Guardians and Angels | Chapter One (Part 3)

He heard the rumble of his father’s truck approaching before the vibrations reached my ears. He tensed tight, muscles contracting into coiled cables. Flesh turned from tan to armor under my fingertips. I felt him change like the temperature. For a second a part of me thought he was getting ready to hit me, a quick strike and a sting descending in nanoseconds was what flashed across my mind. Everyone knows that flicker, the knowing just before the pain…

He sat up in bed and looked toward the window. The streetlight hit his face, his brow furrowed. I pulled back quick. Waiting for the impact of his fists, the sting of his tongue.

No blow came.

He mumbled under his breath a bit and then got up and walked across the room. His silhouette revealed the bulges and curves of his body among his bedroom wall as he flickered by soundlessly to lock the door. He was bigger than I expected down there, and that somehow made things worse and better; my eyes flittered away from his shape and saw the locked door.

“What’s the matter?”

“He’s drunk”

“How do you know?”

“It’s Friday”

He slid back into the bed like a fist holding everything I wanted sliding into my pocket. I could feel his father’s truck approaching as much as I could hear it. Huffing toward us. Growling as it slowed down and turned onto the street. Lurching around the corner.

He was on his back looking at the ceiling. I could feel the frustration rising from his face. I turned toward him, on my side, not touching him.

“Is everything okay?”

“He won’t come up here”

“What?”

Long sigh. He grunted toward me in the darkness. My mouth suddenly dry.

“Just try to go to sleep. He goes away"

Pause

"Just don’t say anything," he whispered, almost a pleading.

Just don’t say anything? About me and you? To your crazy dad? Oh, don’t worry, buddy

He turned away from me and looked toward the wall. I stayed where I was, not moving… thinking I guess, listening to the father exiting his truck more than anything. The door slamming shut way too hard.

He looked over his shoulder at me and I heard that grin upon his voice even though I couldn’t see his lips,

“The door is locked,” he whispered and then he turned away again like he had said it to me a thousand times and I should know what to do.

I lay on my back motionless.

Below us the banging on the door exploded through the house and I jumped. His mom’s voice joined his father’s and the ancient clash of divorcing parents and domestic violence began.

I was fearful at that moment. The mother was holding her ground and saying he couldn’t come inside. He sounded like a werewolf below us. Enraged. Spitting insults and throwing accusations that echoed through the neighborhood. I sat up and began to experience now what I realize was fight or flight; I think I was getting ready to go downstairs just in case, when he turned and said very sternly through his teeth, “No! Stay here!”

They argued for several minutes. I heard it all. He knew I heard it all. The accusations were intense. Cheating, drinking, gambling, the spending, the spending, the spending.

Back and forth they screamed.

A teeter-totter where your goal is to topple the other. The insults told their stories in four and five letter words over and over as we lay in the dark above them. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse I heard the father yelling,

“He’s not even my fucking son! You know it! Everyone knows it!”

Crashing sounds.

“HE KNOWS HE’S NOT MY SON!”

Some glass broke and I heard the truck door slam shut. The engine revved to life and in a few moments he was careening away from us.

Below us I could hear his mother on the phone to the police. Muffled crying. I felt if I moved I would make it ten times worse. I couldn’t just stay still though. For the second time that night I rolled toward him and put my arm around him. This time I felt him trembling from the silent sobs he had been holding in.

A bucket can be filled with tears and balance on a tightrope for only so long. The slightest nudge will tip it over. My arm across him nudged his bucket and he spilled open and overflowed as I held him tight.