Silence and Blood

         “You’ll never be worth anything.” His red face closed in on the mine and spittle rained down on my forehead, “Why can’t you stay with me? Am I that bad?” Alcohol laced his breath and made my stomach revolt. My head rolled to the side when his large hand left another mark. “I take all this time to protect you and this is how you repay me? Sending the police here?” I cowered in the corner, waiting for the inevitable. I hadn’t meant for the cops to follow me, my teacher must had called them after school, telling them to get ready for a brawl at the Knight homestead.
         A kick to the ribs quickly brought tears to my steel-gray eyes. The steel-toed boot had cracked a rib and I had to bite down on my inner cheek to keep from crying out. The pain swelled as my father rained punches down on my lanky body. A large kick to my collarbone brushed my throat, making my breath catch. It would’ve been over if I hadn’t of moved. I was almost relieved and that scared me. The shock of it set in and I rolled to protect my stomach from another punch. My drunk father laid me on my back again and crunched down on my hipbone. The snaps sounded throughout the room and I couldn’t hold back any longer. I screamed incoherently as my father ground his work boot into my shattered pelvic bone. White spots popped before my eyes and I fought to stay awake.
         “Did ye hear me? Ye will be jist like me when ye grow up. It’s genetic an’ it never skips a generation. Ye think this is bad? Me father beat the crap outta me e’ry mornin’ before I went tae work. I worked through the pain and the humiliation of not being able tae lift as much as the other construction workers. An apprentice has tae live up tae his supervisor and sometimes succeed him in lifting equipment. I couldn’t.” He knelt down closer to me and pulled my head up by my light blonde hair. “This,” he whispered with rank breath, “this pain ye feel in yer head? It’s nothing of what I had tae go through. My ribs were busted e’ryday, not once a week like yers. I’ve been goin’ easy on ye, m’lad. Soon ye’ll see the truth.” The burly man stumbled a bit when righting himself. He always slipped back into his old Scottish accent from when he was on the homeland, when he was inebriated and close to crashing. “I’m jist tryin’ tae beef ye up, Lucifer. So ye can do a good job of it.” The man’s eyes closed and he slumped over the table, his dark beard collecting all the crumbs from his dinner.
         My harsh breathing was the only sound in the small cabin. I felt around the back of my head and looked at the bloody fingers that came back from the search. I grunted in pain as my bruised hands pulled up my spotted wife-beater to show my broken torso. My ribs were broken and one was trying to push its way through my discolored skin. My tanned skin was colored with purple blotches and a large handprint wrapped around my unbroken hipbone. I pushed myself back against the mildewed wall into a sitting position, but had to stop. I brushed the long hair hanging down in front of my face away and huffed for a moment. If just sitting up was this bad, how can I get to my mattress? The kitchen counter wasn’t far away, so I worked up the courage to move the few feet to it. Explosions of pain danced before my eyes and I gasped at the extremity of it. It felt like my chest was being ripped open by a sternum stretcher. I rested my head against the wall to try to lessen my pounding headache. I had left behind streaks of blood where I’d dragged my lower half across the dirty floor. My father slept soundly though, his snores barely audible over my groans of pain.
         I fumbled for the top of the counter above me. The white plastic smeared with crimson blood as I grasped the edge of the countertop. With that and the wall behind me bracing my back, I slowly pulled myself into a more-or-less standing position, my side with the crushed pelvic bone not touching the ground. I leaned against the counter, sucking in a breath when my ribs touched the cool plastic. My hand reached out and just barely touched the knife block sitting in the corner. I muttered under my breath and stretched over the counter, rubbing my broken ribs against the plastic again. I grimaced as the pain barreled through my body, making my head thump harder. I grasped at the wooden handle of the butcher knife and closed my hand around the cool blade. It made no sound when it unsheathed itself from the knife block. I was done getting the crap kicked out of me every night and having to lie the next day. I couldn’t take it any longer. The pain was too unbearable for a fifteen-year-old. I wasn’t old enough to start my own life, but I was old enough to make my own decisions, starting with him.
         I braced myself for the pain of putting weight on my hip, but didn’t it would be this excruciating. I took a step and slowly set my foot down. Pain ran from my hip to my brain like a live wire, jumping around and snapping at my other wounds, making their pain increase too. I screamed obscenities as the pain locked onto my head and didn’t let go. I quickly picked my foot up and leaned against the wobbly table. I wedged the butcher knife into a crack in the table next to my father’s head, cutting off a few strands of his greasy hair. I hopped up to sit next to my father’s prostrate body. I unstuck the sharp blade from the stained wood and ran it over his bared neck. Goosebumps broke out where the tip had just been. I pushed down slightly and watched as it broke the skin and a bead of blood trailed down behind his ear. I lengthened the cut, adding branches and roots until it resembled a bloody tree; my family tree, full of cuts and bruises, blood and pain. I stripped off his beer-stained shirt so I’d have more drawing room. I was bleeding my father out and he didn’t notice. Was he dead? I pressed my fingers against his neck and felt a faint pulse. That feeble beat irritated me, how could he be alive after I etched a sanguinary family tree into his muscled back?
         The anger needed an outlet. I was only planning to give him some pain while releasing my pent-up anger. Now I wanted to kill him. I wanted to pour his warm blood over my hands while slicing the blade in my hand through his major artery in his neck. The arterial spray would wet my already bloody shirt and I would laugh. Laugh as his eyes jump open in shock and he tries to hold the onslaught of crimson life-force inside him. Laugh as the life in his eyes fades away before they are just cold gray orbs embedded in a pale, blood splattered face. I shook myself out of my reverie, how could I be so cold and heartless?
         “He’s beaten the snot out of you since you were five. Trying to get you ready for the real world, while forcing you to become a loner. You’ve never had any friends, why was that huh? You always needed to cover your bruises and broken bones. I mean, jeesh, you couldn’t even participate in physical education half of the time. It was him. He took your life from you. He beat your mother to death. He killed your pets so you would only depend on him. He made sure that you wouldn’t run away. He beat you down every time you got the best grade possible. Have you noticed a pattern here? He, he, he, he. It was his fault! All his fault. He deserves this. He deserves to die.” My inner voice was right, he did deserve to die. He needed to die a painful and slow death. I pressed my knife at the edge of his skull and spine. I pulled back slightly, I couldn’t give him a painful death. I pushed through the skin and muscles until I got between the bones. With a quick turn of my wrist, I popped the bones apart and his last rigid muscles fell slack. It was done, with a minimal amount of blood from the entry wound. He was dead. My father, my abuser, Lewis Taog Knight was terminated. I smiled.
         I looked around the small room. It looked different, more pleasing. The mismatched chairs around the table seemed to fit in with the broken down plaid recliner in the hallway.  A wheeled office chair substituted for a kitchen chair as did a plastic lawn chair. I knew that with my busted pelvis, I wouldn’t be moving anywhere unless I was on wheels. I dropped myself into the chair and pushed away from the table. Dark blood dripped off the dead hand hanging off the table, creating a small puddle on the carpet.
         I pushed myself down the dim lit hallway and crossed the threshold into my bare room. The white walls mocked me of my loneliness. I had no pictures of friends to glue on my walls, no trophies or awards to place on shelves. I had my tattered mattress, my empty closet and a threadbare blanket that kept me warm through the winter months. I spun around in the chair, watching the blank walls spin into one mindless circle of white. I couldn’t take it any longer. I moved over to my makeshift bed and pulled up the mattress. I scrounged around for that one thing that I needed, the one thing I craved. I grasped the small piece of silver desire and watched it glint in the small light coming through my window. I had used it many times before and it gave me a release that I couldn’t find in anything else. I wheeled my chair into my large open closet and rolled myself onto the wooden floor. I kicked the chair back into the hallway with my good foot and leaned my head back against the wall.
         I couldn’t stay here any longer. The pain that was bottled up inside was starting to overflow again and I couldn’t fight it off. I rested my arm palm up on the dark denim of my jeans. Slightly upraised lines zigzagged across the surface of my tan skin and I ran my finger down them. I had started the habit a few years back when my father had beaten my mother to death. The pain had been unbearable and I had accidentally sliced my palm when making my dinner one night. The red liquid bubbled up like an underground spring and I didn’t feel the suffering I knew I was supposed to when someone cuts themselves accidentally. I felt relief, relief from the non-pain, relief from not having to think, relief from feeling a small part of the pain that my mother had felt before her face was punched apart.
         I repeated the afternoon in my head and one piece of it was stuck. It kept rewinding and repeating the lecture that Father spoke before he passed out. I hadn’t known that abuse was hereditary and I hadn’t know that Pappy was a beater too. Maybe that was why Grandma divorced him back in the seventies. His free-bird spirit didn’t catch with her strict and orderly profession. I didn’t want to give this disease onto my children. I didn’t want other kids to go through the pain of thinking that a parent didn’t love them. I drew the sharp razor blade up my forearm, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. With my freshly drawn blood, I traced on the wall next to me with a bloody finger “Don’t wake me, for I have sinned. Forgive me.” I fell back against the white wall and dragged my hand down it, leaving a last bloody handprint.
         Silence. I never knew it would feel this good.