The Descent Ch. 14

Cameron was a strapping young lad. Twenty years old and brimming with the confidence and delusions of grandeur expected of a young white male from an affluent background. While Amanda had relegated herself to the role of 'black sheep,' Cameron relished the role of the 'good son.' An all-American athlete in several sports with a perfect 4.0 GPA and two years closer to his BA in Business Management there was nothing that could stop him.

As he sped down the highway in his silver Audi coupe Cameron ran a finger through his light brown hair and flashed a gleaming white smile into the rearview mirror at himself. No one had ever mistaken Cam for humble--and why should they? He had everything going for him, including his 6'1" 180lb frame of lean muscle stuffed into expensive clothes.

Cam hadn't seen his parents since last Christmas nearly seven months ago and since then had only grown more confident and independent. During his time away from home he'd felt a sense of the man he was becoming really start to shine. If anything, it seemed everything came easy to Cam. The grades, the athletics, the girls--he barely had to work to get any of them. In this way he was the golden child and the Weaver family's pride and joy.

At the same time, he had developed a more and more poisonous relationship with his younger sister. As Cam had racked up honor rolls, athletic achievements and social status Amanda had grown increasingly resentful. By the time he had left for college they were barely on speaking terms. Cam did love his sister, but he was also incapable of understanding why she was such an underachiever. And he never enjoyed hearing all the rumors about her promiscuity around the locker-room. Worse yet, perhaps, was that she didn't even try to deny it.

But ever the good son, Cameron was going home to visit his father for his father's sake as much as preserving his own image. He was perfectly okay with admitting that to himself and felt justified in his desire to be perceived as he believed he was-- 'the good son.'

While he had always enjoyed a strong relationship with his father, Cameron was a bit of a 'momma's boy.' Although his father really identified with his 'go-getter' attitude and athletic ability, it was his mother's guiding touch that really resonated with Cam as a kid. He knew right from the start that he desperately wanted his mother to think highly of him and her strict rules and ideals appealed to him greatly.

His father was far more lenient and especially as he aged--less idealistic. It seemed like he demanded less from Cameron and that translated into stagnation to him. His mother challenged him and gave him an idea of the kind of man he should be and the kinds of things he should aspire to achieve. His father seemed equally pleased no matter what he did, and he did not get the same satisfaction out their interactions as a result.

Eventually, this translated into Amanda seeming to identify with Jim and Cameron identifying with Sharon. He got great pleasure in living up to his mother's ideals and was greatly looking forward to continuing to cultivate the type of self-image that would appeal to her. A kind of cognitive dissonance prevented Cameron from seeing the hypocrisy of selfishly manipulating his self-image to garner recognition--insulated from such a revelation Cameron saw himself as his mother saw him--the 'golden child.' That was his identity, whether strictly true or not.

As he pulled into the expansive driveway of his parents' home, he took one last look at himself in the mirror before feeling supremely confident in his appearance. He stepped out in tight white chinos and a light blue button up that hugged tightly to his muscled frame and revealed the top of his toned hairless chest through three unbuttoned clasps. His expensive boat shoes clapped softly on the white concrete of the walkway up to the front door and he waited intently to see the door swing open and be greeted before even arriving.

He was more than mildly annoyed that it did not happen, and instead Cam had uncharacteristically not been greeted by an open door and smiling faces but a door he had to open himself to a dark and unwelcoming home.

"Hello?" he called out, straining to conceal the annoyance in his tone.

What the hell was this? He hadn't seen his family in over half a year, and no one was even there to greet him? Cam gritted his teeth a bit--a bad habit--and continued looking around the house.

Now that he had stepped further into the building, he noticed some smells he was unaccustomed to clinging to the air. It smelled like cigarettes and weed--which utterly perplexed him. If his mother was anything it was strict and she would simply never allow smoking in the house, not to mention neither of his parents were partyers or smokers anyways. That left only one option--Amanda.

Cam had caught her sneaking out to smoke on several occasions and he was aware of her reputation at school as a stoner. But smoking in the house? This was a new low, even for her. More importantly, however, how had their mother not noticed? These questions and more swam through Cam's head as he continued searching the house, now considering the option of a break-in or burglary as more and more seemed inexplicable to him.

Finally, a clicking of heels coming down the hall from the direction of the guest bathroom drew his attention.

"Cam, honey, I'm sorry I didn't hear you drive up," Sharon greeted warmly.

Cam didn't hesitate to open his arms for a hug and the two embraced for several moments. Once again Cam was hit with an aroma of ash but this time it was coming from his mother--her clothes, hair, everything smelled heavily of cigarettes despite the scent of expensive parfum that attempted to conceal it.

After separating he intended to question her about it but was first struck by her appearance. Cam had always known his mother to be understated--classy but reserved. This applied to her manner of dress and light, tasteful application of make-up. It had practically served as a mock-up for the kind of woman that Cam had deigned to marry one day. But the version of his mother that now stood before him was anything but understated.

Her long straightened auburn hair cascaded silkily across her bare shoulders and nearly reached the amply exposed cleavage squeezed into the silvery-blue tube top she wore. Her black skirt was tight and reached barely mid-thigh, revealing long legs and lavish black heels. Her face, however, was the greatest change.

Cameron couldn't remember a time when he had seen his mother in heavy make-up, and that included the pictures of her on her wedding day. She had always had a soft, inviting look about her and her sky-blue eyes sparkled kindly no matter the occasion. The version of his mother that he was seeing now was nearly unrecognizable.

Her skin appeared flawless and matte as a product of the expensive full-coverage foundation and concealer she was wearing. Her lips were a bright red that shimmered in the reflection of the overhead lights and radiated a 'look at me' intent. Her once inviting blue eyes were shrouded in shimmery silver and smokey black that extended from her large, oversized fake lashes up to her sharply penciled eyebrows.

Sharon noticed her son's shock and knew that she was going to have to explain to some extent--which she had planned on anyways. She decided that this encounter would be akin to ripping off a band-aid, quick and painful perhaps but a fast-track to the healing process. Truth be told, Sharon didn't really want to put forth the effort to change anything.

There was a time when the preservation of her self-image was of paramount importance. Most of her life in fact, she was living up to her parents' idea of grace and class in everything she did whether she was conscious of it or not. It had now reached a point, however, where the shackles of their oppressive expectations had been cast aside and she no longer felt their ghostly judgements from the grave. She was finally free, and she wasn't going to pretend otherwise for anyone--even her son.

"Mom, you look...," Cam struggled to find the appropriate words but faltered.

His mother would say she looked like a 'tart,' or a 'hussy,' or perhaps even a 'harlot.' But he could not possibly say any of those things to his mother now and right now his compass was spinning so aimlessly that he wasn't even sure he was capable of being coherent.

"I know sweety, your mom has changed a bit since Christmas," Sharon began, wanting to ease into her explanation to avoid undue histrionics.

Cameron, for his part, was still incapable of speech and instead continued to wait in silence for things to start making sense.

"Let's say that I've 'come out of my shell' in a way. The truth is that your father and I have been somewhat unhappy for a long time and kind of stuck in a rut. We wanted to do something to rekindle the magic and we kind of needed to find ourselves again after all this time, as strange as that sounds from a 46-year-old woman," Sharon continued, sprinkling in truths but stopping short of revealing anything too real.

"Are you and dad going out somewhere? Is that why you're dressed like that?" Cameron asked, finally finding his voice.

"Well, no," Sharon paused to sniffle back some of the coke that was dripping down the back of her throat.

"So, you just..., always dress like this now? And your make-up?" he pressed, his confusion lending him the power of curiosity to continue to ask questions.

"For the most part, I like how it makes me feel to look this way," Sharon half-heartedly replied, already growing tired of answering for her behavior.

"You smell like cigarettes," Cameron followed-up, a previous concern bubbling up to his consciousness and demanding attention.

Sharon rolled her eyes and sighed, her patience for this low-level charade already faltering.

"I've started smoking Cam, you should know that right up front," she replied almost in a huff.

The blunt nature of Sharon's confession took Cameron by surprise and again he was unable to conjure an appropriate response. It was her shamelessness that shocked him into silence the most, as it was much easier to chastise someone when they expressed regret, guilt, or remorse. It was much harder and more uncomfortable to do when someone displayed none of those emotions.

"I've missed you honey and I know you probably want to have it out and be upset but this is me now, maybe it's always been me and I've been trying to fight it, but this is the reality and you're going to have to decide to accept that because I'm not going to change back," Sharon explained, meandering from comforting to matter-of-fact as the weakness in her own words began to frustrate her.

"I should go see dad," Cameron replied, needing some space and a more familiar face to get his bearings.

"He's in the bedroom, probably sleeping," Sharon motioned towards the back hall leading out of the kitchen and watched as her son walked purposefully away from her.

She mused momentarily on the success or failure of her attempts to mitigate the conflict of the previous conversation but quickly lost interest and headed back toward her sanctuary in the bathroom.

Cameron's head was still spinning by the time he reached the bedroom, and it began to spin even faster upon seeing what awaited him. His father was indeed sleeping in the bed as his mother had predicted, but it was who slept next to him that he did not understand. Amanda, his 18-year-old sister was snuggled up to him in a manner that Cam felt was inappropriate to say the least. Maybe if she was still a child and needed solace after a nightmare but seeing his fully developed sibling in this position made his guts twist in revulsion.

Both of them were sound asleep and hadn't noticed him yet, so Cam decided to take a few moments to investigate the surrounding area. The bedroom smelled heavily of weed and cigarettes and there was evidence as to why all around. A full ashtray and a pack of Camel's were perched on his mother's nightstand next to where Amanda was sleeping as well as a small marijuana pipe. It was clear to him that things had changed so drastically in his absence that he simply could not make sense of the family that he thought he knew so well.

Cameron decided not to instigate another awkward and contentious interaction and instead turned and left the two to continue to sleep in peace. Once back to the living room his mother had disappeared again, and he was alone in the empty and quiet home. Cam was at a loss as to what he should do. He drove half a day to come visit his family and comfort his father after his car accident and now he was feeling like being anywhere but there.

He headed out the front door and back to his Audi, needing a mental and emotional reset before facing any of these challenging feelings again.

Sharon crushed another couple of Oxy's on the counter with her newly purchased pill crusher and almost started salivating as she anticipated the warmth of the opiates flooding her central nervous system. She had begun a tantalizing dance of uppers and downers that always had her yo-yoing back and forth between two extremes of pleasure. Just as her high from cocaine cascaded toward a crash, she would do some Oxy and be welcomed into the soft embrace of pharmacological bliss.

As she came up from the deep waters of her opiate high and started feeling cold, clammy and uncomfortable she did some coke and rocketed out of the ocean and back to the atmosphere. Sometimes she would fall into a coma-like sleep after snorting Oxy and she felt good about getting more that, as her sleep hygiene had suffered greatly as her coke habit intensified.

All of this was happening as Sharon blinded herself to the more dire implications of her behavior. She had nurtured her habits toward an addiction and because it felt good it had slipped into a blind spot that she'd developed perhaps to conceal that reality from herself. Without reflecting on her behavior and their eventual consequences, she was living a drug-fueled carpe diem that prioritized the pleasure of every passing moment above anything that might or might not occur in the future as a result.

There was also yesterday's revelation that had served to lower the baseline of relative normalcy in Sharon's life. Seeing her husband fucking their daughter without so much as an attempt to conceal it behind a closed door meant that nothing was off-limits. There is a point when you veer so far off the road that the lines that originally guided you along the way have completely fallen out of memory. An aimless careen through the murky expanse of reckless abandon and unrestrained pursuit of pleasure. The Weaver's had left that road a long time ago.

Sharon bent down to the counter with glass tube at the ready and quickly and efficiently huffed the two thick lines of narcotics up her nose. She completed her ritual with another Marlboro Red 100 that she flicked to life with ease and drew the smoke deeply into her lungs as the Oxy began to do its job. Once again, she was drawn into a world of warmth and comfort like she had never known, and she stumbled her way to the living room in search of a soft place to crash.

She was semi-conscious for a few minutes of blissful nodding before everything went black and she fell into a dreamless sleep.

Cam sat on the back patio of his friend's expansive villa and sipped his third IPA.

"You gonna talk about why you're here out of the blue or just drink all my beer?" Foster asked, staring at his somber friend sprawled out on a pool chair staring into the clear blue water blankly.

"Don't know, I'll have a couple more and see how I feel," Cam replied earnestly.

"Man, the 'Cam man' back in town and all we're doing is stewing at home alone? This ain't right man, we should be making the most of this bro. I haven't seen you in ages and we're just going to get drunk by ourselves on my patio?" Foster continued, trying to rally his typically driven friend toward a more exciting venture.

"You just want to feast on my scraps, don't lie," Cameron assessed wryly.

"Damn right, being your wingman is a much sought-after position!" Foster agreed.

And it was true. Where Cam went girls followed. After he'd chosen his conquest for the night, he would leave several others alone and disappointed and that's when his entourage would descend and pick up the pieces. Lowered inhibitions and even lower self-esteem made the routine consistently easy pickings. Foster would accept those terms any time, and post-high school had brought with it a bit of a dry spell. Part-time jobs and community college wasn't exactly attracting the women the way that Foster would have liked.

"What did you have in mind?" Cameron humored.

"We could head to a club, lots of places are pretty lax about their ID checks downtown," Foster suggested.

"Yeah, the shitty clubs in the shitty parts of downtown," Cam rebuked.

"Snatch is snatch man, it seems like you could really use a good time," Foster countered with his version of 'sound logic.'

Cameron just shook his head and killed his beer, already feeling quite a buzz after drinking three of the stout beverages.

"Sounds lame, I didn't come back into town to bang some low rent towny Fos," Cam rebutted plainly.

"Well shit man, why did you come back to town then? It sure as hell couldn't have been to sit next my pool and drink all my beer," Foster surmised bitterly, taking a long pull on his own IPA.

"I came to see my dad; he was in an accident, and I wanted to see how he was doing. Figured I'd spend a couple days with the family while I was here, just do the right thing," Cameron explained before swiping the last beer in the six pack.

"Yeah, so? Why are you at my place then?" Foster questioned.

Cameron sighed deeply and took another gulp, not wanting to explain or divulge anything further but also tired of feeling like he had to.

"You wanna go back to my place?" Cameron asked.

Foster thought about it a moment, unsure of why he was even being invited. The truth was Cam didn't want to be home, but he also didn't want to be here. But going home with a buddy who could keep his mind occupied while he tried to make sense of his complicated family seemed like a good compromise.

"Why? Your parents out of town or something?" Foster replied.

"Nah, but they've got the good stuff," Cam informed, referring to high end alcohol.

"Okay, okay, if we're gonna get wasted it might as well be on your parents' expensive alcohol. But hey, won't your parents be pissed if we're drinking their stuff in front of them?" Foster asked.

"I doubt it, things have changed quite a bit over there since I left," Cameron replied cryptically.

Jim's eyes blinked open, and he stretched gingerly, being careful not to strain his fractured rib or collarbone. A healthy yawn followed, and he looked down to see Amanda still sound asleep in the bed next to him. At least she's clothed, he thought to himself.

Jim suddenly had a powerful desire to take a shower and knew that in order to manage it, he was going to have be extra careful and slow. He slipped out of bed and headed to the adjoining master bathroom and closed the door. Once disrobed and under the hot water he reveled in the steam of the room before taking his time with careful bathing.

The shower turning on woke Amanda, and as the empty spot on the bed would attest--it had to be Jim. She instinctively reached for the pipe on the table and examined the contents of the bowl before concluding that there was enough there to constitute a decent wake and bake. Bringing the pipe to her lips she flicked the lighter to life and circled the flame over the already partially ashen contents of the bowl. Pulling a series of mouthfuls of smoke into her lungs Amanda let them remain full for several seconds before unleashing a cone of smoke up toward the ceiling.