“Oh, shit!” said Griffin. “He’s not playing around!”
“Missed his knee, though,” said Mr. Martin.
I raised the poker again. I didn’t want to shatter Dad’s kneecap. He might never fully recover from that.
I slammed it down in the same spot. Something else cracked. His shriek was even worse this time.
“I felt that one in my own knee,” said Griffin. “That’s brutal. If I ever have kids, I’m never going to leave them in jail overnight. It turns them into lunatics.”
I wasn’t quite getting the reaction I wanted. Griffin was still pointing the gun at me.
I needed to take it up another level.
This time, instead of holding the poker like a golf club, I held it pointing straight down above his leg. The sharp point of the poker was aimed at the spot where I’d already broken bones.
I couldn’t understand what Dad said to me through the duct tape, but he seemed to be begging me not to do this.
I looked over at Griffin, winked, and slammed it down. A bit of blood sprayed as the iron point went deep into his leg.
More shrieking.
Griffin’s mouth was wide open with delight. He was loving this. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
He’d finally lowered the gun.
I pulled the tip of the poker out of Dad’s leg and wound it back for a swing as I strode toward Griffin. He was only two steps away.
He raised the gun again.
I swung the poker as hard as I could.
I got him right in the side of the chin. Some blood and several teeth sprayed into the air, and suddenly his jaw was no longer even with the top half of his face.
He howled and dropped the gun.
His screams, not muffled by duct tape, were far worse than Dad’s. He staggered around, clutching his mutilated face. A large piece of his tongue slipped out of his mouth and fell to the floor—apparently he’d bitten it off.
I turned my attention to Mr. Martin.
He’d picked up the axe.
He quickly moved over to Mom’s bed, and held the blade over her neck.
“Put down the poker,” he told me. “Right now. Put it down or I’ll chop her head off.” It was hard to hear him over Griffin’s wailing, but I got the idea. Mom struggled against the chains, though of course that did no good.
I dropped the poker.
“Kick it out of the way. I mean kick it hard. I want to hear some toes break.”
I kicked the poker away. It didn’t go very far.
“Put the axe down,” I told him.
“Down where? Down into her neck. Sure, I can do that.”
“Drop it on the floor.”
“Oh, wait, you think this is a negotiation,” said Mr. Martin. “No, no, that’s not what’s happening here. I gave you an order and you followed it. But you don’t get to tell me what to do in return. The only good thing for you is that you won’t have to see what Griffin would’ve done with your mom’s severed head.”
He raised the axe.
Griffin was still staggering around, holding his jaw as if trying to keep it from completely detaching from his face.
He walked past Tina.
She stuck out her leg and tripped him.
Griffin fell to the floor, landing face-first.
It is not possible, using mere words, to successfully convey the scope of Griffin’s reaction to his already broken jaw smashing into the concrete floor. It simply cannot be done. The noise he made was almost beyond the ability of humankind to comprehend. I do not believe it could ever be duplicated.
There was no way for Mr. Martin to not look over at his friend.
I had to make a decision in an instant. If I charged at Mr. Martin, would he swing the axe down, chopping off my mother’s head, or would he use that axe to defend himself against my attack?
What would he do?
I thought, in that instant, that he would use the axe for self-preservation.
I had to move fast. I had to move really, really fast. I couldn’t be Curtis Black, the overweight and clumsy fourteen-year-old. I had to be Curtis Black, Olympic athlete, moving with lightning speed.
I ran at him.
My feet did not slip out from under me.
I didn’t accidentally bash into Dad’s bed.
I didn’t trip on the fireplace poker.
I charged at Mr. Martin, and I’d guessed correctly. He did not slam the blade down onto Mom’s neck. Instead, he adjusted his grip on it, so that he could slam it into my chest.
I got there first. When absolutely, positively necessary, this fat kid could move.
He was expecting me to try to wrench the axe away from him. That made sense. It would’ve been a solid strategy. In fact, it was probably less risky that what I did try to do, which was punch him in the throat.
It was a great fucking punch.
Mr. Martin’s eyes went wide and he let out a gasp.
The axe slipped out of his hands.
On the way down, it lopped off his ear. Then it bounced off his shoulder and fell to the floor.
Mr. Martin just kind of stood there for a moment, trying to breathe, not seeming entirely aware that there was blood spurting from the side of his head.
I punched him in the stomach. He doubled over, vomited, and then stood back up.
So I punched him again.
He stumbled backwards and smacked into the wall. Then he slid to the floor.
I picked up the axe.
“Curtis, don’t!” Tina shouted.
“I’m not going to kill him,” I said. That would make things a lot harder for me when I tried to get this whole mess straightened out.
I was going to beat him unconscious with the wooden axe handle. But I wondered if I might cause brain damage. I didn’t want that.
Mr. Martin closed his eyes and slumped over to the side.
And with that, I’d won.
24
A lot happened after that.
I hurried upstairs and found a phone. I called 911. I didn’t know the exact
