The Birth of Bane (21 page)

We emerged from
the car ten minutes later, both of eager for what was to
come.

We scuttled up
the flight of stairs, leading directly from the street, giggling
and talking rapidly, warmed by more than just the summer night.
Holding hands, we made our way up the walk no more than a few
yards.

“
I don’t give a
shit about this house, you fucking whore. I’m going to sell it
whether you like it or not!”

I felt my heart
hit the concrete I was walking on. A sickening guilt flooded
through me, washing away all the excitement and joy in one,
relentless wave.
I should’ve
never left.

“
Don’t you dare
call me that, you pitiful excuse for a man!” responded my mother in
kind.

From my vantage,
I heard the sliding glass doors open and saw her step out onto the
deck.

Then, I caught
movement out of the corner of my eyes. I turned. I was astonished
to see Roxanna come through the front door, her handbag on her
wrist, a thin smile etched on the lower portion of her
face.

I wanted to yank
out her hair by the roots in that instant. She was getting off on
my parents fighting.
What a sick
bitch!

“
It’s over, Leonard! I want you out of the house
tonight!
”

I heard his
laugh, drawn out, vile when he’d been drinking too much. “I ain’t
going anywhere.”

Roxanna saw us
and her smirk melted to a frown. She quick-stepped toward us, in
the infuriating way women sometimes do when their trying too hard
at looking feminine. “I hope everything is ok, Jerry,” she said the
moment she was close enough and didn’t have to speak louder than a
harsh whisper.

I felt my head
wag from side-to-side. “Just get the fuck out of here, Roxanna.”
Though I hadn’t known I could speak with a snarling rasp. It came
out just the same.

She paused,
sliding her body away from me and Myra, shock written plainly for
us to see. “Well… I -.”

“
Just
go!”

Myra was already
muttering at my side. One minute more and this could get real
nasty.

Though, I’d
hoped for the better, things went horribly.

She
went.

I hadn’t known I
could frighten an adult. I liked the idea.

That was when I
heard the first slap.

My head turned
on a swivel.

At my side, Myra
gasped, her hand coming to her mouth.

A slap?
It had sounded like one, but at the
same time it hadn’t. It wasn’t as loud, almost as if…

“
You
sonofabitch!” yelled my mother.

…
I’d heard it
the past. It had been a long time, but had heard it before. It
wasn’t a slap.

“
Come here, you
pig,” snarled Lenny.

I’d heard that
too. I’d been a boy, but the memory of it came back in a flash –
full force, unedited by time. Back then his fists had been balled
at his sides, his face a rictus of hate, his eyes blazed like a
demon’s. He had given her a concussion that time.

There were
footsteps upon the deck.

“
You stay away
from me, Leonard!”

Everything
seemed to slow.

“
I’ve only just
begun, bitch.”

I was aware I
was no longer beside Myra. I had left her somewhere in my wake. I
could hear someone other than my mother yelling. The sound was
behind me as well. It could’ve been my girlfriend, but I would
never know for sure. The sound of my Mom’s screech hit me again,
like a ton of bricks. I faltered, almost fell.

The awful sound
of knuckles hitting flesh
thwacked!
in my
ears
.

My mother’s
scream was cut short.

I felt sheer
fury race through me. I regained my balance. Everything was tinged
with red. My heart was in my head, no longer in my chest. I could
feel my legs pumping for more speed, though it seemed like I was
going no faster than a snail. I hadn’t noticed that everything else
around me had slowed as well, even moreso. I didn’t have time to
notice, to care, or even bother. I had to get to my Mom. She was
the only thing that mattered.

I came around
the house, the deck before me. I could see Lenny bent over, his
hand balled, arm bent at the elbow. It was a piston-like movement
and it was heading down once again. Though I couldn’t see her, I
knew she was on the floor. I knew he had her by the hair, keeping
her head in the direct path of his now descending fist. He was
going to hit her again. He had all the leverage he was ever going
to get. The blow would injure her, severely.

My foot hit the
bottom stair of the case leading to the upper portion of the deck.
I grabbed the handrail and squeezed. I was ready to vault up and
over the balustrade. It would’ve been a tremendous athletic feat. I
would have to move my body like a high-jumper. It was a motion I’d
seen a million times from the track, watching my counterparts on my
high school team as they practiced their field events. I could do
it no problem. I would be next to my mom in a flash.

Something out of
the corner of my eye distracted me. Instead, of catapulting myself
forward, I slowed, my head turning toward the flowing white entity
that had emerged from the house.

It wore a
nightgown, long, billowing in the warm night air. It was barefoot.
It had long hair, wispy, the finest I had ever seen. Its’ eyes were
crazed. Its’ hand before it seemed like claws with nails three
inches long. It was howling in such an inhuman fashion. When I
realized who it was, I was astonished.

It was
Valerie.

“
You leave my
mother aaaalooooone!”

Her
voice was so otherworldly, it was
ghastly. It was shrill, desperate, raging. It was ripped to the
bone.

She tackled
Lenny form the side, grabbing him by the arm with both of hers. Her
momentum knocked him off kilter. For a moment, I thought they were
going to go down in a heap, but Lenny shifted his back foot,
bracing himself. The moment he felt resistance, he turned violently
to the side. The move was intended to use my sister’s motion
against her. It worked. She went sprawling past him and fell hard
onto the wooden surface of the deck. She cried out, her hands and
knees scuffing.

Lenny gazed
after his daughter, hand still gripping a fistful of his wife’s
hair. “You want some of this, you little slut?” He struck my
mother, hard, right over her left eye.

I was suddenly
woozy when I heard the thin bones of her face crack.

He chortled,
through spittle and a leer. “I’m going to kill her right in front
of you, Valerie. I’m going to kill your mother tonight. How do you
feel about that?”

My sister was
weeping uncontrollably, her hair obscuring half her face. “No, no,
no, no…,” she kept saying

Lenny wrenched
my mother brutally, dragging her upon the deck, so my sister had a
better view of the carnage about to unfold. “You watching,
Valerie,” he asked drawing out the words. “I hope so, because
you’re next…,” another chuckle, “Daddy’s gonna have so much fun
with you tonight.”

I saw his fist
rise again. He was going to hit her once more, in the exact same
place. My mother’s head was listless in his grasp. He
was
going to kill her.

I saw my sister
gather another horrified wail within her chest.

I heard Myra
scream from somewhere in the yard.

I charged. I
couldn’t wait any longer. He was going to kill my mother. I could
see it in his eyes. He had crossed
that
line. There was no
turning back for him. He had been flirting with it for far too long
now. He knew it. He understood the ramifications, the consequences
and for some reason he didn’t care. He was going to kill my
mother.

I was
accelerating, faster than I ever have, faster than if I’d blasted
out of the blocks, gunshot in my ears.

I still wasn’t
faster than him, though. He must’ve been gaining speed from the
middle of the living room, using the distance between him and us to
attain a velocity that was shocking to witness. Maybe it was
adrenaline. Maybe it was no more than fear. Maybe it was primal,
beastly, the prime directive in full bloom – to protect what is
special.

To him, there
was no one more special than her. He adored her. He worshipped the
ground she walked on, and now she was going to die.

I had no more
than an inkling he had passed me. He came from behind, on my right
side, so close he must’ve traveled directly underneath my armpit.
He came hurtling forth, a six-year-old. He was barefoot too, in his
pajamas, with a primordial ululation upon his lips so strident it
sounded as though his vocal cords were tearing.

He left the
surface of the deck ten feet from Lenny, who was now turned away.
He landed upon his back like a big African feline taking down its’
prey. He did the only thing he could do, being of diminutive size
and strength. He began to rip at Lenny’s eyes, his thin nails
gouging into his brow, his lids, the bridge of his nose with such
alacrity I had trouble following.

Lenny stood
there stunned for a few moments. Then, he jerked away from the
pain, letting go of my mother.

She fell the
rest of the way to the floor, unconscious.

I was no more
than a step and a half away when I saw Lenny’s hands grab Elijah by
his pajamas. I reached out, fingers made claws as the other man’s
grip tightened about the thin fabric my little brother was wearing.
I touched Lenny’s shoulder before he spun swiftly, like an Olympic
hammer-thrower, firming his hold.

My little
brother lost his balance. He slipped further into Lenny’s
clutches.

I saw my
one-time father’s muscles bunch just before my body collided with
his. Even then, I was too late.

Lenny
heaved.

Elijah
flew.

Valerie
scrambled after his tiny form. She missed.

Myra’s footfalls
hammered up onto the deck. “
Noooooo!
” She was so
loud.

I hit
the-man-I’d-once-called-my-father resoundingly in the side, beneath
his arm. It was a linebacker’s sort of hit, meant to cause maximum
damage through the direct transfer of kinetic energy. All of mine
passed into him. My forward motion stopped cold. He went down hard,
end over end. I went after hit him, cocked and locked.

That’s when I
heard Elijah impact onto the lower portion of the deck, smashing
directly onto one of my mother’s wicker chairs, completely
destroying it before he smacked gruesomely onto the unforgiving
wood. Even from where I was, I heard bones break – a lot of bones
break.

I don’t remember
much else after that moment. The instant it had registered my
little brother had been reduced to a pulp. Everything was red and
hazy. I don’t remember moving. I don’t remember anything of what I
felt. I don’t remember a lifetime of anger and resentment coming to
the fore, expressed all at once and without impediment. I don’t
know why, but I don’t recall anything for what had to be the next
few hours.

I woke up in the
hospital, my hands bound in gauze and tape all the way beyond my
wrists. There were policeman outside my room. Myra was at my side
staring at me with an expression had had yet to see upon her
beautiful face and have never seen since.

It was fear,
real, unfettered.

It hurt me to
see her look at me that way, because I had seen Lenny procure they
very same cast from my mother more times than I care to recall
here. I looked into the eyes of my rambunctious, life-loving
girlfriend and vowed, before I even cared to know what had
happened, I would
never
be anything like my father. As far as I
was concerned, he was dead to me.

There’s not
really much more I can write about it. It was one of the few times
in my life beholden to such finality, it left little in the way of
additional explanation. The decision was simple, a clean cut from
the past. I would never go there again. I wouldn’t have
too.

I no longer had
a father. It was as simple as that.

“
What happened?”
I tried, though my throat felt like someone had been sandpapering
it while I slept.

Myra grimaced,
her eyes welling. “You don’t remember?” It was tiniest I had ever
heard her speak. Myra wasn’t built that way. She wouldn’t temper
her personality for anyone, and yet…

I shook my
head.

“
We were so
confused we didn’t know what to do,” she began, but had to stop.
Her tongue was suddenly too thick. She swallowed a few times. “It
was the man, the guy living in the back house who finally pulled
you off him.”

It was my turn
to frown. “What are you talking about?”

She wiped away
the tears beginning to fall. “It was Bruce.” She breathed deeply.
“He was the one who pulled you off your dad.”