Bedroom, Circa 1988 by Marc Peacock Brush

*
A single cricket chirping, somewhere beneath the desk. The repetition of her shrill mating call. Moonlight filtered through the blinds of a skylight. The bed, an extra-long twin, firm mattress, no box springs, and in the bed a sleeping figure. Blue-grey carpet with a tiny pattern of rusty diamonds. The shadows of two giant speakers. An occasional muffled voice, female. The rustle of sheets beneath feet. Two windows divided into sixteen panes and covered by shutters with wooden slats that pivot up and down. Near perfect quiet in the neighborhood. A man’s hands, tied behind his back. The central air kicking in, a weak gust of cold at the foot of the bed. TV, off. A computer against a recessed wall on a second desk, cursor blinking green. The chirping rising an octave, quickening. My eyes opening. The closet doors ajar, the bathroom door ajar. One set of shutters ajar, the latch bent. Hints of movement in the trees outside, leaves bending in the night breeze. So cold, and getting colder. Hero, a terrier the color of highlights in a brunette’s hair, asleep beneath the bed. Cold but still muggy somehow, the air thick with it. The call of hot chirping. An exaggerated muffle, followed by spastic wiggling near the left speaker. A knife that twinkles as it passes through the shaft of light beneath the moon. A man’s hands working a knot in awkward and desperate maneuvers. A remote control, lifted and pointed. Creaking from the attic, the house settling. The outlines of stick arms and legs from the clothes in the closet. Shoes stacked before built-in shelves. Dark boxes of space filled with books. Static charges firing in the air as the TV screen illuminates. A woman’s eyes darting between Johnny Carson and the knife in my hand. The man looking across the room at the woman, lunging with his body, first with his right shoulder, then his left. The flap of bedding as I turn it down, stand up. Lifting the knife high toward the skylight to watch it sparkle and gleam. Hero’s chain jangling as he works his head out from under the bed. Two people, bound and gagged, crouched into tight balls of fear beside two speakers. I rub the sleep out of my eyes. Textbooks on the computer desk: Calculus, French, an anthology of world literature. Posters on the wall of stylized women, framed in rectangles of thin black plastic, their faces severe and open. I turn up the volume. Sarcasm and applause fill the room. Louder, as loud as it will go. Hero’s eyes open, filled with a milky electric green, his gaze locked on the knife. The man’s face terrified. The woman’s face gone pale and distracted. Me, standing to my fullest height and taking my deepest breath. The knife slashing through the shaft of moonlight toward the man. Me, cutting him loose. Setting my father free, to comfort my mother for all of the wrongs wrought in this bedroom, for every close struggle, me against them.