* * *
"Shut the fuck up, Ma!! I’m sick of your fuckin’ shit!!"
They stood at opposite ends of the small kitchen: Debbie Graham with her back aimed at her son, hands buried deep in the suds, Hector in the doorway, looking in. They had been going at it for over an hour now, ever since Mike, Pete, and Russell had abruptly, yet ever-so politely, departed via that wheezy back door. At first she had coaxed, then she had begged, and finally she had demanded that Hector call Pete and apologize. To her, this was a compromise (she actually wanted him to apologize to Russell, Pete, and Mike as well). Of course, he had flat out refused, and now they were at a familiar impasse.
"I didn’t raise you this way," she muttered to herself. "Why do you have to be so bullheaded?"
Yep, Debbie kept her cool. She rarely lost her temper anymore, even though, at times, she thought she should. Yelling never accomplished anything anyway, other than making him angrier and more unpredictable. Letting him cool off on his own was the better way to go. She had always tried to be a good role model, to lead by example, but when, at the age of twelve, Hector snared and killed a wild rabbit apparently just for the hell of it and placed it on the porch steps for her to discover when she arrived home from work, she knew that a more direct approach at discipline was going to be needed. By then, it was too late for spanking (though she did spank him for killing that rabbit), and the concepts of time-outs and grounding were ones that Hector openly laughed at. By his size alone he dominated her. He did whatever he wanted whenever he wanted to do it. So when, at the age of fourteen, he decided to take her Monte Carlo out for a joy ride, there was little she could do to stop him. Ultimately, that stunt led to her to contacting Sheriff Price and requesting he keep an eye on Hector whenever he could spare one. But that was only a temporary fix. What she really needed was a man in the house—a steady man—to keep her son in line.
Faced with an impenetrable wall silence, Hector huffed and stormed out of the kitchen. When she was sure he was gone, Debbie knelt down and picked up the broken fragments of a plate Hector had earlier knocked from her hands.
Loud, dissonant piano chords exploded through the house, shattering the silence, hammering Debbie’s ear drums, which in turn sympathetically pounded her brain. Closing her eyes, she screamed:
"STOP IT!! JUST FUCKING STOP IT!!"
The piano died but the discord remained. Slowly she opened her eyes and listened to Hector walk down the short hallway, slam the door to his room, open the door, rattle his keys, and slam the front door to the house. Through the kitchen window she watched him waddle up the driveway, climb into his Jeep, and back out the driveway. Then she listened to the drawn-out, pitch-shifting squeal of rubber against cement until that, too, died and she was left, once again, in silence.
A warm drop of water fell from her hand and plopped dead-center on top of her left foot. Looking down, she noticed that the dime-sized drop was red. Gradually, she released her grip and placed the jagged chunk of ceramic on the countertop. As if through the lens of a telescope, she stared at her bleeding palm, feeling so removed and apart from her body that she swore she heard the faintest strain of melody in the air. But it was gone before any memory could resonate in her brain. When she curled her fingers, she was forced back to earth and into her body. A deep pain flared through her left hand and forearm.
She winced and thought of her son.
I hate him.