“Get your sorry ass outta that bed” Maggie Mckay bellowed. “We gotta be on the road by six if we’re gonna make the city by morning.” Lowell Mckay slowly rolled out of bed, wiping the sleep from his eyes as his mother stood menacingly in the doorway of the bedroom. God, how he hated her in the morning. If only she would let him sleep another 30 minutes. “ I said move you little piece of shit.” She started to move towards him and 18 years of conditioned reflexes propelled him off of the bed and over to the pile of clothes strewn in the corner of the room. “After all I’ve done for you sorry little piece of shit…” The hectoring continued as Lowell pulled on the pair of dirty overalls, his head hung low as he stared at the floor. “Shoulda drowned you at birth, just like the doc wanted.”
Lowell tuned her out. As long as he stared at the floor and kept moving she would run her course and the tirade would start to wind down. Mornings were always the worst. He never was able to figure out why.
Maggie was already on her forth cup of coffee by the time Lowell finished his cereal. She lit another cigarette, rubbed her forehead, and tried to organize her thoughts. They would arrive in Ann Arbor by nine A.M. That would give them plenty of time to position the van in the parking lot before the mall opened. The duct tape and clothesline were all ready. It didn’t matter which one they took. Lowell would take a liking to whoever they grabbed.
She wished it hadn’t come to this but the boy had needs. The last straw was when Jack McGregor had caught him with the goats. Old Jack had nearly died of embarrassment when he spat and sputtered out the story to Maggie. The boy needed a woman. And he sure as hell wasn’t gonna find one around these parts. And even if he found one, she’d have to be dumb and blind to take a liking to Lowell. As much as it pained her to admit, Lowell wasn’t right. His close-set eyes and slack jaw had always made him the butt of everybody’s jokes and snickers. She’d finally had to pull him out of school, his temper finally snapping that day when he nearly killed one of his tormenters.
The ride home was uneventful. They stopped at a McDonalds just off the freeway and sat quietly munching on quarter pounders. She was glad it was over. She never did like the city. All those uppity people looking down their noses at her and her kind. She found herself wondering what it was like to be one of them. Pretty clothes and nice cars… all the good things in life.
She wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand and climbed in the back of the van.
Lowell stayed in the front seat, staring out at the people in Macdonald’s Parking lot. The normal people. All his life it seemed that there were two kinds of people. He and his mother and the rest of the world. He hated being out in public. The stares nearly killed him.

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