Where He ends and I begin.

Everyone has dreams. Sometimes we dream of the fantastical, of lives we'll never have. Other times, we cannot help but dream of the lives we wish we had(n't).

I am sitting on the carpet, my head buried in my hands, my hands covered in my sleeves, my sleeves wet with tears and when I finally look up the corduroy leaves imprints that I imagine look like knife wounds. I am twelve years old.

My father, a studious-looking man who had never studied, anything, ever, is walking back and forth, clenching on to His own sort of personal violence, studiously. He seethed at times like this, His hands balling up into fists and then un-balling, so practiced and purposely it could be assumed He was praying to a god only He knew about. It was like He was on fire, or more accurately, like we were the ones all burning, so bright that the sun would envy us as our smoke rose, and The Old Man was the only one who could douse us, but wouldn’t. I knew not to get in His way when He was like this; nor to get in the kitchen, nor the bathroom, nor the living room, nor the computer room. So I do what I do best at twelve, what I have practice in doing. What I am qualified to do. I hide.

            My mother had just left, from the hallway to the kitchen to the front door, even though the hallway did not lead to the kitchen and the kitchen was not where the front door was. I saw her, frantic and lost, and I almost envied her. She escaped at the same speed I can almost reach out and touch her with my empathy. She deserved better than The Old Man. Yet that was how things were, I knew, and how they were going to be. For a small Catholic family, the kind that had its roots buried in pre-war tradition in a post-industrial coal town, the family unit was impenetrable. It was indestructible, despite how many attempts came its way to try and kill it, or how badly it needed to die. It was a nuclear-powered nucleus, a perpetual motion machine that never got tired, or, at least could never, ever show it did if it did. And at its center, at the very core, sitting on His throne, was The Old Man.

            I look up and see the front window break into one thousand individual pieces as He throws her unicorn statue music box through it. It was my mother’s favorite possession in the whole world. My brothers and I all saved what little money we made at paper routes and door-to-door cookie sales for months to buy it for her one Mother’s Day. She cried when we showed it to her, and at the time we couldn’t understand tears of joy. Now, my tear-stained eyes have seen it transform magically from gift to weapon at a speed that scared me.  It should sound like shattering glass as it strikes. It does not. It sounds like a gunshot. I do not know what a gunshot sounds like, as I have never heard one outside of what little television I have seen. Yet it sounds just like I always imagine it did if the army soldiers I grew up watching fired bullets instead of poorly aimed red and blue lasers. I shiver and tuck my chin between my knees and slowly back farther in the nook behind the oven where I hide. I begin to pray. Even at my age, I am not a religious boy. Yet I pray as hard as I can that I will not be found. He usually never looks behind the oven. No one but me was small enough to fit there.

            This was it. It had to be. This had to be the final time. It feels like the final time. I knew the routines. The back and forth screaming, the threats from one parent to the other, the trinkets one bought the other thrown at one another, the last minute pleas. GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE YOU’RE DEAD TO ME.  I’m certain, somewhere deep behind the red corduroy creases that directed my tears like rivers to the canyon in my chin, I’m certain that this isn’t going to be the last time. I know this just as I know I want it to be. Just as I know that if I survive this, if the fury of The Old Man is somehow impossibly reigned in, if the world does not end right here and now in red fire and black smoke, I will never, ever raise my voice to anyone in my life.

            He begins to scream. For the first time in sometime, He moves the muscles in His mouth and starts to shout. He is calling for my mother. I am buried in dust and cobwebs, and I have my eyes closed so I don’t remember to be afraid of what else might be behind the stove, and I know that He is not in the kitchen where the front door now is, but somehow I can still hear Him. It’s as if The Old Man is speaking to me, directly in my head. I fear the Old Man can see my thoughts. I pray again, I pray this is not possible, I pray that I am just being afraid because I am afraid. I try to forget where I put the pornographic magazines I stole from my brother, just in case.

            I feel something crawl up my shoulder. I have never had anything crawl up my shoulder before, but I feel it, whatever it is, like it is gigantic. I close my eyes and I hold my breath, knowing that somehow He can hear my breath and if my mother is not in sight to direct his rage at, He will certainly choose me as a worthy substitute. Just as I know it is not his fault. The Old Man is not always like this. The Old Man is not always The Monster.

            He can be a very caring man. He can randomly appear and take a five dollar bill out of his wallet and tell you that you can have it, for whatever you want, if you can tell him what denomination it is, despite the giant five that appears in its corner. He could show up at your karate practice even if only at the last couple moments, even when no one else will. He will teach you how to tie a neck tie. He can work until his hands hurt on Christmas Eve to build you the toy aircraft carrier you’ve always wanted but your parents obviously couldn’t afford brand new. He will put fake glass in the windows of its tiny, wooden observation deck, so your army men can see out.

            The problem we, I, my mother and my brothers have, however, is that there was never any clear indication as to what would change him. We could not even begin to guess as to when the awful metamorphosis would overtake him, when he would rend and burst and change. There was no neon sign. There was no warning siren. It was not something that happened on bad days, or when he was turned down for a job. It was not when the Cowboys lost a home game. It was not a number that could be counted to. It, like The Old Man, was a mystery. You just did your best to listen to Him and love Him and if The Monster came, you hid behind the oven.

            The thing that crept up and over me was now on my stomach. I had no way to guarantee this, but I imagine that it is staring me in the face. I can no longer hear my father. I can no longer hear my mother’s crying. I hear now nothing but my own feeble attempt to hold in, and in failing that, slow my breathing. But I feel it, this thing, this strange thing, squat on my small belly, and I am now positive it is looking at me. I close my eyes tighter and can almost feel its long whiskers or antennae brush my red cheeks. I can now hear my heart. It is pounding. It is so loud that I now fear it is going to burst through my chest, that all the blood that is trying to keep my small frame alive is going to come out and I imagine that this thing will crawl inside me. My heart pounds louder.

BEAT BEAT.

BEAT BEAT.

BEAT BEAT.

I can feel its breath. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know how many eyes or legs it has or if it even has a mouth beyond its giant mandibles. Yet I can feel its stinking, hot breath on my face. I subconsciously choke. I swear I can feel its drool fall to the pockets of jeans and soak through the fabric. It feels like someone has turned on a faucet above me.

BEAT BEAT.

BEAT BEAT.

I can do nothing for fear of The Old Man. Perhaps this is Him. Perhaps this is His true form. Perhaps He has ascended and plans to devour me in a baste of my own fear. I don’t know what else I can do. So I open my eyes.

            “Mmmhmmm…”

            I was in a large bed. It was dark and hot, the air around me as thick as cobwebs. The room reeked of hours-old vodka.

            There were wrinkled clothes piled up around every corner of the four walls around me. I was in my apartment. I sat up and looked over the balcony of our loft bedroom and looked below. The front door in the kitchen was closed. 

“Mmm…Jeph, is that you?”

“Yeah, baby. I’m sorry. Just… just nightmaring, I guess.”

“Jeph… oh my god, mmhmmm...I f*****g swear…Mhhhmmm…If you wake me up and I can’t go back to sleep, I will f*****g skin you and wear you like a dress and go dancing. God, you piss me off so god-damn bad I could scream. I f*****g hate you sometimes. Mmhmmphf...”

            I felt her squirm then, her slender, naked form in bed next to me, suddenly reaching out to hold me. Her long, red hair spilled like a glass of wine around her soft face and she changes right before my eyes. Her hands have just become gentle. Her tone has again become loving. It is a pattern I have become familiar with.

            “Look, baby, jus’ tries to go back to sleep. M’kay? Gets some seepies with me…”

            BEAT BEAT.

            BEAT BEAT.

            I did not raise my voice. I did not throw a unicorn statue out the window.

 

Reviews

[KillerWithWords]

Yikes.
What a sorrowful story.
You did a good job displaying the fright of your character. I, as a reader, felt ,like i was in the corner beside him, trying to hide.

[Francis Danger]

thank you very much for the feedback! I hoped to get that across, and to have someone notice that is appreciated. thank you, sir.