The Black Filth under my Nails

by

Eric Richer

My step mom is gonna end up killing Pops. She’s a bad person. An evil one. He says this woman is the real gem of his life, but one day she’ll be the cause of his death, I’m sure of it.

Friday night is when she’s at her most dangerous, even after blowing off some steam at her beloved pub. During the week it’s kind of OK because she delivers fuel halfway across the country and doesn’t always come back, but every Friday she’s here. I count the days. It’s for tonight.

I love my Pops. He’s everything to me. Right now he’s high on his bed but don’t judge him, OK? He’s been in zombie mode for a while but it’s because of the medication he’s been taking since his hip surgery. Now I feel like these white pills mostly help him deal with this shitty new wife, but hey, at least he has me.

9 pm. I’m starving. I’m starving but I can’t eat anything because the bitch lives in my belly, you know. She’s the scratches on my back, this black filth under my nails. She’s those damn mites crawling through my hair and the yellow scabs eating away at my knees. She lives rent free in my head, 24/7, and she will definitely end me too after she’s done with him.

I hear her truck, so I hide under their bed to spend the night. I do this every week-end, just to keep an eye on her in case she goes too far. I even have a blanket under there.

The door slams. Here she comes. The sound of her safety shoes on the floor. Back from the pub, no doubt about it, I can tell by the way she breathes. But tonight is different. She seems angrier. Meaner. She starts screaming. She yells at Pops about the unprepared meal and then the blows rain. He doesn’t even protest anymore, pushing her fists away, waiting for her to get tired, until it stops. Until she cries and apologizes. Until they finally make peace and fuck like wild animals. But there’s something wrong tonight, like she can’t reach her orgasm or something and it’s pissing her off. She starts hitting him again, and all that time I have my eyes glued to the monkey wrench hidden under the bed. Her emergency weapon. I’ve played with it before, when she wasn’t at home. It’s fucking heavy. Pops moans. She’s gonna kill him, for sure. I wait for her to whine, and neither of them hear me come out from under the bed.

I will long remember the look on my father’s face when I brought down the tool on the gem of his life. It’s the same look he has every time he says goodbye to me in the visiting room. But she was evil. Trust me.

Bio:

Eric Richer was born in France in 1971. He grew up with 7 dogs, read a lot, studied cinema, worked in movie theaters as a projectionist and went to Japan. There he made a documentary (Kamo River), came back, returned in the darkness of the projection booths and started writing. His first two novels, La Rouille (The Rust, 2018) and Tiger (2021) were published by L’Ogre Editions. He is currently working hard on the next ones.