And still, I raise my trembling hand.
I line the barrel up directly with my father’s back, then I release the safety.
My father spins around casually, his empty eyes rake up the length of me and he snorts, pushing the bottle of beer clasped in his palm to his mouth. He’s smiling as he pulls on it, pouringhalf of the contents down his scrawny throat. And when he takes it away, he’s still smirking.
It’s sick and disturbing, terrifying, as his dark eyes stare unflinching down the barrel of his demise.
He throws the bottle against the wall to our left, never taking his eyes off mine. A loud smash reverberates around the room, shattered glass sprinkling over the sofa.
He is still smiling when he taunts, “How stupid are you, boy?”
I shrug. “Let’s find out.”
Bang.
It was the first time I had shot a gun.
And I close my eyes, waiting for the thud that would never come.
Until it did, only not from him, from me.
The back of my head cracks against the floor when my father tackles me, knocking the wind out of me. I begin to sputter and cough, curling into myself, but he is already on me.
My father is straddling my legs, and before I can find a way to collect myself, he slaps me, and then his closed, bloody fist comes barreling toward my face.
“No, Jack. Stop!” I flick my eyes to my mother, finding her dragging herself on her elbows, across shattered glass toward us.
And I shake my head the way she had, and yet, she continues, the way I had.
I feel the first right hook between my eyes, and the pain that extends from the hit is agonizing.
The second meets my nose, and the crunch is sickening.
My eyes roll into the back of my head.
“Jack, you’re gonna to kill him!” My mother’s voice is frantic, ricocheting between the walls of my now beaten skull.
But my father doesn’t stop.
And I knew he wouldn’t.
The third, well, that one…that just felt…warm.
Darkness took me.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t see, couldn’t speak, though, I could hear and what I heard had vomit pushing up my throat. I started to choke on it before I found my way to my side.
“You did this…” My father was saying, and when my eyes blinked, I could see my mother sobbing. “This is all your fucking fault,” my father finishes, punching her again before turning to me and kicking me in the pit of my stomach.
The crunch of my ribs was the only confirmation I needed to know that my father had really fucked me up.
My mother and I were both curled over, our heads buried into the beer-scented wood. And when we heard the front door slam shut, his engine start, wheels screeching, the rumble disappearing in the distance, my mother reached her broken fingers toward me and pushed the dead weight of her hand over mine.
We cried together.
In silence.
On the floor.
