gone. He crushed the can and put it on the counter next to the fridge so he
would remember to hide it in the outside trashcan before his dad got home.
He reached for another. By the fourth beer, he was relaxed, at ease. He
stopped worrying about his dad and instead enjoyed this moment of privacy—
just him in his underwear with a cold beer in his hand. He felt so grown-up.
He felt like a man.
Standing in front of the fridge, downing the cold beer, he somehow
didn’t hear the car pull into the driveway. He missed the ruckus that was
made when his father knocked over the patio furniture on the front porch
as he stumbled towards the house. He didn’t notice the clacking of the screen
door slamming in the background or the heavy plodding of his father’s
footsteps. He was so focused on the beer that he had inadvertently tuned
out the rest of the world. And suddenly, without warning, he felt the force
of a strong smack across the back of his head. The beer flew from his hand,
spilling into the open fridge, and he lost his footing. His face collided with
the corner of the countertop and he tasted blood immediately. Sputtering,
he spit a bloodstained tooth onto the ground. Confused and disoriented, his
brain finally registered what was happening. His father had returned home
early from the bar that night—an unusual occurrence—and had caught him
drinking his beer.
As he struggled to his feet, he felt another sharp pain in his side as a
result of his father’s steel-toed work boots. As he crashed again to the floor, his
eyes stung with tears. But tonight he would not cry; tonight, he was a man.
He picked himself up off the kitchen floor to his feet and squared his shoulders,
facing his father. His face contorted with anger, his eyes blurry from tears, he
angrily dared his father to hit him again. Stunned, his father hesitated and
that is when he made his move. He lunged into his father’s torso, catching
him off guard just long enough to knock him to the ground. Straddling his
father, he grabbed his head and slammed it several times into the tiled floor.
He punched him in the face repeatedly, trying to inflict the same pain and
cruelty his father had unleashed on him for almost his entire life. He punched
and punched until his strength left him and until the floor—and his father’s
face—were a bloody mess.
Perhaps it was the amount of blood that jarred him to reality. His
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