So good, I wouldn't have to go back there, but he might come here after me. He might. He was probably home now, being pissed off. Sitting at the kitchen table, his hands folded in prayer, thinking all kinds of bad things about me. Thinking that I was ungrateful. Thinking that I ran away, that I disobeyed, that I chose Joey and Angela over him, that I was just like my mother.
It was funny how this thought process of his never seemed to include himself. What about him? What about him throwing me to the cement floor and kicking me? What about him taking off his belt and strapping me? What about all the bruises and the welts that I was always dealing with? What about him beating on my bedroom door with a golf club? Telling me to open the door. Why would I do that? Why would I open the door and let him beat me with a golf club? How was I the one who was wrong in this situation?
I didn't think I could get to sleep, and I didn't think I had a place to sleep here anyway. I hadn't stayed here in years. I didn't think I ever would again. Once mom died that was it with the visits to Joey and Angela. But Joey wasn't pushing it. He let me sip my tea and watch T.V. and that was fine with me. Maybe I could just fall asleep on the couch.
"Craig," Joey said. He was sitting in the chair. I glanced over at him. He looked kind of nervous, uncertain. I guessed this wasn't too easy for him, either.
"Yeah?" I said, and turned back to the T.V. I didn't want to talk, but he did. I could tell. But for a few seconds I could lose myself in the colors and patterns on the T.V.
"What else, um, what else has he done?" I sighed. I supposed there was no getting out of this sort of conversation. It was because things had to be decided. It was serious, Joey knew that. I'd been acting crazy. Running away, almost taking Ang with me, almost getting hit by a train, talking to my mother at her grave in the middle of the night. Things had to be decided and he had to know just what was going on. I knew that. But I didn't want to talk about it so I hung my head and was quiet.
"Craig? C'mon, buddy, just tell me,"
Just this once, I said to myself. I'd talk about it just this once and then never again. So I licked my lips and turned to Joey and started talking, my voice a quiet monotone as I described it all.
"What else has he done? He hits me, kicks me, punches me, straps me. Not all the time but enough, enough that I always know it's coming, or could come. That any little thing could get him angry enough, and I always screw up. Joey, I'm a terrible kid and I make my dad angry. So that's what happens," I wouldn't cry, even though I kind of felt like crying. Again. I was such a fucking baby. But Joey was looking at me with that unbearable pity.
"No, Craig, it isn't your fault-"
"Yes it is! You don't know because you're not there! It's all my fault, I screw up all the time! That's why, why-" And I couldn't help it. I just started crying again, thinking about how much I'd screwed up and let people down and how things were at some kind of horrible low, that I couldn't even go back home, and what would my dad think? How would he think of me now?
"It's okay, shhhhhhhh, Craig," Joey came over to me and hugged me and I felt myself stiffen in his arms, every muscle going tense with any kind of contact. I knew that that was screwed up. I knew I was screwed up and sometimes I blamed dad and not myself. But I put my arms around Joey a little, not really touching him very much, only with my hands, my arms not touching him. The least amount of contact the better. But it was easier to cry without looking at him and he rubbed and patted my back and it kind of felt comforting. But it was more unbearable than comforting and as soon as I could I pulled away, pulled into myself, wiped my tear stained face. Wished we hadn't had this damn conversation and he'd left me alone to watch T.V.