Joey talked to his dad. He felt cold when Joey pulled him aside and told him his dad had gone to the car lot.
"Wait. You talked to him?" he had said, and besides feeling cold he felt far away. Joey talked to his dad. His dad was going to fucking kill him. Joey answered, said something, but he could hardly listen. Could hardly hear it. He'd heard all he had needed to hear.
So he had left the party, and he felt the puzzled looks that followed him, felt Emma and Manny's non-understanding. What was the big deal? Nothing, if you had cool parents like Emma's or clueless parents like Manny's or if his dad was Joey, like Angela. But he wasn't like them. He wasn't like Angela. His parent he shared with her was dead. His cool, understanding, reasonable parent was dead. All he had was his dad.
He stood at the edge of the lawn for a long time, looking up at that house. That house where he'd been so hurt so many times and it was coming again, he could feel it. He felt it in his bone marrow. His dad had talked to Joey, and what had Joey told him? That he'd seen him with Angela? That he'd seen him at the cemetery? Fucking traitor Joey, although he knew it wasn't Joey's fault. When his mom was alive and his dad had just started to beat the shit out of him he'd hid it. He'd acted cheerful around his mom and Joey and they never suspected, never saw any bruises. Never saw any clues. It wasn't Joey's fault.
Still, he didn't want to go in there. Didn't want to face it, his dad, anything. He could run away. The thought came to him often, like the suicide thought but more hopeful. He could go to British Columbia, to Nova Scotia, to New York. To anywhere and blend in, faceless and nameless.
The cold feeling was being replaced by anger, like a boiling pot of water, the bubbles rising to the surface and breaking open in steam. The far away feeling was going away. He was right here. He clenched his hands into fists and clenched his teeth and felt the anger rising by degrees. How could his father, how could he treat him like that? It wasn't fair, it wasn't, wasn't…he ran out of words for it in his own head. He hated him.
He took a deep breath, shifted his bag and camera over his shoulder. He wouldn't take it anymore. Fuck him. He wouldn't cower and beg while his dad strapped him and hit him and kicked him. He was done with that. So he trotted toward the house, ready for battle. They'd have it out.
"Dad?" He hated himself for the fear he heard in his voice, still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. How many times did he have to be beaten for it to sink in that his father wasn't going to change? 10, 20, a hundred? What was his limit? How many times did he have to stare in the mirror in disbelief at the colorful array of bruises on his pale skin?
No answer but he saw him sitting at the kitchen table with his hands together in front of him, some twisted prayer. Now the fear and anger were equal in him, like identical twins holding hands. You could hardly tell them apart.
"Uh, dad? I'm gonna go down to my dark room," He knew he was avoiding confrontation. Maybe it would be okay. Maybe he'd just give him the silent treatment or some sort of lecture and that would be that-sucked in breath disrupted that train of thought. The darkroom was trashed.
Now the anger rose up, huge and terrible like a giant unfolding itself to full height. So this is what he'd done? Destroyed all of this that he'd worked so hard on? That he'd treasured?
"Looking for something?" his father said, and Craig hadn't even heard him come down the stairs he'd been so mad. The anger was on his dad's face, the narrowed eyes behind the black framed glasses. He hit him with his photo album, the one of him and Joey and Angela and his mom's gravestone. It was bent and twisted and torn but somehow hanging together. He brought it up and hit him again with it and Craig flinched, pulled away even though it didn't really hurt.
"What the hell did you do, dad?" Craig said, the words exploding out of him and he rushed at his father, shoved him with all his might. His father staggered backwards, only surprise on his face for the moment. And then he realized that his son had shoved him and the anger filled in his face so suddenly and completely that Craig felt an almost paralyzing fear. What would he do to him now?
He threw the photo album to the floor and came at him, caught his wrists and shoved him back against the black metal shelves that had once housed all of his photo paraphernalia. Craig felt the metal cut into his back and then he was shoved back again, his head hitting one of the metal bars and he blacked out, sunk down into a black nothingness.