The open window, a sign that he was free, a sign that told him that he could wander out into the uncut grass of the field just outside. A freedom he had never experienced the first seventeen years of his life. Being home-schooled by his more than caring, paranoid mother. Over-bearing and on the edge of OCD, she barely let him out of the house to visit his family. Maybe it was his over-confident attitude that made her this way. His inability to believe in fears, or even acknowledge them at all, that filled her with fear. So afraid that the delicate existence of her son would be warped by the outside world that she would keep them secluded from the rest of the world. The neighbors had all given her reasons to stay away from them, so childhood relationships were destroyed by the conflicts of the adults who were in charge. Even at church, lines were drawn in the sand. Father had spats with the pastor, who happened to be one of his close friends. Father being the co-pastor made this a scene in mass. Whispers were everywhere, glares and stares, children were conveniently sick or some other half-cocked explanation for why they either weren't attending or just couldn't play in Sunday-school.


Sitting up, what a chore, more than what Keith was willing to do right now, when the floor of the bedroom was so comfortable. The cot, just a mattress on the floor, he had spent the night on lay shoved against the wall. He remembered the days when he would wake up in the kitchen, under the table, or in the living room clinging to the edge of the couch. His sleep-walking was always a spice added to his boring life. Though sleep walking annoyed him when he woke up freezing-ass cold on the hardwood floor of the laundry room, it was a blessing when you needed an excuse for walking in at 4am, the time your dad goes to work. His natural sleep-disorder was also the cause of his mother blocking off the doors and locking the windows if such a happening would ever occur again.

Melissa came around the doorway and spoke with that demanding older-sister voice she had mastered oh-so many years ago. Being the eldest of nine gave her that edge.

"Get out of bed! Damn it, son. Its 8:30am already! Tom will be on my ass if I'm late."


She spun around and stepped over Patrick who grunted and stumbled into the room, his usual coy not showing this morning. The one-year-old fumbled over his own feet towards Keith and slapped down on Keith's stomach, snatching him back to reality. Sitting up and lifting Patrick into his arms, Keith reached for the wrinkled black shirt that seemed just out of reach. He wouldn't be satisfied until he fell over. Standing up and slipping the shirt over one arm, Keith let Patrick wriggle from his arm while he continued to put the shirt over himself. Grabbing his boots and the cap full of pocket-contents he was out the room and into the living room just down the hall. Melissa tossed some chicken strips into the microwave while pouring a glass of orange juice.

'Damn cellphone, just can't wake me anymore.' Keith sighed below his sleepy breaths.

He could remember the days when Missy would drive out of her way to get him for work. He'd wake at 6 am to go to work at 9. God what a child he used to be, what a child he still was! He'd relied on everyone around him for so long that the independence was looking grim. No more would he be able to go to bed and not worry because his mother would wake him for work, or his brother would hear his alarm before he even rolled over. It was all on him now, he was his own person. A person who would be late for work.

Melissa grabbed Patrick and started for the door. Luckily for Keith, he had bathed and slept in his clothes the night before. All he needed was a bite to take out the door. A blue-berry strudel would do. The price he would pay for being late would be the aching pain in his teeth that he would endure from the frozen pastry. Climbing into the back of the old chevy S10 Keith balled himself up so that the seat could have room to squish against Melissa's two purses, a heater, and a diaper bag. She'd click on the radio to hear Linkin Park's 'Shadow Of The Day' play, a song Keith would strangle from their throats if he had to endure it any longer.

The day was a grueling one, like he hadn't experienced since he had started working for his great uncle. The sun was high and bearing down on them heavily. Sweat had dripped generously from under his cap, stinging his eyes more times than his temper would allow him to handle. Working in the direct heat of the sun and jogging back and forth carrying hundreds of pounds of trees and shrubs that the his uncle kept in stock was pulling at his breaking point. Though he was still a greenhorn in most of the actual business, he still had quite allot to keep him busy. Lunch time wouldn't come soon enough. Time crawled by as he sat in the back of house six cleaning hanging baskets, bobbing his head to his mp3 player, ignoring the many nicks and cuts the thorns of this damned plant blessed him with.

His thigh vibrated courtesy of his cellphone. Before he would even pull it from the case on his belt he would know it was Missy calling to see what he wanted for lunch. Sonic had burnt him out on popcorn chicken and strawberry malts, today they'd find some other variant of heart-attack to dine on. Peeling the glove from his right hand, he'd answer his phone to hear the same reply he'd always hear at that time of day.

"Come to the front." Followed by the immediate click.

A bad habit of his sisters' was that she would rarely say good bye before hanging up. One would assume she was always busy by the abrupt ending to every phone call, but Keith knew better by now, she had time to bid farewell.

Keith ran down the narrow isle between the houses and got up to the store, slowing himself as he turned the corner so that he wouldn't be caught running. What a bother, all the his peers got nervous when he ran, so what? He had dropped a tree or two, toppled a cart full of shrubs, or even accidentally sprayed poison on merchandise, he was just trying to make himself a bit more useful! He was twice as coordinated as any of the old-farts that he worked with anyway. For every shrub they had cleaned, he probably cleaned ten.

The instant he entered the small trailer-house they called a store, Melissa got up and walked out, her usual humor by lunch-time. Taking a brisk walk across the gravel drive to the grass where her truck was parked. Keith naturally walked faster because he worked less than her and would have more energy to waste by this time of day. He was exhausted, a word for her current state was one that escaped this author. Keith opened the passenger door of the brown truck and removed the car-seat only to push it behind the seat and into the back of the cab. Sliding into the truck Missy started it and pulled out.

Her usual question was the first to come from her less-than-humored tone.

"where to?"

Keith would pause a second before answering and come back with a statement: 'I'm burnt-out on Sonic.' throwing his hat to the floor and shaking the sweat from his lochs.

"No, just pick a place and lets go, damn it. I'm not in the mood to mess around."

Keith turned and looked out the window for the length of the thick silence. These moments were all to many when it came time for working. Missy was distraught with her life, everything 'fucking sucked' Nothing was ever right for her and she was going nowhere. By her own words. Keith would listen to all her rants, raves, thick-headed half-decisions. Too many times had she vowed to quit working. But she still worked at the hell-hole she knew as the nursery.

'Just drop me off at Macdonald's.' Keith dared to break the silence, his usual course of action.

'I'll call uncle Tom and ask for the day off. Its no big deal, he's running out of work for my inexperienced ass, anyway.' Melissa opened her mouth to say something, but Keith would do something he had never done before, he would stop her.

'No, don't argue, I'll call him an get the day off. You won't have to deal with me, he won't have to look for brainless activities, and I get to lay on my ass. we all win.'

Melissa sat in silence a moment, her eyes slowly moving from one side of the brain to the other, weighing her options.

"Fine" she concluded. "But if you lose your job you're going back to live with mom until college is over."
'Deal.'

Keith relieved the tension by popping in a CD he had burned for her into the player, the soothing bass of 'So cold' by Breaking Benjamin would massage their eardrums the rest of the way.

Missy pulled into the lot and gave Keith a hug, something they weren't afraid of doing, they were both 'dorks' by Missy's standard, anyway. Keith hopped out and jogged over to the building as she waved and drove off. Keith immediately trotted over behind the wooden fence that surrounded the employees-area/dumpster. He was wearing his dad's old U.S. army jacket, and the instant he got around the corner of the fence he would extract a bottle from its depths. The label suspiciously covered by a paper bag that he would roll down.

Keith had taken his first drink the night of Gabby's death, he had done it because he had watched the old westerns where the hero would take a drink before doing something that scared him shitless, now he did it to ease the guilt that weighed his heart down, guilt that hadn't ceased to build up since that night....The night he became a murderer.

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