Joey's words kept echoing back to him as he rolled the golf ball from one hand to the other, kind of liking the sound it made on the table, a funny hollow sound. "Stay away from her, just like your dad said," was what Joey had said. Stay away from her. His own sister. It sucked. He rolled the ball, listening to the hollow sound. Why should he expect anything else? Things sucked. His mother was dead. His father, well, his father would, would…he could barely think it. Craig took a deep breath and felt himself giving up. Obviously there was no use. No matter what he did it turned to shit. Rolling the ball back and forth, the world just that hollow sound.
The sound of the door opening didn't make him stop rolling the ball back and forth. He gazed at the golf club that was on the table in front of him. In its shiny handle he could see little slices of the room reflecting back at him. He knew his dad was home and he didn't care. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered.
"Hey, kiddo, you're home early," his dad said, coming toward him, setting his stuff down, picking up the golf club.
"Anything wrong?" his dad said, like he was some normal dad who gave a shit. Craig smiled, thinking how it was ironic. He couldn't be out late, he couldn't come home early. He couldn't do anything.
"I had a long day," Craig said without turning around.
"Don't worry about it," his dad said, and Craig could hear him putting stuff down and away in the kitchen, "I rented some videos, we'll have Chinese food. Sound good?"
"Yeah," Craig could feel his heart aching for this picture his dad was painting. Videos and take-out food, a relaxing night. But there really was no such thing as a relaxing night, not lately. Things were worse now.
"Did you get the camera?" his dad said, and Craig could feel the wad of hundred dollar bills in his pocket. He could feel the ache from the bruises and he remembered the feeling of being lifted off the cellar floor, his face only inches from his father's face for a second.
"Actually, the one I really wanted cost about a hundred dollars more," Craig said, turning around to deliver his lie convincingly. Eye contact was the key to lying.
"Don't worry about it, your father is an outstanding haggler. We'll go there together tomorrow night. Dinner out,"
Craig swallowed hard and turned back around. That wasn't what he wanted. He wanted the extra hundred bucks so he could run, so he could take a bus to somewhere far, British Columbia or the Yukon or Nova Scotia. He wanted to be away. He didn't care about the camera. Not anymore. Then the phone rang.
Before his dad picked it up he knew it was Joey. Joey was calling to tell his father what he'd been doing, that he'd tried to take Angela away. That was bad. He wasn't supposed to be seeing her. His dad had told him that, he told him not to see her or Joey.
His intuition was confirmed. He heard his dad say Joey's name. He felt his breathing start to speed up, felt almost dizzy. He was going to get beat. Right now.
He stood up, not sure where he was going to go. He could go to his room, he could bolt for the front door. He licked his lips and tried to decide. His dad, standing in the kitchen, golf club in his hand, phone cradled between his shoulder and his ear, his dad was effectively blocking both exits.
The golf club was looking more and more like a weapon, especially the way his dad was holding it, tapping it lightly into one palm.
"Joey, I'll call you back," his dad said, and he didn't just hang up the phone. He threw it so it slammed into the kitchen wall and the noise made Craig jump. He wanted to try and run past his father but he wasn't sure if he could make it.
"Craig," his name said in that deadly way, no inflection. Craig focused on the golf club, the way the lights in the room shone off the handle, the heavy weight of the club. He watched it as his dad tapped it against his palm, the speed of the tapping increasing, and he was blocking both means of escape. He could see the stairs in the distance, saw how they curved in their thick rose colored carpet up to his room.
"Uh, dad…" No breath for his words, no time to think of an appropriate lie, a lie that would save him. He couldn't run past him so he backed up slowly as his father advanced.
His father's eyes were blazing at him, and even the dark framed glasses couldn't obscure it. Craig felt like all the oxygen had left the room and he was trying to breath nitrogen. He swallowed, his throat felt dry and he felt that glassy fear when a beating was eminent but hadn't yet begun. The thoughts went through his head fast. How bad would it be? When would it be over? Could he take it again?
His father wasn't speaking either, but not from fear. Rage. Craig could see the rage in his eyes, felt it focused and directed at him, saw the ever increasing speed of the golf club tapping, tapping. He felt the smooth wall at his back, against his palms. No where to go. His muscles tensed in anticipation. No where to go.
He'd been beaten with objects before. The usual object was the belt. Not much hurt worse. The leather strap would arc high and slam down onto his back, his butt, his shoulders. Sometimes it was hard enough to leave welts. The stinging pain of that always made him cry, and that made him angry. But he stared at the golf club, stared at that unseeing, insane look in his father's eyes.
"Dad…" he tried, not sure if he meant to apologize or beg, not sure either would work, pretty sure neither would work. It had never worked in the past. His father took a step toward him and now the tapping of the golf club stopped, and he looked at it suddenly stilled in his father's hand, and he watched as he wrapped his other hand around the handle.
"D-don't, don't hit me-"
When the blow came somehow it surprised him. He was slammed with it, and the metal of the golf club was worse than the leather of the belt. The blow, high near his shoulder, knocked him to the ground and instinctively he covered his face. It was never just one hit with his father, or one kick, or one punch or one strap. He was so tense and he cried out when the second and third blows landed on his back and his legs.
He could hear his father saying something but he wasn't making all of it out. He heard the word ungrateful and bastard and son of a bitch.
"Dad, I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Stop, please!" Yelling screaming begging him to stop, and Craig felt the tears coursing down his cheeks and he felt the golf club as it slammed into him and he slumped against the wall, the pain too much to even feel anymore.