Freaks and Revelations (3 page)

1976

FOUR YEARS BEFORE

LOS ANGELES COUNTY

Dad has to stand to cut the turkey. He stabs it with a huge fork and picks up a knife that reminds me of a miniature machete. I’m fascinated, can’t look away. First the brown skin crinkles, then it splits. The blade saws through that thick white flesh, back and forth, down to the plate. He lifts the slice between the fork and knife and a piece of bird, which just a few weeks ago was running around, drops onto the plate. I like the sound of it. I love the smell. Chelsea pokes me and shakes her head. I shrug.

Hey. It’s Thanksgiving.

Mom fills the plates, Dad’s first, and sets them down in front of us. Chels chats about her new job at the dry cleaners and how they’re training her to be a manager. She does not mention her boyfriend, Gabe. Mom and Dad don’t like him. I think it’s because he’s big, and older. If my dad called
him
stupid, Gabe’d probably punch him out. I love listening to Chelsea, the way she talks about nothing and makes it sound good. It’s nice having her back. I catch Carl’s eyes—he too is wasted.

Mom starts grace and I wonder if the guy who shot Carl is eating turkey someplace. He jumped bail, which he should not have had in the first place. Dad was right about that.

“We thank thee for the bounty we are about to receive. Amen.”

I add my own silent thanks for the killer pot Glenn shared with me an hour ago and wonder what Carl’s on. We haven’t been hanging out much lately, but me and him sure as shit know how to do a family dinner. He catches my eye and winks.

So far it’s been great—Dad hasn’t said a word. Maybe because Grandpa’s not here to argue with? Usually, they’d be screaming by now, but Grams has a cold. Bad for her, good for us. Carl picks up his fork. I ask for the gravy.

“Did I tell you Mrs. Burch came in the other day?” Mom chats with Chelsea. As she hands me the gravy bowl, I get a flash of her bright, real smile. She loves having her whole family here. I expect she also loves not having
his
. “Remember her, Chels, your second grade—”

Mom stops mid-sentence to stare at Dad, who seems to have turned to stone. The image of a white cloud rising up out of his head comes to my mind, spreading into a mushroom shape over the table—like in those World War II newsreels we watch at school.

“How many times do I need to say it?” His voice is pitched low but manages to sound like a shout. “Potatoes go on the left,
Dumbass
. Meat on the right. How hard is that?”

Mom’s face flushes. Her “sorry” gets pulled into the firestorm he always seems to create. Mom reaches to turn his plate, but not in time. He sweeps his arm across the table and everything in its path flies into the air. It all stays suspended for a blink, at least to my eyes, then crashes to the tile floor. Chelsea startles. Glasses shatter, yams splat, cranberries roll, silverware bounces.

If I wasn’t stoned, I’d be scared. But I am, so I feel like laughing. Chels puts a hand on my arm. I look to see if Carl thinks it’s funny too. He doesn’t. His lips tighten and two bright points of color appear on his cheeks. Very deliberately, he sets down his fork as Mom darts into the kitchen for a new plate. She places it carefully—potatoes on the left, turkey on the right.

“Now was that too hard for you?”

The sarcasm in his voice makes my skin chill. He picks up his new fork and knife, like nothing happened, and begins to cut his turkey. My fork’s in my hand but my plate’s in the heap on the floor. Chelsea angles hers toward me and I spear a bite of turkey, but have no saliva to chew it. Dad looms over the table, slurping up mashed potatoes and guzzling beer.

No one mentions the mess.

“Anyway,” Mom says, that other smile in place, “Mrs. Burch—”

Carl pushes back from the table and stands. “You’re a jerk, man, you’re an ignorant, stupid
jerk
.” His voice is shrill and his body shakes. He holds his fists clenched at his sides. Chelsea stands, but so does Dad, so she sinks back down. This time I reach my hand to hers.

Like a snake striking, Dad snatches Carl’s arm, swings him about and propels him backwards into the dining room wall. The force of it knocks Mom’s painting onto the floor. Chelsea screams “Stop it!” and Carl jumps back, his face beet red. He shoves Dad with both hands and then swings his right arm and
lands a punch.

Code Red.

Carl’s never hit back before. Argued, yes, yelled, for sure—but never hit back. Dad’s face scares me. He shifts to high speed. The two whirl about like Tasmanian Devils, knocking lamps and framed pictures off tables, the tiny antique mirror off the wall. Chelsea goes for the phone. Mom pleads. I watch.

My father beats my brother to the floor,
literally
, raises his gigantic leg and stomps down hard on his thigh. Carl bounces, grunts, then rolls away, balled up, arms curved over his face and head.

“Stupid asshole! Think you’re big enough now? Do ya? Huh? Stupid shit!” Dad punctuates with kicks.

Carl’s in the corner now; he can’t escape. Mom clutches at Dad’s arm; he hurls her backwards, then raises his hand to hit Carl again. I grab that arm from behind; he throws me practically into the hallway. I land on my bad hip and cry out. This stops everyone for a second, and all heads turn to me. Carl scrambles up and bolts through the front door, face and shirt covered in blood. His motorcycle roars to life and then he’s gone.

Chelsea appears from the hallway, eyes blazing. “The police are on their way,” she announces, placing herself between Dad and me. He takes a step toward her, hands still balled into fists.

“Do it. Please.” Chelsea says, her voice as deep as a man’s. “Hit me! Then you can hit Mom, or maybe Doug, huh, he’s twelve. We’ll get you locked up for the rest of your stupid life!”

For a second, it looks like he might. Time stops. In the far distance, a siren sounds. Mom sniffles. A lump rises on my cheekbone, where I hit the corner of the doorway, and the pain in my bad hip grows steadily worse. Dad snatches his keys and jacket and heads out the door, slamming it behind him. Mom turns immediately to Chelsea.

“Call them back, Chels,” she says. “Quick! Tell them it was a mistake. We can’t have police showing up here. The neighbors—”

“I didn’t really call, Mom. I’m not stupid.”

“Oh,” Mom says, and touches her hair. “Of course you didn’t, honey. I’m sorry.” Her shoulders slump. “I’m so sorry.”

Chelsea helps Mom clean up. She makes me put ice on my hip. We don’t talk about Dad or Carl. We don’t talk at all. After, Chels hugs us both and leaves. Mom pours a drink and takes it to her bedroom to watch TV. I listen for her to settle in, then look behind the fancy dishes in the kitchen cabinet, where Mom kept the Darvon she got when her finger was broken.

No luck. The bottle’s not even there. No bourbon and Coke, either, so I pour a tall glass of orange juice and vodka. I grab a piece of turkey from Dad’s plate and head up to my room. I don’t want to be downstairs when he comes home.
If
he comes home. Sometimes he doesn’t.

Carl’s right—our father is a jerk. Who we put up with. Why do we do that? Why do we all keep trying so hard to make him happy? I can’t remember a time when he was. He’s always yelling at somebody, calling something stupid, just like his father. Grandpa’s always yelling too.

I down a third of my drink and search for the roach Glenn let me have. I can’t find it. With almost half the drink gone, my head fuzzes up but my hip still hurts. I try different positions. It doesn’t help. It’d serve me right if this sucker hurt forever. I got it trying to please my dad.

When I was six, he yanked the training wheels off my two-wheeler. “Time to ride on your own, Doug,” he announced.

“But I don’t know how!”

“Sure you do. Every other kid on the block is riding.” He held the bike out toward me. “Except you. We can’t have that, can we?” I climbed on, the pit of my stomach in knots. He started to run down the street, pushing me from behind. I pedaled like crazy to keep up.

“Don’t let go! Don’t let go!” I screamed.

“Don’t worry! I got ya!” he yelled back, shoved hard, and let go. The bike went a few more yards, then wobbled and crashed in the middle of the street. I landed on my elbows and knees. I tried not to cry but I couldn’t help it. Mom raced out to help me and he stood there, shaking his head—I can still see his face—then picked up the bike and hung it on hooks in the garage.

So what’d I do? I practiced in secret. I had to prove to my dad that I could do it. I practiced at Henry’s, when he used to live here, and finally,
finally
, I got it. I couldn’t wait to show Dad. I rode round and round on Henry’s cul-de-sac street, feeling the power. Waiting for my dad to come around the corner and see me—and be proud.

“Doug! Look out!” was the last thing I remember before I bumped over the barrier and the world turned orange. I woke up in the hospital. My pelvis was cracked, the top of my hip broken. An old lady in an orange BMW had knocked me half a block. They put in a metal pin and slapped me in a body cast. No more sports. No more running. No more bikes.

My father laughed at first. He saw a lawsuit there. He got a lawyer. He spent a lot of money, but the court still said it was my fault. I shouldn’t have been in the street.

Stupid. Once again.

I hear the front door downstairs. I take a gulp of my drink. I hear his car keys drop in the metal plate on the side table. The refrigerator door opens, a beer can pops. I chug the rest of my screwdriver and the room spins. Good for me. The pain may not go away, but I’ll be asleep, so who cares?

1976

FOUR YEARS BEFORE

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA

All of a sudden, we’re moving.

No warning that I know of; nobody talks about it. One Saturday morning, Mom tells us to pack up our stuff in the cardboard boxes she got from Safeway. We fill up the back of her car and drive everything over to a house on North Charlotte Street. Not too far from our real house. We make a whole bunch of trips and when the new place is filled up with boxes, she lets us order pizza for dinner. Sunday, we move our beds and some of the furniture. Dad helps, but I notice he doesn’t talk much. Monday, we start a new school, a
Catholic
school, where we have to wear uniforms.

I keep waiting for my dad, but he never shows up.

I find out from hearing my mom on the phone that he won’t be, ever. My parents are getting a divorce.

Paul doesn’t come back. Marianne finally tells me and Davy that he got sent to Juvie, the same day the cops brought him home. She doesn’t know which one, or who exactly it was that sent him; she suspects Dad. She thinks it’s why Mom wanted to move.

“Why? What’d Paul do?” I ask her.

“Nothing. Ran away. I don’t know. Maybe they got tired of him.”

“You can’t do that. You can’t send your kid away for no good reason,” Davy says.

“Obviously, you can.”

“But why? Why would they do that?” I say.

“Stop asking me questions.”

Dad gets the old house because that’s where his work is done. He needs to keep working because Mom doesn’t have a job yet, and now he has to support two houses. He’s less than a mile away from us, but we’re not allowed to visit. We’re not allowed to do anything anymore. Mom has a ton of new rules. We have to come straight home after school. Me and Davy can go to our dance classes and Kaitlyn can go play on her softball team, but that’s it. We can’t have friends over when Mom’s not home, and even when she is, she has to know all about their parents first. We are definitely not allowed to go to other people’s houses.

Mom starts going to church a lot, and we have to go with her. We used to go every once in a while on Sundays; now it’s every week. On Wednesday nights, we all go to the convent. We sit in a little room and help old nuns fix up clothes and toys for poor people. The nuns love our mom. They like Davy too, and Kaitlyn, because she never talks. They don’t much like me or Marianne, but that’s okay, because we don’t much like them either. Especially not the ones who teach at the school.

I hate my new school. I don’t mind the uniforms, but I hate the kids. I hate the new house even more. North Charlotte’s a four-lane street and we don’t even have a fence. You always hear traffic out front. There’s a stop sign right at the corner, and all night, big old trucks grind their gears down and then start them up again. It makes me miss my dad even more.

Davy doesn’t seem to mind being here, but Kaitlyn pretty much stops talking. She stands around looking at things. It’s weird. Marianne keeps busy, and, as usual, I hang out by myself. I start really looking forward to Saturdays—going to dance class is the only thing I can count on. When I’m there, at the studio, I pretend nothing’s changed.

We hardly ever see Grandma and Grandpa, and we all act like we never had a brother named Paul. Mom talks to us about right and wrong. She quotes the Bible, all the time.

Marianne says we traded Dad for God. I think she’s right.