Previous Chapter:

SINISTER

5.

“Your daddy is very upset at you…”

Oh. Well, isn’t that a shock, he thought.

They’d locked the doors, front and back, making sure that he’d have to knock to be let in. It was a little past eleven, about an hour beyond his curfew on nights he pulled the dinner shift at Taco Grande.

“But I was working and he wants me to work,” he said, hating the childish pleading that had snagged his voice.

“He’s waiting for you.”

Garren headed for the living room. The house was so small his father – or as she called him daa-dee – had probably heard everything already. A few steps and he was out of the back room, through the kitchen and standing in the living room. One reading lamp was on, cheap bulb shining through a shade stained with nicotine. The light cast an amber shadow on his father’s face.

“You’re supposed to work and be home when I tell you to,” the man said. He had the Manitou Tribune’s want ads spread out on his lap and he’d said each word without looking up.

“The guy who was supposed to give me a ride got off early. I asked him to wait, but he wouldn’t. Then I tried to get someone else to give me a ride and nobody could so I ended up walking.”

His father gazed at the sheet of newspaper on his lap, saying nothing.

“It’s a really long walk.”

The backpack secured to his shoulders got heavier. He’d lugged it over three miles, half of that a jog. His legs were sore.

“So it wasn’t my fault.”

His father folded the paper and looked at him.

“I don’t want to hear excuses.”

Here it comes, Garren thought, and stared at the brown carpeting.

His father stood. “You hear me? Huh? Do you?”

“Yes,” he said, almost inaudible.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you. I’m not talking to hear myself talk. I’m talking to you. Look at me. Pay attention. Learn something. Learn from what I’m telling you.” The volume increased with each word.

Garren looked up. His father’s mouth had clamped shut and his lips were a frown as tight as a bent razor blade. Lines shot from the edges of his lips almost to the bottom of his jaw. Only years of being pissed could put lines likes that on a man’s face.

“Seventeen years old and you’re acting like a god damn kid. You know when you get off work. You have a schedule. Don’t you look at it? Huh? Did you look at your schedule?”

Garren nodded several times.

“What did it say?”

“Nine thirty.”

“Huh?”

“It said I got off at nine-thirty.”

“Nine-thirty, that’s what it said?”

“Yes.”

“What time are you supposed to be home?”

“Ten.”

“So make arrangement to get a ride home. What’s so hard about that?”

“I had arrangements – .”

“I don’t want to hear it. I want you home when I tell you to be home and I don’t want a load of bullshit coming out of your mouth. What do you have to say?”

“Nothing.”

His father’s eyes were a furious darkness.

“You got nothing to say. That’s what I thought. Why don’t you have something to say? Huh? Why is it you don’t you have one single thing to say?”

Garren shook his head.

“Let’s go.”

He followed his father to the kitchen and watched him open the door to the basement. For a moment he waited, glancing at the black rage of his father’s eyes.

“You get down those stairs. Right. Now.”

Wooden steps creaked under his weight. He descended into the basement and, before he reached the midway point, the door shut. A moment later, he heard the muffled sounds of a padlock being put in place and snapping shut. Garren put one hand against the wall and felt his way to the end of the stairs. He reached the floor, shed his backpack and put his back against the wall. Overhead, his father stomped back to the living room. The kitchen floor squeaked as his mother joined the man – the daddy.

“Fuck me.”

Then there was black silence. He slid down the wall, bending into a crouch and dug his fingers into his hair.

Basement restriction, as his father – the daddy – called it was not a new punishment. It happened on occasion. It was not a punishment that arose from bad behavior, but rather what mood the daddy was in. If he was content, no behavior mattered. If he was pissed about something, any wrongdoing could earn the basement.

Now, the only sound was his rapid breathing, each exhalation a wet hiss. He pulled the backpack close, found the zipper and slid it open. He pushed through its contents, one hand moving between the books and pens, rubbing past clean socks and underwear, until he found the flashlight. For a second, touching the cylindrical metal gave him relief. Then he worried he’d let the batteries run dry. He hadn’t stolen batteries for awhile and it was possible. He drew the flashlight, clamped the beam’s end against his palm and pressed the switch. The light turned his hand red. He rotated the head, narrowing the beam to a weak pinpoint of light.

If one of them left the living room, he’d hear their footsteps and be able to shut the light off before they reached the door. But it was best, he’d thought, to keep the light to a minimum. He didn’t know if it could filter through cracks in the ceiling. If it did, it would alert the daddy and that would be a shit-fest he didn’t need, not when the man was already half-insane. He’d lose the flashlight altogether, probably end up sitting in the basement with only his underwear for company. So he kept the light small and insignificant, thinking that as long as there was a grey shadow, basement restriction was bearable. He found his journal and a pen, then sat cross legged to use one knee as a desk. He stuck the flashlight under one arm and armed it toward the open pages. He wrote;

Hey, Son, what took you so long?

My ride flaked out, Dad.

What? Why didn’t you call me? I would’ve picked you up.

Ah, I didn’t wanna bother you, Dad.

That’s nonsense, Son. When a man works hard he deserves a ride home. Come on, let’s get you some dinner and talk about your day…

His journal had tons of these dialogues. They were like daydreams, but because he was a writer and recorded them he called them dayscenes. Writing them down settled him – sometimes. It was as if writing the imaginary world, the way things should have been, gave him something to hope for. He imagined that one day he’d have a son, a boy of his own, and that kid would never know basement restriction. That boy would never know how it felt to be raged at without mercy. He would know only the goodness of a doting father. Tonight’s writing didn’t settle him, though. He flipped a page.

Why the fuck do I allow this? I could grab him by his throat and throw him down the stairs and stomp on his head until I pulverized it under my shoes but instead I stand there shaking like a chstanding up for myself. I hate him. I will always ALWAYS remember how much I hate him. I will never forget this EVER and I will not pretend that I have. SHE might pretend that everything’s okay, that her worthless husband doesn’t enjoy killing me every chance he gets, but that’s why she’s wacko and I will not NOT NOT let that happen to me. I will leave this house and this town and I will never look back unless I’m laughing about it.ild, like he’s about to wail on me like when I was little, I stand there like I’m too scared to defend myself, to even say anything that remotely sounds like

The anger, sometimes it felt like a whole different person living inside him. He inhaled a deep breath and held it. His smoke battered lungs welcomed the air and tried to use it to expel some of the tar pooling in his chest. He fought the cough and held the breath inside as long as he could. Then exhaled in a whoosh and, a moment later, turned off the flashlight. He stuck his thumb between his teeth, hooked it over his lower lip and gnawed at the soft tissue below the cuticle. His bottom teeth slivered off a chunk of flesh. He tasted blood and jerked his hand out of his mouth.

“Fuck this.”

He wrapped his fingers around his bleeding thumb and squeezed them tight. There was no point in being mad. He kicked off his shoes with his feet, then peeled his socks off. Being mad accomplished nothing, he thought. It only weakened him and weakness made the basement worse. He slid further down the wall, stretching out so that when sleep came he’d be somewhat comfortable. He slid the flashlight next to his jeans, tucking it into hiding behind one leg.

Be calm, he told himself. Just be calm and focus on what can be. Imagine the dayscenes… He saw the son that lived in the future, a boy that looked as goofy as he did. He watched him move about a well lit house full of expensive furniture. The boy moved upstairs on strong, agile legs, and headed for the luxurious office where Garren wrote his books.

“Got a minute, Dad?”

“Sure do, kid, what’s on your mind?”

The boy consulted with him often. Stuck on a math problem? Dad’ll help. Need to know how to handle a jerk teacher at school? Dad’s there for counsel. Want to know how to talk to a real pretty girl? Dad’ll do the best that he can… The boy took having a good father for granted because he’d never lived in fear of a psychotic one. It was the way things should be.

“Well, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what to do with my life and I’m thinking I might become a writer, you know, like you.”

“The world needs more writers, Son! That’s a great goal to have!”

Then the scene shifted like the sudden cut in a movie. Now he saw…

Himself at his desk, an expansive space of varnished wood, writing, his hand directing an expensive black pen in frenetic movements. All his fans knew he handwrote everything. Each story, every novel, even the screenplay versions of his bestsellers, came to life as black ink on white notebook pages. His secretary would begin typing them in the morning. Then they’d go to the agent who’d gush over the prose. “Every time I think there’s no way you could write something better, you do!”

And he’d smile, a humble genius of a writer, and say, “It’s nothing really, just what I like to do. I’m just happy that so many people enjoy reading my work.” And then there’d be the book tour and night after night of sitting in bookstores and signing copies for the fans. They looked at him with such gratefulness, such appreciation for a signature. It made his head spin…

All these things and more, he knew, were possible. He realized he was crying and wiped the tears off his cheeks in hard swipes. He jammed his forefinger into his mouth and nibbled on the flesh beside his nail.

Once I escape the basement, he told himself, my life begins.

For now, there was no point being sad. Tears accomplished nothing. They only made him weaker. So instead of crying, he visualized his father’s skull exploding under his feet.

Next Chapter: