I think Dad’s finally gone crazy. Gone around the bend. Fucking batshit. He was never a ray of sunshine before, never really sober, but these days... Shit, man. Sometimes I think he wants to kill me.
Makes both of us sound crazy. Maybe I caught it from him, like a disease. Maybe I dropped down the rabbit hole together with him.
Maybe it was in me all along, a genetic flaw, a missing chromosome, a misfiring neuron in the brain.
Anyway, Dad wouldn’t kill me. He isn’t a murderer. He’s an asshole, sure, certified. A motherfucker. And I hate his guts. But it’s probably just a phase. He’s been lashing out at the mechanics at the garage, shoving them, punching them, cursing their mothers. A couple resigned. Others can’t afford to.
And then there’s me. I wish I could resign from being his son. I wish he’d give any sign he gave a shit about me. I used to think he did, but that’s so long ago now I’ve sucked the memory—imagined or real—dry.
So the fact that he’s cornered me in my bedroom with the belt in his hands and that drunk, mean gleam in his eyes should worry me.
What should worry me more is the fact I don’t really give a damn if he hits me, if he punches me until I pass out and uses his belt on my back, over barely healed scabs, to lay out a new pattern of scars. I stare into his flat, cold eyes, the same color, same shape as mine, into an older reflection of my own face, and open my arms, inviting him in.
“Whatcha smirking at, boy?” He snarls, lifting the belt and lashing at me with it. The buckle catches me on the arm, then my chest, leaving a line of fire, wrenching a gasp from my throat. “You think I’m fucking with you? Goddamn fucktard. Your mother should have taken you with her.”
That leaves me winded for a different reason. “You know where she went?” He always refuses to talk about her, about why she left, what happened to her. How to reach her.
“What the hell does it matter?” Snap goes the belt, and I grunt as it slashes across my stomach and ribs. “You don’t even remember her.”
“I remember her,” I protest. “I remember—”
“Shut the fuck up.” His fist flies at me, smashing into my jaw, followed by the belt, and darkness swallows me for a few precious moments.
Next thing I know, I’m sprawled on the floor, on my belly, and the belt is dancing on my bared back, lightning strikes, electric shocks that make my body jump involuntarily. My jaw is clenched so tight that my teeth are grinding together, and my breathing is coming fast and shallow.
“Stop,” I manage. “Dad... just stop.”
Wrong thing to say. His boot presses down on the small of my back, promising agony. “Gonna snivel and beg, boy? Think that will save you? Strength is the only way to go. Getting the upper hand is the only solution. Pride. Have some fucking pride. Be a man and take it, or you’re not my fucking son anymore, got it?”
Got it.
I clench my teeth and swallow any sound coming up my throat as he methodically stripes my back and shoulders, as my hot blood drips to the floor. Drip drip drip, and the swishing of the belt, the thud of impacts, and nothing else.
The house is quiet. Nobody to come and see what’s going on. No neighbors nearby to knock on the door. Nobody to save me. Ever.
But I don’t need saving. Pain makes you into a man. Accepting pain means I am my father’s son.
Dealing pain to others means I’ve learned my lesson.
***
“Get him,” I say, and the gang swarms around the awkward, slightly overweight boy trying to make his escape without being noticed. “Strip him.”
Laughter rings out as the idiots of my gang hurry to do my bidding. They’re not any better than the kids we’re toying with. In fact, they’re worse.
We are worse. Assholes, all of us. Sickos. Arrogant sons of bitches, with a chip on our shoulder and a thirst to inflict damage. It’s all we’re good at. All we know how to do.
“Get the lard-ass!” I yell and whoop as he yelps, overrun by my guys, as he flails and drops everything he’s been holding—his backpack, his phone, and a sandwich that unravels and rains mayonnaise and bacon bits all over him. “Make him piss himself!”
A dark sort of joy spreads through me, a dark wave, as I watch, pulling the strings on this little act of violence. There’s this sense that I’m doing what I should. What’s expected of me. No more remorse, I tell myself, no more doubts. Strength is the only way. Aggression is the only path.
Walk it. Follow it. Dad commands this whole town. You command this school. All these students, they’re yours to shape. Make them sit. Beg. Roll over. Crack the weak ones right open, like eggs, suck them dry, like your hopes and memories. This world doesn’t belong to the weak. It belongs to those who don’t panic and cry, to those who don’t piss their pants when you and your gang walk on by.
My reign of fear has grown over the past months, my web grown thicker. It’s freeing, liberating, when I insult them, torment them, find their weak spot and strike.
Doing to them what my father does to me.
I was wrong. He isn’t crazy. What he tried to do is pluck out my fears, help me become stronger. Because I’m his son, his one true son, and he needs me to follow in his steps, eventually take over his business. He can’t deal with a weakling. Can’t be proud of one. That’s why he does what he does. Teaching me a lesson.