Joey's question echoed in his head. 'What does he do to you?' It seemed so raw, this question. He was so passive in the whole structure of it. Things being done to him. And that's how it was. He had no say. He had no way to stop it if he was there, like when his dad cornered him in some room and started in. If he took the belt from the loops with sickening speed and brought it down. The leather of that belt felt like it bit him, like some animal with sharp teeth.
It had been a secret for so long, but that secret was coming out. He couldn't stop it. Angela seeing the bruises that he usually hid so well. Sean and Emma coming to the conclusion that he was being beaten. He hadn't said it, but there were clues. Sean hearing the pounding and the yelling over the phone, and hearing the panic in his voice. And the train barreling down at him and it could have blessedly ended it all if Sean hadn't torn him away.
"He hits you, doesn't he?" Joey said, his voice this low kind of scratched whisper. Joey spoke it because he couldn't, but he could agree that that was true.
"Yeah, he does," he said, but there were other things. Other things Joey couldn't guess and he couldn't admit, things that he had buried so deep inside that he hardly remembered them.
The tears started, and he hadn't really cried for so long. But it had just been the longest day, one he would have been happier to have end in the morgue. When you're dead you don't feel pain and that was all he felt. That was all he had felt for so long. Fear and pain.
He cringed at the feeling of Joey's arms around him, the strong embrace making every nerve ending try to shrivel away. But at the same time he knew it was innocent, protective. So he brought up his arms and hands in a clumsy attempt to hug him back, every muscle tightened. He patted Joey's back and felt the tightening of the hug and he kind of shut down. It was overload, people touching him.
At last Joey let him go and Craig was still crying, his body shaking. Salvation seemed to almost glitter on the distant horizon. Joey knew his father hit him and so maybe Joey wouldn't make him go back. He didn't know any other things but he didn't have to. The hitting and beating were enough. And it felt so good to Craig to be let go, to not be touched or embraced or hit or kicked. Every touch was the same.
Dropping Sean off, dropping Emma off, and at Joey's house they were alone. Craig's eyes were feverish and bright with fear. What if Joey called his dad anyway? What if he sent him away to one of those group homes for fucked up kids with fucked up families? Those could be worse than prison, Craig had heard.
"Uh, can I stay here?" Craig said, and the silence seemed to be something real around them, smothering them. Joey nodded, said 'of course,' and Craig let out his pent up breath.
"Craig," Joey said, and the concern and worry were nearly etched onto his face, and Craig sat on the couch and looked down, looked at the square of wooden floor between his sneakers.
"Does your father, does he, has he done anything else?" He could feel far away. He could feel this odd disconnection to where he was. Numbness. He felt the back of his teeth with his tongue. The other things his father had done shimmered far away, at the edges of memory, where the subconscious borders on the conscious, like where the ocean meets the edge of land. He shook his head.
"No," The word was barely a word at all, hardly heard. Joey had the wrinkled forehead and lined face of a much older man. Craig closed his eyes and felt the rough material of the couch with the palms of his hands. He was away. He felt it. Away for good. He'd escaped. He'd escaped his father and he'd never go back.
"Would you tell me?" Joey said, and Craig looked at him, not comprehending. Tell him what? He didn't know. Hadn't been really following along, so he told him what he thought he wanted to hear.
"Yeah," Agree. It's all you can do sometimes. Just to pacify. It was important. Sometimes it stopped you from getting so hurt, if you agreed, if you just laid there and didn't fight back. If you closed your eyes and went somewhere else.