aka Kie's having a terrible time coping with her brother's death
Kooks don't die. Not really.
They're immortalized, grief extends past generations. Yearly vigils on the anniversary of their deaths—natural causes, murders, freak accidents, it doesn't matter. Every slaver's name is carved in big capital letters, the tragic souls lost in a slave revolt.. Names and faces etched into the town hall before they even hit the ground. If you're a kook then grief is eternal.
Pogues however, have a time limit. You could collapse in the middle of the dock—heart worn down from blazing heat and malnutrition—and someone else is plopped in your place. You get 24 hours of grief, 16 of them is set during the work day, where you go to the bar after work, pour one out, and get ready for your shift in the morning. To mourn a Pogue is a waste. Here today, gone tomorrow and a new one is born every day.
Kie feels like the only one still mourning him. The rest loved him, they ache for him, they feel the JJ sized hole in their lives but they don't feel what she does. They don't see his blurred after image in every room. She can trail the ghost of his steps from sun up to sun down.
He wakes up at 11 if he doesn't have to work. Drinks the warm beer beside him. Burps and hawks a loogie in her general direction. Continues from there.
One morning she swears she hears him in her room, digging in her drawers looking for the hunting knife he gave her when she was 10 because he needs to borrow it.
Meet me at the edge of Gator Country at 9 o'clock. I'll give it back then.
She grumbles, tells him to use his own shit.
Yeah whatever shit stain. I'll see you later.
And from then he's everywhere. Coming out of the liquor store with 3 cases of beer, hauling a net off the pier, chasing after Ricky to apologize yet again for fucking up. But every time she reaches him he's gone. He's not the only one on the island with a shitty mullet. That aggravating poguey drawl echos out of every rusty pick up. The second she enters whatever store he's in he's gone like he rushed out the back door, just to fuck with her.
He's nowhere all at the same time.
Still she spends the day hunting him down, wondering why everyone's being so evasive when she asks.
No they haven't seen him.
He's not coming in anytime soon.
Kie you have to get a grip, nobody's seen him and nobody's gonna see him.
All with that same strange look, like she's crazy. Like she's a fucking idiot for asking if anyone's seen her brother. As if she didn't see him walk up to them like the fucking bother he always is.
So much so that she's getting aggravated, because the sun is setting and she's already grounded so if she wants to avoid the wrath of Anna and Mike he needs to hurry up and give her her shit back. She's in enough trouble already, and the court ordered shrink has advised her to cut all ties with that side of her if she wants to get better. Bunch of bullshit if you ask her, because she's not like them and that she knows now. She's like JJ—sharp teeth and bullish behavior. She's like Luke—vicious words and spite. She's like them both—stubborn and shitty and it's her way or nothing.
So she gets to Gator Country and she waits. Got there 20 minutes late in fact, because JJ's never been one for punctuality even when he set the time.
45 minutes crawl by. Then an hour. And next thing she knows the sun's coming up and shes still sat in the mud waiting.
She's so frustrated she could cry. She does cry—loud, quaking wails that bruise her diaphragm. The birds flutter through the trees like a gunshot rang out but she can't stop. Not when it hurts so much her body quakes, limbs shaking and twitching because the hurt is so strong its become ichor in her blood. She slams her feet until her soles tingle and her wrist pops as it strikes the ground over and over.
Kie used to have tantrums like this, a long time ago. She would scream and cry herself hoarse until her face bloomed red. Would tear her own hair out of her scalp. It would send her mother reeling. The fear and exhaustion would cause her to cry as well, begging Kie to stop to no avail.
JJ would come up and smack her. As hard as his 5 year old palms would let him, and send her flying to the ground.
The shock would cause her to release the grip on her hair, gasping in breath finally as the tears cleared from her vision.
He would stand over her, face curled in an age old annoyance, "Stop that, ain't nothin wrong with you!"
Kie would moan out, lip wobbling, 'Yes it is!"
"So it's nothin, go lay down."
And he would half carry, half drag her to their room, lay her on a pillow and put her to sleep. Whatever cartoon they were watching still playing on the tv until the throbbing in her head sent her under.
He's not here now. Because the asshole ditched her. So she screams until the frog lodges in her throat and nothing but a hoarse wheeze comes out. Pulls at her hair until thick strands tangle in her fingers,
Smacks her hand until there's a crunch. She can't even yell in pain, her voice gone, her energy zapped, she collapses on her back all covered in mud, sweat and tears.
All that for what? Fuckin drama queen go take your ass home.
Her brother's drawl comes from somewhere in the marsh. Somehow, she pulls herself up, wrist dangling out it's socket, and she walks towards it.
She'll come back tomorrow.