The Sound of Snow

Chapter Five: "The Cowardly Boy"

The Boy's squatted on the scorching pavement beside the neighborhood dumpster off the main road, a muggy summer wind sweeping through his hair.
"Oh, come on. I promise it's not poisoned or anything." He timidly offered a small slice of bread to the gray neighborhood stray.
The cat cowered and hissed, pressing its body to the ground under a newspaper that had been blowing in the breeze. The Boy gingerly tugged the newspaper off the feline. The rigid hissing turned to angered yowling through the animal's small barred fangs.
He put the slice of bread down on the concrete and sat back, throwing hands up in submission. "Okay! I won't try to pet you. Just eat the bread, please? You're skinny and I need a friend – we can call it even."
Instead the cat bolted out from the paper, around the dumpster, and in a flash of gray disappeared into the neighborhood. Rushing away from the noise of the cars he bolted after her but she was already gone.
"Damn it!" He snatched his ball cap off his head and chucked it to the cracked cement at his feet. "C'mon! I'm just trying to feed you!"
The eleven-year-old kicked at his hat. The cat must be stupid. It only made sense that they, the two scrawniest and ignored creatures on the block should come to acquaintance. Each had something of survival value to offer; like nutrition... or a friendship to cure the loneliness that comes with four years of secret letters from a family you weren't sure you'd ever get to see again.
The Boy dropped to crossed legs in the middle of the empty street and picked at wildflowers cracking through the cement. It was a futile plan to begin with. Cats don't eat bread, but it was all he had left from lunch when Dad kicked him out of the house – he always got kicked out when the man stressed over his new job working from the computer. And considering his father had chugged three beers already before ten this morning, he thought today seemed a good day to stay out as long as possible. The Boy had been trying to get used to being kicked out lately because he had reason to believe Dad might actually try to keep this job. After all, he didn't have to leave the house for it.
The Boy still mulled sourly how much better off they'd be if he'd just kept his position as a police officer. But his father had secrets to keep about that area of his past and his son knew better than to question it.
If only the kid had a friend in the neighborhood, he might not mind these aimless afternoons in the sweaty heat of the day. But only sorry people lived in this sorry rural place. There were sorry penniless old people and sorry deadbeat college kids, but few families.
Once, a couple years ago The Boy did come across a family, the Akatsukas, who had four kids around his age. Finding them riding their bikes on the other end of the block, he lead the group in a race back to the red post box, bikes versus skateboard. When the finish line came in sight, though, so did a very drunk Dad who stood outside the apartments screaming at The Boy for having left his sight and talking to strangers. The other children were sent fleeing back home. The next day The Boy skated past their house – bruised noticeably – and said hello to them playing in the yard. They must have told their parents about his father's behavior though, because their mother soon rushed out the door and gathered her children inside. Cagily she told him to go home and not to come visiting again for fear he might get her children in trouble with the notorious drunkard. Word traveled fast in this neighborhood and that was the end of The Boy's social endeavors without Dad's reputation getting in the way. For now, the stray cat was his only hope of finding a local friend.
The stray appeared again from behind the bushes between two houses, meowing casually. The Boy sprung to his feet only to find the cat running towards Ohara-san standing on his porch at the bend in the road.
"Here, Nyako-chan." The latter pulled up his robe slipping over his shoulder and set a bowl of milk next to a pot of dried-up plant. "How about some warm milk instead of moldy bread?"
Nineteen-year-old Mitsue Ohara was one of the sorry dead-beat college students littering the hood. The cat started to lap up the milk, allowing the latter to pet her tattered tail. He gazed back at The Boy across the street with conceit disguised in a pitying smile. The kid scooped up his cap and pulled it over his eyes to conceal a pout. Ohara-san waved haughtily and the younger spun on his heel and marched towards his apartment.
"Show off. Two can play at that game."
. . .
Sneaking through the front door, the reek of alcohol singed the kid's nose hairs as he shut it noiselessly. He waited, gazing at the kitchen and what little he could see of the den until the buzz of the fans were interrupted by the sound of Dad's snores. Creeping past the short hall, there lay the man sprawled on the sofa, laptop open on the coffee table with papers all around flapping in the blow of the rotating fan on the carpet.
Already knowing he was too short to reach, The Boy clambered onto the countertop to pull open the kitchen cabinet. Peering up the cramped shelves he pushed aside a couple cans of beans and corn to grab a cylinder of tuna. In the process his hand kicked the stack of mushrooms and with a shrill gasp he dived. His sneakers slammed and piercingly screeched on the tile as he caught the cans, nearly losing his footing. He held the aluminum containers to his chest, unmoving with his back to the den. The blood froze in his veins for several beats. No shouts. No noisy movement from the living room. Just the hum of the fans.
Deftly jumping back onto the counter, he replaced the other cans and closed the cupboard as quickly as quietly possible. He sighed a shallow breath of relief. Now to get a bowl of milk...
He stepped back into a very muscular abdomen.
"And what do you think you're doing with that?" Dad's voice was guttural, still half-asleep, but acutely pissed off nonetheless.
White fingers squeezing the aluminum can, The Boy rounded to face his red-faced dad who reeked of sweat and liquor. Shame and childish embarrassment churned his already terrified guts. Moving to press his back against the refrigerator – it made him feel safer somehow – he stammered his explanation that he wasn't sneaking a snack for himself but just trying to play with the stray. His eyes fell on his father's fist at his side, the thick wedding band still protruding threateningly.
"What have I told you about taking food without asking?"
The Boy eyed the metal ring, wondering if answering or staying quiet would dig a deeper hole.
"What did I tell you??" Dad demanded.
"You said not to."
"So what gives???"
The Boy thought quickly, "I was going to ask you before I took-"
"That's a lie!" Dad reeled and struck his son across the jaw, sending the petite adolescent whiplashing into the fridge. Groaning and gripping the back of his aching head, The Boy bent, defending from another blow. In times like this, Adrenaline was his best friend, never letting him feel the brunt of the pain until it was safe to do so.
The Boy balked as the man ripped the can out of his hands, striding and shoving it into the cabinet again.
"Damn, you're getting to be almost as bad as your sister was." The father grumbled, "Still just like your mother, though... Lying to my face then sitting there like a pathetic dog when I call you out."
Dad started to move back to the couch. The kid's jaw stung keenly where the wedding band broke his skin; just another injury the teachers would overlook and bullies would pronounce. Minute memories lingered of the days when that ring was a symbol of the love Mom and him shared. Now he used it to beat The Boy and spit on the woman's memory.
The Boy scowled at his father's broad back. "What's so wrong with that?"
Dad stepped to a halt. Turning around leisurely he raised his brows scathingly "Excuse me?"
Fond thoughts of her most recent letter heated The Boy's flair for attitude. "I said, what's so wrong with me being just like Mom?"
This past year, longing for his mother incensed a stronger rejection of his father. And today the eleven-year-old made a mistake he rarely did: arguing with the drunk.
"What's so wrong??" Dad yelled and strode back to the child. "Well, I guess there's not anything wrong if you aspire to be a lying, hopeless adult who finds comfort in making someone else out to be the bad cop!"
The Boy glared at the floor, saying under his breath, "You mean like you?"
The retort left his tongue louder than he thought it would, resonating in the droning sound of the squeaky fans. Maybe the child would have thought before he spoke if the room was silent and terrifyingly still as usual. Instead the incessant zipping and tapping of whiny blades in the air prodded irately at his temper.
A deathly silence followed The Boy's words that was only interrupted by the drunk bursting into a cynical cackle. The child gritted his teeth.
The man lurched, grabbing his son by the collar and shoving him back against the refrigerator. "You think you're a real smart ass, huh??"
The Boy flinched at the knuckles against his throat. He turned his face away from his father's that was inches away, all but holding his breath from the stench on the hard breath. He couldn't let Dad see him scared anymore. Both Mom and Big Sis deserved to be defended with bravery.
"I did what I did because it was my duty as head of the household." The man seethed. "She did what she did out of cowardice because she couldn't handle a little retribution."
The Boy stared into his father's face; though the man had just hit thirty-nine his features wore the lines of one who'd suffered a longer and harder life. Maybe that's what years of being wrong does to you, the kid thought. Because his father was absolutely wrong.
"She's not a coward, Dad..."
The parent shook him by the shoulders and screamed his accusation again. The Boy's eyes stung from the sake on his father's breath.
"She's not a coward!" The Boy insisted though his face sagged sorrowfully. His insides writhed, begging him to balk. Sure, Mom deserved to be defended, but what's the point in getting beaten for an act of bravery she'd never even see?
"Don't you dare sit there with that same self-righteous look like she used to flaunt!" Dad's eyes were slits of hot anger. "As if she was so much better than me! She wasn't!!"
Dad's grip constricted, squeezing the last of The Boy's better judgment away and replacing it with a desperate terror to boil his blood. Finally the child's tongue snapped.
"You're just mad 'cause you miss her!"
The father's hands loosened.
"That's the reason you still wear her ring, isn't it?!" The Boy cried in his face. "You're still upset that she left you!"
Silence.
The ticking of the fan blades sounded more like a bomb's timer. Too petrified to look away, he watched his father let him go and stand straight. The difference between the pair was as plain as a lion to a pup.
"I'm so dead."
Dad folded his arms, set his jaw, and replied in a soft, breathy, and chilling tone.
"...I'm going to give you to the count of three to take that back and apologize."
Wide-eyed and dismayed by his own stupidity, The Boy shook his head, unsure if he was disobeying or trying to deny the inevitable.
"Apologize...now..." Dad's lips chewed each word. "...Or spend the rest of the day locked in the dark closet. Your choice."
There it was. The second the parent mentioned the dark punishment, the son all but crumpled in tears. He felt a noose tighten around his lungs and reached for the drawer on the counter where his emergency inhaler was kept.
Dad snatched wrist away and began the countdown. "One..."
The Boy truthfully was not sorry. He meant what he said.
"Two..."
Was there anything wrong with just pretending to comply?
Dad hissed through his teeth "Two and a half..."
Sweat broke out on The Boy's flesh as panic finally smashed his courage. "I- I'm sorry!" he burst, "I didn't mean it, I'm sorry!"
"Say it properly." Dad ordered in the same meticulous tone. "You're sorry and you admit your mother was a coward. Say. It. Now."
"But..."
"Three!" Dad's face ignited with satisfaction. "I hope you like sleeping with the monsters."
Dragging The Boy by the collar of his t-shirt he towed him around the counter.
"No, Dad, I said I'm sorry!!" the tween punched and pulled at the big arm.
Dad hauled him through the living space and into the hall towards the bedrooms, drawing back the sliding door to the coat closet.
"Dad! Please, Dad, let me go!! I'm sorry!!" The Boy shrieked and writhed until he slipped out of his shirt and cap leaving his parent fuming.
He bolted for the door but was caught by the throat coughing and gagging as Dad shoved him into the space. His bare back felt the tickle off the coats and the closeness of the black walls. The father pushed the sliding door, the line of the hallway light shrunk and the black walls drew closer.
"Ok! Ok, ok I admit it!" The Boy wedged himself in between the door and the wall. "She was a coward, I know she was! You're right! I-I'll never talk to her again, I promise!!!"
Holding the kid's neck at arms length, Dad tilted his head to the side and squinted. "What do you mean... talk to her again??"
The Boy's face went white. "I-I mean I won't ever go look for her! I don't... I don't want to see her again... ever. I'll s-stay here with you!"
He said it because he knew it was what Dad wanted to hear. A moment later it sunk in and he was appalled at his own ability to manipulate the man.
Dad yanked his son out of the closet and slammed the door shut. "If I ever catch you taking that insolent tone with me again, so help me gods, you will stay grounded in the dark for the rest of your life, have I made myself clear?!"
"Yes, sir..." The Boy croaked.
Dad threw the t-shirt still in his hand at him, moving to the drawers in the kitchen grabbing the emergency inhaler, snatching up his son's hat on the ground, and throwing them at him too. The child quickly put his shirt back on. His friend Adrenaline was fading now, leaving ample room for a new, more permanent, more oppressive friend named Regret.
The man moved back to the den. "Now get the hell out and find some other way to entertain your filthy cat. Just don't bring any of its diseases home with you!"
Pulling the cap over his head The Boy paced to the door calmly with a gasp from the inhaler. When the door had closed behind him as quietly as he first opened it, he ran, almost falling down the stairs all the way to the bottom floor.
Out into the street he flew against the sultry bemoaning wind. Jumping over the sidewalk railing, he passed the red post box and carried on down the thin grass-line beside the concrete low wall separating the neighborhood from the surrounding overgrown nature park.
Bitter remorse chased him until he panted like a dog. But he couldn't stop. His first real meeting with Regret was hateful and so far he wanted no kind of friendship with this feeling.
To his right the Akatsuka house and those of many more he was never allowed to know flew by. He ignored these, watching the wall all the while he ran the length of it, searching for his opening until finally, almost two blocks away he came to the break. The breach was several feet wide and footed by weeds and debris of the crumpled cement with a sign that had sat there for years telling people construction was coming soon. The Boy hopped over and slowed to a jog down the hill on a well-worn path through the woods.
The Boy had discovered this opening to the forest shortly after Mom left, and ever since had come here often to explore and play. As of now, there was one very solid dirt and dead leaf trail belonging to him, which he'd been traveling regularly every month since Mom's first letter came.
A couple branches snagged at his shorts which he swatted away as he jogged against the wind howling through the foliage. Finally when he thought his chest might burst from the waves of guilt, he came to the huge open grove where the blue sky lay stark against the white hot sun. Up a gradual hill was the dilapidated arched structure of some ancient building, and a little farther back was the highway to the city. In the whirring of the hot breeze, the stickiness of his sweaty back, the sound of locusts screeching, and far off cars on the road, The Boy was at last far enough away from Dad.
Adrenaline had done his job. Time to let Regret take over.
Catching a shaking breath he moved forward in the wide bed of grass. The wind had blown leaves all around today so he couldn't see the mark he left for himself. Stomping the earth in circles, finally a dense hollow thud broke from his shoes on wood. He plopped down heavily by a large patch of crushed brown leaves. Regret was really beating the sides of his heart in now, and The Boy welcomed the angry string of choice words that kicked himself inwardly as he brushed dirt and dead leaves away from the heavy wooden door in the ground. The square panel was attached to rusty metal hinges and fastened by a tarnished bolt lock. He grabbed the handle and pulled the rotting flap up on its hinges to let it flip over on the other side of the hole, the aroma of wet earth and mold rising out of it. Though no bigger around than a fireplace, with the sun shining straight down the kid could see the stone bottom of the cellar about eight feet below. To The Boy's right and left, there were pockets built into the stone walls of the hole like shelves. When he first found it he guessed it must be all that was left of some storm or storage shelter used by the same ancient people who might have built the old archway remains atop the hill.
Bent down The Boy could reach one of the upper pockets, which ironically was the perfect size to fit his cherished shoebox full of his mother's letters he'd been collecting over the years.
Did you really think he would have ever risked hiding such a treasure under his father's roof?
He pulled open the soggy cardboard and rested the box in his lap, inside finding the precious mess of letters. He stared at the contents until the sense of faultiness grew unbearable. When he realized the shame attached to those cowardly words his father drew from him, The Boy couldn't think of anywhere to run but here. Here, the only place safe enough to exist these dangerous sentiments. Slapping the dirt off his hands, he dug through the pretty envelopes, loathing the awful untrue things he just allowed to slip his tongue. The Boy flipped through the collection of photographs Mom and Big Sis had sent him. The tightness in his throat threatened he might cry as he stared at their smiling faces celebrating his birthday last year though he wasn't there.
He neatly piled the photos again and bound them carefully in a rubber band. Next, he picked up Mom's most recent letter...
"Baby, I wish I could be there with you more than anything. Whatever happens, promise me you'll mind your father, okay? I worry about his drinking. So do whatever it takes to stay out of trouble. And don't worry about upsetting me; I just want you to be safe. I'm already proud of you and each of your letters is the highlight of my month. You are the bravest person I know! I wish I could see you right now but until then just keep up a positive attitude. I would tell you to stay strong but, knowing you, I don't think you need to be reminded.
Missing you like crazy,
Mom."
"I miss you too, Mom..."
The Boy dropped the letters back into the box and brought his palms to his eyes. No matter how hard he tried to wipe them away, the tears just kept squeezing through.
The sparse chirping of a few birds, the rhythmic buzzing of locusts and the whispers of the waft in the underbrush made the whole area feel close. Somehow its lack of interaction, of human presence, enhanced The Boy's feeling of well-earned isolation. Its tranquility offered ample room to interpret an all-around self-administered guilt trip.
"Stupid idiot... Why can't I just be who she thinks I am?"
He asked it like he was clueless, but the answer was clear. He could never love his mother and father with the same heart. Sorry people like him don't get that luxury. The real question he should have been asking was which one he was willing to give up. To you that might sound like a choice between heaven and hell: easy. But I dare you to walk a day in our shoes. Then try to tell me it's easy to quit loving the person who raised you.

To be continued...