before.
Sorry, honey, what can I do?
I don’t protect her, either, so I guess we’re even.
He punched my arm hard. “Motor Moran, little bro. Don’t fuckin’ use it up.” Tossing me the cereal box, he went to the fridge and got beer and salsa.
“Got any chips, woman?”
“Sure, cowboy.”
“Then move your ass and fix me some dip.”
“You got it, cowboy.”
She calls all the losers she brings home “cowboy.”
Moran thought it was all for him. “Back in the saddle, baby, we goin’ gallop!”
Motor Moron. His real name is Buell Erville Moran, so you can see why he’d want a nickname, even a stupid one. I saw it on his driver’s license, which was expired and full of lies. Like his height being six-four when it’s maybe six-one. And his weight being two hundred when it’s at least two-eighty. In the picture he was wearing a huge red beard. By the time Mom brought him home, he’d shaved off the chin hairs and the mustache and left humongous sideburns that stick out, really stupid.
He wears the same thing every day: greasy jeans, smelly black Harley T-shirts, and boots. Trying to make like he’s a Hell’s Angel or some big outlaw biker, but he has no gang and his chopper is a rusty hunk of junk, usually broken. All he does is fool with it alongside the trailer, get blasted, watch talk shows, and eat, eat, eat.
And spend the AFDC and the disability checks. The AFDC’s are basically mine. Aid to families with dependent children. My money.
At least I’m not dependent anymore.
Mom changed when I turned around five. She was never educated, but she used to be happier. More interested in how she looked, using a hot comb and makeup and wearing different outfits. Now it’s all T-shirts and shorts, and even though she’s not really fat, she kind of droops and her skin’s pale and rough.
She used to work the Sunnyside weeks and only drink and toke on weekends. I don’t want to blame her-she’s had a hard life. Started picking in the fields when she was fourteen; had me when she was sixteen. Now she’s twenty-eight and some of her teeth are gone, because she has no money to take care of them.
She never had much schooling, because her parents picked fruit, too, traveling up and down with the crops, and they were alcoholic and didn’t believe in education. She can barely read and write and she doesn’t use good grammar, but I never said anything to her about that; it really didn’t bother me.
She had me nine months after her parents died in a car crash. Her dad was drunk, coming back to Watson from seeing a movie in Bolsa Chica, and he drove off Route 5 straight into a power pole.
Mom and I passed by the exact spot lots of times on the bus. Every time we did, she’d say, “There it is, that damn pole,” and start rubbing her eyes.
She didn’t die, because she was out partying with some grove workers instead of being with her parents at the movies.
She used to tell me the whole story, over and over, especially when she was drunk or stoned. Then she started adding stuff to it: The party was at some fancy restaurant, with big shots from the farm workers’ union. Then it turned from a party into a date, her and some rich union guy, and she was all dressed up, “looking hot.” Then she really got going, saying the rich guy was handsome and smart, a lawyer who was a genius.
One night she got totally blasted and made this big confession: The rich guy was supposed to be my father.
Her version of Cinderella, only she never got to live in the palace.
Having a rich, smart, handsome father would be a cool thing, but I know it’s bull. If he had money, why wouldn’t she go after it?
When she got that way, she sometimes pulled out old pictures of herself, showing me when she was slender and pretty and had thick, dark hair that hung down past her waist.
She has no pictures of the amazing rich guy. Big surprise.
When she told Moron the story, he said, “Cut that bullshit, Sharla. You fucked a million assholes, can’t remember nonea them.”
Mom didn’t answer and Moron’s face got dark and he looked over at me and for a minute I thought he was going to come after me, too. Instead, he just laughed and said, “How you ever gonna know which gleam in the eye produced this little piecea shit?”
Mom smiled and twisted her hair. “I just know, Buell. A woman knows. ”
That’s when he backhanded her. She fell back against the fridge, and her head snapped back like it was going to come off.
I was sitting at the table, eating the little he’d left me of a jumbo can of Hormel chili, and all of a sudden fear and anger were burning through me and I looked for something to grab, but the knives were across the kitchen, too far away, and his gun was under his bed with him right in the way.
Mom sat up and started crying.
“Cut the bullshit,” he said. “Shut the fuck up.” He raised his hand again. This time I did stand up, and he saw me and his eyes got really small. He turned red as ketchup, started breathing hard, made a move toward me. Maybe Mom was trying to help me or maybe she was just helping herself, but all of a sudden she was in his lap, wrapping her arms around him, saying, “Yeah, you’re right, baby, it is bullshit, total bullshit. I don’t know jack. Sorry. I’ll never lay that bullshit on you again, cowboy.”
He started to shake her off, but changed his mind, said, “You gotta cool it with that bullshit.”
Mom said, “I ain’t arguin’. C’mon, baby, let’s scoot into town and party.”
He didn’t answer. Finally he said, “Fucking A.” Looking over at me, he licked her cheek and slipped his hand under her tank top.
Moving his hand in slow, slow circles.
“Let’s party right here, baby,” he said, starting to pull the tank top off of her.
I ran out of the trailer, hearing him laughing, saying, “Looks like the rich guy’s kid got all hot. ”
He started off with more hand squeezes, tripping me, pinching my arm. When he saw he could get away with that, he started slapping me for stupid reasons, like when I didn’t get him a pickled egg fast enough. It made my head buzz and I couldn’t hear right for hours.
The worst time of the day was when I came home from school. He’d be outside the trailer working on his bike. “Hey you, rich guy’s jizz! Get the fuck over here.”
There was only one door to the trailer and he was in front of it, so I had to do it.
Sometimes he bugged me, sometimes he didn’t, and that was almost worse, ’cause I kept waiting for it to happen.
Rich man’s kid, fuckin’ rug rat snotty-little-asshole think-you’re-smartern everyone.
Then he started with the tools. Putting a chisel under my chin, sticking my thumb in a lug wrench and tightening it on the bone, watching my eyes to see what I would do.
I worked hard at not moving my eyes or any other part of me. The wrench felt like when you catch your hand in a drawer, but at least that’s over fast-this kept throbbing and throbbing. I could imagine my bones cracking and breaking and never healing again.
Going through life with broken hands and being called Claw Boy.
Next time was a screwdriver. He tickled my ear with it, pretended to jam it in with the heel of his hand, laughing and saying, “Shit, I missed.”
A few days later, his hacksaw blade went up against my neck and I could feel its teeth, like an animal biting me.
After that, I couldn’t sleep well, would wake up a bunch of times a night, and in the morning I’d have a sore face from clenching my teeth.
Why didn’t I just sneak over to their bed and get his gun and shoot him?
Part of it was being scared he’d wake up, get to the gun first. And even if I did shoot him, who’d believe I had a good reason? I’d end up in jail, ruined forever; even when I got out I’d be an ex-con, with no right to vote.
I started thinking about running away. The thing that decided it for me happened on a Sunday. Sundays were the worst because he sat around all day drinking and smoking weed and popping pills and watching Rambo videos
