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I was ten years old and I never should have heard what I heard that night.
I remember it clear as day. It was a Sunday night, it was also summer vacation, the very beginning of it. My sister Cameron and I were set out to go to a summer camp the following morning. Two weeks we’d be gone. The blue hue from my 27” dinosaur panasonic television lit my bedroom. I had tried to decorate the dingy cream colored walls with band posters, magazine art and pictures of me and my friends. It distracted the eye from the fact that my teeny tiny bedroom was so shitty. I was alone for the most part. My sister had gone to stay at a friends house after a disagreement with our mom, she told me the time and place I’d need to be to get picked up for summer camp but aside from that, I could only hear the muffled arguing from my mom’s bedroom. She and her boyfriend were at it again. This was a normal happening for me to hear. Every evening we’d have dinner. Sometimes it was a tv dinner from the freezer or sometimes we’d be treated with McDonalds. Sometimes mom would spend all the money on Benzo’s and we’d have to have our dad give us money so we could walk to the 711 down the street and stock up on cup of noodle. I laid in bed, the fighting only got worse. Not even an hour ago the two were fucking so I wasn’t sure what they’d be fighting about. The walls were thin enough to hear the moans of sex, not not thin enough to know what the topic of the conversation was.
I rolled over in my bed, looking away from the bedroom door as they exited the bedroom. Screaming. To this day I don’t know what actually was happening but I assume it was drugs. Or money, or both. Then I heard a smack, and a yelp come from my mother. Things only got worse, hearing slaps and punches, then I heard a click of a gun clip being unlocked. Then mom’s boyfriend taunting her, saying she didn’t have the balls to shoot him when her ten year old was in the next room. After that I was deafened by the sound of a gunshot, then another and another. I could hear crying, but I stayed in my bed. Knowing if I got up she would just yell at me to go back to sleep. Then her panicked voice spoke quickly but quietly, I think she was talking to her best friend Trixie. Miss. Trixie was the woman who lived a few doors down. She had a son that was only two or three, I knew that she also had sex for money. Not like it was anything out of the realm of normal for me. Sometimes my mom fucked for money, or for drugs. Sometimes it was to keep the electricity on. Ten minutes after the call, I heard Trixie come into the house.
What I felt next was Trixie laying her son next to me on my bed. I rolled over, acting like I had just been woken up. I think she knew the truth though based on the look of fear in my eyes. “Drew, sweetie? Keep Max in here. He’s sound asleep so he shouldn’t wake up - your mom and I have to run errands.” She said and without question I nodded. I heard them dragging something outside, then they came back in around five minutes later. The splashing of bleach and the sound of scrubbing filled the house. Since my door was partially opened the bleach burned my nose. Then they left, the car started and they were gone for hours. I didn’t sleep, I just waited. For someone or something to come find me. To come and save me. My mother had just murdered a man, and she was covering it up.
The morning rolled around and Max woke up, I got him a bowl of cereal and put cartoons on in the living room. Then I packed everything I needed for the two weeks of camp. My bags were packed and my eyes were heavy. I knew Cameron would mention that I looked like shit in the most loving way possible. Mom and Trixie got home, I left and since that day I haven’t told a soul. Maybe I should, maybe this will be in my book. Who knows, I’m not really interested in framing my mother for murder.