"Father" by Armin Tolentino

I repeated that as I unlaced my shoes, slipped off my socks and balled them up.  I placed my naked feet in the water and was horrified by how cold it was.  A car came by, its headlights blinding me for a moment and I was suddenly aware that I was crying.  I'm not sure if I’d been crying the whole time, my cheeks were numb, but with my feet in the water I was conscious of the tears as I started to hiccup and choke on the indecision that was creeping into me.  Just do it, come on, just get it done.

My movements took on a sudden haste; I emptied my backpack, a copy of The Sound and the Fury of which I was supposed to read to page 157 for Ms. Billing's fourth period class today, a notebook full of my doodles, a sweatshirt and a pair of gym shorts.  The gun was at the bottom and the empty backpack laid deflated with all my crap scattered on the walkway.  My hands were hurting terribly and I thought maybe my finger would be too frozen to pull the trigger.  My feet had stopped hurting; I couldn't feel anything below my knees.

The lamps finally went out and I dropped in.  I think my body went into immediate shock.  I was up to my chest and my hands were shaking so much I dropped the gun.  It took me quite a while to realize it wasn't an instinctual, unconscious reflex of my hand to let go, but that I had decided I didn't want this anymore.  I had never felt so awful in my life.  The rest is a fog to me really.  I remember I somehow clawed my way back onto the sidewalk and hobbled my way into a coffee shop, dripping and weeping and spent quite a while in the bathroom running my hands under the dryer.  It must have been a while because the manager knocked on the door and threatened to come in if I didn't answer.  I ran out, knocked him down, and outside the world was this sort of crystal cold that frosted my lungs.  I wandered the streets of the city, crying for two days.  After that, I guess I had nothing left in me and I met Paul on the streets and we stuck together, splitting cash and food and weed.  For all those months, I felt like I had nothing left in me.  I was mechanical and can't remember crying or laughing any of that time.

So when I was walking towards that Mexican, I felt this surge of something I hadn't felt in so long.  I felt I made a decision and wasn't going to back down this time. Every sense was intensified, the smell of brackish water and steak wafting from a restaurant, the sound of the water lapping up against the docks and retreating again.  I swear I became sober for a moment, so I can't even blame the booze for what I did.

He wasn't moving.  He looked tense and scared, but he wasn't frozen.  He was standing his ground because it was his and when you have that little in life, you hold on to what you have like an animal.

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