"Father" by Armin Tolentino

My own father would never have laid a finger on me.  I remember him being weak and thoroughly useless and when he walked away, I felt nothing.  Everyone was asking me if I was okay and told me I could talk about it, that there was nothing wrong with crying.  A counselor at school told my mother that I was displaying the classic symptoms of a pre-teen that was bottling his emotions up.  They wouldn't accept that I felt nothing of it.  My brother, three years younger than me, nine at the time, cried a lot and they said that was healthy.  At first, when he had just left, I had this notion that I should be the man of the house and look out for my brother.  I even went out and bought one of those spongy NERF footballs so we could play catch.  But that feeling faded back to nothing fast and the football sat in the garage with other useless crap.

The Mexican's screaming drew a crowd.  People were watching me helplessly pinned like a butterfly on display, needle through the heart.  I flailed stupidly and every time I struggled, Paul pulled me in tighter and tighter.  I remember him telling me to calm down, but there was just this wheel inside of me spinning faster and faster, throwing sparks off, and I couldn't stop for a second.  I thought my spirit was finally sick of this life and trying to leap out of my body.

The police came, batons drawn, and we were thrown in separate cars.  The rest sort of blends together.  That wheel inside me finally spun off the axis and I began shutting down.

My cop was one of those that likes to talk, so he was going on and on about his son's lacrosse team and fights he'd broken up and everything you could imagine while my head was throbbing, the pain fully breaking the shield of drunkenness.  I pressed my face against the cold window, leaving smudges the shape of my jaw line.

My mother came to pick me up.  I don't know how; I lied every time they asked me a question.  My plan was that they'd put me in a cell with a porcelain sink or a bed with metal springs; find anything sharp.

But that wasn't the case.  I didn't think I would recognize her, but she looked exactly like I remembered and was wearing the same pink and purple t-shirt from Ocean City that she's had for ten years.  I can't remember her saying anything to me, she couldn't even look me in the eye and I felt relieved about that.  There were lots of papers to sign and she went through them in a flurry.

I didn't see Paul.  They told me they had me in a special room so they could look at my injuries, but I told them I was fine and they never sent anyone in.  A little blood still seeped from my chin, but it was sticky and a hard clot was already steeling the vulnerable cells.  I saw the cop that drove me, the talker, and he smiled at me a bit; I got the impression that he found me laughable, one of those monkeys that play the concertina.  I asked him where Paul was.

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