“I don’t care,” I say as I move to get away from him. “You’re gonna stay here with me until the police come.”
“The hell I am,” he laughs. He is always laughing at someone.
“Go ahead, laugh, I don’t care,” I say, sounding like a stupid son of a bitch.
“Stay here with her. God knows the sick fuck who did this is prob’ly still hiding behind a tree, but you stay here, and I’ll go get help,” he says.
“No, you’re not going anywhere.” I stand my ground.
“Fuck that,” Dad says and he runs at me and stiff-arms me right in the chest.
I think I shocked him by not falling over and crumpling into a little ball like a baby. I’d grown a lot this summer, gotten a lot stronger. He bounces offa me like a spring and falls backward. He looks funny, the surprise on his face. I would laugh, if the look on his face didn’t scare me to death.
“Little fucker,” he whispers as he struggles to get to his feet.
For once in my life, I think my dad looks old. Not ancient old, like an eighty-year-old man, but just tired old. Like a middle-aged man who spent too much time drinking and being mean to others, time sits on his face like some Halloween mask.
He comes at me again, this time more prepared. He swings his right arm as if to smack me in the head, but lunges at me down low, hitting me in the stomach, and lands on top of me. My air is instantly gone. I try to suck more in, but can’t and I fight wildly to get him off of me. I pound on his back, at his face, even pull his hair, I’m embarrassed to say, anything to get him away from me so I can breathe again. He tries pinning my arms down above my head but I am flailing around like a maniac and he can’t quite get a good grasp on me.
“Ben, goddammit, stop it. Hold still!” he shouts.
But I won’t. I can breathe again and it’s a few seconds before I realize that he is trying to get off of me, but I won’t let him go. He is trying to get away from me. He is trying to crawl over the top of me, but I have hold of his leg and am holding on with all my might. He stands on one leg and sorta drags me along with him a few feet, but like I said, I’m a pretty big kid and he can’t get too far. He falls backward on his butt. That is just enough to loosen my grip a bit, and he pulls his foot back and then kicks forward, hitting me smack-dab in the nose. I think we both hear it break. I don’t see stars like they always show on Saturday morning cartoons, but I think I see what looks like a few fireflies blinking at me. We both freeze for a second, I honestly don’t think he can believe he did this to me and I can’t, either, though he sure has hit me enough. Blood comes rushing outta my nose and it feels like someone pinched my nose off with pliers.
“Goddammit, Ben,” he says. “What’d you have to go and do that for?”
He means it, too; this is my fault, like I broke my own nose. I have never felt like killing something before, not even Meechum. But I feel like killing my own dad, right now in these woods. Instead I wallop him in the side of the head with my bloody fist.
“I know you think I had something to do with this, but I didn’t. I really didn’t, Ben.” He tries to reason with me as he moves to block my blows.
“I don’t believe you. I’m gonna tell, I’m gonna tell what you did to Petra and to Calli!” My hands are slick and slimy with my blood and my punches slide uselessly off him. He crawls away from me. I don’t go after him, but I stand and wipe my bloody hands on my shorts. Ruined.
“Ben,” he gasps, “you want me to go to jail? You want me to get sent away for something I didn’t do? ’Cause that’s what’ll happen. They’ll send me away, prob’ly forever.” He rubs his face; I see that his hands are shaking. “Jesus, Ben. I think Petra’s dying. We gotta get her help.”
“Calli will get help. She’s probably near the bottom now, she’ll get help up here,” I insist.
“Christ, Ben, she hasn’t talked in four fucking years! You think she’ll talk now? How’s she gonna tell what happened?”
I don’t answer him. I am too worn out and my nose hurts, but I watch him carefully through my swelling eyes.
When I was five, I remember thinking that my dad was the biggest, strongest guy around. I would follow him around the house when he was home; squeeze in next to him when he was sitting in his La-Z-Boy chair. I would watch his every move, the way he stuffed his hands into the front of his jeans when he would talk to one of his friends, the way he held his beer in his right hand and popped the top with his left. I would watch the way he would close his eyes, take big drinks of the beer, roll it around in his mouth and swallow. I was amazed at how much pleasure I would see on his face when he drank his beer, the way that all of us—Mom, baby Calli, and I—would just seem to disappear when Dad was drinking.
During the first two or three beers he would be nice and funny, even, playing tickling games and pulling Mom down onto his lap to hug her. He might play card games like Go Fish or Old Maid with me or he might hold Calli, her back on his thighs, holding her little feet singing, “Bicycle, bicycle, cruise…” as he moved her legs like she was pedaling a bike.
But after that fourth beer it started to change. Dad would pick on Mom for stupid stuff, for not hanging up his shirts just right or the kitchen floor wouldn’t be swept good enough. He’d yell at her for spending too much money on groceries and then yell at her for not making anything good to eat. He would get bored playing cards with me and quit in the middle of the game, even if he was winning. Dad just plain ignored Calli after beer number four.
Now after beer number seven he’d get all impatient and not want to be touched. When I’d try to snuggle in next to him in his chair, he’d push me away, not hard, but a person could tell he wanted to be left alone. Mom would take Calli and me upstairs to read stories. I’d get in my pajamas, I remember they were white and had these grinning little clowns holding balloons all over them. I wouldn’t tell any of my friends this, but I loved those pajamas. It was like sliding into something happy when I put those on after a bath. One time, though, after beer number seven, Dad said I looked like “a goddamn sissy” in those pajamas and that he should burn ’em. I didn’t wear them after that; I wore an old T-shirt of Dad’s to bed. But I didn’t throw the pajamas away, either. They’re still folded underneath my winter long johns in my bottom drawer. Personally, I don’t think they’re sissy pajamas, I just think they were happy. Every five-year-old kid should have a pair of happy pajamas.
After beer number twelve we left. If it was during the day and it wasn’t raining Mom would take us for a walk in the woods. She’d put Calli in this harness thing that hung in front of her and we’d head off into the woods. She’d show me all the places she played when she was a little kid, Willow Wallow, Lone Tree Bridge, and, of course, Willow Creek. She’d take us down to where the creek was wide and had these big boulders sticking out like steps. Mom would lift Calli out of the harness and lay her in a blanket in a shady spot and then she’d show me how she could cross the creek using those boulders in twenty-five seconds. When she was younger, she’d be able to make the trek in fifteen seconds flat, three seconds faster than her friend would. Her friend, I knew, was Deputy Louis, though she’d never call him by name. He was just her “friend.”
One time, after beer number twelve, before we up and left the house, Mom said something about Louis, something about when they were kids, like nine, and Dad hit the roof. He started ranting about Mom, calling her all these horrible names, threw a beer can at her. So Mom doesn’t talk about when she was little anymore around Dad.
After a couple of hours clomping around the woods, after Dad had a good chance to get up to beer number who knows what, she’d take us home. Beer number who knows what was usually followed by a long sleep. We could make as much noise as we wanted to; Dad would be completely passed out. But we didn’t, we stayed quiet, didn’t even watch TV when he was like that. I was always a little worried that he’d wake up when I was caught up in some old rerun and he’d smack me upside the head when I wasn’t ready for it.
I used to walk around, holding my pop can the way Dad held his beer can. I’d hold it in my right hand, popping the top with my left, even though I’m a righty. I practiced tilting it back to my lips, taking a big gulp and swishing it around in my mouth before swallowing hard, then tossing the can to the floor when I was finished. Mom caught me doing this once. She looked at me long and hard and I thought for a minute that she was gonna get mad at me, even though I never saw her get mad at Dad for doing it. But she didn’t. She just looked at me and said, “Benny, let me get you a glass of ice for your pop next time, and a straw. It tastes so much better that way.”
And she would—every time I had a pop, out came the frosted glass, ice, and a straw. She was right, though, it did taste better that way.
Sometimes, after beer number who knows how many and the long nap, Dad would wake up and still be real nervous-like. Then he’d go into his bedroom clothes closet, dig around in there for a while and then pull out a dark bottle of something. The minute Mom saw him searching through his closet for that bottle, we were outta there.
