"Son of a bitch!" The shout broke the still morning air, and startled some birds roosting in an apple tree nearby into flight. A tall, well-built man who looked to be in his late twenties stormed out of the large wooden shed he used for his workshop, wiping his grease covered hands on his beat-up blue jeans. "John!" he roared, "John! Get out here, NOW!" He stalked up to the door of what looked like a renovated two-story farmhouse, and yanked open the screen door; hard enough to pull it off its' hinges.
"Goddamn it! Now I've got another damn thing to fix!" he fumed, running his hand over the dark brown stubble covering his head. The inner door suddenly opened, and a slender blonde woman of about average height stood in the doorway, her otherwise attractive features twisted into a scowl. "Herbert Michael Warner, what are you bellowing about at this hour of the morning?" she demanded, nearly matching him for volume. Then she saw the screen door hanging from the frame. "What in the Good Lord's name did you do to the door?!" she shrieked.
"I'll fix it later, don't worry about it; right now I've gotta talk to our son." He said, trying to force his way around her into the house. "What do you mean, 'Don't worry about it?' it's hanging on by two screws!" she shouted, blue eyes flashing in her ire. "Mary, please, not now, I'm more than a little pissed off, and I don't need your bitching on top of everything else!" he shouted back, the force of his words shocking her enough that he could get through the door. "What did you just say?" she demanded.
He ignored her as he strode towards the stairs leading to the upper part of the house. "You best have yourself seated in the front pew at church come Sunday morning!" she angrily called after him. "Might even invite Reverend Barnes over too, wouldn't hurt you to curb that tongue for a day." She muttered to herself, shaking her head as she went back to the kitchen to finish making breakfast. A baby's wail echoed down the stairs, followed by the voice of a young girl calling for her momma. "Well that's just peachy, let's wake up the whole house before breakfast is done! Sometimes I think my daddy was right, I shoulda married Ashton Miller instead!" she fumed as she quickly went to check that nothing was burning before heading up the stairs herself.
"John! John!" Herbert continued to bellow as he stomped upstairs, oblivious to the crying of his two younger children. "John Marshall Robert, you get your ass out here right now!" he shouted as he started to bang on the door to a room a few feet down the hall to the right of the stairs. The door cracked open, and a small voice groggily asked, "What's wrong, Pa?"
"Downstairs. Now." His father growled. The door opened to reveal a boy of about six, dressed in cowboy themed PJs, blonde hair mussed from sleep, rubbing his eyes and yawning as he started to shuffle out of his room. "Double-time it!" His father snarled. "I don't…Pa, wha—" his son started to ask, but was cut off when his father grabbed him by the back of his shirt and started to haul him towards the stairs.
Just then, Mary reached the top step—breakfast would hold for five minutes while she took care of the younger children, who were both crying at this point. "What are you doing, you're going to hurt him!" she cried. "I'm not going to hurt him, not until after he tells me what the hell he thinks he was doing out in my shed!" he shouted as he pushed past her down the stairs, hauling his still only half-awake son by the collar. "Shut up!" he barked over his shoulder at the crying coming from the door to left of the stairs. Mary stood alone at the top step for a moment, wondering how much a divorce lawyer would cost, but the cries of her younger children pulled her out of her reverie. She sighed and said, "I'm coming babies, it's all right, the big dumb wolf went outside; if we're lucky he'll find a way to climb down a chimney and I won't need a lawyer after all."