The Birth of Bane (18 page)

I knew he was
naked underneath. I didn’t want to think about that. I couldn’t! I
couldn’t! Now, I knew what he did when his pants were off, when his
ass was bare.
Stop it! Stop it,
NOW!

A minute
passed.

I continued to
stare back.

Another passed.
His brow knitted, so slow it was like watching ice melt.

I didn’t
move.

He licked his
lips.

I didn’t want to
think about his lips.

“
If you say
anything about this, Jerry, I’m going to beat you to death. Do you
fucking hear me?” His face was warped with a snarl.

I felt my own
frustration rise.
It wasn’t my
fault!

“
I will beat the
living shit out of you…,” he trailed off, trying to dangle the
threat.

“
You can try…”
Yeah, bitch,
two can play at that game.

I think if there
was ever a time when he and I were ever going to go toe-to-toe with
our fists, it would’ve been right then. But then, the rationale of
a bully kicked-in as he began to weight the outcome of a
confrontation between the two of us. I saw his eyes dart about my
form. I saw him realize how much bigger I was than him, how much
younger, how much more toned were my muscles.

I was an
athlete. I had been ever since I decided to join the Jessie Owens
Track Club when I was seven years old. The moment I got into
competitive sports I was hooked. I played basketball, baseball, and
flag-football. I did it all.

Lately, though,
as the shortcomings of my genetic pool began to manifest and it
became apparent I wasn’t going to grow beyond my five-foot-nine, my
participation in the more main-stream sports began to diminish and
I began to focus on one in which I was the most talented. That was
Track and Field. Since my sophomore year I’d been running
year-round, working out and lifting weights, gaining strength. I
looked different than I had eighteen months prior. At first, I had
shrunk as my muscles condensed. Then, I’d begun to fill out, my
chest expanded, my wings broadened, my waist narrow and my legs
turned into stone. I’d developed hyper-active reflexes, precise
hand-eye coordination and endurance like I never had since. I was a
horse.

He was seeing
all of
me
now. He was gazing upon the “
me”
of today and
not the little boy he still thought I was in his mind’s eye. As was
the case with all bullies, the moment he realized the fight would
be difficult, if not unfortunate, he backed down. His body became
less rigid. He no longer appeared as though he was going to
pounce.

Though it
would’ve looked pathetic, him leaping after me, I was relieved. I
really didn’t want to fight my father. I mean, I would if I had to,
if it meant keeping my mom or one of my siblings safe, but over a
disagreement between me and him…? Well, it didn’t seem worth
it.

“
You just keep
your fucking mouth shut or I’ll hurt you, bad.” His jaw was still
clenched. His words escaped his mouth as if the lower portion of
face was in the throes of rigor-mortis.

I was about to
reply, but he forestalled me.

“
Remember, asshole, I don’t have to hurt
you
in order to
hurt you.” The usual wicked gleam in his eye turned to something
demented.

I figured he was
talking about my mother, but as I scrutinized his visage a moment
longer. I realized he was talking about Elijah. I felt a shiver of
ice-cold dread race up and down my spine.
He was going to hurt my baby brother? Over this, over his
mangled sexuality, really?

He saw the
fright in my orbs.

It was plain as
day. I knew it. I could feel the heat of it on the skin of my
face.

He smiled - a
long, lethargic stretching of his face. There was no joy in it.
There was no warmth or pride or sense of accomplishment. There was
nothing, but the smile itself. It was as false as a studio back
lot.

He chuckled to
himself. “You remember, you fucking peeping-tom.”

He turned to
walk down the hall, toward the stairs.

He got two feet
and no more.

The air directly
in front of his face seemed to thicken, to coalesce. I could see
streamers of air come into existence out of nothing, thin filaments
growing into thicker strands, only to thicken even more.

My father
stopped dead, his head angled away from the fantastical
mist.

A second
passed.

Suddenly, the
air itself screamed.

It was so
piercing I had to cover my ears for a second time that
night.

The effect on my
d
ad was worse. All he could do
was wail back, a horrific peel threatening to rip his vocal
cords.

I stepped back,
deeper into my room, shutting my eyes against the
onslaught.

I heard my
father hit the floor with a resounding
thump!
He’d been
knocked out cold.

The scream
stopped as quickly as it had begun.

I opened my
eyes. There was nothing there. Whatever it was, it was gone
now.

I could tell,
from some
place where things of
this nature have a shred of understanding within the human brain,
this wasn’t Mrs. Gates. This wasn’t the protective or slightly
annoying companion we’d come to know over the course of the past
few months. Whatever this was, it was new. It was
enraged.

And, it was
strong.

~~~~~~~<<<
ᴥ
>>>~~~~~~~

Chapter Eleven:
A Needed Respite

For nearly a
week, the man I had once considered my father, woke us up in the
middle of the night screaming in his sleep.

We were all
staying upstairs – Valerie included. My mother had taken to
slumbering with Elijah in his room, while my sister took over the
guest bedroom. Things had deteriorated to the point where we didn’t
want to be around my mother’s husband any more than we had to.
Errant comments and off-hand greetings and good-byes were
enough.

For me, even
looking at him was almost too much to ask. I couldn’t. I just
couldn’t get passed those images in my head. I couldn’t reconcile
his choices over us. I could not see from his vantage no matter how
hard I tried. There was nothing in my mind worth losing a wife and
children – a family. What was he thinking?

So, he
interrupted our dreams, each night, with his muffled shouts,
seeping through the walls from the Master Suite downstairs. Most of
the time, we heard only incoherent cries and jumbled yells, but
once and a while something cognizant issued forth. They were
strange utterings, horrified, in the throes of sheer
terror.

“…
please, no,
no, no…!”

“…
no, not again…
it hurts… oh god, it hurts…!”

“…
I know who you
are! I know! I know! I know!”

And one night,
the second to last he was there.

“
LEAVE ME
ALOOOONE!!!”

Then, silence.
Thirty minutes later, we heard him leave. Whether he left for work
early or just had to get out of the house, we never knew. The only
certainty we knew was the sun had yet to poke its’ brilliant head
over the horizon. Leonard Favor was finding his stay at 1052
Lincoln Drive unbearable.

I didn’t get the
chance to ask him about his dreams, but whatever they were, they
scared him shitless.

On the sixth day
after that revealing night, Lenny -
the man I would no longer call dad after what I’d seen - left
for an extended trip to Canada. It was a much needed break, a
joyous separation between us and the idiot who’d conceived me, my
sister and brother. We were all happy at the prospect he wouldn’t
be living in the house with us until June. The idea I wouldn’t have
to see him, or hear about Roxanna (or the Rump Ranger, Teej) until
right before my high school graduation was
beautiful!

Four months of
Lenny-less bliss!

I was more than
looking forward to it.

Everything,
during this time, seemed to flourish whenever I think back on
it.

My relationship
with my girlfriend deepened. Pretty much as my mother said it would
if we took the time to get to know one another without the clouds
of irrational temptation raining down on us. We weren’t completely
guiltless, though. By the time the both of us were gearing up for
walking amongst our friends to get our diplomas, we’d been having
sex on a regular basis. It was our approach to the act that was
different. We weren’t crazy with our wants and needs. We made sure
we’d covered all the bases, approached it analytically than overly
passionate and otherwise ignorant. Myra got on the pill. We
indulged in a lot of foreplay as we got to know each other’s
bodies. We learned our weak spots, what turned us on the most,
searched for the ever-elusive female orgasm and much, much more
before we finally felt we were ready. After that, it was merely a
matter of finding the right time, a time where we wouldn’t be
interrupted or rushed. We wanted to make certain when we lost our
virginity it would be a slow, endearing event and not some random
fumbling in the dark. We wanted the “lights” on!

As I think about
on it, I’m glad we did it the way we ended up doing it. I’m glad we
weren’t plagued with an early pregnancy. Though Myra and I have had
our rough patches, if we hadn’t laid the foundation for a lasting
relationship way back then, some of the things we’ve had to endure
since would’ve made it impossible to salvage our marriage. It has
made for a successful existence with the girl of my
dreams.

Valerie, believe
it or not, actually found a boy she liked during this time as well.
His name was Jose Lopez, a nice kid from down the street. He was
her age, somewhat smallish, though not terribly so. He had long,
wavy hair, the color of deciduous leaves in the fall, as if his
hair couldn’t decide what color to be in the play of the sunlight.
In artificial light, it was somewhere between chamoisee and
chestnut. In the sun, it was so many colors put together it was
hard to tell which one it truly was.

He had delicate
features for a boy, which made him approachable. That’s probably
why Val liked him so much. He had a wide mouth with thin lips,
high-set cheekbones, but they weren’t angular like my sister’s.
They were smoothed as if rounded in his mother’s stomach prior to
his birth. He was muscled, in a wiry sort of manner, much smaller
than me, but he was two years younger and he wasn’t a big sports
kind of guy. Though I hadn’t heard him play up to that point,
Valerie said he was a musician. That was explanation enough for me,
so I let the subject tumble into the rear recesses of my
mind.

She’d told me,
after a few weeks of talking on the phone and exchanging letters,
she was thinking of dating him in a more serious, exclusive sort of
way. Valerie had asked me if I liked him.

I was a little
taken aback, because my independent, rambunctious little sister had
never cared for my opinion, especially in the area she’d just
inquired. I could tell in her eyes, this was heartfelt. The boy
must’ve meant something special to her indeed, if she was going to
go out on a limb like this. I told her, following the necessary
pause of thought, I did like him. I even told her I thought they
made a good match, which wasn’t a lie. They did look good
together.

Then, I went so
far as to tell her precisely what she’d told me months ago: “Just
don’t get caught up in the mix.”

Her stare was
level. The Valerie I knew was back. “It is
so
not like that
between us, Jerry.”

I couldn’t help
but laugh. I mean, what the hell were brothers for,
right?

The biggest
change for the better, during the spring of 1987, was within
Elijah. He became the little boy he was supposed to have been. Not
the borderline neurotic Lenny had nearly pushed him into being. His
play became less intense, involving less conflict. It seemed to be
more about fun, than an expression of the wear and tear of his
environment. He smiled more, talked all the time, asked questions
incessantly as his big brain began to show its’ true
potential.

We embraced it –
all of us, even Myra – rather than endured it. Seeing Eli blossom
was more important than anything we could imagine. So, we
encouraged him, egged him on, and answered every question dutifully
and to the best of our ability. There was no way we were going to
blunt what Lenny had purposefully tried to retard over the years.
No way.

I often saw him
off in the distance, messing around with this, that and the other
thing. I could see his lips moving. Sometimes it appeared as though
he was talking to himself. At other times, it didn’t. It was like
he was having a calm, but meaningful conversation with someone who
wasn’t there. It was puzzling, but his demeanor was so relaxed it
was like he was speaking to my mother or one of my many aunts, so
it didn’t cause alarm other than a characteristic of marginal note
I filed somewhere in the murky depths of my brain. He seemed fine
to me.