15 Years Old…
She’s crying again. I hate it when they cry, makes me feel sick inside. My stomach churns as her hands cover her face and my father rolls his eyes at her. He hurt her; he hurts them all. They treat him like a king, and he breaks them.Every. Single. One.
“Come on, Dad, let’s finish.” I try to distract him.
“We are son. Had to teach the stupid bitch a lesson.”
Her shoulders shake as her silent weeps rack her thin body. He’s a bastard, and I hate him for it. He’s the only person I have in my life, so in same aspect, I love him. He’s my father—abusive drunk or not. This one makes wife number four. They’re always young and beautiful and so, so dumb for believing his lies.
“I can’t believe we’re almost done.” I splash some gasoline over the rebuilt carburetor so he can try and crank it over.
“This old beast will be good as new. Hell, even better—just you watch, boy. Nothing like a three-fifty small block in a Chevy like this. She’ll blow any motherfucker away who tries to come up next to us.” He cackles and climbs behind the wheel, taking a large sip of his beer as he slides onto the seat.
I push the piece of metal a few times that my dad pointed out last time. It pumps gasoline into the system without flooding it if you do it the right amount of times.
“Here goes!” he shouts out the open door. I poke my head around the hood and give him a thumbs-up.
The starter turns over, the fan whirring as the powerful, small block screams to life. The three-inch straight pipe running off the newly-installed headers makes the oversized piece of metal sound like one powerful beast of a machine just like my father said it would.
It roars loudly as my dad gives it a hefty pump of gas and my chest bursts with pride.I helped do this.My father and I actually did something together from start to finish.
He waves his hand out the window, gesturing me over. “I want you to drive it. You helped, so you earned it.”
“No, Dad, you first.”
“Chickenshit, boy?” He loves to give me a hard time, wants me to think I’m weak, but inside I’m not. I’m one person he can’t break; my walls are too accustomed to his angry words when he’s piss drunk.
“No, sir; I want to watch you and then take my turn.”
“Well, load up, and we’ll go fuck with old man Percy up there glaring down at us from his porch. Stupid bastard!” he hoots, pretty lit from the twelve pack he’s already killed today.
No doubt he’ll be taking the truck to town for more beer as well. I don’t want to be along for that ride. It’s not even four p.m., and he’s downed twelve beers. I don’t know how he can walk, let alone function like he does. It’s normal though, he’s this way a lot. When he’s sober—which is rare—he’s almost normal. It sucks, but this is life.
“I need to watch to make sure there’s no smoke from anything.”
“Good thinking.” He nods, buying my excuse.
I know not to argue with him; he can flip a switch from happy to angry in a flash. I don’t know what makes me come up with the excuses this time, but something pushes them out of me, telling me not to ride along.
He casts a mischievous grin my way, turning up “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns and Roses as he slams the door closed and throws the truck into gear. The music pours out the open windows as he guzzles the rest of his beer. The exhaust competes with the speakers, eventually winning out as he romps on it to spin the tires.
The now-empty can he had goes flying into the yard, and then he’s off. Tearing up the street toward the neighbor’s house.
Percy Dickson hates us; he’s always hated us. My dad says it started back when he was in middle school, and Percy was in high school. My dad supposedly kicked Percy’s ass in front of a group of people, but I don’t know if it’s true. Dad says he was being bullied and stood up for himself. I doubt that’s really what happened though. My dad always likes to start trouble. He’s been in the back of a cop car too many times to count.
It takes mere moments before my father’s driving in Percy’s front yard, steering the big blue Chevy truck in circles. He does donuts over and over, chewing up the neighbor’s grass. The ground’s still a bit soft from the rain we had yesterday, so dirt and bright green turf fly off the tires in every direction.
The angry neighbor stands on his porch, waving his hands, screaming something, and I shake my head at the scene. I know my dad’s loving every minute of it. This isn’t the first time he’s done something like this either.
“You should go clean yourself up while he’s busy,” I suggest to wife number four and nod toward the small house. My dad built it with his own two hands. It’s not much, but he never lets us forget that he created it and he can take it away.
Besides being a mechanic and a drunk, my dad’s one hell of a builder. His skills in masonry are something men around here admire. If only he could stay sober long enough to be successful with it. No one admires his inability to finish products or stay professional.
I watch the woman curled up on the floor, as she wipes her tears away and tries to pull herself together enough to get in the house. If he comes back and sees her like this, he’ll get even angrier, and no matter how badly I feel, I can’t ever save them from him. He’s too strong. I can only sit back and hope she smartens up soon to get away from him before he does some serious damage.
A shot rings out, echoing in the hills surrounding us. It’s a normal sound with my dad letting bullets fly when he sees a stray cat on the property, or he goes hunting for turkeys with his brothers. The noise didn’t come from the hills though; no, it came from down the road.
The roaring engine from the Chevy quiets to a rumble, idling as it comes to a stop. My gaze flies back to the porch where Percy stands, still pointing his shotgun toward the oversized blue truck and my breath catches.