auntie,” I said, hugging the radiator.
Aunt Rose stared at the television in a fog. I could turn it off and the eijit wouldn’t know better.
*
A week later I stirred in bed, thinking I farted meself awake but there was no stink. I stepped into the hallway and heard Aunt Rose’s ragged breathing. She’d gone peculiar again. She pushed open the door to me uncle’s bedroom. There as a flash of silver from a butcher’s knife as Aunt Rose rushed him. I jumped on her, tightening me toothpick arms around her neck.
She twisted backward braying like a donkey and threw me onto the floor, a miserable pile of shit rags. Her eyes blazed with her demons.
“Burn in hell you scrawny boor!”
She kicked me full-on in me sandbag. I howled and puked me guts onto the floor. Me uncle bolted up and grabbed her with arms the size of bloody tree trunks.
“Leave the lad be Rosie!”
“I’m riding an ass to prayer meeting tonight!’ Aunt Rose screamed and dug her teeth into one of me uncle’s arms. He didn’t flinch.
Me old man and mum came running. The old man smashed on the light, and there stood a madwoman laughing and drooling, clawing out clumps of her hair.
Aunt Rose saw us. She quieted.
“Let go of me, you crazy bastard!” She shoved me uncle off her. “I’ve a mind to lock you up!”
Me uncle sat on his bed, his shoulders sinking. “Come to bed Rosie,” he stared at the floor, his voice barely a whisper.
Aunt Rose smoothed her frizzed, gnarled hair. “Out of bed this fucking hour, Billy. Who needs a daftie like you? Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs!”
I pulled meself off the floor, shards of lightning shooting from me pouch. Mum kissed me on me head, her eyes glistening. I knew she’d curl up in me father’s arms later and bawl.
Come the morning, it would be Saturday and there’d be peace and grub. The noise of footsteps, and the smell of bangers and mash would wake me. I wouldn’t have to walk the bloody mile to school.
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