Beneath a Weeping Sky

EIGHTEEN

October 1977

Anticipation. As a child, anticipation ruled his life early on. There was no double-edged aspect to that particular brand of anticipation, either — not for a seven year old, at least. The joy of anticipating an event like Christmas (or in this case, his father returning home after a long deployment) occupied his mind and kept his thoughts alive all hours of the day. Nothing could dampen his enthusiasm. Not the long wait, which was usually where that other edge cut the other direction. No, waiting was just fine with him. In fact, the longer he had to look forward to something, the better the experience.

His mother seated sullenly in her chair didn’t leach away his happiness, either. He didn’t entirely understand why she wasn’t as excited as he was, but figuring that mystery out wasn’t a requirement for him to be excited for the big event.

He had a few strange memories from the last time, but they weren’t scary so much as puzzling, so he simply brushed them aside. Those shadowy recollections from when he was only five didn’t matter, anyway.

What mattered was that his daddy was coming home.

That was all he cared about.

It didn’t matter that his daddy hadn’t remembered his birthday back in August when he turned seven. He was an important man on a big ship. He was really, really busy. He had to watch over all the other sailors. And he had to fight the enemy. He couldn’t be asked to do all of that and still remember a birthday, could he?

Then again, a birthday was a super big deal. It was as big as Christmas and Halloween. Sure, he cried when his dad didn’t call or send a present. Then his mother gave him a sharp one across the cheek and told him to ‘button it up.’ She told him he was old enough to figure out what his old man was all about. She said that he could expect more of the same disappointment from him, if he ever came around.

He quit crying then, because he knew she’d lay another slap on him if he didn’t. He said, “Yes, Mother,” because she liked to be agreed with and she liked to be called Mother (never ‘mommy,’ she hated that word, said it was a peasant’s word), then waited for her to present her gift to him. His heart sank as soon as she produced the wrapped present. He could tell by the shape that it was clothing. He didn’t want clothes. He wanted Lego’s or Army men or maybe some cars, but not clothes. Clothes were awful. In fact, as far as a birthday gift went, clothes completely blew chunks.

His mother’s mouth hardened into a tight line. He knew what that meant, so he manufactured a smile. He pretended he was opening up a G.I. Joe complete set of action figures and tore off the wrapping paper with gusto. The plaid pants with reinforced knees and the matching turtleneck stared up at him in silent mockery.

Under his mother’s hateful stare, he managed a smile. He said, “Thank you, Mother.” Then he rose and tried to give her a hug. After all, even if her gift was the most stupidest gift ever, at least she got something for him. At least she said ‘happy birthday’ to him when she woke him up that morning. She even hinted that she might make some cupcakes, though he knew there wasn’t any cupcake mix in the cupboard and she wasn’t likely to go to the store because it wasn’t Wednesday and besides that, her ‘goddamn check’ hadn’t come in the mail yet (he always knew when that check had arrived, because for a day or so, the hard line of her mouth relaxed just a little bit and she seemed a little more at ease).

She allowed him a brief, cursory hug, then pushed him away. “Put your new clothes away,” she said, then motioned at the wrapping paper on the floor. “And clean up this mess.”

So he did, and that was it for his birthday. No cupcakes, either — he was right on that count — but she did make chili for him that night, which was his favorite. They sat in silence at the rickety kitchen table while he ate his chili and she drank her special stuff from a water glass. He wasn’t allowed to drink her special stuff, which was fine with him. He smelled it once and it hurt his nose. Besides, whenever she drank it (which was every day), it made her breath stink. Worse than that, it made her be mean to him.

None of that mattered now. Right now, he sat at the rain splattered window of their apartment and stared out at the gray street, waiting. His daddy was coming home. Everything was going to be better.

Maybe his daddy would bring his birthday present with him. Maybe he didn’t forget, but just couldn’t send it home. It wasn’t like there was a mailman who went out into the middle of the ocean to pick up mail, right? So they probably had to wait until the ship came into the dock before they could send mail. His daddy’s ship was out in the ocean for a long time, so that explained it.

A present between his birthday and Christmas. The prospect of a gift during that long present drought amped up his level of excitement even more. That would make up for a lot. It would make up for his daddy being gone, for the smacks and whacks he took from his mother, for all the troubles at school. A present in between his birthday and Christmas might just solve everything in the whole world, at least for a little while.

He figured his daddy could solve the rest. He could tell his mother not to drink any of her special stuff and then she wouldn’t be so mean to him. Maybe she’d even stop slapping him. And since his daddy was a boy, too, maybe he could help him with some things.

School, for instance. That was his biggest problem besides his mother. Maybe his daddy could help him with school. Maybe he could tell his mother that he didn’t have to go to school anymore. He hated going now, but his mother made him go there anyway. He was in second grade and it was terrible. He’d liked Kindergarten. They got to play and take naps and eat snacks. The teachers never got mad when he had an accident or did something wrong. Miss Reed had been his favorite. She was really, really tall and pretty and had long, long hair and she smiled at him and called him ‘Jeffrey’ instead of ‘Jeffie.’ She always liked his art projects that he made, too. He tried to give them to her, but she made him take them home to his mother.

“I’m sure your mommy will want to put them on the refrigerator or something,” she’d said, and because she was so beautiful, Jeffrey wanted to believe her. So he took the colorings and the finger-paintings and the macaroni projects home. He showed them to his mother (never ‘mommy’), who gave them a critical glance and tossed them on the table.

“Miss Reed said you should put them on the fridge,” he told his mother.

“Miss Reed does not run this house,” his mother snapped back. She took another drink from her water glass full of her special stuff. “Go do your chores and I’ll think about it.”

He did as he was told, but the colorings and finger-paintings and macaroni projects only sat on the table, never on the fridge. Sometimes, they sat for a day or two, sometimes for weeks. Her water glass full of special stuff made little ring marks on some of them. He imagined those to be like the little happy faces Miss Reed drew on papers when he wrote his numbers and letters really good.

Eventually, though, all of those papers all ended up in the kitchen garbage, covered in coffee grounds and empty bottles of her special stuff.

Once, he drew a picture of his family. The three figures took up the entire piece of construction paper. He made sure his mother and daddy were standing next to each other, holding hands. He gave his mother a giant smile, but then he drew the eyebrows wrong. They slanted inward toward the center, giving her an angry look. He tried to fix it, but everything he did just made things worse-

“All you ever do is make things worse!”

— so that his mother looked like she was enraged. There was nothing he could do, so he moved on to his daddy. He made sure to draw his Navy uniform as best that he could. He used the one picture he had as a guide, even making certain that he put the right number of stripes on his sleeve. Three below, then one on top with an eagle. After that, he carefully colored it in, taking his time and staying mostly inside the lines he’d drawn. When he’d finished, he thought it was perfect. In fact, it was probably the best drawing he’d ever made. Miss Reed agreed with him, putting her gentle, warm hand on his shoulder when she told him so.

“It’s a beautiful family drawing, Jeffrey,” she said, her voice soft and comforting.

He tried to give it to her, but she declined as always. “It belongs on your refrigerator, for your family to see.”

She was right, of course. Miss Reed was always right. She knew everything, he figured, or just about everything. So he took it home. Instead of presenting it to his mother so that she could toss it on the table on top of his other work, he found a piece of tape and put the drawing on the refrigerator himself. He stood in the kitchen and looked at it. After a few seconds, he realized that he’d started to cry and he didn’t know why. The picture made him happy when he looked at it, but it made him sad, too. That was confusing. He wasn’t sure what to think about it, but he didn’t know who to ask. His mother would probably slap him and tell him to ‘button it up’ or ‘zip it.’

He left the picture up. Maybe it would make his mother happy. Maybe she would agree with Miss Reed that it belonged up there.

By dinnertime, his mother discovered it. She ripped it from the refrigerator and shoved it into his face. She screeched about how he’d drawn her, asking him if he thought she was really that evil. She asked him if he wanted her to die and called him an ungrateful bastard. He thought the ‘pain you’ve caused me’ speech was coming, but then she veered into a series of insults against his daddy. She called him names he’d never heard and didn’t understand, but he could tell all of them were bad.

He stood in the kitchen, shocked at her rage. Inside, all the happiness that had come from drawing the picture seeped away and that part of him filled with more of the same sadness.

Near the end of her tirade, she tore the drawing into strips. She forced him to put the paper into his mouth and chew it up. He cried and begged her, but she slapped him hard and pressed forward. He chewed on the paper, his mouth quickly drying. He feared that she would make him swallow it. He knew that he’d choke to death on the huge wad in his mouth. Instead, she directed him to spit it into the garbage, take another strip and chew some more. They stood in the kitchen for fifteen long minutes while he chewed up and spat his entire drawing into the garbage can.

“That’s your goddamn family,” she snarled at him, pointing at the clumps of chewed up paper.

He didn’t understand exactly, but somehow he knew she was right.

When Kindergarten ended, he remembered how sad he was. He cried and clung to Miss Reed’s leg on the final day. He wanted to ask her to be his mommy instead of his mother, but even back then he knew that wasn’t the way the world worked, so he didn’t bother to ask. He just cried and hung on until she gently pried his fingers away.

“You’ll have lots of fun in first grade, Jeffrey,” she told him, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “You’re a nice boy and everyone will love you, just like we all did here in this class.”

He believed her, and that represented the first real betrayal besides his mother that he could remember in his life.

The lie hadn’t been immediately apparent. First grade had been all right at first, even though the elementary school was much bigger than where he’d gone to kindergarten. He got lost on the first day, but a nice woman almost as pretty as Miss Reed found him wandering and took him to his class.

He soon discovered that there were no naps or any snacks. There was recess, which somewhat made up for it, but not completely. And the boys and girls in his class seemed to like him. Some of them, at least. But then he discovered that there were second-graders, third-graders and fourth-graders at the school, too. Some of them liked to pick on the younger kids.

The fourth-graders were the worst. They pushed him down. They took his milk money away. When it was his turn to play four-square, they made him go to the back of the line. Sometimes, they pretended to be nice and let him play dodge ball, then all of them hurled the red rubber balls at him at the same time. Once, the force of Hugh Jessup’s throw knocked his head backward and into the wall. He fell to the ground, dazed. Black walls rushed in from the edges of his vision, collapsing toward his center. He may have passed out — he couldn’t remember. He remembered that no one noticed, though. The fourth-graders who’d thrown the balls (except for Hugh Jessup — he was a third grader who was big and so they let him play, too) scattered. The foursquare games, basketball, tetherball and tag all continued around him while he sat against the red brick wall, blinking. His head throbbed and when he reached back, he felt something warm and sticky. He looked down at his fingers and saw blood. The sight scared him at first, but what he worried about even more was everyone knowing. Everyone laughing. So he wiped the blood behind the knee of his Toughskin jeans and sat still, collecting his senses.

When the bell rang, he went inside and told no one. He sat in class and pretended everything was fine. Then, just five minutes into class, Laurie Phillips, who sat right behind him, yelled out, “Ewwww, gross!” and pointed at the back of his head. Everyone turned to stare at him. The kids behind him followed Laurie’s finger and made disgusted sounds themselves. Kids to the side leaned backward and tried to get a look at it.

All of this attracted the attention of Mrs. Piper, his new teacher. She stalked to his seat, turned his head and gasped. Then she yelled at him and sent him to the school nurse. He felt every eye in the room upon him as he rose from his seat and slunk out of the classroom.

The nurse cleaned him up, dabbing gently at the back of his head with a washcloth. She told him it was only a small cut and wouldn’t need any stitches. Heads bleed, she said. She was nice, he decided. Maybe there were only so many nice people in the world. Maybe that was it. Then she called his mother and he decided that nice people didn’t know everything. When she asked him how it happened, he briefly considered telling her. He knew instinctively, though, that the worst thing in the schoolyard world was a tattletale. He knew she couldn’t save him from the fourth-graders and if they knew he’d tattled, then things would get worse. So he told her he tripped. He wasn’t sure if she believed him, but she didn’t ask any more questions.

When his mother saw it, she flew into a rage. At first, he thought she was angry at him, the way she snatched his hand and dragged him out of the apartment. But as she stalked down the street, jerking him along behind her, he realized they were going back to the school.

Once there, she found her way through the mostly empty building to the office. The principal was still at his desk doing paperwork. His mother barged into the principal’s office, screaming and pointing at the cut on the back of his head. She hollered about things he didn’t understand like “improper supervision” and “negligence.” She threatened to “sue the whole goddamn city.”

Jeffrey watched her in amazement as she railed against the principal, who sat stiffly in his chair, absorbing the verbal barrage. He realized that, despite the fact that he didn’t understand half of what she was saying and that she used some bad words and that he could smell the strong wash of special stuff coming off of her while she yelled, she was sticking up for him.

She was defending him.

And it felt good.

The principal waited until her ranting tapered off, then apologized. He said that the school’s insurance would pay for any medical costs. He said he would have a meeting with all the teachers about playground safety. He offered to give them a ride home.

His mother stared back at the principal, showing no reaction to any of his entreaties. Finally, she raised her finger in the air and waggled it at him.

“My son gets hurt again, mister, and I will own this school!” Then she took him by the hand and strode out of the office without a backward glance.

On the way home, he positively floated along the sidewalk, his feet barely touching the ground. His mother grumbled about the conversation she’d just had with the principal, her head lowered toward the ground. When they got home, she poured a second glass of the special stuff, even though she still had one that was half-full next to her chair in the living room. After a long drink, she sat down at the kitchen table and wept.

Jeffrey hadn’t seen her cry for as long as he could remember. He stood off at first, unsure what to do. Eventually, though, he was drawn to comfort her. He reached out with his small hand and touched her shoulder.

She looked up, saw him and opened her arms.

Gratefully, he fell into them. She pulled him tight to her bosom, sobbing.

“It’s just you and me, Jeffie,” she said between sobs. “You and me against the world.”

He stayed against her chest, hugging her for as long as she allowed it. Then, like a light switch had been flicked, she stood abruptly, shrugged him off and went to the bathroom. He sat down in her seat, feeling the warmth from her body fade. When she returned, her mouth was a hard line again.

“Don’t make me come bail you out of trouble like that again,” she told him, waggling her finger at him in the same way she’d done in the principal’s office. “Stop making problems for me. Don’t I have it hard enough already?”

“Yes, Mother,” he said. He felt tears welling up, but fought them down. His mother’s tender moments were few and far between and she didn’t put up with any bawl babies outside of those special times.

Strangely, the worst thing about first grade was that they all called him Jeffie again. No one called him Jeffrey, not even Mrs. Piper. She didn’t pay particular attention to him, either. She was stingy with the smiley faces and gold stars, too, though she was pretty free with the red ones. He didn’t like the red ones so much, but a star was a star. Still, he didn’t offer any of his drawings to her and she didn’t tell him that they were worthy of the refrigerator at his home.

He made it through the school year somehow. He dealt with the nicknames of Jeffie Booger Eater (because he’d picked his nose one time and someone saw him, then told everyone that he’d picked his nose and eaten it, which was a lie but everyone believed it anyway so the name stuck) and Jeffie the Queer (which he didn’t understand except that it came from the fourth graders and was really bad). He just kept thinking about summertime and his birthday and how someday his daddy was coming home to fix things.

At the end of the year, he didn’t hug Mrs. Piper and he didn’t cry. Summer came and it was better than school, even though his mother drank her special stuff most of the day every day. Sometimes she went to the park, though, and let him play on the bars there. Those days were the best, even though it was usually overcast and cool.

His birthday came (including his single gift of clothes from his mother) and before he knew it, it was time for school again.

Second grade was much worse than first grade.

Everyone remembered him, for starters. The same old names from first grade popped up again. New ones sprang into being. He learned that ‘queer’ meant a boy who likes boys instead of girls, but it still didn’t make much sense to him. At school, he was starting to dislike boys and girls, so he didn’t know if that made him queer or not queer, but it didn’t matter because they stilled called him that name.

On the third day of school, disaster struck at recess. He’d somehow managed to secure one of the swings and even though he knew he had to pee, he didn’t want to give it up. If the fourth-graders realized he’d made it to first in line and was swinging and having fun, someone would do something about it. Maybe even Hugh Jessup, who was a fourth grader now and bigger than any other boy in school. So he held it and he swung and swung, pumping his legs and soaring into the air and back down again. He kept swinging and soaring as the pressure in his bladder grew. Finally, he couldn’t stand it anymore. He decided he needed to stop and go to the toilet.

He tried to slow down, but that takes forever on a swing. The urgency from his bladder told him he didn’t have that kind of time. He drug his feet lightly on the dirt patch below the swing, resulting in only a marginal braking. So he tried planting his feet more firmly instead. That resulted in his shoes catching the soft dirt, digging in and yanking him from the swing. He went tumbling from the swing, rolling into a heap on the grass several yards in front of the swing set. The force of his landing jolted him enough that he let loose of his bladder, accidentally wetting his pants.

A crowd surrounded him. At first, there was mild concern that he was hurt. That seemed to quickly fade into curiosity about any injuries he might have incurred. Then someone spotted the giant wet spot on his crotch, pointed and screamed it out for the whole world to know.

After that, all the other kids called him Jeffie Pee-Pee Pants.

His second grade teacher, Miss Guidry, didn’t notice a thing for the last two hours of school, but that didn’t surprise him. She was older than dust. She probably couldn’t even smell any more.

He didn’t tell his mother about the incident, but she figured it out easily enough when he came home reeking of urine. She shrieked at him that he was a disgusting, dirty little boy, that he was just like his father and that he made her sick. She smacked him in the head several times, then hauled him to the bathroom by his hair. In the bathroom, she pushed him roughly into the bathtub and turned on the shower. He yelped at the cold water, but she gave him another smack, so he kept his mouth clamped shut. She never adjusted the water temperature, letting the ice cold water rain down on him as he sat huddled in the bottom of the tub, shivering. After what seemed like hours, she switched off the water and asked him if he learned his lesson.

“Yes, Mother,” he answered, because he knew it was the right thing to say. He didn’t know what the lesson was supposed to be, other than don’t pee your pants at school, but it was too late for that lesson to do him any good.

Still, maybe his daddy knew the answers to that, too. Maybe he could help him. Tell him how to deal with the third and fourth-graders (and, truth be told, most of the second-graders, too and a few of the first-graders) that made school so miserable. His daddy could teach him how to fight. He was in the Navy and that was like the Army and everyone knew that soldiers knew how to fight. Heck, that was their job.

His daddy was coming home.

He’d know how to handle the pee problem. He’d teach him to fight those bigger kids. Or maybe he’d smack them around himself. Maybe he’d show up in his uniform and grab Hugh Jessup by the collar and give him a bare butt spanking for everyone to see. And then he’d tell them all that Jeffrey was the best kid in the school and they better believe it or he’d be back.

So he sat by that rain-splattered window every day, looking out at the gray Seattle street, knowing that at any moment, his daddy would appear. He waited for the sailor uniform to appear in the parking lot. He watched for him to stride up the steps to the second level where they lived, carrying a wrapped present in his arms (or maybe a bike! That would be so cool!). He’d jump into his daddy’s arms. His daddy would smell like Old Spice, just like in the commercial on T.V. He’d hug him and his daddy would hug him back and say how much he missed his little boy.

Everything would be better.

That was all that mattered.

So he watched and he waited.

November 1977

One week before Thanksgiving, his patience was rewarded and his faith destroyed, all in the same day.

He sat by the window in late afternoon, more out of hopeful habit than anticipation by that point. He read his favorite book, Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs amp; Ham, over and over again. Something about the way that the little guy was able to finally convince the grouch to change his mind about those yucky looking green eggs and green ham appealed to him.

Finishing it for the second time that afternoon, he glanced out the window. The full rain clouds above Seattle seemed to be almost trembling with the weight of all that water. It reminded him of how it felt to wake up in the middle of the night just a second or two before he had to pee. It was always a battle to push away all the sleep and scramble out of bed toward the bathroom in time to make it.

He was about to lower his eyes back to the book for a third go-round when he saw the jaunty stride of a sailor coming through the parking lot. His pea coat and sea bag slung over his shoulder were unmistakable signs of a Navy man.

Jeffrey dropped the book and pressed against the glass, staring.

Was it his daddy?

He wanted to scream out to his mother, to God, to the world, but all he could manage was a low whimper. Then a chilling thought struck him. What if it wasn’t his daddy? What if it was someone else’s relative? It was a large complex with lots of neighbors. Maybe-

He reluctantly tore his eyes away from the figure and fixed his gaze on the only picture of his daddy in the entire home. He didn’t know how old the picture was, but it showed a rough and tumble sailor outfitted in his uniform, smoking a cigarette and eyeing the camera lens with an expression that Jeffrey couldn’t entirely read.

After studying that face for a moment, he snapped his head back to the front. The sailor was closer now. In fact, he was coming directly toward the apartment.

This apartment.

Jeffrey whimpered again. It might be. It might be.

Once the sailor reached the stairs, he took them with a steady confidence, swinging around the corner on the first landing. As he turned toward the apartment window, he looked up and caught Jeffrey’s eye.

It was. It was.

He was older than the picture, but when he met Jeffrey’s eye, it was with the same expression. He paused a moment, looking at the boy almost as if he’d forgotten about him. Then a rakish grin spread over his face and he tipped him a wink.

Jeffrey smiled and waved frantically. His daddy was home and he winked at him and he was going to make everything better and tell his mother to be nice and stop the kids at school -

“What are you in here whining about?” his mother snapped from behind him. “I’m trying to take my nap and all I can hear is you making noi-”

Jeffrey turned from the window to face her. “Daddy’s home!” he squealed.

Her face registered surprise for a moment, then her features sank into their customary hardness as she watched the figure pass in front of the window and try the door knob. It was locked.

“Aren’t you happy, Mother?” Jeffrey asked her.

“Thrilled,” she answered in a flat voice.

Jeffrey didn’t think she sounded too happy, but he was too excited to worry about it. When his daddy discovered the door was locked, he began pounding on it with his palm. Jeffrey sprinted for the door. His little hands fumbled with the lock on the doorknob, then he slid the chain aside and flung open the door.

“Daddy!” he squeaked.

His daddy’s eyes narrowed at the sound. “Is this my son or my daughter?” he joked gruffly.

Jeffrey’s jaw dropped. He felt as if someone had just kicked him in the stomach.

His daddy laughed uproariously and pointed. “Oh, that’s classic. You should see your face, kiddo.” He laughed, looking up at Jeffrey’s mother. “Really, Cora, you should get a look at this kid’s face when I said that. You’d think I took away his teddy bear or something.”

“Come in,” was all his mother said. “You’re letting in the cold.”

“S’pose I am,” he agreed, and stepped forward. He brushed past Jeffrey as he entered. The smell of cigarettes and sweat wafted over the boy, but instead of being repelled by the odor, he soaked it in. That’s how dads are supposed to smell, he figured.

“Close the door, Jeffie,” his mother said.

He obeyed, turning the knob lock and setting the chain. He turned around to see his mother and daddy eyeing each other in the living room. Jeffrey could feel the electric tension between them, even though he didn’t understand exactly what it was or why it was there. This was a mommy and a daddy. Aren’t they supposed love each other and hug and kiss and stuff?

“Glad to see me?” his daddy said.

“It’s been a long time,” she answered.

“Navy’s a tough life,” he told her. “You knew that when you signed on.”

She narrowed her eyes slightly and flicked her gaze toward Jeffrey. “Like I had a choice.”

He dropped his sea bag on the floor next to her chair. “You always got a choice, Cora. Hell, I could’ve chosen not to come home when they gave me leave.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Because this is my family. Now, how about a drink and a little boom-boom for the sailor long-time gone?”

She pressed her lips together, glancing over Jeffrey. He followed her gaze, then nodded knowingly. “Oh, yeah. Well, then how about the drink now and the boom-boom later?”

“It’s in the kitchen,” his mother said.

His daddy cocked his head at her. “Then go and get it,” he said in a low voice.

She paused, glancing back and forth between him and Jeffrey. Then she sighed, turned and left the room.

Jeffrey watched the exchange, astounded. His daddy turned toward him, saw his expression and tipped him another wink. “Sometimes ya gotta put a woman in her place, boy,” he said with a grin. “Deep down inside, that’s what really want, anyway.”

His daddy removed his Navy Pea Coat and tossed it onto the small couch. Then he sat down in the chair and eyed Jeffrey for a few long moments. The sounds of clinking glasses drifted in from the kitchen. Jeffrey squirmed under his gaze.

“How old are you now, boy?” he asked.

“Seven,” Jeffrey told him.

“Seven, sir,” his daddy corrected him, shaking his head. “Didn’t your mother teach you any respect?”

“No,” Jeffrey answered without thinking. When his daddy’s eyes narrowed at him, he added, “sir.”

His daddy laughed darkly. “Well, at least you’re honest, kiddo. But you look about as fucked up as a soup sandwich, you know that?”

Jeffrey blanched at the profanity. His mind worked frantically to understand what a soup sandwich was. He felt his lip quivering and put his hand over it.

His mother came back into the room with a single water glass. She held it out to his daddy. The man ignored her for a moment, studying Jeffrey closely. Then he turned to his mother. “Jesus, Cora. The kid’s a mess. What’ve you been doing with him?”

“I’ve been doing the best I’m able to do, Stan,” she replied evenly. “Here’s your drink.”

“The best you can?” He shook his head and took the drink from her hand. “That’s a pretty piss-poor excuse, you ask me.”

His mother said nothing.

His daddy took a large drink from the glass. After he swallowed, his face contracted in a grimace. “Vodka? Good Christ, that’s a whore’s drink. Don’t you have any whiskey in the house?”

“I drink vodka,” she answered quietly.

“Like I said, a whore’s drink.” He took another sip. “Damn. It doesn’t get any better as you go, either.” He lifted his chin in her direction. “Go to the liquor store and get a bottle of whiskey. Get the good stuff. Jack Daniels.”

“I don’t have any money,” she whispered.

His daddy catapulted from the chair and struck her with the back of his hand. She yelped and fell back onto the couch atop his coat. “Don’t start out by giving me lip, bitch,” he growled at her. “Just because I’ve been gone a while doesn’t mean I’m not still the man around here.”

Jeffrey stared on in shock while his mother pulled herself up into a sitting position, holding her cheek.

“I’m…sorry,” she said quietly, avoiding her husband’s gaze.

“Goddamn right you are.” He sat back down in the chair and took another pull from the water glass. Then he asked, “Why don’t you have any money? My checks should be coming regular.”

“It gets used up,” she said.

“On what?” He jerked a thumb toward Jeffrey. “Ballet lessons for him?”

“Food,” she whispered. “Rent.”

His daddy laughed. “Food and rent? Yeah, maybe, but you manage to have some vodka in the house, too, don’t you, Cora?”

She didn’t answer.

He pulled roll of bills from his pocket and peeled off several, tossing them at her. “Now go get some whiskey. And make it quick.”

She slowly gathered up the money, folded it and slid it into her dress pocket. Then she rose and walked to the door. “Come on, Jeffie,” she said as she slipped on her jacket.

“No, he stays here,” his daddy said. “Christ knows he needs to spend some time with a man. Looks to me like you’ve turned the kid into some kind of queer or something.”

At the word ‘queer’, the kick to the stomach sensation repeated itself, only much harder this time. Jeffrey heard himself whimper, unable to hold the sound inside.

“See?” his daddy said over the rim of his water glass. “He needs some toughening up.”

Jeffrey felt the tears rise up in his eyes. At the same time, his cheeks grew hot. His stomach roiled.

This wasn’t supposed to be how it went. His daddy was supposed love him and hug him and fix everything. He wasn’t supposed to be mean. He wasn’t supposed to laugh at him and call him the same names the kids at school did.

“Ah, Jesus, now he’s going to cry.” His daddy shook his head. “This just proves my point. What are you, three?” He waved his drink at Jeffrey. “You got a room of your own?” he asked.

Jeffrey nodded dumbly, tears rolling down his fiery cheeks.

“Then go there. Get out of my sight until you decide to be a man and not some kind of little crybaby.”

Jeffrey fled to his room. He leapt onto his bed, buried his face into the lumpy, thin pillow and cried. Vaguely, in the distance, he heard the door open and close and then it was silent except for his tears. His sobs racked his chest, tearing at his little lungs. He was aware of a giant pain in his chest, but it wasn’t until his tears slowed down a little that he realized what it was. He’d heard of it, but never experienced it until now. His heart was breaking.

A while later, his mother returned, but she didn’t come to him. More than anything, that was what he wanted right then. He wanted her to come to his door, sit on his bed and gather him up in her arms. He wanted to press his face between her breasts and finish his crying there instead of the poor excuse of a pillow on his bed. She would stroke his hair and comfort him and tell him how it was just the two of them against the world and how she would make his daddy go back to the ship or make him stop being mean and she would stop being mean and then everything would be all right.

Instead, he was left alone to cry into his flat pillow.

Eventually, his sobs ran out. He lay on the bed, curled up into a fetal ball. His cheeks remained hot, but the salty tears were drying. As they dried, he felt a tightness on the skin of his cheeks. Every once in a while, he gave a little hitch.

In the small apartment, he could hear their voices carry.

“This is the first leave you’ve had in two years?” his mother asked, her voice stronger than before but still a pale imitation of what he was used to.

“First one that was long enough to come home,” his daddy answered.

“Your ship was in port just this Spring.”

“So?”

“Why didn’t you come then? If your family is so important?”

“You want another goddamn smack?” he snapped at her.

“No,” she said. “I just want to know-”

“I was in the fucking brig, all right?”

It was silent for a few moments, then she asked, “That’s why one less stripe? You were demoted?”

“I lost two stripes,” he said, a tinge of pride in his voice. “I’ve earned one back since.”

“That explains why the check got smaller.”

“Are you starving?” he barked at her.

“No.”

“No, I didn’t think so. You’ve got enough for this shithole apartment and for food and your precious vodka, so I’d say I’m providing pretty goddamn well.”

It was silent again for a little while, then he could hear them talking in lowered voices. After that, there was the rustle and clinking of items being moved. He could hear the chair slide on the kitchen floor. His mother yelped. It was quiet some more. Then came some more noises he didn’t understand, sounds that he was pretty sure his mother and his daddy were making with their voices, but they weren’t words. He thought about going into the kitchen to see if they were all right, but he stayed put. He didn’t know who he wanted to see less at that moment, so he decided he didn’t want to see either one of them.

After what seemed like a long time, the noises stopped, then changed to hushed voices again. He heard his daddy laugh derisively. “It might give him an idea what it means to be a man, that’s what,” he said.

The apartment grew dark as his parents talked and drank in the kitchen. He could hear their voices and sometimes the actual words, as well as the clink of glasses. Sometimes the tones were quiet, almost gentle. Other times, his father’s voice boomed with laughter. Still other exchanges had the sharp edge of anger to them.

Hours later, his door swung open. He hoped it was his mother, there to comfort him, but expected it was more likely his father, there to tell him that lying on his bed like that was queer and that he was a crybaby.

“Jeffie?” his mother’s voice had a softness to it, and for a moment he thought his hopes might be realized. Then she spoke again and he realized that gentleness was simply the way her voice turned when she drank a lot of her special stuff. “Wash your face and come and eat.”

He roused himself from bed. In the bathroom, he splashed his face with water. Then he made his way to the kitchen.

His daddy sat with his elbows on the table, his arms crossed, holding his drink. An edgy smile hovered on his face. Jeffrey looked into his red, watery eyes for some sign of the daddy he’d been waiting for almost forever.

“Well, Jeffie,” he said, his voice softened in the same way his mother’s was. “Done with your little crying fit?”

Jeffrey swallowed and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

His daddy’s eyebrows shot up. “Hey, he’s a quick learner.” He glanced over at the stove where Jeffrey’s mother stirred dinner. “At least there’s that, Cora. I can teach this boy to be a man someday.”

His mother didn’t answer. She served dinner in silence, the hard line of her mouth returning. She slopped some beans in front of his daddy, then Jeffrey and finally herself. The three of them ate quietly. Once they’d finished, she cleared the plates from the table.

Jeffrey’s daddy poured another drink and sipped it. He eyed the boy over the top of his glass. “So you want to learn to be a real man, kid?”

Jeffrey felt a surge of joy in his chest. “Yes, sir!”

His daddy chuckled. “All right. Good. We’ll start with lesson one right now. Stop acting like a goddamn sissy. That means no whining. No crying. And stop looking like you’re afraid of everything and everybody. You have to show the world you’re tough, kid. Sometimes you have to prove it, too. But if you look like a little sissy, then you’re going to get screwed with all the time by everybody.”

Jeffrey swallowed, but nodded that he understood.

“And no more of this ‘Jeffie’ shit. Understand? The next kid that calls you Jeffie, you punch the little bastard right in the nose. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” His daddy took a long drink, then sighed afterward. “Things are going to change around here, yessir.”

Jeffrey grinned. Maybe his wish was going to come true after all.

At the sink, his mother washed dishes in silence.

That night, Jeffrey sat up late at the kitchen table while his father drank and told stories. He told Jeffrey and his mother about the ship he was on, which he said was the best damn ship in the Navy, and that was mostly because of him, since the entire ship was filled with idiot officers. He described the ports he’d been to in faraway lands. Jeffrey listened, wide-eyed. His mother joined them, sipping her special stuff without a word, looking down at the kitchen table. She didn’t react to any of the stories, but Jeffrey figured that maybe she’d heard them before. She did shift in her seat slightly when his daddy described some of the women in the different ports he’d visited, but didn’t say a word.

Jeffrey learned about port and starboard that night. He learned that a man stands up for himself. That was how he got respect. Respect meant that no one touched you or called you names.

Jeffrey thought respect sounded like the greatest thing ever invented. He started to tell his daddy about the things some of the kids at school did and said to him, but stopped when he saw the disapproval in his daddy’s eyes.

“You can’t let them get away with that,” his daddy told him. “They’ll turn you into a total wimp.”

So he stopped before he got to the Pee-Pee Pants story or the dodge ball story. Instead, he promised his daddy he’d “take care of business” at school the next day.

His daddy reached out clumsily and clapped him on the shoulder. “Thas’ a good boy,” he said.

His mother rose from the table. “Time for bed, Jeffie.”

“Jeff!” his daddy bellowed. “No more of this Jeffie shit!”

His mother didn’t reply. She gave Jeffrey a withering look and pointed toward the bathroom. He slipped out of his chair, headed for the bathroom and got ready for bed.

“After I tuck him in, I’m laying down, too,” he heard his mother say.

“Fine. I’ll be in for a repeat performance after I finish this drink.”

“I’m a little tired,” she said.

“You better get un-tired,” he told her.

Jeffrey put his toothbrush away and went into his bedroom. He crawled into bed, pulling the covers over him. He wasn’t sure what his mother meant by tucking him in. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d put him to bed. Usually she just let him give her a quick hug while she sat in her chair, watching her programs with a water glass in hand. But he was surprised when she showed up at his bedside, sitting down next to his small form.

She leaned down, her breath strong with her special stuff. Even though she hadn’t tucked him in for what seemed like years, he still expected a kiss on the forehead and a whispered ‘good night.’ Instead, she grabbed a handful of his hair at the base of his neck and pulled it taut.

“Remember,” she whispered in his ear, “he’ll be gone soon. Don’t you go getting any big ideas.”

She gave his hair a painful tug for good measure, then released him. A moment later, she’d stood and left the room, leaving his head spinning with questions.

What did she mean?

How long would he be here? Would he have enough time to teach Jeffrey what he needed to know?

Exhausted and confused, he dropped off to sleep.

The next morning, he woke up on his own. Both his mother and his daddy slept through him making himself breakfast. He buttered his toast next to a nearly empty bottle of brown special stuff (the label said ‘whiskey’, so he figured that was what his mother had retrieved from the store for his daddy last night) and a pair of water glasses. Both still had some special stuff in them. He sniffed his daddy’s glass and jerked his head back in surprise at how strong the smell was. He wondered how his daddy was able to put that stuff in his mouth, much less swallow it. Then he realized that it was because his daddy was tough.

He wanted to be tough, too.

He wanted his daddy to be proud of him.

He wanted his daddy to stay forever.

He reached out and picked up the glass. With a shaking hand, he brought it to his lips. Before he could drink any, the strong odor assaulted his nostrils again and he had to put the glass back on the table.

I guess I’m not tough enough yet.

Besides, he figured that his daddy might be mad if he drank any of his special stuff without asking. So that was a good reason to leave it alone, too.

He finished buttering his toast. After he ate, he crept into the living room and turned on the television. He kept the volume as low as it would go and still allow him to hear anything. Quietly, he changed the channel knob from station to station. There were only four channels to choose from. One of them had a preacher. Another one looked like a news guy. The Sesame Street channel had more news guys on it, but the final channel featured a Bugs Bunny cartoon. He smiled and sat just a few inches away from the T.V., laughing at the antics of the ‘wascally wabbit.’ Just to be careful, he covered his laughter with his hand.

Cartoons eventually gave way to football games, so he turned off the T.V. and tried to read his Dr. Seuss book again. It was difficult to concentrate with his ears piqued for any movement from his parent’s room.

He was starting to get hungry for lunch when his mother stumbled out of the bedroom in her robe. She breezed past the living room and straight to the kitchen, where he heard her brewing coffee. Then, magically, he heard sounds of sizzling food. The aroma of bacon wafted out into the living room.

His mother was cooking breakfast. She never cooked breakfast.

He walked to the kitchen and poked his head around the corner of the doorway. He spotted his mother standing at the stove, turning strips of bacon, then cracking several eggs into a frying pan.

From behind him, the heavy thud of feet stomped out of the bedroom and into the bathroom. From behind the closed door, Jeffrey could hear his father making retching sounds. His own stomach clenched at the sound. He covered his ears. After a few moments, the sound ended. The toilet flushed, followed by running water. Then his daddy stumbled from the bathroom and toward the kitchen. He brushed by Jeffrey without a word, sliding up behind his mother. Amazingly, he swatted her on the bottom, causing her to jump. A slice of bacon flew through the air and landed on the counter.

“Goddamnit, Stan!” she snapped. “I’m cooking your break-fast.”

“The kid can have that piece,” he said, motioning to the errant slice of bacon. He stood directly behind her, pressing up against her back. His arms snaked around to the front of her. Jeffrey couldn’t see what he was doing, but his mother twisted and dodged in place while he groped at her. “And I’ll have this one.”

“I’m trying to cook,” she said in an irritated tone. “Jesus, I took care of you last night.”

His daddy’s hand flew up and grabbed his mother’s hair. He pulled hard with a backward jerk. “And what if I want it again right now?” he asked her in a low, mean voice. He jerked on her hair again. “What do you say to that, huh?”

“You’re hurting me,” she said.

“You even haven’t seen the beginning of hurt,” he told her. “You want to see hurt? I will lay the whammo on you, Cora. You won’t walk right for a week. And you definitely won’t be able to smart back to me with that pretty little mouth.”

“The eggs are going to burn,” she whimpered.

He laughed then and let her go with a slight shove. She immediately went back to stirring the scrambled eggs, then retrieved the wayward slice of bacon.

His daddy glanced over and spotted Jeffrey in the doorway. He lowered himself into the chair at the kitchen table. “I see we have a little sneaky spy in the house,” he said.

Jeffrey didn’t know what to say, so he replied, “Yes, sir.”

His daddy laughed again. “Oh, he’s learning.” He reached out and swatted Jeffrey’s mother on the bottom again. “You hear that, Cora? He’s learning. Better than you, he’s learning.”

His mother didn’t reply. She served them wordlessly, just as she had the night before. His daddy didn’t thank her, but he tore into the food, eating quickly. Jeffrey watched him, amazed. Then he picked up his fork and tried to do the same.

Once his daddy finished eating, he lifted the water glass from last night and peered at the brown liquid. “Hair o’ the dog that bit ya,” he said, almost more to himself than anyone else. Then he drained the glass in one swift swallow. He grimaced, let out a small belch and sighed afterward. “Good ol’ Jack,” he said.

Jeffrey tried to eat his breakfast as hurriedly as possible. His daddy didn’t notice. Instead, he stood with the bottle of special stuff and wandered into the living room.

When Jeffrey finished, he found his way into the living room, where his daddy sat watching a football game and sipping his drink. Jeffrey found a place to sit unobtrusively and watched the game with his daddy. Neither of them said a word, but for Jeffrey, that two hours would become quite likely his greatest childhood memory.

When the game ended, his daddy glanced over at him, seeming to just then notice he was there. He took a drink from his glass and sniffed in disgust. “Seems like it was a bad idea for Seattle to get a football team, huh?”

Jeffrey had heard of the Seahawks. Some of the boys at school wore jerseys to school with the stylized blue and green logo of the fictional bird. He himself didn’t care much about football, but if his daddy liked it, maybe he would, too. In fact, maybe football would be his favorite sport from now on.

“You retarded or something, kid?” his daddy said. “I asked you a question.”

“Yes, sir,” Jeffrey blurted automatically.

His daddy scowled. “Yes, you are retarded?”

“I mean, no, sir,” Jeffrey sputtered.

“No? You mean you like the Seahawks? They’re almost as bad as Tampa Bay.” He waved his hand at Jeffrey. “Now go to your room. You’re bothering me.”

Jeffrey spent the rest of the day in his room, listening to every whisper of movement and voice out in the living room and the kitchen. He crept out once to use the bathroom, peeing carefully onto the inside edge of the toilet bowl in order to keep as quiet as possible. He didn’t flush.

There wasn’t much talking between his mother and his daddy during the day, but occasionally he heard an exchange, though he couldn’t make out the words most of the time. Once, the words were sharper and he heard some sort of tussling. This was followed a smacking sound, which made him jump. There was a pause, then more tussling, but it was quieter and more rhythmic.

Around dinnertime, his mother brought him in a peanut butter sandwich. She had changed into her robe. He noticed a deep redness below her left eye.

He thought about asking her what happened, but instinctively, he knew. She must have made a wrong look at his daddy and so he laid the whammo on her.

He stared up at her, torn. He felt a perverse thrill knowing that she wasn’t in charge. Maybe she could still be mean to him, but she wasn’t the boss anymore. At the same time, an overwhelming desire came over him to hug her and make her feel better.

Before he could act on either emotion, she thrust the plate toward him. “Eat your dinner,” she told him numbly, “and put yourself to bed.”

She left without another word.

He chewed the peanut butter slowly, his stomach growling while he ate. He didn’t know what to think or what to feel. He was glad his daddy was home. But it wasn’t working the way he’d hoped.

What could he do?

Jeffrey chewed on his sandwich, thinking.

The next morning, he went to school with purpose. At the morning recess, he waited in line to play tetherball. Most of line was made up of girls, which he thought was just fine. In fact, it was probably almost perfect. His daddy would want him to put one of them in her place.

Laura Kennedy was the one who tried to take cuts when it was his turn. She was a girl who always wore overalls to school because she said her daddy was a farmer. Once, she’d told Jeffrey that being a farmer was much better than being in the Navy, so he thought it was fitting that she be the one to step in front of him now.

“It’s my turn,” he told Laura resolutely.

“No, it’s not,” she said. “It’s mine.”

“I’m next,” Jeffrey insisted.

“Shut up, Jeffie,” Laura said. “Why don’t you go pee your pants?”

Jeffrey felt a warm satisfaction coil up inside his stomach. He balled up his fist and punched Laura in the cheek as hard as he could.

His knuckles grazed her cheekbone and scraped across her ear. Laura’s eyes flew open in surprise, then narrowed in anger. She punched Jeffrey in the stomach. The air whooshed out of his lungs. He sank to his knees, then curled into a ball on the ground.

Laura wasn’t finished, though. She dropped on top of him, rolling him onto his back. Her knees pinned his arms to the blacktop while she punched him in the face. The first punch landed on his mouth, driving his lip into a tooth, cutting it. The second punch blasted into his eye, sending racing white dots shooting through his head. The third and final blow crunched his nose, sending comets chasing after those white dots. The warm flow of blood gushed from his nostrils, covering his upper lip.

The teacher on playground duty interceded at that point, hauling both of them to the principal’s office, where Jeffrey had to undergo the humiliation of admitting that he threw the first punch in the fight. This shame was coupled with having been beaten up by a girl, even if it was a girl who wore overalls and whose dad was a farmer.

The principal gave Jeffrey a look that was difficult to decipher as the boy sat on the chair in front of his desk with a tissue pressed against one nostril. Jeffrey wanted to believe that he felt bad for Jeffrey’s bloody nose or maybe that he was proud that he’d tried to put a girl in her place, but somehow he didn’t think so. Then he gave both children notes to take home for their parents to sign. “Bring those back tomorrow,” he told them. “And you two leave each other alone the rest of the day.”

Jeffrey endured the snickers and stares for the remainder of the school day. At the final bell, he scrambled to get away from the school as fast as he could. He managed to avoid all but a couple of catcalls from other kids. Once on the street headed home, however, he slowed to a crawl. He wondered if his mother would get angry again and march down to the school. Would she find a way to ‘own the school,’ like she told the principal last time? He remembered how good it felt for that short time while she was sticking up for him. He momentarily quickened his pace, until he remembered her admonition afterward.

And what would his daddy say? He’d been in a fight. Didn’t that make him tough? Deep inside, Jeffrey knew it didn’t. He’d been in a fight with a girl. And he lost. A real man laid the whammo on girls. Laura laid the whammo on him instead.

Jeffrey hung his head and shuffled home.

When he arrived, he found his mother sitting in her chair with her glass of special stuff, watching one of her programs. She turned her gaze toward him as soon as he walked in the door. The black eye, bloody lip and swollen nose registered slowly with her. She pressed her lips together and scowled.

“What happened?”

Wordlessly, he handed her the note from the principal. She snatched it from his hand and read it, her lips moving while her eyes scanned the slip of paper. When she’d finished, she balled up the note and set it on the rickety end table next to her.

“You’re supposed to sign it,” Jeffrey told her quietly.

His mother turned toward him again. Her right hand lashed out, slapping him hard across the face. The force of the blow was magnified by his earlier injuries and he yelped in painful surprise. His hand flew up to his cheek. Tears stung his eyes.

“He’s gone again,” his mother said quietly. A cruel smile curled up at the corners of her mouth. “It’s just you and me against the world again, Jeffie.”

A strange combination of relief, anger and fear washed over him at those words. The tears in his eyes bubbled over and coursed down his cheeks.

His daddy was gone.

An ache appeared in his chest, almost like a jagged blade was tearing through it. He let out a small sob.

His mother reached out to him. Gratefully, he fell into her embrace, resting his face between her breasts. The sobs rose up in his chest and came out in huge, racking moans. His mother ran her fingers through his hair. For a moment, even though he hurt, he also felt safe. He also felt good. Maybe the two of them could stand against the world. Maybe she could make everything-

Her fingers twisted and tightened in his hair. She jerked his head backward to stare up at her. Malice radiated from her red, watery eyes. Her foul breath washed down onto his face. The sour stench cut through his overworked sinuses, despite the earlier bleeding and his crying now.

“He’s gone,” she repeated, “but you’re just like him. You ruin everything, too.”

Jeffrey felt something deep inside him wilt. The intensity of his sobs waned. The color in the room faded.

“You ruin everything,” his mother said, and Jeffrey believed her.

October 1980

All he ever wanted anymore was snow. That was the only real wish he had left that he held out as a possibility. There had been a time when he wished for other things, but now that he was ten, he knew better. He knew better than to wish for the things that his mother or father (not his ‘daddy’ anymore. ‘Daddy’ was a baby word) would have to be responsible for making happen. Instead, he wished for things that came from outside his own house. The weather seemed to be the easiest thing to count on, and in Seattle, snow seemed like something special enough to hope for.

His father made it home once or twice a year. Jeffrey both dreaded the time and looked forward to it. He held out an insane hope that the next time would be better. His father and his mother would decide to make it so they were all a real family. His mother would stop being mean all the time. His father would want to stay. He’d tell Jeffrey how big he’d grown to be and how much he was proud of him.

But these foolish hopes didn’t come true. Every time his father visited, in fact, they seemed to slip farther away. His father usually arrived in a foul mood, sometimes already drunk. Sometimes Jeffrey noticed he had one less stripe on his uniform. Other times, he’d have it back. He noticed the lines on his father’s face and how he always looked tired. He seemed meaner, but not as strong.

At first, that diminishing strength only fed Jeffrey’s hope. He reasoned that if his father wasn’t as strong, then he wouldn’t be so mean to his mother. Then things would get better. His mother, however, seemed to have other plans. In the face of his father’s weakening, she grew more bold. He heard them arguing more frequently, with her voice gaining resolve. His father had to lay the whammo on her more often. Sometimes she ran into the bedroom and locked the door. Then his father would either break down the door or he would sleep on the couch. If he slept on the couch, Jeffrey made sure to leave him alone because he was always in a worse mood than usual. He didn’t hesitate to give Jeffrey the back of his hand for any perceived mistake or irritation.

Once, he spilled his cereal bowl. Milk and corn flakes splashed across the kitchen table and onto the floor. His father was sitting at the table, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. He leapt up in his chair, wiping milk off his shirt and pants.

That resulted in a spanking with his father’s belt. The folded strap lashed his backside, raising red welts on his buttocks and the backs of his legs. He tried not to cry because crying only resulted in being told he was a ‘sissy’ or even a ‘little queer,’ both of which burned in his chest just like when the kids at school said it.

His mother stood in the kitchen doorway and watched the spanking. He looked up at her and pleaded silently for her to intervene. He knew she could probably make him stop, even if it meant that he decided to lay the whammo on her instead. She could make him stop. He knew it. So he pleaded with his eyes, begging her.

But she only watched the beating, her expression flat and unreadable.

The strappings only came when his father was furious or when he had a little time to think about things. Like the time he brought home his report card on the same Friday his father showed up. The littering of ‘Unsatisfactory’ ratings led to another session with the belt, with his father counting the strokes. He received one for every ‘Unsatisfactory’ on his report card.

More often, though, his father’s hard palm lashed out and cuffed him in the back of the head. Sometimes he got the back of the hand across the mouth, if that were more convenient. He tried to learn what to say and do in order to avoid it, but he was unable to crack the code. He got in trouble for asking questions, but he got in trouble for being too quiet. He got in trouble for staying in his room and for ‘hanging all over’ his father. He was punished for not looking at his father when he was being spoken to, but other times he got the back of the hand for the expression on his face.

And yet, still he tried to impress his father. He asked his mother to let him play fifth grade football. She refused. When his father came home a few months later, he ridiculed Jeffrey for not being on the football team.

“Maybe you could be a cheerleader,” he suggested, shaking his head. “Jesus, what a mess you are, boy.”

Whenever his father came home, he made a point to show him he wasn’t a sissy. He wasn’t a little queer. He was tough. If that meant finding a way to get into a fight (never a difficult thing to do when all the other kids seemed to pick on him more every year), so be it. He’d come home with a black eye or bloody lip and a note, wearing those injuries like a badge of honor. But his father always took them to mean that Jeffrey had lost the fight (which was true, but how did he always know?) and ridiculed him all the more.

When his father was away, his mother ruled with an iron fist. Her hand was quick to slap his cheek for any reason. Sometimes there didn’t seem to be a reason, but he learned not to ask her why, because that resulted in a follow-up smack.

Jeffrey stopped wishing that it would ever truly be she and him against the world. He knew that she wasn’t going to love him enough for that to happen. Every so often, though, she gave him a renewed false hope. This seemed to happen in the evening and only when she’d been drinking her vodka (he didn’t call it ‘special stuff’ anymore. That was a baby word, too) for the majority of the day. He always knew when it was coming. First, she stopped watching television. Then she brought out old pictures and thumbed through them. Next, she grew weepy. She’d mutter things he couldn’t hear clearly nor understand. Then she’d call him to her, draw him to her chest and stroke his hair.

“You and me against the world,” she’d whisper over and over again.

Sometimes, she’d fall asleep in the chair. When that happened, he always cleaned up the pictures. He didn’t bother to look at them. Most were of people he didn’t know. A few showed his mother and father much younger and smiling. He put them back in the shoebox his mother kept them stored in and covered her with a blanket. He always hoped in vain that she’d wake up and hug him in the morning like she did on those nights. Maybe she’d even make him breakfast and repeat that it was the two of them against the world. But she never did. Instead, she awoke in a foul mood, demanding silence all day because she had a ‘splitting headache.’

Other times, her mood would turn before she even fell asleep. She’d push him away, toppling him to the floor. Then she’d throw down the box of pictures and hurl invectives at him. He was worthless. He was an anchor pulling her to the bottom of Puget Sound. He was everything that had ever gone wrong in her life.

Once he told her he was sorry for being all of those things. She responded with a vicious slap. “Don’t patronize me, you little bastard!” she screeched.

His head humming from the blow, he blinked back and didn’t reply.

“And don’t you sit there and give me your father’s look, either!”

He struggled to put a neutral expression on his face. And after that, he didn’t say anything when her mood turned. He sat and endured it until she shouted herself out, turned and staggered away. Then he’d slip off to his bedroom and go to sleep.

There were times, though, that her weepy affection and reminisces led her to take him to bed with her. In those instances, she took him by the hand and led him into her room. Together, they curled up under the blankets. She held him close, her chin resting atop his head. The warmth of their bodies surrounded Jeffrey like heated cotton. He closed his eyes and let himself drift, always hopeful that this is how it would be forever. While she slept, her arm rested gently across him. Her breath plumed lightly in his hair. Even the rattle of a snore deep in her throat was somehow comforting.

He soon learned that even on those rare occasions, nothing good can last. When she woke first, she expelled him from her bed, calling names ranging from ‘little baby’ (which he understood but didn’t agree with) to ‘dirty little boy’ (which he didn’t understand but knew he didn’t like to hear). In either event, she’d send him to his own bed with an ear ringing from a slap and the blankets of his bed cold. So after that, if he was lucky enough for her to want to snuggle with him, he tried hard to wake up first. Sometimes that didn’t work, either, because if she remembered the night before, he’d still get the slap in the morning. But the nice thing about vodka, Jeffrey discovered, was that sometimes it made his mother forget the previous night. Maybe that’s why it was a whore’s drink, he figured. That’s what his father said about vodka. Jeffrey thought that maybe a whore was someone who forgot things in the morning. Or maybe it was just another word for a mean mother. He wasn’t sure exactly, though he had figured out that only a woman could be called a whore.

At school, he found an oasis of safety — the library. In the library, everyone had to be quiet. They couldn’t call him Jeffie Pee-Pee Pants or queer-bait or any of the other dozen names that kids kept coming up with. No one was able to take his place in line or steal his milk money. There was always a librarian on duty who made sure of these things, though Jeffrey figured out that it wasn’t him she was worried about so much as the sanctity of library silence. He didn’t care, though. He was able to find a book, hide away in one of the study carrels in the corner and read.

The books took him to worlds far away from Seattle. He read about pirates and wizards and monsters. He read about sports heroes and war heroes and super heroes.

For his birthday that year, he convinced his mother to get him a library card at the public library. Unlike the school library, which only housed children’s books, the public library had a wide array of books about anything he could imagine. She balked at first, but he said he wanted it more than any presents (she would have only bought him some clothes, anyway, he figured), so she relented. Besides, he explained to her, it was free. There was a library branch just six blocks from their apartment. This quickly became his sanctuary. He spent hours among the shelves. When he wasn’t there, he holed up in his room, reading the books he checked out.

His mother only occasionally objected to his absences, but since he’d turned ten he started making his own meals and taking care of himself in every way, which left her more time to drink her whore’s drink and watch her programs. About the only thing they did together on a regular basis was sit in the Laundromat once each week and watch the three loads of laundry as they were first washed, then dried. Every other interaction seemed to be in passing, sometimes punctuated with a sharp word or a stinging slap. He learned to absorb those without crying. Crying in front of his mother was almost as bad as crying in front of his father and there were far more opportunities for it.

So they settled into a routine of sorts, Jeffrey and his mother. She seemed to accept his bookishness because it freed her of dealing with him. He accepted that the cost of being her son remained the frequent slurred, angry words and hard smacks, but that they never lasted forever and he was eventually allowed to escape into a book.

Then his father came home and disrupted the truce. For those few days, Jeffrey tried to hide his reading habit while at the same time needing the escape all the more. The arguments between his parents grew fiercer and more frequent. The bruises and swollen lips appeared on his mother’s face more often. At the same time, it seemed like his father only ever slept on the couch. Sometimes he went out, staying away until late in the night. Every time he left, Jeffrey hoped he was going back to the best damn ship in the Navy (even if it was full of idiot officers) instead of coming home in the middle of the night, slamming doors and singing incoherently.

Once, he ordered Jeffrey out of bed in the middle of the night and into the living room. He stood at attention, blinking stupidly through his sleepy eyes, while his father criticized him and gave him advice on how to stop being such a sissy queer boy. He punctuated his points with heavy slaps to Jeffrey’s shoulders, along with admonitions to ‘stand up straight like a man.’

Jeffrey stood as tall and rigid as he could at three o’clock in the morning. He pretended he was an Army soldier and stared straight ahead, refusing to cry. He knew his father hated the Army even more than he hated and loved the Navy, so pretending to be a soldier gave him a strange sense of satisfaction and strength. It must have shown on his face because his father lit into him for having a “smart ass look on that mug of yours.” He followed that up with a series of hard slaps to Jeffrey’s head.

“You think you’re something? Huh?”

Slap.

“You aren’t shit, you little shit.”

Slap.

“You little whore’s son. You’ll never be shit.”

Slap.

“Don’t you fucking look at me like that.”

Tears sprang to Jeffrey’s eyes. He willed them not to fall.

The appearance of tears seemed to satisfy his father. He stopped slapping and laughed uproariously. “Oh, there it is. The little queer crybaby I know.” He waved him away with a flick of his hand. “Get out of my sight.”

Jeffrey retreated gratefully to his bedroom, but it was a long time before the burning in his belly allowed him to sleep.

On another occasion, he heard two voices come into the apartment late at night. One was unmistakably his father’s deep rumbling, but he didn’t recognize the other voice. It was definitely a woman’s voice, though. There were some whispers and laughter and the clink of glasses, followed by some other noises that he couldn’t exactly place. He heard the woman’s voice cry out as if she were in some kind of pain. That’s when he figured out that his father was putting her in her place. He was laying the whammo on her, just like he did to his mother.

After a while, the noises leveled off and he drifted back to sleep.

In the morning, he waited for the argument to begin, but it never came. Eventually, his hunger drove him out of his room. In the kitchen, his father drank coffee and read the newspaper. His mother sat in her chair and watched television. No one said anything.

Jeffrey made himself some toast. For now, he decided not to say anything, either. Instead, he ate his toast, then slipped into the living room. He stood next to the window and watched the sky for snow.

August 1982

His father missed his twelfth birthday, which was no surprise.

Slightly more surprising was that so did his mother, even though she was there. She tried to make up for her forgetfulness several days later. She took him to McDonald’s for a cheeseburger and then to the movies. Together, they sat in the darkened theater and watched E.T., the Extraterrestrial. She even bought him popcorn and a soda.

More importantly, she wasn’t being mean to him.

That part lasted the entire movie and until they made it out to the parking lot. In the car on the way back to the apartment, though, she noticed that he’d wiped his buttery fingers on his jeans. Her hand whipped out and caught him alongside his head, accompanied by harsh words about how he “never took care of his things” and how he “ruined everything he touched.”

He clenched his jaw and said, “Yes, Mother.”

At home, he tried to slip away to his room and lose himself in a book. But she caught him first. Reaching out with her thumb and forefinger, she gripped the tender skin under his chin and pinched. This was even worse than the slaps. If he tightened the muscles that ran under there, her finger pinch turned into a finger-nail gouge, followed up with a slap to the head.

“Don’t think you can just run and hide,” she carped at him. “That’s all you ever do, is read your stupid books. You don’t know how hard it is to be a single mother and to try to keep this house in order.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Oh, get out of my sight,” she told him. “You disgust me.”

He fled to his room. The book he was reading now concerned a boy who was thirteen and going through changes. The boy discovered things about girls that Jeffrey was just starting to be interested in. Beyond that, things were happening to that boy that were also happening to Jeffrey. The one that worried him the most until he read about it in this book was that sometimes he woke up in the night and realized he’d wet the bed. At first, he was horrified because of the difficulty he used to have with wetting the bed and wetting his pants. But this was different than pee. Instead, there was less of it and it was sticky. The boy in the book called them “wet dreams” and he always had them when he thought about his best friend’s sister. Jeffrey couldn’t always remember what he’d been dreaming about, but the times that he did remember were confusing to him. Sometimes, he knew he’d been dreaming about the sounds that the strange woman made in the living room when his father was laying the whammo on her. Other times, he knew he’d been dreaming about his mother, though he couldn’t remember what happened in the dream.

Eventually, he learned that he didn’t have to be asleep or dreaming to make those things happen. He could think about things, touch himself and after a while, there was a wonderful feeling, followed by that same wet, sticky stuff. He marveled at what a wonderful secret he’d discovered. He wondered if anyone else knew about it, but he instinctively knew to keep it private.

All of the changes in his body that made him think that maybe when his father came home again, he’d talk to him differently when he saw that he was becoming a man. He’d grow big and strong. Maybe he’d join the Army and even though that would make his father angry, he’d get over it when he saw how tough Jeffrey was. He’d show him. He’d lay the whammo on lots of different girls. He didn’t know how many it would take before his father would love him, but he knew that if he did it enough, eventually he would.

February 1985

High school was a nightmare on all fronts. He’d hoped he’d grow out of his troubles, but they only evolved along with him, taking on different slants and hues but finding him all the same.

His retreat into the library was a permanent one. He graduated from hiding in the stacks of books, to working as a library aide and an audio-visual aide. Returning books to the shelves and setting up film projectors occupied his time. More importantly, it kept him flying underneath the radar of some of the school’s biggest bullies. He still took his share of casual barbs, as well as enduring the occasional act of intimidation. But he’d discovered a truth at home that carried over to his school experience.

He could handle it.

It would pass.

When they called him a name, he didn’t react. He just waited until they got bored and moved on. Whenever some jock or head-banger knocked his books from his hands, he merely knelt down and picked them back up. Did he get angry on the inside?

Oh, yes. He fucking seethed. But he learned to hide it. He learned to put it away for another day. A day would come when he’d get his revenge. He realized now that it might not be until he came back to the twenty-year reunion as a wealthy success that could buy and sell every one of the loser assholes who thought they were so much better than him, but his time would come. He’d roll into town in an expensive car with a big-tittied blonde trophy wife on his arm. Everyone would try to remember what he’d been like in high school, but all they’d be able to think about would be the nice car and nice rack in front of them.

All the girls in school would be jealous, too. They’d be sorry they didn’t get their hooks into him when they had the chance. Every one of them, especially the ones he thought about when he touched himself, would wish they wouldn’t have been such stuck up bitches.

Still, he knew that was years away. That didn’t make it easy to bear things, but it made it possible. He read books about anything and everything, learning everything he could while working in the library and hating every minute of high school.

Home was worse. His mother seemed to grow harsher each passing year. She had him doing all of the housework, even including her laundry. Her thin fingers still found their way under his chin for that demeaning pinch. “You can’t do anything right, can you?” was her favorite refrain.

She’d taken to walking into his bedroom without knocking. He didn’t know why she did that, other than the fact that she seemed to delight in watching him scramble to cover his erection and hide the fact that he’d been dreaming of girls at school and revenge. She’d order him out of bed to complete some mundane task like taking out the kitchen garbage, then stand there and watch him squirm while he made excuses to delay things long enough for his erection to subside.

Other times, out of the blue, she seemed to refer to his activities when she told him he was “still a dirty little boy.” He pretended not to understand as embarrassment and shame swallowed him whole.

His father’s visits grew more infrequent and more intense. His parents would usually drink together, which devolved into a fight without fail. Either they’d end up in the bedroom or his father would storm out. Sometimes he just didn’t come back. Those were Jeffrey’s favorite times. But often, he did return and never alone. He brought women home with him, turning the living room into a sexual playground. Jeffrey was at once attracted and repelled when this happened. He lay in bed and listened to the voices and the sounds of sex in the living room. Excited, he found himself masturbating furiously to the noises, then lying in bed afterward, full of shame.

The next morning, no one left their bedroom until his father roused the woman and sent her on her way, although Jeffrey sometimes sneaked out to get a look at his father’s conquests. He felt a strange sense of pride while hating him for it at the same time.

Other times, his father felt the need to assert his alpha wolf status. Despite Jeffrey’s efforts to avoid him and not to offer any affront, it required very little drinking before his father took offense at some slight, real or imagined. Then he was called into the living room, where he stood at attention to be berated and slapped. This worked into his father theorizing that Jeffrey thought he was “tougher than the old man.” He’d challenge Jeffrey to “take his best shot,” demanding it until he reached the conclusion that Jeffrey was “too much of a queer little pussy” to do so. “Get out of my sight,” he’d bellow at Jeffrey. “You make me sick.”

Rarely, though, and for some reason he had never been able to pinpoint, the three of them were able to co-exist in an easy, quiet truce. Jeffrey read his books in his room while his parents drank slowly and watched television. On these days, he was able to escape the house and go to the library.

Sometimes, he’d take his books and go to the mall where he’d watch the same bitchy girls from school ignore him there, too. But he’d pretend to read his book and stare that their bodies. He’d imagine tearing the clothing off of them. He saw their surprise at how tough he was, what a man he was. As that realization seeped into their eyes, he knew that his father was right about what every woman wanted deep down inside. So he imagined laying the whammo on them. If they didn’t cry out with enough passion, he’d punctuate matters with a good slap upside the head.

He stored those thoughts and the sights of the girls at the mall for when he returned home at night. Lying in bed alone, he’d recall them over and over again. He obsessed and studied and dreamt and watched and masturbated.

His day would come.

He knew it would.

June 12, 1987

High school ended on a Thursday. He left just like it was any other day. Only the librarian, Mrs. Bryant, wished him a happy summer. He thanked her, wishing he could spend it with her at the library, but knowing he’d be spending as much time as possible at the public library or at the mall, looking at girls. Still, the librarian’s farewell reminded him oddly of his kindergarten teacher, Miss Reed.

He wondered about Miss Reed as he walked toward home. Did she still teach? Was she even Miss Reed anymore, or did she marry some guy and change her name? He imagined she probably had. Looking back, he decided she was fine looking. Someone would have come along and snagged her.

Strangely, the thought made him feel betrayed. She’d been so nice to him, but he imagined that she had probably been faking it all along. Women were generally traitors, at least as much as he could tell based on the one he lived with. He wondered if Miss Reed made fun of him to the other teachers after he left for the day. He saw her getting together in the teacher’s lounge and telling all the other teachers shitty things about him. Anger brewed in the pit of his stomach as he made his way toward the apartment.

He switched the scenario. Saw himself finding her at her house. Fantasized about what he would do to her.

He smiled, holding his folder and library book in front of his jeans as he walked.

At his apartment, he let himself in. His mother was taking one of her naps, so he kept as quiet as he could. In his bedroom, he put aside the book and the folder. He opened his button, unzipped his pants and slid them down his hips. Leaning back and touching himself, he imagined again what his visit to Miss Reed’s house would be like.

I’d lay the whammo on that bitch.

He closed his eyes and saw it all over again, like a movie playing in his head. Coming inside the house. Maybe a hard slap across the face to get things started. Tearing away her clothing. Bending her over the couch. No, over the coffee table. Ripping her shirt off of her back as he pumped into her. Listening to her scream-

The door to his room flung open. His mother stood in the doorway, glaring at him.

Jeffrey scrambled to his feet, turning his back to her. “Jesus, Mother! Don’t you knock?”

“I don’t have to knock in my own house, you dirty little boy!” She cackled at him. “I knew it. I knew you were in here being nasty.”

“I wasn’t doing anything.” He looked over his shoulder at her as he zipped his pants and snapped the button. “I was just going to change my school clothes, that’s all.”

She stepped into the room, shaking her head. “Liar,” she whispered.

“It’s the truth. I-”

“No,” she whispered. “It’s a lie.”

There was something strange in her voice that made him stop. Her words were slurred more heavily than was usual for this early in the afternoon, but he knew she sometimes started early. The difference in her voice went beyond that, however. It was oddly soft and gentle, something he could remember from years ago and only intermittently at that.

“Sit down,” she said, motioning to the bed.

Hesitantly, he sat on the edge of his mattress. She lowered herself clumsily, sitting beside him. The essence of her sweat and the alcohol permeated the small bedroom. Her eyes were red and watery, their customary hardness filled with an empty sorrow that wasn’t familiar to him.

“Do you think I don’t know what you do in here at night?” she asked him.

“I don’t do anything. I only-”

She raised her hand. He flinched involuntarily, expecting her to pinch beneath his chin. Instead, she rested her index finger on his lips, shushing him. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “Every boy does it. Every single little boy ends up becoming a nasty young man and then a piece of shit just like your father.”

His thoughts raced. He had wondered if other boys did it, but based on the conversations he overheard, everyone denied it. He thought something was wrong with him, not just for doing it but for how often.

“You can’t help it,” she said in the same soft voice. “You’re just like him.”

She let her finger fall away from his lips.

“You even look like him. Hell, you could be brothers, you look so much alike.”

He didn’t know whether to be happy or not about that. Was it a good thing or a bad thing to look like your father?

His mother straightened the battered robe that covered her legs. Then she cast him a sidelong glance. “What do you think about when you do it, Jeffie?”

His heart raced. If she knew he touched himself, was it possible that she knew what he fantasized about? Could she know how he wanted to lay the whammo on the girls at school? Did she have some sort of motherly knowledge about these things? He tried to tell himself this wasn’t possible, but then why was she asking him this?

“Do you think about the little pretties at your school?” she continued. “Those girls with their fluffy hair and their tight jeans?”

Jeffrey swallowed. He didn’t know how to answer, but she was staring at him, so he gave her a small nod.

“Of course you do,” she said, her voice silky smooth. “What boy wouldn’t?” She leaned closer. “But tell me something else, Jeffie. Have you ever done more than just think about any of them?”

His heart pounded frantically.

She knew.

She knew.

She knew, she knew, sheknewsheknewsheknew!

He moved his head left and right with a frenzied shake.

She raised her eyebrow. “No? Never slipped off into a quiet place with one of those large breasted sluts?”

“No,” he whispered, though he’d imagined it many times. Did she know that, too?

She smiled as if she knew everything. “Is my little boy still a virgin, then?”

He hesitated, but the admission seemed better than the alternative, so he nodded again.

“I figured as much,” she whispered. She took a deep breath and let it out. The powerful odor of vodka washed past him. She glanced down at the thin wedding band on her finger. “You know what today is?” she asked him.

“Last day of school?”

She gave a small laugh. “I suppose so. But do you know what else it is? I’ll give you a hint. It’s a big day.”

He thought about it for a few seconds, but eventually shook his head. “I…I don’t know.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” she said, twisting the ring. “No one in this family seems to remember.”

He waited, expecting that she would tell him what day it was and why no one seemed to remember. Instead, she turned suddenly and was upon him. The force of her motion pushed him backward onto bed. Her legs straddled him. Her face pressed against his, her mouth searching for his. He parted his lips, letting out a surprised sound. Her kisses smothered his small cry. Her tongue snaked out and raked across his teeth.

No!

His stomach clenched. A hotness brewed there that filled with all the hate and love and desire and pain and confusion that he had ever felt. The tumultuous emotions broiled and twisted while her hands tore at his clothing. He lay frozen on his back. He could taste the harshness of her vodka now in the back of his own throat.

His legs trembled. He realized that his erection was straining at his zipper.

Her mouth broke away from his. He gasped for air. Her lips found his earlobe, drawing it into her mouth while her hot breath plumed into his ear.

He raised his arms up in the air, his palms open, his fingers twitching.

What do I do? How do I stop this?

She tore his jeans from his legs, sending them flying across the room. The denim struck the far wall and dropped to the floor like a dead body.

He pushed at her chest while trying to slide backwards, away from her. Her robe fell open. He stared at her hanging breasts, the large red nipples erect. She looked down at him with a mixed expression he’d never seen on her face before, but he recognized them both. Her eyes were filled with a venomous combination of lust and pure hatred.

“No,” he gasped at her.

She grasped him by the wrists and pulled his open palms until they were against her chest. The warm flesh of her breasts filled his palms. He pulled weakly against her, shaking his head. His stomach clenched and roiled. She pressed his hands hard against her chest.

He felt light-headed.

“Mother, please-”

She shushed him, rocking her hips against his hardness. “Call me Cora.”

“Mother-”

“Cora!” she snapped, grinding herself downward onto him. His hardness slipped inside her. Overpowering warm wetness radiated outward from down there. “Say it!”

He surrendered. “Cora, please.”

She kept moving. “Please what?” she purred down at him.

All his strength faded from him. The absolute wrongness of the world at that moment came crushing downward upon his chest. He struggled to breath.

How could this be happening?

“That’s right,” she said. “Shut up and enjoy it.”

That feeling, that wonderful feeling that he’d always associated with his fantasies coming true, swept over him. He arched his back and grunted in surprise, in horror, in ecstasy. The force of the explosion rocked through his legs and up to his chest. His grunt became a primal cry.

As soon as the fluttering convulsions faded, his churning stomach overtook him. He rolled to the left and heaved. The warm vomit spewed out onto his bed and the wall. His stomach clenched again, pulling his legs in toward his center. He was dimly aware of her slipping off of him, but his head was spinning. He clutched at his stomach and retched a third time.

Vaguely, as if it were happening to someone else a hundred million miles away, he felt her hands raining down on him, pounding with the fury of a harpy. The blows didn’t bring any pain with them, nor did the familiar words she hurled at him. She’d called him all of these things before. She’d hit him before. But she’d never-

His stomach clenched, but there was nothing left to come up. All he could manage was a watery gagging.

The next thing he could remember, she was gone. He remained on the bed, gagging and shivering, curled up into a small ball. The sounds of the apartment surrounded him. Familiar sounds. The creak of the ceiling when someone walked across the floor upstairs. The opening and closing of cupboards in the kitchen. His own labored, rattled breathing. The clink of a vodka bottle on the lip of a water glass. The drone of the television.

After what seemed like hours, he rose on weak legs and made his way to the bathroom. He stepped into the shower and turned it on as hot as it could possibly go. The water splashed down onto him, washing away the sick remains of his lunch and his own semen from his body. He used soap to lather up the wash cloth and scrubbed his skin until it felt raw. Then he stood under the shower head while the hot liquid poured onto his head and coursed down his body.

When he finally shut off the water and pushed aside the curtain, he half-expected to see her standing there in the bathroom, holding a towel for him. He was alone, though, and reached for the towel himself.

What do I do next?

As he dried off, he searched for an answer. He thought at first that maybe this would never happen again, but he realized that this was just the little boy inside of him hoping against hope. Little Jeffie, wishing his mommy and daddy would be perfect.

He knew better.

No, this was just the newest evolution of how things were to be. She had to know about his fantasies. She had to know that he dreamed of the power and control over all of the girls that ignored him at school. And she wanted to take that fantasy away from him before he could make it really happen.

She would come to him whenever she wanted. She would control it. She would take it from him. She’d take his fantasy, piece by piece.

She was still too strong.

He finished drying off and went to his room. He dressed quickly, then emptied out a small sea bag that his father had left behind one of the times he’d left in the middle of the night. He pushed some jeans and some shirts into the sea bag, along with a few paperback books he’d borrowed from the library.

As quiet as he could, he slipped out of his room and into his mother’s bedroom. In the top drawer of the dresser, he found a wooden box full of jewelry. Underneath that were a number of folded bills. He took both, slipping the cash into his pocket and bringing the jewelry box back to his room, where he put it into the sea bag.

His coat hung in the hall closet. He carried the bag with him, moving woodenly, without emotion. It was as if when he spewed out the contents of his stomach in the bedroom, all of his emotion had left him, too.

She didn’t look up as he walked to the door. He thought about not turning around, but something made him pause. He looked over his shoulder at her. She met his eyes. He saw no remorse in them at all.

“You’re leaving, then?” she asked, her slurred tone matter-of-fact.

He nodded.

“Well, good,” she said. With that, she turned her attention back to the television.

He waited. A hundred things that he might say raced through his brain, but in the end, one question won out.

“Cora?” he said. Since she wanted to be called by her name so goddamn bad, then he’d do it now.

She turned her gaze back to him. “What?”

He licked his lips, then asked, “Why don’t you love me?”

She smiled, a cruel grin that licked at her cheeks. “Because you are the reason my entire life has been wasted, that’s why.”

He expected those words to rock him in the gut like mule kick, but strangely, he felt nothing. He simply turned away from her and left the apartment.

His first steps down the street were light and euphoric. He couldn’t think of why he hadn’t done this years ago. Take some of her precious money and just go. He felt free. He felt like a new person.

His footsteps carried him to a bus stop. He got on without thinking. He sat and stared out the window at the wet, gray Seattle streets. His sense of freedom was short-lived. Already he felt a brewing, seething rage building in the pit of his stomach. He knew he could never be free of it. He knew he would have to come back and find her. Someday, when he was stronger. He’d come knocking on her door. She’d answer it, probably with a glass full of vodka, that whore’s drink, in her hand. He’d push his way in. He’d give her the back of her hand. Then he’d lay the whammo on her, better than his father ever did. He’d control it. He’d show her what power was.

He would.

Someday, he would.

The city bus stopped near the Greyhound terminal. He exited and walked across the street. Once inside the terminal, he stood in front of the list of destinations. He didn’t have much money. He couldn’t go far. But he had to go far enough. Where was that? Tacoma? Vancouver?

His eyes flitted down the list until his gaze came to rest on River City. That was clear across the state, on the other side of the Cascades. Far enough, but close enough.

He smiled.

Besides, it snowed in River City.