“Well, I don’t care…and I’m not going to go get you something from Trinian’s. You think I’m the goddamn maid?”
Trinian’s was the butcher shop in town. Mike thought it was weird that mom was asking Vic to go shopping. Vic never did anything like that. He didn’t even buy his own beer. Besides…Mike had been rooting in the fridge earlier and there was plenty of food, including pork chops and ground turkey. Why was she making a fuss about something from Trinian’s?
“Well, you can starve for all I care.” There was a crashing sound and Mike had the feeling Vic had hurled something against the wall. He was a big one for throwing shit. “I’ll be downstairs. You know what you need to do, you silly bitch. When you come to your senses and want to feed, then send me a frigging postcard…otherwise you can kiss my white ass.”
There was the sound of fast, stomping footsteps and then the distinctive heavy slam of the cellar door. Mike gave it a few seconds and then pushed the door open and stepped quietly into the foyer.
Going into the living room was a major sin against Vic’s house rules, but this was driving him nuts. Every night all his mom did was sit in the living room. No lights, no TV. She seldom answered when he called to her, and sometimes she said nothing at all. It was weird and it scared Mike.
He lingered uncertainly in the doorway.
“Mom? Are you all right? Are you sick?”
No answer. He took a deep breath as he stepped into the living room, standing behind the couch, not ten feet from her. The fear of Vic’s wrath was a stink in the air. “How come you always sit in the dark like this?” When she didn’t answer he said, “Look, let me turn on the light…”
He heard her gasp. “No, Mike…please don’t…”
“Come on, Mom, you’re freaking me out here.”
She turned away from him just like she did the other day, clearly not wanting him to see her face, and Mike wondered just how badly had Vic beaten her that she hid her face for over a week?
“Mom…listen to me…if you’re sick or hurt we need to get you to a doctor.”
“Mike, if you love me, then please just leave me alone. Go to your room, go to Crow’s store…just leave me alone.”
Mike stood there, uncertain. “I heard you tell Vic that you were hungry. You should eat something.”
He saw her body cave over as if his words had hit her like a punch in the stomach.
“Why don’t I go get some Chinese? I’ll get the lemon chicken you like…”
“Go away!” she said, and this time there was an edge to her voice and and it scared Mike to hear it. It hardly sounded like her at all.
A month ago he would have turned and fled from the sound of that voice, but he wasn’t the same boy he had been a month ago. He wasn’t even the same boy he had been that morning. Now he took a half step forward, beginning the motion of raising his hand to touch her, to reassure her, to comfort her with his presence.
“Why, you disrespectful little shit!”
The voice slashed through the shadows and Mike turned to see Vic’s bulk filling the doorway behind him. He hadn’t heard Vic come upstairs, hadn’t heard the cellar door open, but there he was, all puffed up with righteous rage, standing wide-legged, fists on hips like a poster of Superman.
“Mom’s sick,” Mike said hastily.
“Sicker than you think, shithead. Get the hell out of there.”
But Mike held his ground. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that she’s a sloppy drunk and a lousy lay, and if she’d just take her medicine like she’s been told she wouldn’t be mooning around the house like she was at death’s door.” Vic chuckled and repeated, “Like she was at death’s door. Ha!”
Mike didn’t understand what was funny about that, and didn’t care. He stood his ground. “If she’s sick, then she ought to go to the doctor.”
Vic laughed again. “Well, I think it’s a little too late for the doctor, kiddo. Isn’t it, Lois honey? Too late for the ol’ doctor? Still, she knows where the medicine is, and she knows how to get it, but she won’t, ’cause she’s a stupid, stubborn old cow.”
“Don’t talk like that about my mother,” Mike warned.
Vic looked at Mike for a second, then burst out laughing. “I’ll say whatever I damn well want in my own house, and you, my little piece of shit, are just going to have to listen and like it.”
“I’m telling you—”
“No, shithead, I’m telling you! Since when did you grow a pair of balls? What, you think you’re standing up for your mother’s honor? That’s a frigging joke! I was screwing her long before your father rolled his car off Shandy’s Curve. I was sticking it to her day and night while your dumbass father was out working his balls off. Christ, what a shithead he was!”
“You’re a liar!” Mike felt his hands balling up into fists.
“Hell I am,” Vic snapped back. He was smiling, enjoying this. “And I’m here to tell you, boy, ol’ Lois there used to be a sweet piece, no matter what hole you’d take her from. And head? Damn, she could suck a golf ball through a twenty-foot garden hose. Jeeez-us! Man, those were some good times. Your dad’d call home to say he was working overtime and Lois here’d call me up not ten seconds later, talking all sweet about how she wants my cock in her and she can’t get enough of it and how she’s all wet and wants me over there. Back then, kid, I’d be over here in a hot minute. You’d be sucking your thumb upstairs and your mom’d be sucking my root down here.”
“Shut your lying mouth!”
“Hell, boy, I was taking her up the ass when the chief’s office called to say that John Sweeney was Spam in a can off Shandy’s Curve. You know what? We finished screwing before we went out to the accident. How’s that for good old mom?”
Mike took a definite step toward Vic, who didn’t budge.
Behind him, Mike could hear his mother quietly weeping.
Mike looked over his shoulder at her huddled form. He tried to muster anger at her, tried to conjure hate, but he couldn’t. Maybe there would be a time for that, but right now all he felt for her was sadness. Still, as he turned back to face Vic, a searing white-hot hatred sprang up in his heart, charring his soul.
“Yeah,” Vic said in an offhand way, “Lois’d ball anything with a dick back then.” Vic leaned forward and gave Mike a secretive leer. “How do you know John Sweeney was even your dad?”
“He was my father, asshole!” Mike snapped, though he knew it was a lie.
“John Sweeney was a useless piece of shit who did the whole world a favor by rolling his car down the hill. Kid, if I was you I’d be embarrassed to tell anyone that I was even related to that loser, let alone scream that he’s your father.” He gave Mike a knowing sneer. “You couldn’t begin to understand who your father is. Or what he is! You should be ashamed of yourself, you little faggot, for being such a weak, miserable piece of crap, when your father is—”
He never finished his sentence because against all logic and expectation Mike Sweeney hit him so fast and hard that Vic never saw it coming. It caught Vic in the mouth and ground his inner lips against the teeth of his laughing mouth and knocked him back three steps so that he slammed against the living room doorway. Vic touched his mouth and looked at the hot blood on his fingertips.
For a moment he stood there and stared through shocked eyes at Mike. The boy’s chest heaved, hands clenching and unclenching, and there was a look of mingled fury and surprise in his eyes.
“Oh, God, Mike…no!” his mother cried from the shadows.
Slowly Vic’s eyes rose from his bloodstained fingers to stare at Mike, and Mike swore he could see a crimson veil of fury fall over his stepfather’s gaze.