The Birth of Bane (9 page)

(Little did I
know it would be Roxanna who’d play a critical role in what was in
store for my family in the months to come.)

At the time,
though, she was of little consequence. Thus, I banished her from
conscious thought forthwith.

Instead, I sat
on my bed, thinking of Myra, knowing somewhere in the middle of
myself what I felt for her was already more mature, more
real
, than anything my father would have the capacity to
experience. Here we were, mere teenagers, in the wash of hormones,
where life could be glorious and then turn tragic at the drop of a
dime, and still… we were better equipped.

Over the years,
I’ve come to realize my father never truly got over the death of
his mother. When she died, something in him had stalled, as though
he was stuck on a sandbar in the ocean of life. Nothing
died
per se, as with many other people. No, his yearning, his
willingness to learn, to improve himself, merely quit on him. One
can mourn something that has died, and then accept it and move on.
Being stuck is not the same. His whole life, my dad was stuck in
the past, stuck over the fact he’d grown-up poor, stuck with
childhood notions of what it was to be a man. He couldn’t reconcile
the fact his parents had divorced, and was further confused by the
eventual promiscuity of his mother. Her “sanctity”, in his mind,
was marred each time she took a new lover to her bed.
Inadvertently, and unbeknownst to him, his anger grew, festered,
turning into something smacking of rot and decay. Because parents
weren’t as open with their children back then as they are now, or
when I was younger, his world continued to backslide even further
into the dregs of his ever hardening heart. He had only the
leave-takings of a world he couldn’t hope to comprehend without
help.

Then, his mother
passed away, and that’s when the guilt set in. He felt guilty
thinking she was a whore. He felt guilty over the times he’d
spurned her affection, because of the men she had around. Maybe,
somewhere deep, he felt responsible for her death. Forget the
cancer, forget her fast life-style. Something inside turned black
with her dying. It was something crucial.

Yeah, he
might’ve died an adult, but he was never more than an
eight-year-old child in his head.

A vindictive,
self-centered, eight-year-old child
, I thought.
Don’t get it
twisted.

As if to stress
the point I was trying to make in my head. I heard something
fragile break, could imagine hundreds of shards scattering across
one of the rooms downstairs. The asshole was throwing things
again.

I shook my head
ruefully, running a hand through my short hair.
This fucking guy…

I would’ve
continued with the thought, but the sound of my door opening and
closing roused me from my musings. I glanced up and saw Valerie
stride in, tears on her cheeks, apprehension and dismay written
within.

I
stood.

She came to me
faster than I could react and did something she hadn’t done in
years, not since we were little kids, helpless against the nasty
barrage coming from my father’s mouth. Her arms were around me in
less than a second, hugging me fiercely. Her exhalations were warm
against my chest. “I forgot what it was like, Jer,” she sobbed into
me. “I forgot what it was like.”

What could I
say? I agreed. It had been a wonderful time without my father
around. We’d moved into a new house, a big home, hoping to turn
over a new leaf, and maybe we had. Maybe that was why it felt like
we were taking two steps back the moment my dad had come home. He
was pulling us back into the morass of egocentricity, his warped
sense of the world, his animosity. How could I have forgotten so
quickly?

My arms came up
and I held my sister like I hadn’t for more than eight years,
feeling my own eyes well. Why did
he
have to be such a dick?
Why couldn’t he be a normal dad, like those so many of my friends
had? Why did we get stuck with him? How was it fair, to any of us,
especially my mother? Didn’t we – she – us – deserve something
better?
Didn’t we?!?

I guided Valerie
over to the edge of my bed and together we sat, her head still on
my shoulder.

“
I hate him,”
she muttered pitifully.

“
So do I, Val.
So do I.”

Suddenly there
was an escalation of noise reverberating through the walls,
screaming and wailing at a much higher pitch than I was used to
hearing issue forth from my father. My body must’ve gone rigid,
because Valerie pulled away from me, her eyes quizzical.

It wasn’t my
father yelling anymore.

It was my
mother, and she was furious.

We heard
crashing and thudding. We were certain huge items were being thrown
about. The entire house was shaking.

All at once, a
sick feeling lurched in my gut. I tasted sour bile at the back of
my throat.

Where was
Eli?

I breathed. My
heart threatened to break through my ribcage.

“
Valerie,
Elijah’s in his room, right?”

She stared back,
uncertainty and dread filling her eyes as if a levy had broken
behind them. “I d-d-don’t know.”

I stood in one
swift motion. “What do you mean, you don’t know? Was he downstairs
with you or not?” I knew my tone was too harsh, but I wasn’t
thinking about her feelings at the moment.

“
I don’t know,
Jerry!” She had replied just as fiercely, but I could tell she knew
where I was going with this. “You don’t think…?” she began to ask,
but her voice strangled into silence.

This had
happened before.

“
I don’t
‘think’
, Val. I
know
.”

“
Fuck!” It was a
vehement burst of the word.

I made for the
door, but never made it.

Eli came in
holding his cheek, crying bitterly.

Even from where
I stood, I could tell my father had slapped him hard across the
face. There was a hand print the size of mine poking out on all
sides, underneath his six-year-old palm.

“
Did that
sonofabitch hit you, Elijah?” asked my sister, leaping from my bed,
scooting around me to hold him by the shoulders.

He
nodded.

“
Why?” she
asked.

It was a moot
question. It had happened before.

“
Because mommy
made him mad,” he retorted in a small voice, though he didn’t have
to.

Then, he did
something I never would’ve expected him to do at a time like this.
He smiled.

“
But, she made
him leave.”

“
What?”

Whether it was
me or Valerie, neither of us would never know.

Our amazement
was blinding. My mother had never ever stood up to him before. What
had changed? What was so different now?

My baby brother
had been nodding the entire time. “She threw
everything
at
him.”

Who or what had
lit a fire under my mom’s ass?

We brought Eli
to my bed and the three us sat, holding hands, sharing half-smiles
drenched in comfort. It was the first time we were able to express
our love for one another without speaking.

It was
incredible.

And yet, what
had changed?

It was almost an
hour later. After my mother had cleaned up and had come up to
“check on us”, she said.

But, I knew she
was there to make sure Eli was ok.

She smiled
uneasily, like testing new waters. “He’s gone,” she mumbled, “for
now.”

“
I hope he stays
away forever,” growled my sister.

My
m
om chuckled thoughtfully. It
was one of those prayer-like musings of not-quite-mirth.

Eli had scooted
onto her lap, snuggling.

I knew she had
been wishing for the very same thing.

Later, when
everyone was asleep, Elijah next to me in my bed, the answer to my
question came…

…
The
House.

*****

The resounding
thud rattled the house to such a degree, I was awake in less than a
second. Instinctively, I reached out for Elijah, but his hand found
mine before I’d had neither hide nor hair of where he was in the
dark.

The screams
brought me from the bed and out the door in a flash, with only
cursory glance back at my little brother, looking tiny upon my
queen-sized bed.

“
Eli, stay put!”
was all I said, and I was gone.

By the time I
had reached the kitchen, my mother and Valerie were already there,
frowning hard at the person sprawled about the floor, who was
pointing, with wide-eyed abandon, at the microwave.

“
It beeped at
me! All on its’ own it fucking beeped at me!” screeched my
dad.

I don’t think
I’d ever seen him that frightened before.

“
Did you hear
me? They motherfucken microwave beeped at me. Right when I walked
passed, the light came on and it beeped, over and over!” I could
tell he thought what he’d experienced was real, but who was to say
it was based in reality.

“
Go to bed.
You’re drunk out of your mind,” explained my mother and made to
return to her bedroom, then stopped. “I made up one of the guest
bedrooms upstairs, so you can sleep it off up there.”

I saw my
father’s face harden. “The fuck I will.”

My Mom snorted.
“Fine, then I will.”

Before any of us
could move, she walked through us and up the stairs.

My
d
ad watched her with rabid
fascination. I could tell he was asking the same questions we’d
been asking hours earlier.

I wheezed air
through my lips, sharing an “oh well” look with my
sister.

She shrugged and
followed my mom.

I left him there
on the ground to find sleep, all by his lonesome, on the first
floor of the house.

We didn’t even
want to sleep near him anymore.

~~~~~~~<<<
ᴥ
>>>~~~~~~~

Chapter Six:
Getting Settled

Time passed with
everyone ignoring what had happened days before. It was a thing we
all did back then. Not particularly healthy, but quite possibly
necessary. I think we used silence as a way to keep my father at
arm’s length. The less we said around him the better. The only
downside was we often applied the same attitude toward each other
as if there was some hidden blame game between us, though the only
person at fault was Leonard Favor. It had nothing to do with us and
yet, the very fact that Eli got hit for no reason or my mother got
yelled at and pushed around, was somehow all of our faults, because
we never did anything about it.

At least, this
was the case until my mom had finally stood up to my dad during
their first bad argument at the new house.

My father
continued his routine – go to work early, get home late, lipstick
in weird places, Roxanna calling on the phone, mostly drunk
whenever he was around us. I can’t really say the situation was
worse with him. He’d always been this way. I believe it had
something to do with our address that made it grate on us more than
it had when he’d lived off Figueroa Street. Or maybe, the
excitement of living somewhere new had jarred us from that mold of
old, made my father’s antics less central to the goings-on of the
family and gave us something else to consider.

My
m
om, as our time at Lincoln
Drive matured, seemed less inclined to care about the
obvious.

We all knew good
ole’ Lenny was having an affair. The signs were so blatant, I think
even Elijah knew there was another “lady” kissing dad all the
time.

But to me, it
didn’t seem to factor much in her life. My mother was content to
care for the house as she began to entertain contractors for the
various renovations she had brewing in her mind. It was as though a
whole other side of her blossomed into existence. She had something
more important to deal with, something that wouldn’t berate her or
try and bulldoze her. She could put in her time, her sweat and her
enthusiasm and not be judged. There was no hovering despot when it
came to the house. There was no consequence if she made a mistake.
It was hers to own and she dealt with it the way she saw fit. Plus,
every time she did something, the end result was always better than
when she’d begun. There was no circling back, there was no
rehashing the same old, worn out topics. The house improved.
Everything looked better. And, whether Leonard realized it or not,
the world he came home to every night, after a few hours of boning
Roxanna, was more and more a reflection of my mother. The center of
the universe no longer revolved around him. Slowly, methodically,
my mom was building something special for the rest of
us.