Chapter 6

It was shortly after the fire that forever changed his life, that the people showed up at his door. He stood silently, having been left home alone as usual, the strangers on his doorstep asking to come in. He shook his head no but like with most adults in his life his response was overlooked. The man and woman entered his home and tisked as they walked through what remained of the half-burned cabin. "Your name is Daryl Dixon correct?" The man asked him as he looked through the empty cabinets that only held one can of spoiled vegetables. Daryl did not respond but stood silently watching. "Where's your mother, your father? You home alone? Have you eaten today?" The woman knelt in front of him, looking him over and clicking her tongue at the obvious bruising that covered his body. Daryl remained silent as he listened to the woman call someone on the phone. "He is obviously not treated well. The house is near burned to the ground. There is no food, his clothes are basically rags. I think he sleeps on a mattress in one of the rooms that are left, but I don't know. There are blankets and pillows on the floor too." Daryl did not appreciate these people in his home, speaking of how poorly he lived, how poorly he looked. He stood quietly wondering if his father would get home and beat both the man and the woman to a pulp in his front yard. Daryl wished this would happen, a small smile tugging the corners of his lips. "Ok. The police are on the way then." She hung up the phone then. Turning towards the man that was looking sorrowfully at Daryl.

The police arrived and they put Daryl in the back of the car. There was a cage between him and the officer. Daryl wondered how many people had been stuck behind this cage. He was asked several questions but did not answer. He could choose not to answer, at least that was in his power. Everyone was friendly to him, but it seemed no one really looked him in the eye, but rather hung near him with a nervous energy. He slept that night on a cot in the police station. His father arriving late the next afternoon. The policeman spoke angrily to his father, commenting on the squalor in which he is raising his son. The officer questioned his bruises and threatened his father if they were called out there again. Then, Daryl found himself in his father's truck, bouncing down the dirt road back to the cabin. His father screamed angrily the whole ride home, grabbing Daryl's arms and back handing him in the face when Daryl didn't answer.

"You gonna tell me what you told them boy?" Will Dixon shouted as the truck bounced down the dirt road back towards home.

Daryl's nose was bloodied, his lip already growing fat. He sat still and silent staring out the front window waiting for his opportunity to make a run for it into the woods near his home.

"You stupid or something? You really think anyone is gonna take you into their home? You're a Dixon. Nobody gonna ever care about the likes of you. Look at ya. Too stupid to even wipe the blood off your face." Will threw a dirty bandana at Daryl, it bounced off his face and landed on the seat beside him.

Daryl picked it up and held it to his nose. He winced at the pain he felt there, then was pushed roughly toward the door of the truck, his head bouncing off the window.

"You ain't nothin. Nothin at all to nobody. I could bury you in them woods and ain't nobody ever even gonna come lookin." Will back handed him again, not caring where his slap landed. "This is your fault. All of it. I gotta keep teachin ya not to be a stupid shit, but I ain't gettin no where am I. Just like that worthless brother a yourn." Will continued his tirade as the cabin came into view.

"You think about runnin out that door and your ass is dead. You hear me. You sit still and don't you move until I tell you to. You think you are hurtin now, you just try something you little shit." Will slammed his foot on the break and grabbed Daryl's arm tightly just as Daryl's hand pulled on the door handle of the truck.

Daryl tried, but he wasn't fast enough. Should have jumped while the truck was slowing down he thought. He felt the lash of the buckle cut across his shoulder blade, he bit his swollen bottom lip to stifle the whimper that tried to escape. He closed his eyes then, focused on his breathing as the beating continued. One breath in, hold, breathe out.

When Daryl awoke the next day, he tried to catch his breath when he stood up off the cold ground. He noticed his pants were soaked with urine, and his back burned badly. He didn't remember what happened when they arrived back to the cabin. The lump on the back of his head and his swollen eyes told him that not remembering was actually a blessing. Daryl did not return to school for more than a months' time. It took the entire month for him to be able to walk down the road without gasping for breath as his side ached and his lungs struggle to fill with air. His father hadn't been home for several days and it was the hunger that drove him toward the school building. He had no idea what time it was. The clock had burned up in his mother's room, along with her body, and belongings. By the time he made it to the school building, he saw that it was empty. Not a car in the parking lot. Tears sprang to his eyes as his stomach was so empty, he was nauseous and hurting. His eyes turned toward the store. The memories flooded his mind, he and Merle going in and the nice lady giving him a bag of chips. He pushed the door open and was met with a familiar smile. Red lipstick and purple eye shadow and a large family sized bag of potato chips.

This is how life went on for a while. Days of his father being home, pain and suffering. Weeks of his father being gone, hunger and peace. Daryl hunted squirrels for dinner, found a way to fill his stomach. He went to school and kept his mouth shut. The lady at the store gave him bread, lunch meat, bottled soda and occasionally candy. Time passed, summer came and school closed. Daryl taught himself to fish, to catch bigger game, to skin a rabbit. His father worked on tearing down the burnt part of the cabin when he randomly appeared home, slept in his truck outside the bar or stayed with a woman he met at the bar. Daryl snuck into town and into the library on the days when the heat took his breath away and even the shade of his beloved woods didn't by him any solace from the sweltering heat. He tucked away in a corner and taught himself to read books without pictures. At school the books had hard covers and pictures of things that didn't exist like a purple gorilla riding a bicycle. Daryl found books at the library that had chapters and shared stories of a boy named Huck and his many adventures with his best friend. He was deep into a chapter about an island where a family was trying to ride an ostrich when the librarian told him it was time to go. He marked his page with a bookmark and set the book back on the shelf when the librarian told him that he could take the book with him if he promised to return it when he was done. He nodded his head with a smile and stuck the book in his bag. He walked back to the cabin dreaming of sword fights and pirates. He was frustrated that he couldn't read all the words, but he understood the gist of the story and that was good enough for him. When he reached the cabin, he noticed the door was slightly open, that the leaves in front of the steps were slightly damaged as if a large boot stepped onto them. Cautiously he stepped onto the porch and listened into the crack. It was then that he heard it, a low growl that set his hairs on end. He stood silently deciding if he should run to the woods, or back to town. His mind shot to a scene where Huck stood his ground and fought hard for his life. Daryl pushed the door forward, his ears perked to ensure the sound did not change. Another low growl and another. He stepped into the main room when the growl turned to a snort. It was then that he saw them. The boots, the large leather boots that his brother Merle always wore. He couldn't stop the whoop that came deep from within him. His brother was home. Merle was there sleeping on the bed in their old room they used to share together. Daryl ran toward him. "Merle, your home!" Daryl shouted as he leapt onto the bed and put his arms around his brother. It only lasted mere seconds before Merle threw him off and he landed unceremoniously crumpled onto the floor. "Fuck off me dumb ass." Merle growled as he turned his back to Daryl facing the wall.

So now Merle was home. Daryl woke up on the floor next to his brother most mornings. Things were different though. Merle wasn't interested in hunting with him anymore. Instead he ordered Daryl to hunt on his own and yelled after him, "You better bring back dinner, and make it good. You don't want to find out what is waiting for you if you don't." Daryl returned each evening with squirrel or coon or rabbit, sometimes a few snakes. He found he loved snake jerky. Merle never thanked him, instead gruffly said, "Get to skinnin and cookin." Daryl did as he was told. Sometimes his father appeared drunk, beat up, high, or all three at once. Merle and his father often tussled in the yard, both ending up battered and bruised. Occasionally Daryl would find himself on the receiving end of one or the other taking out their pent-up rage on him. He would grit his teeth and focus hard on his breath. One breath in, hold, slowly blow out, until the pain subsided, and the bruises began to fade.

The new school year started, a new teacher, this year a new principal. They were only a few weeks in when two more strangers appeared on his doorstep. Once again, he found himself in the back of a police car headed to town, removed from the dilapidated cabin. This time his brother arrived before he had to sleep on the cot in the police station. Merle convinced the officer that he had his own place now and Daryl could stay with him. Daryl knew this wasn't true. He waited patiently until the officer and his brother finished their conversation and he was led to his brother's motorcycle. He did not like the look on his brother's face as he got on behind him. His brother was officially 18 now, a legal adult. The officer bought the housing story hook, line and sinker. Merle lit into Daryl yanking him off the motorcycle by the hair and somehow had a belt in his hand before Daryl even knew what hit him. By the time Merle let up, even his breathing technique didn't still his tears. He lay bleeding and feeling broken on the ground until the sun melted behind the trees and the moon rose high above him illuminating the half a cabin whose charred remains were nearly all gone now. Daryl didn't understand how he was to blame for the strangers. No one cared enough to ask him anything. Daryl heard in a conversation that those strangers were from something called CPS and they were supposed to protect children. But a Dixon did not count. A Dixon was doomed before it ever exited the womb.

The next morning Daryl woke to Merle holding him by the shirt collar eye to eye. "Nobody will ever save you. You understand. You are worthless, a little pansy, weak. Thought all this time I spent with you I could make a man out of you. Didn't happen did it. Fuck the name Daryl. Gonna call you Darlena. You and your scrawny ass, your book learning. You're lucky I stopped before I killed you last night. Lord knows you would be better off dead. You and your sorry ass." Spit flew from the corners of Merles mouth as these words tore Daryl more painfully than the belt buckle did from the night before. Daryl felt something inside of him change. He often daydreamed about his brother coming home. The time they would spend together, talking and laughing and goofing off. Never once had he imagined that during his time away, the brother who once protected him would come home and destroy him from the inside out. Being in the cabin became a nightmare for the youngest Dixon. His brother tortured him mercilessly, only referring to him as Darlena and pushing him and punching him at every opportunity. Daryl found himself hardening, both inside and out. His muscles sharpened; he grew taller. He learned to shut everything out completely. Words, pain, sadness, anger. He felt nothing at all. The woods no longer felt alive, the sound of the birds he ceased hearing. He got through each day working hard to identify areas of weakness. He hardly went to school at all after Merle found a book he had been reading in his backpack and used it to beat him with until the pages were torn and bloody, he never returned to the library again. He turned his back on the town, on the store with the lady with the red lipstick and purple eyeshadow. He found pills left over in his brother's room and downed them dry. Emptied the leftover liquor bottles down his throat. Time passed around him and his insides grew dark and cloudy, just like the day he was born.