the neighbor's back porch light fades about half way across my backyard. sitting in the old, wet, smelly hammock here in mid-june, i am sweating.
cars go by occaisionally, startling me and silencin the crickets. god, i hope that rob doesnt come home until late. i reach under the hammock and pick up the glass of iced tea that has been there for hours. my fingers brush it and over it goes, tea filling the cracks in the dried mud.
"damn," i whisper and sit up.
now i am swinging in the hammock back and forth, trying to work up the energy to get up and get more tea from the fridge. a car is coming, headlights sweep passed by, then suddenly they are filling the backyard. rob's huge old buick roars up the drive and stops just short of the yard. he shuts off the engine, turns off the headlights, and just sits there. slowly my vision returns to nomral as the car's muffler pops and clicks as it cools. a loud, rusty honk comes as rob opens the door. he is just holding it there, half standing in and out of the car. he scans the backyard with a watery glance. his head lolls as a warm wind sweeps by. his head stops moving when he sees me. he seems to look through me, passed me.
"rick!" he's drunk. "what the hell're you doing out here so late?"
"nothing rob," i stammer almost apologetically. he can really lose it sometimes, especially if i fuck up, or he is drunk.
"well git the hell inside..." he's gesturing at me and the door angrily.
i stand up and get out of the hammock. as i move towards the back door, i keep my hands in my pockets. rob is standing there, swaying and muttering something hotly under his breath. he's glaring too, i can tell he's really angry with me...i can feel it too.
i pass him in the doorway and he lets his open palm dart out like a flash. he slaps me on the back of my head and bright little lights zing out in front of my closed eyes. lightning bugs in a dark summer field.
"rob!" i wince. "what the heck was that for?"
"git inna goddamned house," he drawls. "m'sposed to take care of you, ungrateful shit..."
he is as drunk as i have ever seen him. this is going to be bad. better to just go in quick and hide in my room. i can't help but take a shot at him as he stands behind me, still in the doorway.
"you stink rob....stink!" i holler at him. i hear the screen door slam behind him as he rushes towards me.
"goddamn mouth," he roars with his eyes closed.
i can feel the tears comming, so i scamper into the kitchen, but he is after me.
"rick, fer crissakes, how many times i gotta tell you not to slam the fuckin door?" then his big clammy hands are on me, on my neck. with overbearing strenght and speed he turns me around, his alcohol breath is hot and stinky, like the old buick's radiator.
"howmanytimes!" he bellows, and then i feel the first fist.
"how! many! fucking! times!" he screams, punctuating each word with a blow.
the tears are hot jets on my face now. i drop, wrenching free of his grasp somehow and i begin to crawl across the linoleum of the kitchen floor. he lashes out with his foot, skimming my ass as i scurry away.
"shit," he says.
his missed kick causes him to fall forward, but he catches himself at the last possible second on the kitchen counter.
i make it to my room and huddle on my bed in the corner. it’s hot and stuffy in my room and soon my sweat is mixing with the tears on my cheeks, upper lip, neck. that sonofabitch! i think i'll probably have a black eye tomorrow. i walk over to my desk and switch on the tiny lamp there. my face stares back at me from the wall mirror. my hair is matted, my upper lip has a thin coating of tears and snot. i wipe the slick away with the back of my hand and examine myself in the mirror. an ugly purple bruise is already growing under my right eye.
"turna fucking light off and getintabed!" rob shouts from the hallway.
i sigh and switch the light off. i lie down on the bed, above the covers. i am awake for quite a while, staring up at the ceiling.
i awake with a start. i don't remember falling asleep. it is light out and my head is killing me. dust particles float in the morning sunlight that floods through my window. i hear strained shouting from downstairs. yelling that is muffled by the house, the stairs, my room, my bead, my blankets.
"listen sally," its rob. he is speaking the words as if he is tired, as if they taste bitter in his mouth. "listen sally, stop giving me shit about this. christ! like i need it. my head hurts, my back hurts, and to top it all off, rick is driving me out of my mind." he pauses for a long second and i can almost feel him take a deep breath. "not that you care...shit, and they are talking about lay offs at the plant! do you know what that means?"
"where is ricky?" sally says calmly.
"maybe you can get him to help around the house, maybe you can save up some money, maybe you can make do..."
"sally, he is my biggest worry. he's on my mind all the time. i am stuck here with him. do you know what time i found him up last night?"
sally doesnt say anything. there is the sound of water running in the kitchen sink. rob goes on.
"i can't get him to do anything. he wont help around the house. all he does is sit in his room all day, in front of that little television. he wont pick up, he wont do the dishes, and no goddamned laundry. NOTHING!"
"it was eleven-thirty," i say as i walk into the kitchen. i couldnt stand the arguement any longer. i am mad, but sally doesnt look at me. she is staring at rob with angry wonder in her eyes.
"what were you doing out at eleven-thirty?" she belts at rob. he suddenly looks a little smaller. "and you," she says as she turns to me. "you're no innocent party...christ, what happened to your face?"
she stalks across the kitchen, pushing aside a chair that was in her way. her hands grab the sides of my face, steadying it roughly. one hand comes down to brush my hair out of the way, the other holds my head still.
"who did this?" she askes, full of concern. her forehead is wrinkled.
rob is swaying back and forth behind her. he knows i could bust him. he probably thinks i will. the Mr Coffee switches on with a loud gurgle.
"who?" she askes again, her grip tightens.
"nothin," i say. "i-i mean nobody...i got in a fight at the pool."
"goddamnit robert!" she turns to rob. she must be really mad. i have never heard her call him (or anybody) call him robert. not ever. "you're supposed to be taking care of him! christ! he's only twelve and you're letting him go out and get beat up...just look at him!"
rob sets a clean coffee mug down on the counter next to the coffee machine, his other hand is a very noticable tightened fist.
"sally," he says with a controlled calm that is practiced. he can sometimes hide his true anger and his crumbling control this way. "its like i told you. rick is here all day now that school is out and i am at work. maybe YOU should take him during the day?"
sally is watching rob, her eyes are widle like a lion's glare and her head nods slowly with each of his words. when he is done, a small smile breaks on her face. it is not a smile of happiness, but rather a small sarcastic smile. she has heard this before.
"rob, you know damn well that i work double shifts during the week so that i can have the weekends free for him. don't push him off on me, he's your responsibility during the week." she reaches for the coffee.
i'm sitting here in the middle, caught and looking back and forth as they argue. looking for a way out, i peer at the screen door. look down at the sick yellow of the linoleum floor. cautiously, i get up and walk towards the door as they shout at each other.
"where the hell do you think you're going?" rob asks. the tiny grip he had on his temper is gone now.
i feel tears start to come, like pin pricks in the corners of my eyes, but i hold them in. the only thing that shows of my fear and anger is my thin voice that wavers as i speak:
"i'm going OUT!" and i rush out the door, slamming it again. down the cement steps and over to where my bicycle is parked. i pedal out of there.
"goddamnit rick!" rob screams after me. he turns to sally who is still in the kitchen. "don't you see?" he yells. "see how he acts around here? he never minds what i say."
i look over my shoulder as i ride away. rob is still in the door. he looks at me as i move over the pavement and i can see the anger in his eyes again. he is twitching mildly and he calls out one last time. "rick, get back here!"
"it's no wonder he doesnt listen to you!" sally is yelling at rob. "all you ever do is scream at him all day!"
but their voices fade away as i pedal on the yellow sidewalk.
dusk. it's purple out and i am walking my bike back up the driveway. my face is sticky from the tears that are now hours-dry on my cheeks. i spent the day down at the river, throwing rocks, breaking sticks and getting muddy. i must have been bitten by a million mosquitoes. rob says that they are bad this year on the count of all the rain we got last spring. my swollen eye pokes and throbs at me again, it has been doing that off and on all day. it really hurts now. darn rob! i wish he hadn't hit me! some kids down at the river had picked on my because of my shiner. they kept asking me who had kicked my ass. one of the boys even told me that maybe i should have my ass kicked again for me, just for good measure. i rode away form them fast. they chased me for a little and threw sticks at me.
the sky is dark in the east. i am not scared to go home now though, rob is still at the plant. he works until seven-thirty and he wont have any clue what time i got home.
the kitchen is cool, used. coffee mugs sit in the sink, chairs where my sister and brother have left them. i quickly walk through the kitchen and up the short flight of steps towards my room. why do people call them a "flight of steps?" i wonder to myself as i hop up them. the room is exactly as i have left it. socks like crawling worms that inch across the carpet to some unknown destination. my dresser is an old hulk that sits next to the wall. it is covered in dust and the doors don’t shut all the way anymore. i sit down on my bed and outside i can hear the neighborhood kids as they scream by on their bikes and skateboards. my eyes follow them mechanically as they go passed, then my stare sweeps from the windows to this wreck of a room. i inch off of the bed. i am going to do something about all of this...clean the whole darn house.
"ouch!" i start. i have stepped on something.
i hop around the room like some twisted idiot. after i have rubbed the pain out of my foot, i bend down to see what sharp thing has hurt me. i lift the bunched covers that have fallen at the foot of the bed. a green army man, his face permanently molded into battle-fury is there. battle agony. his arm is cocked back and he is ready to pitch his hand grenade. the other arm is thrust down, kind of bent forward at the elbow. this little army man holds his legs in major-league stance; he's ready to make the long throw from third to first.
i toss him into the toy hamper next to my closet. a small task, but a good start.
it is the first task of the evening. for the next hour i am consumed with a cleaning fury. my clothes go down the laundry chute, the toys go in the hamper or on the top shelf in the closet. i make my bed, dust off the dresser, and sweep the carpet last because that is when you are supposed to do it...after all the dusting is done. i sit back on the bed, but i notice that my mirror is smudged. i get the windex and clean the glass.
my face is still there as i swipe at the mirror. the black eye is still there too, but it has stopped hurting. i reach up and blankly touch the mouse. a shard of pain stabs through my head. but the pain is only in my head now, and it doesnt last long.
maybe this is all my fault. rob would be a heck of a lot better off with me out of the picture. maybe sally too. and stuff down at the plant is really bad, has everybody down. rob doesnt need me here screwing things up for him. why am i such a screw up? i'll show them i can be good. really good.
it is one-fourty-seven in the morning. i have just woken up at the clean kitchen table. i have slept there, head down, for i don't know how long.
"git your ass up you little shit," comes a hiss from the garage. rob is out there, just on the other side of the screen door. i cannot see him, but i know it is rob. he is finally home and i can sense the anger that is around him. it looks red.
before i can get up, he is in the kitchen and behind me. he's using my chair to hold himself up. the garage door is open behind him.
"i said giddup!" he yells. then he rips the chair out from under me and throws it across the kitchen.
there is something in his eyes that i have never seen before. i go to the floor in a heap.
from my new position, i stare up at him. i am scared, i am sure that i am shaking with fear, but i can't tell. i can't see myself.
"r-rob?" my voice is small. "i-i cleaned up the house. i heard you and sally talking this morning and i cleaned up the house..."
a stinging blow comes from out of nowhere. i fly back against one of the legs of the kitchen table.
"bitch," he slurs. "doan tell me bout tha bitch." his drool is hanging on his lips and chin.
"rob...are you okay? rob?" i am surprised. i am hurt. i am amazed.
"shut up," he says and he looks around the kitchen. i am proud of the cleaning job i have done here. stupidly proud. "what'er you doin up?" he moves closer to me, hovers over me. i can't seem to look at anything but the steel-toed workboots that are there in front of me. i feel his hand pounce on the back of my neck. it grasps my shirt and hair. rob hauls me to my failing feet.
"rob," i can't believe this is starting all over again. "rob, please stop."
his eyes are red as he gives me a heavy lidded once over. he's sweating. i am sweating. he stinks.
"shaddap," he roars. the kitchen reels passed me and i am hitting the refridgerator. cute little magnets rain down on me as i slide down the metal surface. a squeal comes from the skin of my back as it rubs the fridge.
i hit the floor with a thump. rob strides across the kitchen. he is puffing and blowing. yelling things i cant hear anymore. then he is over me again, and i think wildly that i may be able to escape by squirming throught his wide spread legs. an animal roar pushes passed his lips and i see his upper body make a motion. the world dips and tilts at a crazy angle. stars burst forth in front of my open eyes, eyes that are now going dizzy. he is hitting me now, hard and fast. he isnt using open palms, but with tight balled fists. i am going to die, i think.
"rob...robby," tears are flying. my voice is a high, babies wail.
his reaching fingers find my throat and begin to dig in hard. his breath is a hot hiss as a well worked fist slams into the side of my head. my neck is turned to the side quickly with the force of the blow. from someplace i hear the sound of lego snapping into place and the kitchen begins to fade. black shadows, like snakes, slither in to cover my eyes.
the refridgerator is cold against my back. i try to raise myself up, but my legs are all wobbly and the room seems to be at a funny angle. my throat hurts bad. i put up a shakey hand and rub the back of my head. the scalp is flakey and it itches. as i bring my hand back down, in front of my face, i realize that it is covered in a crusty brown stuff. it looks like old paint. finally, my vision seems to clear. the kitchen tilts back to normal and i am aghast at the huge mess that i am confronted with. newspapers, dishes, food, cloths and the maroon brown crust are everywhere. rob is slumped on the kitchen table, drooling and snoring.
he is asleep. i am sure of it. his breath is in and out regular, but there is a wet, flemmy sound that comes like a growling dog.
creeping over to him, his breath suddenly stops. a troubled look knits itself into his eyebrows.
"rob..." i stammer. i am amazed how weak my voice sounds, how weak everything is. slowly and with a large chunk of fear in me, i raise my index finger and give him a gentle poke.
"rob? robby c'mon, wake up. you're scaring me," my voice trails off as one of his bloodshot eyes pops open. his breath comes back hard as a sudden suck.
"whaddayawant?" he says. then he moves his head back and stares at me hard. "oh christ," he says. "you look like how i feel." i guess this is his way of trying to apologize.
"i think i am hurt robby...i can't see right. i think i need a doctor or the emergency room or something." having said that, i am suddenly even more scared than i was. scared like when rob comes home really late. scared like there is something really wrong. scared because this situation has suddenly become something worse.
a strange look is in rob's eyes again, like when he got home last night. the look is wild and sparkles with the gray light of morning as it streams into the kitchen windows. i look towards the closest window, the one over the sink. nothing is out there, yet the sink is full of broken, clean dish shards. the dishes i had washed so long ago.
"rob?" he is trying to get up.
"rob...look what you did to the kitchen."
he is looking around. things are just now occuring to him...me, the mess, the holes in the wall, the throbbing in his knuckles. it seems like a series of explosions go off in his head.
i am mad at him. i am mad for all of this that he has done. and i am mad for me. what he has done to me. "this stinks robby," i yell at him. "you ruined it. you ruined everything!"
"shut up shut up," he is saying. he takes ahold of his head. "christ...i gotta think now..." it sounds as if his voice was chopped up by a fan.
robby turns around, he is mad about something. he is always mad. he starts pacing across the kitchen floor, stepping on an old shirt, kicking the plastic garbage can that was under the sink.
"gotta think..." his voice is a rasp. he reaches up into the cupboard. "a little hair of the pup..."
"rob, please dont," i say and step towards him.
"back off, you little shit," and he is unscrewing the top of a bottle of something. a cross look comes over his face as he tilts the bottle back, drinking in deep gulps. little bubbles flow back from the mouth of the bottle where his mouth touches it. his eyes are shut tight.
"rob please?" i implore him. i almost touch his arm with an outstreched hand.
"damn you," he yells. his arm sweeps out knocking my hand away. then he slams the bottle back down on the kitchen counter with a glassy thud. a stream of amber liquid flows up from the bottle like a drinking fountain spurt, then it falls miraculously back down exactly into the mouth of the bottle.
rob's eyes pierce me with his ray-gun stare, his eyes are wide and his upper lip is trembling. "stop fucking bugging me." he almost screams as he is grabbing me my my torn shirt. my throat is pulled tight by his actions and i yelp out in firey agony. my eyes are waving around wildly and the kitchen has become a group of distorted pictures in somebody's old photo album. there is a lump in my throat, and i cannot swallow.
everything smells like rob. stale, like the sweet smell of wonderbread. rob raises me upwards and slams me down on the counter top. my back is mashed into the cupboards and his grip is getting tighter by the second.
there we are. right next to the sink. the litter of last night is strewn all around us. my eyes are covered by a fire engine red veil. i cannot see anything but the red. my hands are flailing about. i hit at rob. i hit at the counter. i hit at the hot air between us. my hand comes down. i feel something hard. my hand grabs it. i bring my arm up. whatever it is in my hand, i slam it forward at rob.
"gittoffa me!" i suddenly find my voice. rob's hold on my throat and shirt opens like a surprise. his eyes still have that glare, but his eyebrows are tousled into a confused look. it looks as though he is asking a person for instructions or something.
he steps back and looks down at his chest. a piece of broken dish sticks out from him like an arrow. he slowly runs his finger along the broken edge of it and then he looks back at me dumbly. i am confused too. we stare at each other for what seems like hours. suddenly, his voice comes small and child-like. "ricky?"
with that, he falls to the floor, relaxes and quits moving.
i sit there for a long time on that counter top. i look at him, and i look around at the mess. mostly though, i look at myself. my fingernails are covered in that same brown paint. i know now that it is blood. the blood is drying now, and it is everywhere. drying to a sticky, dark mess on my hands and shirt. my jeans are wet too. tacky, wet and brown. i can feel them sticking to my legs.
