My father shook his head. "We'll eat out."
I'd been trying to determine, through subtle questioning, whether or not his new girlfriend lived with him, and I gath-ered that she did. I was surprised. My father had always been ultraconservative, the most proper of men, and I could not imagine him lowering his concrete moral standards enough to live with a woman outside of wedlock.
He must really love her a lot, I thought.
The house looked the same as always. The lawn was immaculately manicured, the trim on the house recently painted. Even the hose was curled into a neat circle. "The place looks good," I said.
He smiled at me. "I try my best."
We got out of the car, leaving the luggage in the trunk for later. My father found the house key on his ring and unlocked the front door, stepping aside to let me in first.
The inside of the house was demolished.
I stared in shock. Both the couch and the loveseat were overturned in the middle of the living room, their upholstery torn and ripped, stuffing leaking out. Scattered about were the broken pieces of our old dining room chairs and fragments of the dining room table. The china cabinet and its contents were heaped in a pile in the corner of the room. The walls were bare and covered with crayon scribbles. The living room rug, the rug that had been tough enough to withstand even my Tonka attacks and my G.I. Joe invasions, was a tatter of unraveled threads. Through the doorway of the kitchen, I could see smeared piles of food and bent food containers on the broken tile.
Everything was covered with a dusty white powder.
I whirled around to see my father's reaction. He was smiling happily, as if he did not see the disaster in front of him, as if he were viewing paradise itself. "How does it feel to be home again?" he asked.
There was the sound of something shattering in the back of the house, and a second later a naked boy came bounding into the living room on all fours. He was brown with filth and he smelled horrible. His hair was matted with grime, and his too-large teeth were a moldy green. He could not have been more than ten or eleven. He hopped onto the remains of the china cabinet and grunted wildly, snorting through his nose.
"There you are, my love," I heard my father say behind me, and I felt a sickening feeling of disgusted horror in the pit of my stomach. "I want you to meet David."
With an animal-like howl, the little boy bounded toward us. My father stepped forward and pulled the youth to his feet, hugging him to himself. He kissed the dirty child full on the lips. With fast and furious fingers, the boy tried to unbuckle my father's belt and pull down his pants. My father laughingly pushed him away. "Now now," he said.
The boy turned to look at me, and I could see that he had an erection.
My father smiled proudly at me. "Son," he said, "I want you to meet your future stepmother."
The filthy boy looked up at me and grinned. I could see that his mossy teeth had been filed into tiny points. He howled crazily.
I don't know what happened next. I guess I was in shock. I don't think I really blacked out, but the next thing I remember was walking down Lakewood Boulevard toward the ocean. It was dark out, night, and I was several miles away from home, so I had obviously been walking for quite a while.
I was alone.
I didn't know what I was going to do. My father had obviously gone totally insane. I looked up into the night sky, but the lights of Long Beach were bright and I could see very few stars. I wondered what my mother would say if she could see what was happening. I could not imagine my mother's reaction to this situation. It was totally unlike anything she had ever encountered in her life.
"Why did you have to die?" I whispered aloud.
My father would have to be put away, I realized. He would have to be committed. What he was doing was illegal, as well, and there would probably be criminal charges filed against him.
There would doubtless be a lot of publicity.
I thought of all the times my father had let me help him in his garage workshop, giving me imaginary chores to perform while he himself did the real work. He looked tall to me then, and invincible—the model man whose respect I so desperately craved and tried to earn. The man I wanted to be.
And then I saw him standing there in his immaculate suit, amongst the shambles of our living room, as a filthy wild child tried desperately to pull down his pants.
I started to cry.
I sat down on the curb and let the tears come, giving my emotions free reign, and soon I was sobbing uncontrollably, sobbing not only for the loss of my mother, but also for the loss of my father.
Ten minutes later, I walked toward home. I would not call the police, I decided. I could not do that to my father. We would handle this crisis on our own. It was a family matter, and it would be settled within the family.
The outside of the house looked deceptively calm. Everything was neat and ordered, in its proper place, just as it had always been. Inside, I knew, chaos reigned. Insanity prevailed.
The front door was unlocked. I pushed it open and walked inside. My father was just putting on his shirt. His pants were still unbuckled. Hopping around the room, laughing crazily, was the boy. The child looked up at me with unreadable gray eyes and suddenly ran forward on two legs, carrying something in his hands. Grinning up at me, he presented his offering.
It was a framed picture of my parents, smeared with shit.
I kicked the little bastard as hard as I could in the stomach, sending him flying. His grinning mouth contracted instantly into an open O of pain, and I was gratified to hear him scream.
"That's no way to treat your new mother," my father said.
I ran forward and kicked the kid again. Hard. He went down, and the heel of my shoe connected with his dirty head. Blood poured freely down his brown skin from a large cut above his scalp line.
"That's enough!" my father screamed, but it was not enough. I was not through. I pulled the kid up by his hair and punched him full in the face, feeling his nose collapse under my knuckles.
And then my father's strong hands were pulling me away. I kicked and screamed and lashed out at him, but he was stronger than I was.
I was knocked unconscious.
When I came to, I was lying in a bed, my arms and legs tied to the four posts with a thick coarse twine. My father was seated in a chair next to me, a concerned expression on his face, pressing a cold compress against my forehead. He was talking in a soothing voice—more to himself than me, I think—and I listened to him silently.
"... more than I loved your mother, but just as much I think. I can't help myself. I was lost when your mother died, lost, and I didn't know what to do with myself. I haven't felt this way in years. I'm learning how to feel again ..."
There was a series of inarticulate howls from the front of the house. My father's face brightened. "In here!" he called.
The boy bounded into the room, and a hideous stench assaulted my nostrils. I strained against my bonds, but the twine held tight. The child looked up at me. A crust of dried blood covered the left half of his face where my foot had connected with his head, and twin rivulets of hardened blood protruded from the pulp of his broken nose. He smiled at me and I saw again his pointed teeth, covered with greenish tartar.
My father drew the boy to him and kissed him on the lips, long and hard and lovingly.
"Father," I pleaded, almost crying. "Dad."
I could not recall ever having seen my parents kiss.
The boy moved forward, whispered something in my father's ear, and glanced furtively toward me. My father stood up and drew the compress from my forehead. "I'll see you in a while," he told me. I watched him step out of the room and close the door behind him.