The Mechanics of The Heart (Unedited)

15

"I'm tellin ya Hunter if you don't get that temper under control, it going to get you killed one day." Maddox never raised his voice at his kids, nor his hand. The disappointment in his eyes was enough, it was heavy like someone was standing on your chest and as thick as fog.

It made Hunter feel like someone had tied cinderblocks to his ankles and tossed him into the river.

Maddox sighed, leaning into the glove compartment and yanking out a fresh wad of napkins. "Here, let me see." Tossing the bloodied gaze from the nurses office in Hunters school aside Maddox titled his sons head back, looking at the alignment of his nose. "Well it aint broken, yet." He smirked down at his son as he pressed the napkin under the gushing blood softly.

Watching his sons hazel eyes roll around his head. "I'm sure the same can't be said for Clark." He smirked past his fathers hand pinching his nose, despite his guilt for disappointing his father- he felt nothing close to sympathy for the boy he left bleeding and near tears back at the school. "Maybe now they'll keep their mouths shut."

Maddox sighed, gesturing with his hands for Hunter to take over the napkin while he cranked his truck. "Ya can't keep gettin into fist fights 'cause some dumbass says something you don't like." Maddox had been preaching the same lesson to his son from the moment he found out how to throw a punch.
Hunter was a relatively calm kid until he was pissed, then it was hell for all those involved.

Hunter grunted aloud, his head bouncing slightly off the head rest of the passenger seat. He felt like these lectures were his fathers version of a sermon, a prayer that almost always ended Hunter nodding a long, despite how much he felt unheard.

"Yes sir." Maddox glanced at his son, his answer coming in a dejected tone. Sighing he gripped his sons shoulder, his practice jersey still slick with sweat and covered in a layer of dirt from rolling around in on the field trying to detach Clark Mason's head from his shoulders.

"Look boss man, people are gonna always have sumthin' to say. You have to walk away 'cause someday you may meet someone who cant or wont fight and I refuse to bury my son over a few words." Maddox knew the rumors spread about in the schools, he had spoken to both principals when Bambi refused to go to school for two days straight and Hunter was kicked out of school with the promise of no return without a parent conference. He also knew the teasing his daughter endured just because of her name, something he gave his children with the intention to give them power and identity. His heart was breaking while his mind was scattering for a way to help his children and all the same, he was burning like a hot coal with rage.

Hunter could do nothing but nod numbly, his father was right. Of course, to Hunter his father was always right because he knew everything.
"Come on, lets get burgers for dinner. Your mother is cooking meat loaf again." Hunter shuddered at his fathers words, already gagging at the thought of having to choke down his mothers slop of a meat loaf.

"Okay, okay- Who was the first Major League player to pitch a ball over 100 mph?" Hunter raised his eyebrows, grease and ketchup coating his fingers as he reached for a napkin, waiting for his fathers response as Maddox wiped his mouth.

"Roger Clemens?"

He slides his gaze to his son, shaking off the sudden pounding in his head and the blur coating his vision. The blurred figure he knew was his son moves back and forth as Hunter shakes his head.

"On September 7, 1974, in a game against the White Sox, California Angels pitcher Nolan Ryan became the first player to break the 100 mph barrier when one of his pitches was officially clocked at 100.8 miles per hour. Crazy right?" Hunter chuckled to himself, looking at the lettuce sliding out the side of his burger as he recalled the buzz he felt watching the blurred film on you tube.

"Yeah, hey son-" Maddox gasped, his entire body humming with heat.

"Dad?!" He barely registered his sons frantic screams. Hunter scrambled to yank his seat belt away. A car honks blaringly as his fathers truck veers off rode, he grunts as the car jerks as it slams against the curb. His fathers body convulsing in the driver seat as Hunter attempts to grab at the wheel, panic seizing his chest as he watches foam start to pour out of his fathers mouth. "DAD!"  Leaving the wheel he grabbed at his fathers shoulders.

Fear tying around his heart and yanking it into his feet as he watched his fathers eyes roll into the back of his head. Disappearing until there was nothing but the whites to be seen, panic and fear shocked his nervous system into a numbness as his spin cracked against the dashboard, the steering wheel pinning into his back as a his fathers still convulsing body his thrown on top of him.

"Somebody help my dad! Please!"

It was twenty minutes under his fathers body before EMS arrived, it was five minutes after they crashed into a light pole did his fathers body stop convulsing.

It was like Hunter wasn't in his body, he rode in the ambulance hearing the sirens with a different set of ears, he watched his father be rushed behind closing doors with eyes that weren't his, felt his mother claw , yank and pound at his chest with a body that wasn't his.

"What am I going to do now? Whose going to take care of me now Maddox? How could you do this?" People were staring at his mother scream her agony in the middle of the hospital, listened to the crack in her voice as she mourned. Hunter looked on numbly, his own tears foreign to him as they fall silently. The only thing registering was the heat from his sister, Bambi clung to him like a life line as she sobbed quietly. Gripping his practice jersey caked in sweat and now wasted burger and condiments.

"We're gonna be okay, Bam." He comforted with words that felt wrong to be his to say.