Love Songs: The Wrong Note - A Collection of Short Stories

3

My father was a lot to things, but brave was not one of them.

He was a bully and a coward. He was a wife beater and an alcoholic. He gave me my fair share of stripes, welts, and bruises, black eyes, and broken bones, but that was before I took my growth spurt.

After the age of eleven, when I suddenly shot up in height and weight, my father ignored me and turned his whole attention on making my mother miserable.

My father was a tiny man, by most standards – barely five feet tall and one twenty-five pounds soaking wet. I never knew who I took my bulk after, but even as a boy, I quickly outgrew the raging bantam rooster that was my dad.

Little man.

Big rage.

Runt.

Holy terror.

But deep down, my father had a yellow streak the size of Texas.

I remember the exact moment I stood my ground.

Maybe it was because of the fact that I was two inches taller and thirty pounds heavier. Maybe it was because I picked up a nearby ax and threatened to split his skull in two. Maybe he saw the look of cold, murderous rage in my eyes that day. I don't know. Whatever it was, he never laid a hand on me after that.

"Demon. Boy, you're crazier than hell. How dare you threaten me!"

But his words held no steel. They floated on the air like feathers. I stood there, ax in hand, dripping with sweat, fear, and hurt.

I think he was right about the crazy part. I had to have been mad with rage. But I had had enough of my father's treatment. I was sick and tired of being his punching bag.

Half the time, it was undeserved. The other half, well, like I said, I'd had a gut full of it. He could have knocked me out, sent me into a coma that day, and maybe it would have been all well and good. I don't know. But I stood my ground, and the little man backed down. From that day on, I pretty much did as I pleased.