The first time your dad slaps you in public (and hard enough that you fall to the ground), you stand up fast because you know that is what he wants. Your face burns hot with shame. You glance around to see who saw. You’re not ashamed because your father slapped you—in those times, and especially in that town, all fathers slapped their kids. No, the reason your face is red is you fear people saw you cry.
Your mom has been gone a handful of months. Yours used to be such a happy, god-fearing, church-going family. Then the paper plant started dumping some seventeen-syllable chemicals in the river and the EPA lawyers came and met with all the families in Red Bud. There were hushed talks of money, real money, and cash settlements. Then your eight-year-old sister Laurie got sick. For a short time, she seemed to be better, but then she got even sicker, and you stopped hoping for anything. Then she died, and that was the most tragic and yet anticlimactic thing that had ever happened, and that was the last time the four of you were in the same place.
He has slapped you in private. Plenty of times, but always and only at home. It began the day after your mom left, which was the same day you’d buried Laurie. You cried the first time he struck you in the face, both because it hurt and because you realized how unfair life is. The happy family of four you once were is now a miserable family of two: just you and dear old Dad.
For months, you lie in bed at night, trying to make no noise that would wake your father from his drunken stupor and cause him to fly into fury over some stupid, random shit. You pray for weeks for God to take you or your father.
Not at the same time, God, please? Don’t take us both, please.
The idea of you dying at the same time makes you anxious. If there is an afterlife, you don’t want to wake up next to your father in it. But that’s not all.
One of us needs to stay to visit Laurie, rake the leaves off of her plot and headstone, clean up the condom wrappers, beer bottles, and pizza boxes the high schoolers left from their last party there.
You give up on God. He either doesn’t care or doesn’t exist. You decide you don’t care either way. If he exists, then he couldn’t love you. You had been so happy, then bam, your family is cut in half, and your pleasant memories taunt you each night when you try to fall asleep in your no-longer air-conditioned house.
And you loved your sister. Dearly. She was so cute, so funny, so kind. You cannot see her face in any memory without your eyes leaking.
Are you going to cry again? Jesus Christ, and here I thought we’d lost all the women in this family. Man up already.
Still, you try praying. It worked at one time in your life.
God, why her? Why didn’t you take me? She was the best of us, the best thing Mom and Dad ever did. You know it’s true.
But praying is behind you now, a part of your past, of who you used to be.
You start having migraines. Your father takes you to see all the specialists he decides his remaining child deserves, which is zero.
You self-medicate to ease the pain. First, you try weed. It’s easy to get, and if you keep less than a dime bag on you, Sherriff Rogers won’t bust you for it. He confiscates it, of course, but arresting you is just so much work. You see the pity in his eyes when he beholds you, and you want to smash his face for it.
The drugs help—for a while. Then you try other things, harder drugs you swore you’d never try, the kind with needles.
You’re in your junior year at high school. Subjects that used to be easy are now incomprehensible. Your grades plummet overnight. The headaches make doing homework a Herculean task.
You drop out of school and try to find work to bring in some money.
You want to hate your mother for leaving you with him, but you realize you can’t do that. A big part of her died right along with her Laurie, probably the best part. The little casket was too small for it, but you edit your memories to reflect there were two bodies you buried that rainy day in February.
Good luck, Mom, wherever you go.
You remember Laurie’s casket, so tiny. You realize you are wrong. There weren’t two people in her coffin; it was four. You marvel again over the fact that coffins could be that small or that pink.
Stories by Shawn 