"Pick up that mess, Cooper!" my father shouted as a toy soldier snapped beneath his foot.
"Yes sir," I replied.
I quickly scooped my green soldiers away from my father's feet and horded them into a pile. I leaned over them protectively as I snapped up the ones I missed. Dad picked up the one under his foot. It was now in two pieces. Broken at the waist. It was a commander, his binoculars still held firmly to his eyes despite his missing legs. Another casualty of war to add to my collection. Dad hurled it at the wall furiously, and I backed up on the floor against my bed, hauling my soldiers with me.
"I've told you to keep this room tidy!!!"
I cringed back, I'm sure of it. I must have always looked so pathetic to my father. I always cowered when he raised his voice. Even when it wasn't his voice doing the shouting. When Rex would bark, I would jump and cover my ears. I hated sudden noises. I'm not sure why I was so scared or timid of everything. Sometimes I would silently blame dad for making me that way... But he hated me for being so timid, I'm sure. So it can't have been that. There was something wrong with me when I was little, and I deserved what he gave me.
"Sorry, sir," I replied nervously, only to wish I had never said a thing.
"You're ALWAYS sorry!" he spat back at me. "Sitting in your room, playing with your damn toys!"
I remained silent and tried to avoid looking at him. I just wanted him to go. Leave me in my room, as I was before he stormed in after the argument with mom. I wished I could have hidden under the bed, or runaway rather than have him shout. I could hear him breathing quickly, and could see his feet shifting with frustration as he looked angrily around my room.
"Damn you Cooper, look at me when I'm talking to you!" he growled. I didn't like to look at him when he was angry. It scared me a lot. But I knew better than to disobey him.
"Why don't you get outside and be like a normal kid?! Make some friends and go pig hunting! Come to work with me and keep me company! Why?! What's wrong with you? Why wont you do anything?"
My mind cut off at that point. Everything else he shouted I had heard dozens of times before. His words always cut into me the same savage way he skinned that bush pig the time he took me hunting with Rex. I had asked him not to kill it, but he had looked at me like how stupid I must have sounded and put it out of it's misery before opening the trap. He didn't listen to me, because I only ever said weak things.
I had refused to go hunting with him after that. It didn't matter, because he took me again anyway, and I cried all the way out into the country. I begged him to take me back home and he stopped the car suddenly on the side of the road. He smacked me enough times for me to hold back my tears for fear of being hit even harder. It hurt, but it worked.
Dad hadn't asked me to come with him ever since that trip. I think even he could see how sick I had made myself. He did make me come to work with him though. I sat in the truck all day long while he worked hard to make money to pay for our food. I understood that, but it always made me upset when he would tell me off for letting mom buy me toy soldiers. He said it was a waste and that I should be going hunting with him and join the boy scouts so that I could be a man.
Even though sometimes it seemed like he didn't care about me, I know he did. He wanted me to stop being the little coward. I wanted to stop too.
"Are you listening to me, Cooper?" he shouted.
Dad loomed over me and I snapped out of my thoughts, instinctively raising an arm above my face. He paused there, haunched over as though he was going to strike me. I knew he could see my arm shaking. I must have appeared a spineless wretch.
He was thinking too. I know it, because neither of us moved for a couple minutes. We were like statues. At least he was. I was trembling and fighting back tears. The only times he had ever hit me, were for crying. I had become very good at stopping myself, but it felt painful. Like I had something uncomfortable welled up inside my chest. I often felt very sick because of it. Sometimes so sick that I couldn't bare to go to school. But he never believed me.
Dad left me without a word. Though the door slammed shut and it made me jump. A tear slipped down my cheek and I hated myself for it. I wish I didn't let him get to me the way he did. I was glad he had gone for now, but it was never over. The next morning I woke up to find all my soldiers gone! They had been there before I fell asleep, but now had they were taken. He never told me what happened to them. I had asked both my parents, but mom told me they were gone and that was the end of it. I knew dad had thrown them away. I searched every trashcan down the street, looking for them. I never found them.
That night dad was shouting for mom to shut Una up. She was up stairs in her cradle, crying as usual. I guess I must have been really angry, because when dad told me he was going hunting, I told him I was coming with him. I had said it loud and with confidence. Even to this day I seldom raise my voice, but neither my parents had ever heard me sound so resolute. The memory is very clear to me, I guess it was due to his reaction.
"Why do you want to come, you little runt? Going to cry your way there again?!"
I was surprised he had responded as he did. It made me angrier. I never told him why I wanted to come with him, I just repeated myself. In fact, I can't remember ever being angrier with dad than I was that night.
He woke me up the next morning by throwing my boots onto my bed and calling for me to get my ass into the truck. I didn't waste time, and I packed myself some sandwiches, and crammed a chocolate bar in my pocket. We set off before dawn, leaving mom and Una behind. Mom didn't do things with dad. He often shouted at her and told her it was her fault for the way I was. It upset me. Maybe I was selfish, but my mother always looked out for me and treated me kind.
I didn't talk to dad on the journey. He said a few things, but I don't think it mattered to him if I spoke or not. It was just over two hours drive and soon enough we were in the wilderness and unloading the gear. I know dad looked at me a few times while I helped unload and check everything. I was pleased because I knew he must have found it strange seeing me taking initiative. I did it all the time, it was just the first time in my life that he had seemed to notice.
I had always wanted to make him proud of me. Then I might escape his criticsms and his biting sarcasm. As we locked up the truck and began trekking out into the forest I felt driven on by everything he had ever called me. "Runt", "Worm", "Coward", "Pipsqueek", "Nobody", "Disgrace", "Girl", "Baby".
He didn't slow down, and I was out of breath trying to keep pace, but I didn't let him see it. I was going to show him I was tough, or I'd die trying. I guess he had pushed me THAT far, without realizing that his son half hoped I would kill myself, then maybe he would hate himself for it. The other half of me wanted to survive. Wanted to prove to myself, as much as anybody, that I didn't have to be a weakling.
We set up camp that afternoon and dad insisted that we kill something for dinner instead of letting me eat my 'stupid sandwiches'. I nodded, but I just wanted to see him use his rifle. He found a wild rabbit and took it out after three shots. I had jumped slightly when I saw it come running out of the field, but had to cover my ears at the noise of the rifle. Even so, I watched him use it very carefully. He caught me cringing from the noise out of the corner of his eye and shook his head.
"You are pathetic!" he muttered, "Now go get that rabbit and bring it back to camp!"
Normally Rex, dad's doberman, would have galloped across the grass to retrieve it. Something doberman's weren't renowned for doing, but dad and Rex seemed to understand each other better than he and his son ever would. I'm not sure why dad never brought Rex with us that time.
I brought the rabbit back to camp where dad was setting up a fire and placed it carefully on the ground. Dad looked at me and threw a knife at my feet. I was startled by it, even though the blade missed me.
"Skin it!"
I just stared at the knife, mortified. I didn't want to stick a knife into that sorry looking animal. I didn't want to cut its fur off either. It had felt bad enough touching it. Should I be proud to say that the one close experience I ever had with dad was that very moment, when he showed me how to cut and gut an animal? I swallowed hard, feeling ill, but did it nonetheless. We cooked him on a spit and ate him after he'd had a good roasting. I had watched dad eat it up heartily, and tried to be as brave. I felt sick. He poked fun at me all night over it, and I guess it was meant to be his idea of bonding, but I stupidly let it hurt me more.
"I always said you were a wimp, Cooper. Scared of the dark. Weak. You make me ashamed you are my son!"
"No! Please don't say that!" I begged.
"Then prove you're no wimp. I want you to kill twenty rats! And don't come back until you do. Hear me coward?"
I know mom would have tried to stop him doing it, but I had to stand up for myself now more than ever. My voice shook, "I'll do it father. I promise I'll do what you want."
I knew he would push me harder than anyone else could. Without him I might never have overcome the weed of a child I had always been. He was always an unhappy man. Shouting at my mom and me. He hated us all, I think. Something had made him that way. I deserved how I got treated, but it was how he swore and screamed at mom that had made me hate him back.
As he fell asleep, I silently took the flashlight and his rifle. Snatching up my backpack and tucking his knife down my boot, I tramped off as quietly as possible and left the old man to snooze by his fire.
It seems ridiculous now, but I was going to kill as many animals as I could. I would then lay them out in front of dad before he woke up in the morning. I wasn't thinking straight. I suppose I imagined the wilderness would be teeming with animals. It was, only they knew how to hide and I didn't know how to hunt. As it got into early morning I knew that I wouldn't be able to catch anything and I realized I wouldn't get back before dad woke up. He would skin me alive for touching his rifle. I knew it. So instead I trekked deeper into the night and found a place to hide.
I was terrified and hardly slept. Too frightened of being attacked by a bear, or waking up covered in spiders. I dazed off, because I remember the sun being high in the sky when I came to. I was sweating, my body over compensating for the temperature change. As I moved out from my hiding place I heard my dad calling and swearing he would kill me. I guessed that was half of what woke me. I stupidly scurried down a slope to get out of sight. It was steeper than I imagined and seemed to keep me sliding forever as I scrambled for footing. I came to a stop in a gulley and immediately tried to make my way back up. It was impossibly steep and the soil was loose. My dad's voice stopped calling and I dropped down to my feet hopelessly.
I thought life was over. I'd die of starvation, if I wasn't caught by bear or wolf first. Or worse, my dad would find me and then I would be wishing I had died. I sat there for a long time feeling sorry for myself and thinking about what a fool I had been. Then it started to dawn on me how alone I felt. It was strangely comfortable to me. There was no dad to shout at me, and no kids to bully me. But I had to get home, so that I could be with mom and Una. I clutched the .22 rifle close to me and weakly smiled. .
I spent the better part of the morning and afternoon trying to find a way round. When I finally did work my way back to the top, I realized that in the daylight I had completely lost my bearings. I panicked and tried to retrace the course I had taken in the night, but it was no good.
I was lost and starving too. I ate half a sandwich and rested. Night fell, and with it echoed strange nocturnal sounds that still haunt me. I hid myself away in the hollow of a tree and tried to sleep. I was too afraid of the night and what lay hidden, watching me, to get any rest. Once again I did not sleep until the sun began to rise. I had nothing else to do but try to find the camp. I set off tired and groggy, dragging the rifle wearily behind me.
Late that afternoon I managed to find my way back to the camp, only it was no longer there. The remains of the fire lay broken and scattered, as though it had been doused in a fit of fatherly rage. Tire tracks in the grass were the only other proof we had ever been here. My dad had left me in the wild! I hated him and thanked him at the same time. I truly was on my own. I had no one but myself to get me out and I was never going to forgive my dad for what he had done.
Two weeks slowly past by, and I found myself in a routine habit of foraging for food, hunting, and working on finding my way along the winding stream in the gulley. It merged into a wider river which I followed closely. It ensured I had water to drink, and gave me the hope it was leading back to town.
Years later it occurred to me why dad never brought Rex along. His pet could have tracked me down in no time. Though, I'm sure if Rex had found me, I would have shot him in self-defence. He had always growled and chased me. Unless dad was there to control him, Rex would bite! I was terrified of the huge black dog. But it was painful believing my dad could have done that. I honestly believed it back then, now I'm not as sure. At the time I guessed he REALLY didn't want a weakling in the family and this was his way of weeding me out.
I didn't kill twenty rats. But I killed two rabbits with what ammunition I had, and they kept me alive. My matches were what saved me. They had once created a ghastly menagerie of warped and melted toy soldiers. About the only thing I could do to my numerous casualities dad gave me. But now my matches brought me fire. With overcooked rabbit meat, a sandwich and my chocolate bar, I was able to scrape by for another few days. However, I could only sleep during the day, and even that was uncomfortable. I was exhausted, scruffy, cut and bruised, but I pressed on weakly and blindly, with no idea what progress I had made.
One morning I was awoken to the sounds of barks and a man's voice. I had instantly thought it was dad and I sat up to see someone completely different. I could not have been happier in my life for that one small moment. It was a ranger and his name was Ted. At his side was an Alsation, and it licked me as I shyed away. It wasn't like Rex, and the ranger was not like my father. I knew because he crouched beside me and hugged me close. I shed tears and said nothing, just nodding 'yes' and 'no' to the man's questions. He was concerned that I didn't speak and told me funny stories as he gave me a piggyback to his car. He made me feel safe and I hoped he would stay with me.
I was taken to the nearest hospital and the ranger stayed with me while we waited for my parents to arrive. The doctor told me I was going to be okay, but he was going to tell mom to feed me some big meals for the next couple of weeks. A nurse told us that my parents had arrived and wanted to see me. I spoke for the first time to the ranger.
"I only want to see my mom and my sister."
He was surprised and looked into my eyes seeing something there perhaps.
"Your father will want to see you too," he told me. How was he to know.
"No... He won't," I replied.
Just then mom came running up to me with Una in her arms, and pressed my head against her chest, tears streaming down her face.
"Please mom, don't cry! Dad will hit you..." I begged her.
It only made her cry harder. Ted positioned himself so that he was by my side as mom cuddled me close. My eyes met Dad's as he entered the room while mom was straightening my torn and dirty clothes. He stared at me blankly, like he was looking through me, or seeing something else. I looked back to mom and squeezed her tight. Dad did not say anything at first, he just watched mom and me with little Una. After she released me from her embrace, Dad stepped forward and looked down on me.
"I can't understand how you survived out there," he muttered. He seemed solemn yet puzzled. His words meant nothing to me. In fact, Ted seemed to be the only one upset. I remember him talking angrily to dad after taking him aside so that it was out of earshot. Mom leaned over me and whispered into my ear.
"We're leaving your father for a while, Cooper. We are going to stay with your Aunt."
I nodded firmly and watched my dad staring solemnly at his feet as Ted waved his hands wildly.
"Don't worry, mom. I'll look after you, and Una."
Tears were still trickling down her cheeks and she squeezed my shoulder tightly. "I know you will. I'm proud of you." I put my hand over hers and felt like a man for the first time in my life. Ever since that day I did everything I could to make myself stronger, and tougher. I joined the boy scouts and when I was old enough, I enlisted in the army. I pushed myself to be the very best I could be. I was assigned to the G.I. Joe Special Missions force as their 'Night Spotter' and am now considered among the world's elite. Winning my dad's pride means nothing to me anymore. I know that I am better than him. I always will be. And that, is all that matters.
The End.