11317 Jerusalem Plank Road

An essay

by Kiyanna Hill

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The humidity rushed toward me as I opened the front door. I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise. My mother and I had stayed inside our air-conditioned living room all morning, watching episodes of The Real World. She’d chewed on ice cubes while I played with my doll’s hair, braiding the strands and then shaking them loose again. We had been trying to stay quiet so that my father could get enough sleep for the graveyard shift.

Inside my father’s shed, I found my pink Barbie bike. It leaned against his rusted lawn mower. The shed had no doors, only a roof weakened by termites and rain. It smelled of wet grass and sweat. Sunlight sneaked through small holes in the planks of wood, but it was still hard to see. Shapes and outlines morphed into monsters and creepy men. I grabbed my bike and steered down our dirt lane.

I gripped the handlebars and pedaled, but the tires slowed in the soft dirt. They needed air. My legs began to burn, an acknowledgment of the distance to our mailbox. The red flag had been put down, so the mailman must have come. I thought of leaving the bike and just walking, but I loved riding.

Every day I would set up new scenarios for myself. On Mondays, the shed was a gas station. On Tuesdays, my invisible friends and I raced to the mailbox and back to the house. I did anything to avoid being in the silent house.

No cars came down the main road. My mother had made me promise anyway that I would always check before opening the mailbox. She looked forward to her In Style and Essence. My father rarely read anything, besides the bills.

From the end of the dirt lane, our house looked plain, almost innocent. But night transformed it.

I looked back at our house, with its white sides and red roof. The white paint had begun to flake. I peeled off strips when I got bored from pretending. The wood underneath reminded me of the light brown of the dirt lane. The roof used to be a bright red, but the sun had dulled it. My father had lived in the house since he was my age. When he turned eighteen, his parents decided to move to a trailer in Stony Creek, twenty minutes away, with his two younger sisters. Instead of leaving with them, he decided to stay and take over the bills. When my mother and I moved in, he had been on his own for years.

From the end of the dirt lane, our house looked plain, almost innocent. But night transformed it. The house appeared haunted, mostly because of its distance from the main road. No one ever came to us on Halloween. But each night, the rats and spiders decided to visit. It was worse for my mother and me when my father worked graveyard at the Food Lion Distribution Center.

That night, I helped my mother put away stacks of folded towels and washcloths. I was closing the closet door when I heard a snap, like the breaking of a twig. My mother screamed. She stepped into the living room, sat down on the couch, and covered her mouth with her right hand. She pointed toward the space heater.

Beneath it, we had caught a rat. The square steel pedal was clamped down on its neck. The piece of cheese my father had used to lure the rat had bounced under the coffee table. The rat was flopping around on the floor, on its back, trying to roll onto its stomach as though that would release it. My mother and I watched it strangle to death. Its movements didn’t slow, just abruptly stopped.

“I’m going to get a pair of gloves.”

My mother ran out of the living room, bumping into my shoulder. I thought of moving from the doorway, but my fear kept my feet on the tiled floor. If I walked past the rat, it might decide to spring back to life. This job belonged to my father. He disposed of the things that scared us.

I needed to do something, but I didn’t know what. I stood in the doorway of the living room in my pajamas and waited for a command.

My mother returned wearing the rubber gloves from her nursing job, the kind that left a light powder on her hands. She walked toward the rat. I watched her reach for it repeatedly, bringing her hand back every few seconds. She took a deep breath and grabbed the trap. She gagged. I followed her outside.

The porch light shone on the cement steps. My mother stood in front of the living room window and placed the mouse trap on the grass. The rat’s tail was curled in a perfect J. Its eyes were open and red.

She sprinkled lighter fluid on the trap, like a chef drizzling chocolate. I watched her light a match. It landed right on the trap. We stood and watched the rat burn. Vomit rose in my throat, but I swallowed it down. If my mother could watch this, so could I. The flames began to cover the rat. If I squinted, I could see its gray skin turn black. We went inside when the popping began.

My father came home at eight the next morning and yelled at my mother about the black patch of grass. “It will never grow back,” he said.