(Ruby Laughs is a sequel to A Good Mother)
She lays on the motel water-bed, her pregnant belly undulating with each breath, and though her face is hidden he knows it to be Ruby. She’s wearing her wedding dress with the bottom hiked up around her waist to bare her cunt. This too seems to undulate and pulse with a rhythm all its own, emitting a strange heat and distant screams.
He is startled by movement from behind and turns to see Jack crawling across the floor. The child moves in a spasmodic manner as if each limb had a mind of its own. When Jack gets to the bed he pulls himself up the mattress then crawls to the cave from whence he emerged, grabs a labial fold in each tiny hand and parts them. The screams get louder, so too does the heat and now he can see the orange flickers of firelight from within. Without hesitating, Jack crawls inside and the entrance closes behind him.
Ruby laughs.
He stops coming to work but they don’t fire him.
It isn’t compassion but optics. A small stipend to avoid a PR-nightmare. There are no handshakes when they pass on the street. They are part of a machine that he is no longer a cog in. His inability to overcome personal tragedy is a weakness that they can not abide.
He lives cheap. He has plenty and nothing. The mortgage is easily handled but the house is silent. Once he would have begged for silence and now that he has it he finds it deafening. He does his best to never be home and sleeps there as little as possible to avoid the dreams.
Mist curls around the bottom of the playground, obscuring the turf from view. Jack hangs from the monkey-bars — a boy of eight, laughing healthily and heartily as he swings energetically. Ruby sits on an elaborate park bench that looks like a medieval throne. There’s something off about her, an air of weakness and malnutrition.
She smiles as she watches her son.
He wants to speak to her but before he can Jack misses the bar he’s reaching for and falls to the ground. The boy lets out a cry of pain. Ruby is up and rushing over to him immediately. She bends down and pulls up the leg of his pants to reveal a deep gash on the boy’s leg. Without hesitation she clamps her lips on the wound and starts to suck. With each swallow she gets noticeably younger. Her body fills out, there’s a glow about the skin where before was none. He wants to scream at her to stop but can’t. However, even without his intervention, Jack seems perfectly fine. If anything the boy appears comforted by his mother’s predatory act.
Ruby lets go of Jack’s leg and smacks her lips contentedly.
“Is mommy’s boy feeling better?” she asks in a voice like poisoned candy.
Jack nods enthusiastically.
“Is mommy’s boy feeling hungry?” she pats Jack on the head and tickles his ear with her fingers.
Again Jack nods enthusiastically.
“That’s mommy’s good boy,” she strokes his neck. All of a sudden her shirt was open, as if it had been the whole time but he hadn’t noticed. She pulls Jack to a nipple and he clamps on. With each swallow Jack gets noticeably weaker. He sheds pounds with each intake. Years of his life dwindling with his indulgence. He looks like a hospice patience when he pulls away. A thick reddish-black paste spills from him mouth and down his chin, flecks falling to land on his emaciated ribs and dribble down his pant leg. Ruby pats Jack on the head. “Now run and play.”
Where Jack once ran now he only limps. Watching him remount the monkey-bars is an interminable experience. Climbing the wooden step before the bars — pitiful. He could hear the boys knuckles crack as they wrap around the first bar. He looks away as the boy flings his bulk out into the air. He already knows the outcome.
He is not mistaken.
Jack cries out in pain. Before he can rush forward to help the boy Ruby is there again, pulling up his shirt sleeve and clamping her mouth onto his…
He bought it to protect their home.
He didn’t know what he would be protecting his home from. That part was never exactly clear to him but he knew he was supposed to have one and so he did his part and bought his. He never thought he would use it but if he did he knew it would be to stop somebody from hurting his family.
But what home did he have to protect now?
In the stupor caused by the combination of alcohol he abuses to forget and pills he abuses to avoid sleep he didn’t notice that the stipend had stopped. It was if he blinked and everything was gone.
Well, not quite everything.
He had time enough to put together several bags of clothing, bedding, food, personal hygiene products, and his Smith & Wesson.
“Dad?”
“Yes, Jack?”
“Why did you let her do it?”
He looks for her online on library computers. Open wifi networks when he can charge his phone.
For months he worries she has left the city. There are no traces of her in any of the places they once shared memories. Her memory is all that remains. Yet never does he think her dead. He knows she cannot die, not without him.
He finds her in the winter, his fingers too cold to type accurately. He misspells her maiden name and there she is. Just like that everything falls into place and a warm feeling spreads through his body like the lingering sensation of a lover’s touch down his back.
Ruby sits on her throne and watches the monkey-bars where Jack is not.
He waits patiently for the dream to end.
He doesn’t know what she does but he watches her in her corner office on the third floor as she sits behind her desk. She stays late and works hard. She seems like a positive presence.
People leave her office smiling.
He grips the pistol in his hand. He’s cared more for it in these last weeks than he has himself. Flies nest in his matted beard attracted to the aroma of shit that has grown in the months since his possessions were abandoned.
He loses sight of her when she leave her desk. His heart beats faster in a combination of anticipation and anxiety. Three minutes later he spots her in the glass paneled lobby. He keeps low as he emerges from the parking garage across the street and jogs to the parking lot where she parked her car every day.
He chooses a car at random to hide behind and immediately regrets his choice. All this time planning and one snap decision throws it all into disarray. She is parked further away from the building than where he huddles in the shadows. This means he will emerge behind her as she walks to her car and that isn’t right. He needs to see the look in her eye.
She needs to know why she is dying.
She needs to beg for her life before he takes it away from her.
He goes unnoticed as she passes. He left his shoes across the street so as to step as quietly as possible. She doesn’t hear him rise, doesn’t hear him following behind her. He raises the gun. Points it at the back of her head.
Too close to miss.
“R-r-ruby,” his voice shakes.
She turns and the tremor in his voice moves through his body.
“It’s time,” he mutters. She doesn’t react so he repeats himself louder. “It’s time, Ruby.”
She looks at the gun.
Looks at him at him.
Ruby laughs.
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