Girl with the Flaxen Hair

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Girl with the Flaxen Hair

She was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. Her hair was like straw and her eyes were mud. She was a pig’s dream and I loved her. The first time we spoke was when we were kids, catching crawdads in the creek that separated her house from mine. Kids don’t talk all too much, they just smile and play, singing old nursery songs together that they haven’t quite yet outgrown. Then she went to school, and I stayed behind, and we stopped our games. Our games turned into waves; the waves to smiles; the smiles to nods; and then we were strangers. The year was 1932. I had only spoken to her a handful of times since then—her father was the protective type and never cared all too much for me. Course there was no reason for him to give me the time of day. I was their neighbor, but not much of one. I did what I could here and there, but I don’t got much. My home is one bad look away from being just a dilapidated shack and was surrounded by the bones of lonely tools taken by rust and rot. The fields surrounding me, once luscious and profitable, are now occupied by weeds and tan grass, tenants that I could never rid.

When I was a kid, wheat bloomed far as the eye could see. We had a good ol’ horse whose name slips my memory that would go out and yank it up ‘til the sun went down, sometimes sneaking in a few bites for herself. That thing ended up being a sack of bones that my father shot out in the back to put her out of her misery. At least that’s what I was told. He was always mumbling about that “good fer nuthin’ piece of shit”. Sometimes the thought crosses my mind that he just got fed up and fired the gun in a fit of rage. It saddened me, but at least it was only the horse. After that we couldn’t do too much. The fields became overgrown and moldy, and pests ran amuck. Our cat fattened as our stomachs sucked in. We were never rich folk and didn’t pretend to be.

I had a habit of getting up at the crack of dawn so I could watch Addison fixing breakfast. It started as a coincidence, but I just couldn’t help myself after that. I was an alcoholic drunk on her beauty. My eyes must have started to drill holes through their walls and shatter their windowpanes. I always thought of myself as her protector, someone who wants to see the best for her. Once their chickens disappeared—at least their bodies did. The heads were left sittin’ at the bottom of the coop. I wanted to look out for the poor girl and brought her some eggs from my own hens. They were for Addison, but I knew her family enjoyed them too. After that she started waving to me across the way when I would get home, and I would nod back. Farming did not agree with me. So I just worked where I could, finding odd jobs that no one else wanted. I had a jack that would take me into town. It wasn’t a far trip, one that was greatly shortened by the jack when I brought a switch. He was more stubborn that I was.

My favorite days to go out are the ones like these—sunny and bright, warm with a breeze. These days weren’t uncharacteristic for this time of the year, but still always appreciated. I needed to make the trip out to the town, my funds were running low again. Winters are always tough. Everyone just keeps to themselves and it’s too cold to go out and search for work anyways. As I traveled down the barren road, I thought about all I could do if I had more money and said a little prayer. I don’t believe in God, but maybe I would if he sent some luck my way. My mother, God rest her soul, told me stories of how my father used to care for her. He’d come home from a long day of work singing and dancing and they’d swing me around so that I would laugh until my throat was hoarse. I was too young to remember. “Amazing Grace” melted off my lips as I rolled into town and tied the jack up to a post. I went to every single shop to see if anyone had some work that I could do. A few dollars was all I could get, but I was grateful. This routine repeated itself until the jack brayed with hunger. I saw Addison walking out of the post office with her father and the world seemed to stand still.

He was a fat man without any defining features. It seemed like everything that was not her was simply foreign. I could feel my eyes narrow and my heart beat. If I didn’t know better, I coulda swore I was drooling. I just stood there in front of the pair until we were almost nose-to-nose. I would have kissed her if I was worse of a man. Her father cleared his throat.

“’Scuse me,” my words were calm, but I was brewing a fresh pot of anger as I stepped out of the way.

I watched the two leave and the fat man turned around and gave me a nasty look. There’s many things I coulda done if I were a worse of a man, but I’m not. Watching her leave was a terrible feeling. The sun licked my skin like fire on this August day, but I continue to clench my jaw and bear the heat. There’s not much that can be done. I’m damned in the winter and damned in the summer. Sometimes I feel jealous of the old horse. The fear of being shot was never one I was a stranger to. Most of my memories of my father include a gun. He would come back at night, staggering ‘cross the floor, knuckles bloody, waving a revolver in the air. I would hear my parents yelling about money and shots would ring out, but never anything fatal. Always damned. I walked over to the creek that Addison and I once played in to dampen a rag to put over my neck. It was barely a trickle. I stood there and stared at the water and for a split second, the thought of pushing the fat man’s face down in it flashed through my mind. I looked up and saw Addison with a man. I had seen him around before, but we had never spoke, and he had certainly never spoke to her. He looked stupid with a shit-eating grin and arms that were too long for his torso. The way they laughed together was vile. I could only wish that she was laughing at him and not with him. She stopped the banter and waved when she noticed me. I did nothing. That’s something they never teach you when you’re young—the pain of seeing your lover with another man.

I used to beg and beg my father to go into town with him and sometimes he would take me. We would go into a five-and-ten owned by an ugly lady with a giant mole. Least I think it was a lady. My father would yell at me to behave as he went to the back, he said he was “gunna go ‘cross the street real quick-like”. The sign on the building said it was a tearoom, but I only say a couple ladies go in and out. It was mostly disagreeable men with eyes like rats. When my father came out, he always seemed cheerier. Fists never flew when we got back home, but still my mother (the Lord bless her) would cry and cry and cry…

I kept staring at Addison and gangly man. The fat man came out and stared me down, his eyes daggers. Maybe he could read my thoughts, maybe he was still mad about the chickens. I can hear the jack’s brays from inside my house. He was family to me. I hadn’t been talking to nobody but him lately. Going outside has become a chore when all I can think about was her. It just ain’t right. I know I’m a good man, but I just don’t feel like one when everyone walks out. Even one day the jack will run away, or I’ll have to shoot him out in the back like the horse, too. These thoughts all circled around my head, making me dizzy and confused. It was debilitating. They spun faster and faster and faster.

I sat and thought, and my face twisted up until it was unrecognizable and wet. A cold breeze ran underneath the floorboards of my house, tickling my feet and reminding me that I am alive. It let me know that while life is exasperating, it sure is beautiful and I’m lucky to be here, living next to my future bride. That feeling of peace was quite something. I remember how my mother felt a similar feeling of peace once. She was beautiful woman who fell ill before I even saw my teenage years. Mama used to be Her body began to ache in a way where she said she felt as if she were turning into a rock, her forehead was as hot as a coal, and she shriveled up into a pile of bones. A doctor came out once and told us to keep our distance, because this disease was taking many. I never wanted to stay away from her or be apart, but every time I snuck into her room, my father would yank me away so hard my arm would bruise. She always gave me the softest smile when I left, so meek and demure. Helpless.

The last time I saw her, she was gasping for air between fits of coughing. I stumbled into her room, scared of whether my mother would be there or if she would have disintegrated. That look in her eyes was one I could never forget. She must have known her time had come because I had never seen someone quite so at peace with the world. She looked genuinely content for a woman about to pass on. A smile left her lips and pulled me towards her. I clung onto her arm and cried all night, until I was once again yanked away. The next day we put her in the coffin that my father and I had built a few days earlier.

Life sure is a strange thing.

The clock ticked by slowly. It was already November. Addison and the young man were betrothed to wed. I found out when I went into town to find some work and I saw the pair. A beauty and a gangly beast. They were surrounded by people young and old, congratulating them. A load of horse-shit if you ask me. For a split second my gaze caught her eye and I thought I saw something in it. An apology maybe? Or longing? Did she know that she had made the wrong choice and I was the one that she was supposed to be with? How could a man with such a stupid smile take care of her, and how could the most beautiful woman in the world actually like a man with such unruly limbs?

I knew in that moment that she did want to be with me. I stood there and stared at the couple until the surrounding people’s looks to me became unsettling. My eyes were wide, glazed and unblinking. Thoughts raced through my mind like dogs, but I still felt peaceful, at ease. I am the picture of serendipity. A deep sigh escaped my lips. My chest rose and fell with the breaths that gave me life.

Breathe In,

Out,

In,

Out.

My feet carried me home, but I had no recollection of the movements I had just made. It felt like I was floating, my body was in control, and I was only a passenger along for the ride. The sole passenger on a lonely train. The thoughts that my mind produced in that time I can’t recollect, but I cannot imagine they were those of a good man, with how hot my brain felt.

My house was cold, combating the heat that was escaping my body and cooling me down to a temperature where I could survive. The house started to look vile to me, a memory of what was and what could have been. My father had left years ago when I was a scrawny young cock. He opened the door, looked at me, and disappeared forever. His gaze was cold and lacking in any emotion. The lack of his regard for my well-being showed that his heart had never been there. It was as hard and moldy as a knot of wood left in the rain. I never saw him again. I can only assume he’s dead—or at least I know he is dead to me.

In,

Out,

In…

The wind was howling with anger, furious to be alive. It was a welcomed alarm; the wind’s fury was invigorating. At one point in my life I would have said the wind was as angry as I was, but that is no longer true. I have found peace and I have found how to get to where I belong in life.

My feet carried me across the way to the house where my future bride spent most of her time. I pursed my lips and whistled once again. Raps on the door came from my fists and the ever-beautiful Addison answered. A confused look swept across her face, changing to the characteristic welcoming smile of any woman that properly belonged in this town, and her eyes crinkled. I had never noticed her crow’s feet before.

My body carried me, and I was no longer in control. Shots rang out, clearing the neighboring trees of any birds that nestled inside. Crows screamed and flapped their winds, intrigued by the commotion. I turned around and saw the fat man running towards me with a shotgun he was threatening me with. An old Winchester. Yelled as he saw Addison hanging from a tree next to me by a rope necklace I crafted special for her.

“Damn you! My God, damn you!” His sobs boomed.

I heard one last shot. My ears rang and I fell to the ground. Above me I could see my bride, her face white and pure, sleeping peacefully as the howls of the wind pushed her side to side. My eyes rolled back into my head, and I drifted away. We would be together always, and it was our love that could never die.

Amazing grace

How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me…

A.H. Brewer is a Pacific Northwest native author who currently resides in Japan. She has always been drawn to dark and grotesque, which is reflected in all of her works. She is excited to share her debut work as a testament to her lifelong love affair with the art of storytelling.