Pluto Belt

Kael

Kael didn't have to look at the rear-view mirror to know his dad was staring at him. He felt it in his tingling back, hunched shoulders, throbbing temples as he fixed his own eyes resolutely out the window, watching crowded trees flash by in darkness, wishing he could melt into the glass.  Instead, like a caged gorilla, driven psychotic by the confused glares of imbecilic aliens, he was stuck inside the family four-wheel-drive as it whisked him off into the wrangled, wooded mountain depths that surrounded his home. 

Willowglen was a narrow, poorly maintained road that stretched on seven miles behind the touristy part of Plover's Point, rounding the soft peak where the shops, motels and services dwindled out, replaced by private orchards, multi-acreage properties and dense bushland. Only three types of people had a good reason to go down this road - those who were lost, those who actually lived there, or those who wanted a quiet place to be intimate and undisturbed with their willing partner. Even the Google Street View people, for some reason, thought it wasn't necessary to take photos down this backwoods "no-through". 

Kael carefully curled two fingers round the silver handle of the door. Tugged it gently. 

It did not give. His dad had remembered the child-locks this time.     

The fat bald dickhead watched him like a prison guard. Kael – at least a certain part within him - wanted to pull his eyes from the window, look directly into that backwards mirror face and say "how about watching the road before you kill us both, idiot". But he hadn't the energy to piss his dad off even more. He was already in for it – his dad's little episode in the bush was just a starter. And he knew he wasn't the only one whose night was going to be rough because of what was done to Becky Rogers. No, and maybe Akela and all those pussy kids at Cubs wouldn't think so highly of their beloved Bagheera if they knew about that side of him. Or did they, and they simply didn't care? They'd probably say he deserved it. 

Father of the year still watched him, driving on autopilot, it seemed. 

There was a time when Phil Golino would have tried to talk to his son – to really talk, to plead with him to be reasonable for the thousandth time, to try and appreciate that he only wanted what was best for him. Meaningless shit about boundaries and expectations - "picking yourself up by the bootstraps" was a particularly embarrassing line his old man had picked up somewhere and used to death – but Kael knew his father didn't believe the crap he preached for even a second. It was the same with eating healthy - the same even with religion, for that matter. 

Kael's mother lived on church and all the slightly odd women there - those old cronies that were mostly twice her age, had staggeringly vile breath but made amazing lamingtons on the annual parish fate, the leftovers usually ending up in the Golino kitchen. His mother was all into religion, she dressed their house up like a priest was coming to dinner and she wanted to show him what a good family they were. But Kael never saw her read or even heard her talk about the Bible. Thank God, she never made them pray in the car, or before they went to bed, or ate their dinner. But for all that, Kael knew there was nothing hypocritical or even wrong with his mum – she was kind and friendly to everyone, and she never raised a hand against him, even when he knew he deserved it. She never swore; she hardly ever got angry – not outwardly, at any rate. And she never forced Kael to do anything he didn't want to (except, until he was eighteen, going to church on Sunday morning).

His dad on the other hand ...

A great person he was. He attended Our Guardian Saint Joseph's Church diligently, but he never seemed to enjoy any prospect of it other than watching Kael squirm as the priest went on with his monotone platitudes in a gratingly boring accent that apparently was Filipino. Phil drank pretty heavily, which Kael knew from Quora was something proper Christians didn't do - and that also went for swearing and smoking and gambling on the pokies, all pastimes his dad enjoyed no less.