Llano House (A Work in Progress)

Llano. “Lano,” sounds like “Lame-O” as some friends of the three call it. Not “Yano,” no connection to the Spanish word meaning a large plain spreading out to the horizon, a place to graze your horses. No, instead, “Lano,” with all the beauty of the word taken out by the mispronunciation, by the connection to that hill on which crumbling farm-hand-quarters hunker, and the fact that no one cares what a Llano is or was or why the house is even called that.
The house did once look out upon lush, green plains on which dairy cows grazed. The bottom of this little valley where the house stands upon a slight rise must have been idyllic at one time. Before they situated the sewer-treatment plant behind the rise, before the plain became pockmarked by ranch houses, thrown up with no aesthetics to house the families of the dairy farmers. Flat facades with no faces, rooflines that had no relationship to the gnarled ancient oaks that predated the cows, sewer plant, even the name llano.
It was a perfect spot for the three to settle, but left me asking the question, did the location form the boy’s current state, or were they drawn there because they felt in their ball-sacks the zing of a connection? Did they feel an affinity to the landscape? Where they moved by the countless old oaks, the views from the rise, and the dilapidated state of the outbuildings? Did the ruts in the long dirt driveway up the rise jostle into them a sense of the old-frontier? When first viewing the place, did they imagine themselves as rough and tumble ranch-hands?
The property was vast. Twenty-two acres of prime real estate on the outskirts of a very desirable small town. One of those small towns that has enough big town qualities to make it a place where people want to raise their families, to become involved in the community and do their civic duty, to march in the harvest parade, celebrating the fruits of what was and what is. Twenty-two acres of defunct dairy farmland, with giant old rusting barns and feed silos, piles of discarded building material for the boom that never came, four ranch-hand-quarters where the boys lived, that now command full-market-value for their rental, and a deserted single-family home, circa 1890 which no one wants to renovate. The rot could be torn out and replaced, the termite’s destiny put to a stop, the solid wood floors could be sanded and refinished, the massive attic turned into a cozy play-room for a child, or a quiet study for a writer, but none of this will happen. Not until people have forgotten about the tree next to the kitchen door. Or cut it down and burned it. Would burning “smudge” away the gloom and foreboding that clings to that tree’s bows?
The three lived in the center quarters. A house that began at the kitchen and added on from there. First a bedroom right off the kitchen, then a living room, then three more bedrooms, each smaller and more half-fast then the last. The living room was paneled in pine, that rustic-cabin look must have been charming in a way when the original occupants sat around in their cotton flannel shirts after a long day coaxing stubborn cows into their milking slots. Now the pine had a layer of posters and other bachelor memorabilia over it. Joe Montana. A cheerleading squad standing in formation, boobs jutting. An old color photo of Travis, age seven, taped to the wall, holding a whisky bottle and smiling for the camera.
The main furnishings in the house were the sofa, TV, coffee table, and lazy-boy recliner in the living room. Coffee table always loaded to capacity with filled ashtrays, empty beer bottles, plates with dried catsup and grease. TV perpetually on, showing a zombie-killing video game or a DVD Travis brought home from work. The entire Fall season of CSI that the three would watch into the morning hours. There was no bone structure left to the couch, just a sagging pile of orange and brown organic matter, the grease stains, and other spots one felt repelled to identify, having more substance than the actual frame and foam now. Sitting on the couch for one not initiated into the deep groove of funky filth of Llano house took courage. You sat straight and prim on the edge of the sloping rot of upholstery, trying to make as little contact with it as possible. The smell of the house was a constant blend of pack after pack of cigarettes masterfully mixed with fried meat; bacon and ground beef being the main component of any meal consumed off half washed slippery plates. Windows and doors remained tightly shut to protect the inhabitants from any fresh breeze that might disturb the gray clouds that hung over the rooms like a spectre.
On this day, the one named Tyson was lying on his bed staring at the flatness of the ceiling as he dragged on his second cigarette of the day. The soothing smooth whiteness of the ceiling fastened his eyes to it like fishing line. After a while, he let his eyes drift over the two feet or so to the corners of his room. In one corner a daddy long legs was hanging out in a newly-made web. Tyson wondered what made the spider choose that corner and not one of the others. Was there a breeze somehow? A source for little gnats or whatever long legs live on? He loved ruminating on things, turning them over in his mind, puzzling them out. As long as they were puzzles that had no connection to his life. That’s one of the reasons he loved reading so much. He would chow through a book in a day. He went through cycles, reading everything a writer had published, the Sherlock Holmes series had been a train he’d ridden on for a month or so, and then it was Stephen King, Tolstoy, Harry Potter, C.S. Lewis. The bigger the book, or the longer the series the better, the longer the escape. Escape is what it came down to. What could best keep him from hearing the murmur of his non-existence, the muffled voices somewhere deep inside of him that screamed and chortled and ridiculed him into shutting them out and drowning them in beer and TV and books. He heaved his body out of bed and shuffled in his boxers to the kitchen and the cold supply of beer. Popping the lid of what would be his first of many that morning, he landed himself on the sofa and lit another cigarette. The sky was visible through the blinds and it looked like a gray one. The room felt quiet and empty, hungry. He flicked on the TV and instantly felt the buzz of the screen calming his nerves. No one else was awake yet. He got up earlier than the other two for work. He had to get to the winery before they opened, to sweep out the visitors center and entrance way, empty the trash cans, recycle all the bottles used up in yesterday’s wine tastings. The smell of stale wine was always in his nostrils it seemed, even on his days off.
There was an hour before he had to be at work. Enough time for a game of “Ghouls”.
Travis found him sunk into the sofa, beer in hand, fighting off the living dead with his joy stick.
“Mornin”
“Hey, why you up so early?”
“Couldn’t sleep again.”
“Nightmares?”
“Yeah. Same ones.”

Travis was still deeply religious. He had been in training as a minister in college and then decided being a video-store clerk was just fine for him. At 29, he held a job most high school students would consider, and that was fine for him. He was busy. His time at home was spent between watching every movie ever made and dominating the world in a simulated conquest video game. His religious beliefs forbade him from having pre-marital sex with the girl he had been dating for four years. The ban on pre-marital sex led to sodomy instead of intercourse and did not hinder his drinking, which he did in excess - though not quite as much as Tyson.
The nightmares that plagued Travis always featured the same sad looking dog walking down the side of a road. In the dream, Travis would come rolling down the road in his pick-up truck, and would catch sight of the animal just in time to see his hang-dog expression as he walked into the path of the truck. Travis would wake up in a sweat, his breathe cut short by the thud of the dog under his tires. As many times as he’d had the dream, he was never able to swerve and miss the dog, or turn a corner and go down a different road, or slam on the brakes. It got to the point where he dreaded going to sleep. And he dreaded driving to work. What if he saw a dead dog on the side of the road? The roads around Llano house were constantly littered with road kill. Possums were the most common victims, but rabbits, cats, turkey vultures, who had become too involved in eating the latest flattened winner of a ticket to the dump and succumbed to the same fate. Their wings would flap as you drove by, the wind re-animating their soaring screech.
Sometimes a deer would grace the edge. One day when Travis was a young boy, he stumbled upon a deer that had been dead a week or so. He had first noticed the heavy-sweet smell of decomposition from quite a ways away, but was too young to know what it was till he was standing over the quivering, wiggling corpse of the deer being devoured by maggots. He didn’t want to see any dogs in that same state, he didn’t want to see any dogs with that haunted, accusing look in their eye like the one in his dream.
It probably wasn’t a coincidence that the video store was next to a pet store in the upscale shopping center where all the happy families of the small town came to pay too much money for the privilege of buying their groceries from one of the shi-shi stores in town. The one with a real butcher counter and real live sushi chef. The one you were lucky to get out of for under seventy-five bucks. The shopping center also had a gift store, an espresso cart, a mediocre Chinese restaurant, and an overpriced hardware store, all of which Travis never stepped foot inside. He did his shopping elsewhere.
Travis spent his afternoons in the video store, minding the front counter, helping customers choose which film to entertain them for the night, and avoiding looking out the huge glass windows that made up the front of the store. He didn’t want to see any dogs. A glimpse of tail would give him the shivers. It was ridiculous. He knew it. He had been told to go to a shrink by his girlfriend, even his roommates had joked that he should get some help until they saw that their suggestion caused him more pain than the nightmares did. He relied on prayer. If he could believe deeply enough in his heart that Jesus would help him, heal him, then it would be okay. It would be just fine. Meanwhile, he had taken to drinking cough medicine before bed, hoping the deep, drug-induced sleep would block out the dreams. It hadn’t worked.

Tyson and Travis heard the mumbling of voices from Chip’s room, then the steady squeak of the bed. Chip’s girl was over again. Tyson rolled his eyes at Travis and tilted back his head to get the last drops out of the can.
“Can’t they ever go to her house?”
“She’s got a kid and a crazy ex, remember? But I know what you mean, I’m sick of waiting for an hour to get in the john. What does she do in there?”
“I’m gonna jump in there now before he cums and she gets up to wash it off.”
“Watch it, Tys”
“What? It’s true. . .happens every morning.”
“I’m going to make some coffee. Want some?”
“Is it the good stuff?”
“No, its that cheap shit from Costco.”
“Yeah, okay.”
The bathroom was small, solidly mildewed, and had the heavy grunge of three guy’s bodily functions lurking in it like some phantom from a Scooby-Doo cartoon. Yellow dribbles around the toilet calcifying into a sticky-pure haze of odor. Even the Mr.T sticker placed strategically on the lid of the toilet wasn’t enough to scare away the crud of that room. How anybody could go in there and come out clean was pure miracle out of scripture. Maybe Travis’s prayers were being answered, just in a tweaked-out way.
Tyson came out, ruddy cheeked, wrapped in a towel, and made his way back to the frig to grab another beer.
“Breakfast of champions again there Tys?” Travis was sitting on the front porch, coffee and cigarette making up his breakfast of choice. “These damn strays are driving me crazy. Why don’t you stop feeding them so they’ll go away? There has to be like fifty of ‘em now.”

“They need me. They’re used to getting food. If I cut them off, they’ll starve.”
Tys didn’t see Travis kick a stray when it got too close to him. He was in his room getting dressed for work. The pile of books by his bed had stopped growing recently. He’d gotten hooked on all the TV series Travis had been bringing home. TV was better, noisier, more effective at blocking out the whining in his head.
Travis sat cursing the cats and drinking his coffee. His butt was numb from the prickliness of the astro-turf on the front porch and the coldness of the cement beneath. Getting up, he noticed how stiff he was. “I gotta join a gym,” he thought to himself. “Just have to find the time.”
“See ya, Travis.” Tyson grabbed a cup of coffee to go from the kitchen and headed out. “Another day, another dollar.” His SUV was waiting, shining through the gray morning. Nice of his parents to buy it for him. Nice car. Would be good for trips up to the snow if he ever thought of it. Maybe he would get the guys to go with him next weekend. They could buy a few six packs and head up for the day. Do some snowboarding. Yeah, that would be cool.


Travis settled into the furrow of the couch, resting his head on the back, closing his eyes. It was his day off. Maybe a sleep on the couch would be safe. . .a different location, a different dream? He drifted into a light sleep, only to be awakened by the sound of the bathroom door slamming shut He chuckled to himself. “Tys was right.”
What would he do today? He had taken the last clean coffee mug off the shelf, the other dozen or so were in different states of muck on the kitchen counters. Tys would be back later, he would handle that, he always did. Chip and Travis never did the dishes, or any cleaning for that matter around the quarters. Why bother? Tyson did it all. Before the fourth, Moses, had moved out, Moses and Tys had kept the place looking pretty good, vacuuming, garbage out every week, dishes back in the cupboards. But now that it was just the three of them, it all fell on Tyson and he seemed to only have the stamina to clean when every last fork, plate, and cup had been used. A couple of weeks ago, someone had offered them a box of glasses and mixed-matched plates. Chip and Travis were all for it, but Tys knew it would just lengthen the amount of time between clean-ups and make more work for him.
Chip and Travis had no guilt in letting Tys do all the cleaning. He was their little bitch, though none of them would say it out-loud. They were the men of the house, he was the passive mouse. “Wonder what happened to Tys? Why does he never leave the house except for work?” It never got beyond that question. Maybe because they didn’t want to ruin their good thing of having a bitch to do all the work, or maybe because they were afraid, afraid to know the truth. Everyone that knew the three and knew the dynamics of Llano house asked that question, but no one ever went beyond the asking. No one ever talked to Tyson about it. Denial, an essential skill.
From all outer appearances, Tyson had lived a totally normal childhood. His parents were well-off, run-of-the-mill ‘burb types, dad accountant, mom elementary school teacher. They bought Tyson a shiny sports car in high school and that helped Tyson to be a bit of a playboy and hot-shot during his teens. Then he moved to the city and descended into a deep depression, though that was never what it was called by anyone. He became so deeply affected that he wouldn’t leave his apartment, after a while, he wouldn’t leave his armchair. Even when his friends would bang on the door and yell at him to open up, let them in, he wouldn’t stir. He didn’t have to work, so he didn’t have to leave his apartment. His parents supported him. Finally, seeing their son was doing “nothing was his life,” his parents cut-him-off and he moved back to the ‘burbs and into Llano house and got the job. That was three years ago.
Travis wasn’t thinking about all this, he wasn’t thinking about what kind of demons Tyson must’ve been wrestling with. He wasn’t even thinking about his own demons, dog-headed demons that blamed him. Blamed him for what? No. He was thinking about his girlfriend who was now down at UCLA getting her B.A. and probably screwing every frat boy in sight to make up for all the years of vaginal celibacy she had wasted with him. She said she was being true to him, but how could she? He remembered her begging him to have sex, asking why they had to wait? Why he could only sneak in the back door. He would launch into some deep philosophical conversation, steering their passion away from their bodies and into their cortexes. They both loved debate and hours could go by while they talked about the environment or the sins of eating red meat, (he lived on beef, she was a vegetarian).
Travis’s lower guts grumbled. Oh lord, another attack. Was Chip’s girl out of the toilet yet? Travis couldn’t hold it back once his gut started moaning. He got up, took five brisk steps towards the bathroom and pounded on the door, “I need to get in there. Now!”
“Okay!” her annoyance audible in the way the “ay” came out as three syllables.
Thirty-seconds went by. “NOW!” Travis was almost doubled over with the effort to keep himself from soiling his pj bottoms.
The door swung open and out came Tamara, smelling like mall-bought body spray, her hair wrapped in a towel. “Jesus, Travis! What’s the fuckin’ emergency?”
Travis didn’t answer. He slammed the door in her face and sank down to the toilet in grim relief.
“Your roommates are fucked-up.” Chip was still in bed, he’d rolled over on his side and was staring at the heavily curtained window. You could hear the birds chirping outside, a weird sound in this room. “What’s up with Travis and his shitting?” Tamara was sickeningly skinny, her pelvic bones sticking out over the tops of her low-slung jeans as she pulled them on over her pink thong.
“He can’t digest anything except ground beef and meat. He tried to eat some vegetables yesterday and they must be making him sick this morning. I don’t know how he doesn’t get scurvy or whatever.” Chip felt bad for Travis. He knew how sensitive his stomach was and that Travis secretly worried about his health. It wasn’t cool to be twenty-seven and have to baby your insides like that.
“I have to get going. Sam’s dad is going to be pissed if I don’t get home in time today. I made him late for work yesterday and he was so mad he threw Sam’s tricycle against the trailer. It took me a god-damn half-hour to calm Sam down. That fucker has no control of his anger.”
“What did you do about the internet thing?”
“Oh, that, well, uh, I can’t get into it now. I have to go. See you at work.”
Tamara was the hostess at the restaurant Chip managed. She was known county-wide for her white-trash-long-legged beauty and promiscuity. She had no problem telling anyone who would care to listen, how many men she’d slept with, that she had herpes, and that she had never had an orgasm. Sex with hundreds and no orgasm for any of it. Her way of getting-off was not based on the delicious clenching of her insides. She got-off by getting what she wanted out of men. She didn’t want physical pleasure, she wanted money, power, a sense of being desired. She told the waitresses at Chip’s restaurant the first week she was there that her fantasy was to bed the boss and that’s just what she did, using her body to get the best shifts on the schedule, the privilege of coming into work late, of being the head “door-ho.” Sleeping with the boss was a drag though when Chip was around, because then, she had to be sneakier about her flirting and working the customers at the bar. Guys would come into the restaurant just to get a glimpse of her, to flirt, get material to build their hand-jobs on later, and she would get a twenty and a phone number neatly folded together slipped to her.
No orgasms for Tamara. She had that one thing in common with the three at Llano house, the ability to shut-out the unwanted, the unremembered, the undealt with and to handle the consequences, like a non-existence, like no sexual fulfillment. She stuffed her personal trauma so deep inside herself, choosing her hole as the burial plot, so deep up inside her that no penis was long enough to unlock her pearl box of tears and release and love-juice.
The other girls at the restaurant found her entertaining. She always had some drama going on and they got to be bystanders at the car crash that was her life. At first they felt empathy for her and wanted to “be there” for her, and then, later, they felt themselves being drained by her, she sucking their vitality right out of them by her mere presence. And then she quit nursing her baby, Sam, and her breasts deflated, her once oh-so-glamorous halter dresses started hanging badly, sagging where they had once been eye-catchingly full. She began to show her mean, venomness side to the other girls, as if her sweetness had dried up along with her mother’s milk. One slow night when the girls were hanging around the kitchen window waiting for the staff meal to come up, she announced, “If any of you want to give me your extra fat off your asses I’m going to use it for a breast enlargement.”
That’s when the tables turned.
“Use your own fuckin extra fat!”




Tamara

She was six years old when her uncle started inserting things into her. First it was a finger, then a whatever was within reach in the child’s room. It was as if the innocence of the objects themselves would hide the horror of what was happening, but the innocence was quickly stained and withered away and everday objects became objectionable to her. Why didn’t little V want her purple lollipop from the doctor? What a naughty girl smashing all her new crayons. Why did she insist on hiding all her Barbies under her bed?
In middle school, she realized her experience in the realm of the taboo was power, a power she could use to get whatever she wanted. She didn’t care about grades, had no ambition to do well academically. She wanted safety. Safety came from being the one in control. What was for other girls a time of budding ripeness and panties glistening with mysteries, Tamara was learning how to change what had been a shame, a scar, a hidden wound into a shield of protection and a sword of vindication. She would allow many boys to touch her, to explore their sexual awakenings through her body, but she would never allow herself to enjoy it. She liked to see the boy’s faces bewildered by their own pleasure, by the power she had over them to keep them going till they burst, or leave them to their own devices. At thirteen, she could suck and stroke and tease as good as the best whore in Nevada, but she would never ever come. Coming was meant you were vulnerable, helpless, in the power of another.
That’s what got tricky when she became a mother. In being a mom, even a careless, heartless mom, you became vulnerable, and another controlled you. A wee baby controlled your sleep, your pleasure, your every waking thought. A toddler controlled you even more, and a grown child can look at you and really see you for who you are and wither you with your own mom-grown guilt.
Sam’s dad wasn’t much help, in fact, most would say he was a danger. Kicked out of home when he was a child, he lived scrounging himself an existence in the countryside of El Salvadore where he was born to unwilling parents. Not much was known about him except his propensity for child pornography and his fits of rage. Tamara would complain to the girls at work how she had come home from work to her trailer and her babysitting ex and find downloads of child porn on her computer. This didn’t stop her from having him care for her four year old son, although most wondered at her judgement. Miriam was always too scared, too disgusted to ask what gender the children had been in the videos, what ages, how violent had the acts been and how could she ever, ever consider having that man go near her son?
Miriam had always had a good place to live. She was the type that could float into a new town and find the unlisted, lower-than-market-price, on three acres dream house. Tamara had been living in her thoroughly mildewed trailer on her dad’s property for years. “What do you think about renting one of those big farm houses out off of Highway 12 together?” Tamara could smell happiness and success on Miriam and she wanted some for herself. “We could share child-care and do crafts together…maybe start some kind of little business together?” A big part of Miriam wanted to be Tamara’s savior. She saw the hurt little girl, saw the desire to be a good mom, to make better for herself and hers, wanted to believe that that could happen. Tamara’s beauty and tiny frame were seductive. One wanted to rescue her, scoop her up and set her right. Wash away the makeup and put her in vocational school. But Miriam’s primal mother instincts screamed out “Keep anything to do with Tamara far far away from my precious little girl.” There was no way she would let the father of Sam near her little girl, not even let someone like that know where they lived, let alone share a house with a relative of his. There was no way she wanted to get sucked down into the vortex of Tamara’s black hole of self-destruction and misery. Miriam did not have any extra fat off her ass or her life to cut Tamara.