Short Story #2

It was one o'clock in the afternoon and John was rubbing his chin in contemplation. It was only his third week, but he could feel a change. What he thought he needed was merely an excuse; he didn't need alcohol. He didn't need to waste his life on such absurdities. He thought that maybe, if he worked hard enough, he could go to college and become a lawyer. The Reservation Community Center often displayed lawyer shows; navy suit, red tie, white collared shirt. The aged white men would sit behind large oak desks, arguing with the district attorney. He would need a part-time job, though. All he had was corduroy.

He glided his fingers across the metal bar of the door and felt it quickly steal away the heat that had been building in his hands. His face became hot with anticipation. Could I do this? he thought. Could I really leave this hell-hole and finally be someone, become something more than a statistic or face in the crowd?

His thoughts raced with plans, goals, ambitions. This AA meeting was the most inspirational yet: A former member whose story was full of pain, tribulation and an arduous journey had been clean for over twenty years and became CEO of his company. He now makes well over one-fifty a year and his story made John feel like he, too, could do the same.

As he made his way down the dirt road, he could see a large object jetting out from behind some shrubbery. He walked towards it to get a closer look, and was horrified to see his worst nightmare: His father.

* * * * *

John's first recollection of his father could easily be called the beginning of the end.

Ann Smith was cleaning her tiny home. Neaten this, tidy that, put this and that away. Make this place look nice; make it seem like a regular, ordinary household. Make him happy. Make it work.
She was intently scrubbing the counter, trying to remove the debris left over from John's lunch. John was playing in the living room, unaware of the upcoming events. He rarely paid attention to his parents while he was playing with his toy trucks and airplanes. They were far more interesting.

The door made a loud, undulating noise as it swung open, creating a gust of wind that slightly rustled John's hair. The floorboards creaked as a great weight, applied with great force, was suddenly placed onto the poorly-built floor. The sound of heavy work boots was the only thing that could be heard as David clumsily made his way over to Ann, diligently doing her housework. The odor of liquor was so pungent, so overpowering that John's face wrinkled with disgust, not understanding what the horrid smell suddenly placed inside his home was.

“ANN!” shouted David. The floorboards creaked in a staccato and hasty way. “ANN WHAT DID I TELL YOU?!” he screamed.

“David, stop yelling. You're drunk. You'll scare John. Please, stop,” pleaded Ann, nonchalantly.

“DON'T YOU EVER TALK TO ME IN THAT GODDAMN DISRESPECTFUL TONE!”

“David, how much did you drink?”

“You're a fucking no good, fucking lying, cheating, disrespectful whore...”

“Goddamn it, David. Go to bed. I'm sick and tired of this shit. All you do is drink. All day, every day. I need help, okay? I can't do this by myself while you're off doing God knows what with God knows who.”

“I CAN DO WHATEVER THE FUCK I WANT! Don't fucking disrespect me, I'll show you what that'll get you, bitch. I'll sh--shut up don't you ever talk to me like that!”

“David, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

John could feel the air wisp his hair as the descending hand made its way to the soft, delicate skin of his mother’s face. The harsh and rigid hand, full of brute strength, was cruel and unforgiving. The loud, raucous noise was the only sound that could be heard. The kids playing outside suddenly disappeared. The distant hum of cars from the near-by interstate reduced to nothing, silence. All sound was nonexistent except for the movement of David’s hand.

John saw the shock in his mother's face. He could see her eyes change from anger to despair and disbelief. Her hazel eyes suddenly mutated and became as dark as the black hole that was slowly appearing in the Smith's home. As soon as they set foot into that black hole, they will be sucked into its grip and lost forever. John could not fall into that black hole. It had taken his father and had a grip on his mother, her eyes pleading for him to save her. He could see the helplessness wash across her face as his father used his dominance to control Ann with his over-powering strength. His hands were moving so fast that John could only see his mother helplessly on the floor, his father standing above her, and the movement of his father’s hands and feet as they turned into an unintelligible blur.

John could see the black hole. He could feel it. He would do everything in his power to escape its grip but he could feel the chill of its menacing hands holding him by the ankles. He couldn't see it coming. He had no chance to escape.

* * * * *

As John got older, he understood why the black hole existed. He understood why his father had acted the way he had, and he was finally able to connect the dots.

By the time he reached an age that was acceptable for the Holy Cross Boarding School for Disadvantaged Boys, he began his education. At first, he was gullible: He would take the words of his teachers and hide them in a special place so that he would never forget. He locked them so that they could not escape.

He saw the Old Western shows that were on during the afternoon, and assumed that his forefathers were animalistic, wild men who killed for fun. He did not like this thought, in fact, he was disgusted by it. How could he associate with peoples who acted with such disregard to morality and virtue? And then, by a stroke of fate, the story was told to him. John realized that what the nuns were telling him was not true.

Walking to Holy Cross, he heard the rustling of feet. Thinking he was being followed, he quickly snapped his head around to figure out whom or what was following him. He saw nothing. He continued his journey, and the wind whipped against his ears. Through this wind, he could hear whispers. Voices, whispering stories to him. Could anyone else hear these stories?

The whispers assured him that only he was privy to these stories which were his family’s stories long forgotten. They told him the truth, that the nuns were wrong. They lied to him, in order to change the workings of his mind so that he would believe in their deceit. The voices told the stories of murder, theft, rape, abolishment, removal, death, genocide, broken promises, treaties, small pox, conversion, kidnapping, pain, sadness, hopelessness. They told these stories to John.

With these words, John opened the crevices of his memories and let out every lie the nuns had told him, lies that he so foolishly and gullibly believed. He took those lies and murdered them just as his people had been murdered.

And as he contemplated these thoughts, he realized something: These lies had taken his father. They had told him what he should have been instead of what he was or what he could be, forcing him to remain inside the dark and cavernous hole they built for men like David, men willing to believe in anything told to them by people they were forced to believe to be better than them. These lies, so discrete and transparent, could nest inside the mind of an unsuspecting victim and multiply, and eventually take over their thoughts so they will have nothing left. These men and women would be sucked into the dark hole and never return. His father dragged his helpless mother, who was unable to relinquish herself from his grip, into the black hole.

John eventually lost his father to this black hole. He went out drinking one afternoon while John was in school and never returned. As soon as John became a man, his mother stopped her struggle: She succumbed to the force pulling her by using the handgun David left in his bedside table. Bottom drawer, carefully placed inside the hole roughly cut in the pages of the Holy Bible.

John tried to struggle against the black hole, but he gave up long ago.

* * * * *

John was thirteen when he had his first drink. It was Smirnoff, some fruity flavor. He wanted to say that it was too girly for him, but he realized that he was in no position to be picky; he was far from having the money to buy the good alcohol, so he sucked it up and took a shot.

He rarely went to parties, but always found a way to get drunk. He would find a friend who knew someone who could buy a pack of beer. He’d hide the case under his bed inside the lunch box he bought from his elementary school’s carnival. No one, not even his foster parents, who also lived on the reservation, would bother to look for alcohol inside a Holy Cross lunch box. It was a sin.

Eventually, he was caught drinking. He was at a party with a couple of friends at a bar just outside the reservation. He had a couple beers, but not enough to get drunk. He had gained a high tolerance to alcohol over the years. He began driving his nearly broken-down van the five minutes it took to get back to his home, the one his mother left for him in her will. Two minutes later, he was pulled over.

* * * * *

Anger and rage built inside of John and took control. He made his way over to David and, smelling the Jack Daniels on his breath, began kicking him over and over again. John could not stop, even while his father began making mumbling and unintelligible noises. As soon as he felt content with what he had done, he dragged his father the twenty yards or so back to his home. He pulled David onto the couch then took the unopened beer bottle he had found in his father’s hands and left it on the kitchen table.