#poor gal has to deal with two teenaged boys. and shes younger than them so i imagine the second hand embarrasment is big

[microfeelings]

Saphira during Eragon and Murtagh's little fight: hey, kids, kids. PATRICIA!

[soyforramen]

Old Times

Gladys hadn’t been back in town for a month before Alice showed up on her front porch at four in the morning, tears streaking down her cheeks (makeup looking just as good as when she’d applied it that morning; gotta love a woman who can afford Avon).  A wide-eyed teenager, the spiting image of a younger, more precocious Alice, tagged along behind her.  Without hesitation Gladys ground her cigarette out on the arm of the rocker (saved from Mr. O’Neil’s Tuesday trash pile) and pulled them both inside.

Without a word spoken, Gladys went to change the sheets in her bedroom.  Alice and the girl spoke softly in the kitchen, and try as she might, Gladys couldn’t make out a single word.  Whatever it was, it had been bad enough to bring Alice here and not one of her fancy, high-society friends’ houses (probably put out jello molds and finger sandwiches and food that tasted like creamed dirt).  Something big enough to ruin the entire Cooper household.

The pillowcase hung from the bottom of the pillow, wrapped around its middle in a suffocating grip, as she realized Hal hadn’t been with them.  In fact, she hadn’t seen Hal and Alice in the same place since she’d moved back to town (long-since overstayed, parents basement too crowded with two bickering teens and three shifts at the grocery store, g.e.d. just out of reach).  She’d exchanged enough nods with Hal in the frozen dinner aisle, both pretending the space between them wasn’t mired in ancient history and still raw rivalry.  Her path with Alice was limited to the high school drop-off lane, the one public gesture of maternal affection Jughead still allowed

Now, though.  She sighed.  It wasn’t uncommon for the women around here to lean on one another for comfort and safety.  Sad, really, how often that came on the heels of the men not living up to even the lowest standards.  

After a second thought, she fluffed up pillows and headed back towards the kitchen.  Coming towards her in the claustrophobic hallway came Alice and her child (Betty, she realized with a flash of deja vu, a reminder of when she and Jughead were the ones on the other end of this), and Gladys flattened herself against the wall.

“Thanks, Ms. Jones,” Betty murmured, her eyes downcast.

Gladys hadn’t the heart to tell her she hadn’t been a Jones for almost fifteen years.  

“Not a problem at all, darlin’.  What do you think about strawberry pancakes in the morning?”

Betty gave her a watery smile and Alice shooed her into the bedroom.  The door closed behind them, and Gladys let out a heavy breath.  There was always something going wrong around here.  You expected it, but it still hurt to see it happen.

Filled with a nervous energy (live wired and on fire, as her daddy used to say before the tar and the coal got to him; put a cork in that and you could power the whole nothern half of the states), Gladys flitted around the house, straightening and tucking and dusting, nothing seeming to be enough anymore.  She had another two hours before she had to be at her first shift at the factory down the road.  Then again, maybe she’d return that long ago favor and call in sick.  After all, she was entitled to a few days here and there (nothing like the dump in toledo where they squeezed every drop of your soul, pennies on the dollar, and still demanded more).

Just as she was running a cloth over the television set (only three channels, black and white; older than either of her children who preferred leeching ole’ henry’s wifi instead of -), the bedroom door shut quietly.  Gladys straightened and waited for Alice to appear.  When their eyes met, Alice’s stoic, no-nonsense rock solid mask crumbled into a mess of tears and grief.

“He’s -“

Poor gal couldn’t even speak properly anymore.  Whatever Hal’d done, it was enough to knock the sense out of Alice, and that was a scary enough prospect on its own.  She hadn’t been that thrown for a loop since they’d raided (stole) Mantle’s stash of E (curled up like kittens, high in the dusty sunlight on the trailer floor, alice laying out her future with hal and not her…).

Gladys quieted her and lead Alice to the love seat (third-hand from earl and katie, bless their hearts even though it did smell like that damn cat).  Alice tried to apologize for the interruption, but Gladys refused to let her.  Jughead she didn’t have to worry about - boy slept like a brick in a tornado - and J.B. was at a sleepover with some of her friends (best friends on the first day of school, always did get her daddy’s better traits, while jug soured down into his old records and writing, lost in his own world, too much like his mama to make anything of it).

Once Alice was settled, Gladys poured out a shot of rum and set it on the coffee table along with a box of tissues.  A few steps back, and Gladys was in the kitchen to give Alice a modicum of peace in the tiny trailer.  She poured a glass of water and set it next to the empty shot glass.

“Another one?  I have whiskey, too.”

Alice shook her head, a crumbled tissue in her hand halfway shredded to hell and back already.  On the table lay three more (three bucks a pop here, can you believe) and Gladys couldn’t help but want that to be the remnants of Hal’s body.  

“Hal, he -“ Alice’s words were cut off with a gut wrenching sob, and Gladys rushed to her.

Like she did when the kids woke up from their nightmares, she murmured platitudes and soft words, her arms wrapped around Alice in a cocoon of safety.  After a good long cry (glad she still wore waterproof, cheap, drugstore mascara would have ruined the fabric, though the concealer would do hell on the blouse), Alice steadied herself.

Despite her hair falling out of its unnatural wave, despite the botchy cheeks, red eyes, and snotty nose, Gladys was still struck by how well Alice carried herself.  Likely an armor built up having to suppress anger and frustration in this ticky-tacky town (hoa’s, pta’s, cya’s).  A rose of anger bloomed on her cheeks sent Gladys rocking back on her heels, a thrum of excitement rushing through her.

“I suppose you’ve heard about our town’s little problem,” Alice said, still speaking in polite euphemisms and innuendos.  She reached for the glass of water and primly cleared her throat (cats and spots, zebras and strips, snakes and scales; once, always).

“Depends on which one you mean,” Gladys said.  

She was being sarcastic, she knew, but it was the truth.  Riverdale hadn’t changed much from when they were growing up, damn whatever bullshit Hiram and his developers were trying to sell.  It still had the same pristine front, picture perfect suburban life style, full of well respected men trying to save the village green from its own preservation society, but now the fetid foundation it had been built upon was bubbling out from the seams.  The drugs, gangs, and murders were more visible now, no longer brushed under the railroad tracks into the Southside of town.

Hell, the only new thing about it seemed to be the mafia trying to gain a foothold.  And Gladys had her own plans on how to deal with that.

Mostly, though, she’d missed being able to push Alice’s buttons (eyes narrowed, tongue beneath her teeth, a flash of heat in a pan), to get a rise from her so she was the center of her focus.  If nothing else, it drew Alice’s attention away from her grief at hand.  

“But, if you’re talking about that black hood idiot,” Gladys drawled, wincing at the pins and needles attacking her as she stood, “then I’ve heard a bit.”

“Yes, well.”  Alice cleared her throat and looked away.  “It turns out you were right.  About Hal.”

“Oh?”

Gladys let it hang in the air.  It wasn’t often that Alice Cooper, nee Smith, admitted to being wrong about anything, especially when it came to her life choices.  And yet the juxtaposition of the two - the Black Hood and Hal - had caught her attention like a hook in a trout’s belly.

“About -?”

“About Hal,” Alice snapped.

She stood to pace the thin carpet of the trailer, her hands wrapped tight around her arms, the pastel green cardigan wrinkling under her fingers.  

“He’s been going around these past few months like a god damned fool, playing at being an avenging angel, murdering people who he thought deserved it.  I can’t believe I bought his lie about going bowling. The man can’t even lift a lawnmower, let alone a bowling ball.”

Gladys sat down on the love seat, one leg thrown onto the coffee table and watched Alice stew in front of her.  It was a mirror image of fifteen years ago, almost to the day.  She gently touched the corner of her eye, still bearing a white scar, and cursed the day she’d ever met that man.

“And then the bastard has the audacity to say that our children need to be purified.  That I need to be purified.  It was bad enough that he sent that letter to Polly, what he did to Betty -“

Alice stopped and tugged at her hair (bottle blonde to cover up the slow, steady march of time; at least a week’s worth of gladys’ pay for vanity every month).  Gladys stood and guided Alice back to the love seat.

“How about you start from the beginning?”

Another stream of tears, this time borne of frustration and anger, slipped down Alice’s cheeks as she dove head first into the long tale.  Hal always had thought himself above the rest of the town (secret son, hidden away from the world) even though his own sins bore bitter fruit of their own (alice angry and self-destructive in senior year; drunk on the floor; od’ed in the bathroom; blood running down wrists).   Somehow he’d managed to fuel that into something more productive - a picture perfect nuclear family and modest but plentiful business - until he finally didn’t.  

The first murder attempt, then the second, third, and fourth followed, no longer attempts.  Quit murders in the surrounding counties that went with only a few murmurs of disapproval.  Even his own family hadn’t been immune; daughters, tortured and deceived by the man meant to protect them from such things (kids of all things; for crissakes was nothing sacred?.

And Alice…

When she was done with her macabre tale, ending in Hal’s entrapment of his family and their violent escape, Gladys let out a low whistle.

“Well.  Shit.”

Alice let out a wet, wry laugh.  She curled her legs up under her and hugged a throw pillow tight (bought on a whim at a yard sale - two’fer deal she’d haggled; matched the lace curtains jb couldn’t help but make fun of).  Gladys stood and walked towards where her father’s urn sat on the mantle, a place of honor in a family who had little to do with ghosts of the past.

“What do you want to do about it?” Gladys asked.  

Standing on her tiptoes, she reached in an pulled out a rusted Altoids tin and a lighter.  When Alice caught sight of it she let out a real laugh this time, one that drew memories of simpler, happier times when it had just been the two of them against the world.  Wonder Woman and Sarah Conner, united together.  Until they grew up and out of middle school dreams and into the real world where bills piled up and mouths had to be fed.  

“You know we’re not in high school, right?”

Gladys grinned and fell onto the love seat next to her.  She popped open the tin and held it out to Alice.

“Do you want to do the honors?  You always were better at it than I ever was.”

Alice chewed her lip, the implications and scandal of what Gladys was proposing flashed across her eyes.  It was easy enough to guess the arguments against it, the same old ones she’d heard before (what if your mom/daughter/sister finds out you keep that in there? she’ll be more pissed that she didn’t find it sooner), but her hand was steady when she took the tin. Gladys watched her fingers work, long thin fingers still trapped by a band of gold.  The ring of a promise that fell flat and brought with it a hell of a right-hook in the end.

As she watched, Gladys let her mind wonder what would have happened if they hadn’t allowed themselves to be torn apart in high school.  If she’d only beaten the truth out of Hal in junior year when Alice vanished.  If only, if only, if only.

“What I want,” Alice said with a finality, the lid snapping shut a punctuation to her decision, “is to rip his guts out and feed them to him while that harpy mother of his watches.”

Gladys flicked the lighter, the flame dancing around the end of the joint.  Her eyes didn’t move from Alice’s lips as she took a hit.  Lines ebbed and faded, reminders of their time spent apart, waves of years and youth wasted.  In the poor ventilation of the trailer, the smoke wrapped them in a thin cocoon of safety, a gauzy curtain to shield them against the reality of their choices.

“Might have to lay a tarp down, but I know a few guys.”

The phrase sent Alice into a fit of giggles (ask freddie and fp, they know some guys) and Gladys shushed her with a crooked smile, reminding her that Betty lay sleeping not forty feet away.  Alice took another took and blew the smoke into Gladys’ face, a ribbon that caressed and teased her skin

“Or we could take care of it ourselves.”

“Just like old times?”

“Just like old times.”

(A few months later found Jughead and Betty at Pop’s working on a school project under Gladys’ critical eye.  Jughead, used to his mother’s hovering nature, enjoyed the free fries she dropped off between customers; Betty, it seemed, was far more perturbed by the woman’s sudden closeness with her mother.  It wasn’t until they were writing about Lady McBeth  (‘out damn spot’ seemed to Jughead less of a guilt ridden complex after this Black Hood business and more of an attempt at an evidentiary coverup) that he spoke on a subject that had been bothering him for a few weeks.

“Doesn’t it seem odd?”

Betty hummed and continued to write.  “What seems odd?”

“My father disappears three months before my mother leaves town, never to be seen again.  We come back, and three months later your dad disappears.  And each time, our mothers renewed their friendship just weeks before.”

Any goodwill Betty might have held towards Jughead froze quickly at the implications in his words.  Her fingers gripped the mechanical pencil hard enough her knuckles went white and the plastic cracked.  

“My father was a serial killer,” she snapped.  Blooms of anger rose on her checks and Jughead shifted under her glare.  “It’s not surprising that he’d run away after trying to kill his wife and his daughter in their own home.”

Cowed, Jughead picked at the lukewarm fries.  Her words didn’t change his mind, didn’t move his suspicions a single degree, but it did quiet his need to pry further into her opinion.

The matter was dropped as Macbeth and his realm descended further into madness.)