Egyptian Hills
There was a house in Egyptian Hills where my family once lived. A tri-level with a walkout basement. My brother and I stayed in the bottom and shared it with fifteen cats.
We heard rumors—suicide of former tenant—and on the ceiling we saw dark rust staining, a possible remnant of the blast which claimed a life. We’d get high and wonder what other strange or terrible things had happened. I remember looking at the stone wall fireplace and imagining what might be buried just beyond the mantle.
On St. Patrick’s Day, Brother and I nearly poisoned ourselves with naphtha. In an experiment gone wickedly wrong, we’d blended the stuff in attempt to extract the mind-altering substances from cough syrup, but instead we ended up drinking a deadly concoction. In some seemingly crazy fit of sheer madness, my brother doused his hand in Zippo lighter fluid, and set himself on fire.
We used to go for rides with Father, late nights on narrow curving roads like coasters, highs and lows, soaring through the hills and drinking whiskey from the bottle. We’d pass the smoke and sing to the music blaring in our ears. Father used to kill the headlights, shouting out as he crossed the line, rising to the tops of hills at high speeds just for thrills—the old man loved to party.
I’d sit in back, stomach in my chest, thinking, this is how we all will die, though I never stopped choking down the bottle.
And when we moved another family took our place. We read it in the papers—a boy found dead inside a suitcase. He’d been wrapped up in plastic, stuffed into the luggage, and kept hidden for weeks inside the bathtub at the hands of his mother’s boyfriend—all while she was out of town.
Some things fade easy, but hills whisper still, and always remind me of a tri-level house—our family’s home, not just a place—set deeply in the shadow of Egyptian Hills.
*Wesley Dylan Gray is a writer of fiction and poetry. Find him online at www.wesleydylangray.com
