The fighter

Even when people change so gradually, Its still hard to grasp that my parents are now essentially strangers to
me.Well my Dad has always been an asshole, with booze or without. but my mother on the other hand had a beautiful soul. She was free spirited and gracious with love for her children. She even used to sing in the shower and put daffodils on the window sill above the kitchen sink. I don't remember the last time i heard her sing, but I do remember it was beautiful and delicate, and it echoed throughout our home early every Sunday morning as she made breakfast, and the adolescent sun beamed brilliantly on her pale white skin through the window. But now I avoid mornings like the plague, because I no longer have daffodils or soft songs or even a mother. These things were drastically replaced by early morning bottle facing, screaming, and a broken, hollow woman. I don't blame anyone but my sorry excuse for a father. He is not a man, he is a monster, and had no right to beat the beauty out of a woman.

I hate being the protector of my house. I hate having to fight my father for his drunken beatings on my family members. But its become a job that I cant quit, because if I don't do something I'd feel even shitier. And hes not an easy fight by any means, my dad was a boxer and he can be classified as a professional ass kicker. It wasn't long until my dad forced me into boxing. He would explain to me at the age of 10, the same time he made me stop drawing ( something I genuinely loved), that I cant be a pussy in this world or people will walk all over me. So we would train, and he would hit me if I didn't keep my hands up in front of my face. "get off the fuckin ground!" He would say, "you going to let someone push you around like that?! Everyone is your enemy, kid. If anyone steps up to you, show them whose boss." I would sneak colored pencils from school and draw on the back of my homework worksheets. My mom insisted to my father that I had a passion and its good when children develop a passion at a young age, but my dad wouldn't hear it. Of course he was convinced that this must have meant that I was going to be gay, and my father refused to raise someone who was gay, and of course, boxers can not physically be gay, because boxers are tough and beat people up. These are the things that were drilled into my head for years until I realized that my father was nothing but a miserable, intoxicated, raging asshole. I boxed for 9 years. He taught me how to defend myself against the only long term enemy iv'e had, enemy number one, him, and i learned from the best.

With all these angry thoughts swirling around my brain as they always did when i accidentally wake up before 8 o clock, I decided my arm was healed enough to go look for enemy number 2, Caleb Brumley. I made a couple phone calls, looked around town, but this kid was virtually AWOL. A little later I did, however, come across one of his brothers at the drive-in. He was leaned up against a fence, a cigarette in one hand a mountain dew bottle in the other,surrounded by a couple of other kids I knew. I walked up to him and grabbed him by his shirt collar, pushing him hard against the fence. "Where is he?" I asked with cold eyes. "I dunno what your talkin about man.." he slurred. I could smell the alcohol on his breath, quickly confirming his mountain dew bottle did not in fact have mountain dew in it. I slammed him against the fence. "I'm not messin around with you kid, where the fuck is your bitch of a brother who had the nerve to pull a gun on me!" I screamed.  I turned my head to the right and saw Caleb walking out of the snack bar. I let go of his brothers shirt and walked over to him.  "Heard you were lookin for me. Hows your arm Cade?" he asked sarcastically with a smirk. "Hows your jaw?" I asked patiently. "What?" He said confused. That's when I hooked him in the jaw, knowing I would break it because my right hook was good for that, and my instructor taught me exactly how to break a jaw when I was 16. He was knocked out cold and his friends ran over to him.  "Hey, tell him to be expecting that at least 3 more times, this one was for having sex with my sister, and the next 3 will be for shooting me." I said as i passed them. I got in my car and took off.

On the way home I stopped at the florist. I walked in my house full of screaming miserable drunk people and went into the kitchen where the screaming was coming from. Instead of stopping it as I usually did I took a different approach, I grabbed the old, dusty vase from underneath the sink, put it on the window sill, and placed a single daffodil in it like my mother always had before she was hollow. My dad continued to scream at my mother without as much as a glance, but my mother stopped and went silent, staring with her wide bloodshot eyes, going back and forth from me to the vase. I saw a microscopic smirk crawl across her face as he screamed at her, telling her to listen to him. I left the house and got in my car, i saw my mom staring out the window at me with that same rare smirk she wore while I was inside. I smiled back, and drove to Bucks for a beer.