Christian, Brotherhood of Life part 3

Christian and the Brotherhood of Life
         Chapter Three

The drive home ended as the little car pulled into the driveway of a little cream-colored house at the end of an old gravel road. His older brother’s little white coupe was already parked in the driveway when they got there, but his father’s truck was nowhere to be seen. More likely than not, he was probably still at work. He was overseeing a pretty big job for the engineering firm her worked for, so it was to be expected that he would be out late for at least a few days a week.
         Once home, things started to go exactly as Christian had thought they would. Christian’s mother and sister went straight inside leaving Christian to carry everything in. He managed to carry in all the pool supplies in the first trip, only having to stop one to pick up a towel that feel off the top of the bag, and then went back to get his little sister’s gifts.
         After that, he intended to head straight to his room, but his mother caught him before he could make it all the way down the hall. Andrew, the family cat, needed to be fed, and that was just one of the many chores that were Christian’ and Christian’s alone to take care of. Christian, with shoulders slouched and feet dragging, made his way back across the house to fetch the bag of cat food out from under the sink.
         Andrew the cat, a fluffy calico with an orange patch over his left eyes and a not missing from the tip of his ear on the same side, purred as he wove between Christian’s feet, rubbing against his ankles each time he passed by. Christian gave the cat food bag a little shake and smiled as the cat’s ears perked at the sound of his dry food rattling around.
         “At least someone around here knows how to show some appreciation,” he said as he tipped the bag over, spilling the little brown shapes into Andrew’s little metal food bowl.
         “What was that?”
         Prickly goose bumps ran up Christian’s arms as he slowly stood up. Had he have known his mother was in the room with him, he would have made sure to keep his mouth closed. His mind raced as he tried to think of something to say.
         “The cat food,” he finally found the will to speak. He gave the bag another quick shake. Andrew stopped eating and looked back up, giving a deep, longing meow even though he already had a heaping bowl full of food. “I was just saying how Andrew really appreciates this brand of cat food. It’s his favorite.”
          His mother wrinkled her nose as she gave a disapproving snort. With a shake of her head, she left the kitchen, saying to herself, but loud enough for him to hear, “Now he talks to cats. The boy has deffinantly got some problems.”
         Christian, left alone with the furry animal, gave Andrew a scratch on the bag of his head. The cat responded in turn by doing his best to purr with a mouthful of dry cat food. Christian rolled the top of the cat food bag back down and stowed it away under the counter again before head back down the back hallway towards his bedroom again.
         His room was at the far end of the hall, on the right. He was almost there when a door two his left suddenly jumped open. It swung towards him so fast that he didn’t have a chance to get out of the way. The knob caught him in his middle, just below his ribs, so hard that it knocked him back onto his tail.
         Christian’s older brother, Cole, stepped around the door and closed it behind himself. Cole was older then Christian by four years, taller than him by more than a foot, had dusty brown hair, and stunk. Boy, did he ever stink. It seemed like no matter what he did or how often he bathed, if he even bathed, that he always had a strange, unpleasant odor about him. Christian thought that might just be the way guys his age smelled, but he didn’t like that idea because that meant he’d be that way too one day.
         “Watch where you’re going, runt,” Cole chided as he ran his fingers through his damp hair. He must have gotten a shower, or at least rinsed off, but he still had that weird smell.
         “Why don’t you be more careful when you open doors,” Christian grumbled as he put his hands on his knees and pushed himself back up.
         “Why don’t you go crawl under a rock, shrimp.” Cole put his hand on Christian’s forehead and gave him a shove as he walked by, pushing him right back down onto the floor again. He pushed him hard enough that it left Christian with a sore neck, but by the time he stood back up and was ready to say something, Cole was long gone.
         Christian picked himself up again and rubbed the back of his neck. Just a few more steps and he’d be home free. He usually didn’t have to worry about anyone bothering him as long as he stayed in his own room, but that was simply because no one wanted to put enough effort into going back there to bother him. Whatever reason, it was reassuring to know he had somewhere to go where he wouldn’t be picked on, and that he was almost there.
         Finally, Christian made it to the plain wooden door that separated his little sanctuary from the rest of the house. He turned the knob, gave it a jiggle, and turned it some more before he pulled it open. The old door whined and creaked as he opened it up just enough to slide in, and whined and creaked a little more as he pulled it shut again.
         The first thing he did was to change out of his swim trunks and put on a comfortable pair of dark green pajama pants and an easy fitting t-shirt. He tossed his dirty clothes in the hamper by his door and sighed contently as he finally got the chance to lie across his bed. It didn’t last long though. As if on a cue, the moment his body hit the mattress he heard a rumble noise making its way closer and closer to the house. It was the sound of his father’s old truck, which meant he was home from a long day of work.
         Christian closed his eyes tightly and focused on listening. He could hear the front door open and shut as his father made his way into the house, almost immediately followed by the sounds of feet busily rushing through the house towards the living room. His mother and sister, rushing off to tell of their woes before the man could even have a chance to put his things away. Christian was too far away to hear what they were telling him even though he was straining his ears as hard as he could. And even if he couldn’t hear them, he knew it wasn’t going to be anything good anyway.
         There was a sudden stillness that made Christian feel a little uneasy. He opened his eyes and sat on, swinging his legs over the edge of his bed. There were no more voices, only the steady thumping of his father’s work boots on the floor as he made his way across the house towards his son’s bedroom. When the footfalls ceased outside his door, Christian held his breath.
         After a second that seemed to go on forever, the old doorknob sprung to life, rattling back and forth for a minute before the door slowly moaned open.
         Christian’s father stood in the doorway, blocking off most of the view of the hall outside. He was an imposing figure. Not much taller than Christian, but wide bodied, and stout. His dark, grey-flecked hair was a little matted, and there were stains all over his tan, long sleeved work shirt. The smell of burnt oil on him told Christian that he had spent more time in the field than in his office today.
         He looked down at Christian with a pair of dark eyes that seemed more tired than angry. He sat his dirty hands on his waist and said calmly, “I guess you know what this is all about?”
         “Got a pretty good idea,” Christian answered quietly.
         “Anything you wanna say to me?”
         There was plenty Christian wanted to say to his father, but at this point, he knew anything he said would just fall of deaf ears. Even so, he still looked up at his father who stood in the doorway as still as a tree and muttered, “They started it.”
         “It doesn’t matter who started it,” was his father’s reply, “Just matters who ended it. You were older than any of them. You should have known better than to say the things you said. Maybe next time, you will know better.”
         Christian sighed. Even though he only knew one side of the story, Christian’s father had a way of explaining things to his son that made him feel a little guilty even though he knew he was really in the right. Of course, Christian could have handled things differently, but so could his sister. Why should he be the only one getting in any trouble? Because that was the easiest way to handle it, that’s why. It always had been.
          When his mother’s best mixing bowl had fallen off the kitchen shelf and shattered, it was his fault for not making sure it was pushed back far enough, even though Jasmine was the one who moved it in order to get to the little snack cakes that were hidden behind it.
         Or the time he got in trouble when Andrew the cat got sick and threw up broccoli all over the living room floor. Christian took the blame for that, too, even though he knew it was Jasmine that few the cat the vegetables. Christian knew better than to feed his vegetables to Andrew, and besides, he actually liked broccoli. Nevertheless, when he tried to explain that to his mother, he was punished not only for making the cat sick, but also for trying to pass the blame onto his own sister.
         He had learned long ago that it was usually easier to just take his punishment rather than try to prove his innocence. This was just one more of those kinds of situations.
         Christian couldn’t even look his father in the face. He felt sorrier that his father was about to punish the wrong person than that it was he who was going to receive the punishment. He hated that his father simply acted of his mother’s word without a second thought, but he had once made the mistake of trying to tell his father that his mother was wrong, and that only led to an even worse punishment. Christian could only turn his gaze to the floor and ask, “How many?”
         “Dunno,” Bill answered in his deep, monotone voice as he unfastened the thick leather belt wrapped around his pants. “How whip you ‘till you’re sorry, I suppose.”
         Christian scoffed under his breath. If that was the case, his father was going to be swinging until his arm too sore to swing anymore. If there was one thing Christian wasn’t going to be doing, it was to be sorry, no matter what his father did to him. He had nothing to be sorry for.
         The sound of the leather belt meeting the young boy’s flesh carried out the bedroom window for out into the dark of night outside. After carrying out the sentence passed down by his wife, Christian’s father simply put his belt back on and walked away slowly and somberly as if nothing had happened. He wrapped his hand around the knob of Christian’s door, and the last thing he said to his son before closing it behind him was, “let’s hope tomorrow is different, ok?”
         Christian sat quietly on his bed and pulled his shirt back down. He wasn’t crying. He had stopped crying over whippings years ago. Now a day it was just something else that happened. He lay over on his old wooden bed and curled into a tight ball, laying his head on a bunched up spot in the comforter sprawled across it. Christian took a deep breath and sighed, muttering quietly to himself as he pushed the side of his face into the thick blanket, “I’d give anything for tomorrow to be different.”
         That was how he fell asleep. Quiet and alone. Just the way he liked it.