I
It’s late—well past ten—when it bounces off the walls.
Same swearing. Same thumping. Same ruckus.
Which means only one thing.
My parents are at it again.
I guess I’m sort of used to it by now. Most of the time it doesn’t really bother me, either, because I’m either half-asleep when they go at it or just too tired to care. It’s funny. All those years when I little it used to take me forever to fall asleep. There was so much for me to be scared of.
Then I realized the monsters to be afraid of were other people, so there was no use in looking under my bed for them.
Like every war throughout history the one between my mom and dad started with a War of Words. Things had actually been okay for a while, too. But then all of the sudden, right in the middle of tonight’s dinner, the gloves came off. Let me tell you, when they say all’s fair in love and war they’re not kidding. Snide comments and insults flew across our kitchen table like mortar shells. Back and forth they went. No one ever wins, of course, because like every war this one is fueled by rage and revenge and utter stupidity.
It’s insanity. All I want to do is eat my Mac and Cheese in peace but it’s nothing doing. Trust me, I’ve tried to play peacemaker, too. But it’s not use. It’s like trying to negotiate with a couple of toddlers whose diapers are full of poo. You’d think with all that education between them, they’d learn from their mistakes. But it’s the exact opposite. Grown-ups never listen.
But this time they’ll have to—whether they like it or not. Because I’m catching them by surprise. That’s the best way to attack someone. They’ll think I’m asleep, of course. I should be and would be right now if they weren’t going at it again. I’ve heard the saying it takes two to tango but in our family it’s always my father who flips out—and he never needs anyone’s help doing it, either. Sure mom does her share of sniping but at the end of the day he’s the one who goes nuclear on everybody. Dad’s got quite the temper on him. Whenever he gets real worked up his face turns red like a big tomato. Then, if he keeps getting rageful this vein pops out from the corner of his forehead. He never loses his cool with me, though—I mean, not in the way he loses it on mom. He’s actually a very good dad. Most of the time. On paper, I think. I know it probably sounds like my father’s some kind of unhinged lunatic but he isn’t. Trust me, I’d know by now, too. I’ve given him more than enough chances to turn into The Incredible Hulk.
Like last summer when he took me fishing.
He brought me along with all his friends from work. They’re all lawyers like him and one of them, this fat, bald guy, I think was his boss. Anyway, we were out there all day or at least it sure felt that way because the sun was beating down on us and even the sodas in the cooler had turned warm. They were about to give up and go to the boss’s—I think his name was Evan—lake house to watch the Red Sox game when all of the sudden my fishing line went taut and everybody jumped. My dad grabbed the pole just in time before it flew into the water. He let me hold this big net while he reeled the line in. The other guys were whooping and hollering and one of them even slapped me on the back which I didn’t like. Meanwhile unlike everyone else my eyes were on my father’s face, watching him as he looked like a kid about to open the biggest birthday present he ever got. Thus it was easy to read the excitement written all over his face but much harder for me to discern if there was any trace of pride in there, too, because he hardly ever expresses that in my presence. When he finally hauled what I caught out of the murky water there was the biggest fish I’d ever seen. I mean, he had to be wider than a pillow and twice as thick, too. At first, I thought he might’ve been a baby shark but my dad’s flabby boss Evan said it was a Rainbow Trout, a, “real beauty.” Then my dad nimbly detached the hook from the lip of this giant fish and dropped it into my net. That’s when it started flapping back and forth like it thought it could still make it back to the water. Back home. All of the guys had their phones out and were about to take pictures when I turned and dumped it right back into the water. You should’ve seen the looks on their faces. They were so panicked and sad, gasping with horror like I’d just told them all their mothers got run over or something. I wouldn’t have been surprised if one of them had dove into the water and started chasing it. But it wouldn’t have mattered if they did. That trout was long gone. When I looked over at my dad’s face it wasn’t full of rage, though. He just looked sad. Crestfallen. The same look he has whenever he sees my report card.
He kept asking me why I did that but I didn’t say anything. There was no use explaining it to him, anyway. Any person who spends their whole day trying to trick another living thing so they can eat it is a deranged human being if you ask me. Anyway, during the whole boat ride back to Fat Bald Evan’s Lake House, everyone looked like they wanted to throw me overboard but my dad never yelled at me. He never flipped out. He just smoldered. Maybe it’s true what I heard mom say to him one night. Childhood is a certain worry but an uncertain joy.
Sometimes on nights when it’s real bad I hear stuff banging against the wall and my mom whimpering I wish they’d just go ahead and get a divorce already. There’s this kid in my class, Carson Clark, and he told me his parents never fight in front of him but they never talk to each other, either. It sounds really weird. Like two submarines in the middle of a dark ocean not even passing each other. He even said they told him they have, “ marital problems” but wanted to stay together for him. It’s so stupid. Carson told me it would make more sense for them to have the courage to divorce each other and maybe find a happy place with someone else than stay miserable and force him to grow up in the middle of the Land of Misery. But he knows what I know. What every kid knows. The fact I’m nine and they’re forty-whatever makes no difference. Being older doesn’t make you smarter, it just makes you balder and more forgetful and often times fatter, too. If grown-ups would just drop their phones for five seconds and actually listen to what kids say they might actually learn a thing or two.
Mom’s cries are getting louder. Now dad’s calling her bad names, too. He must be real mad tonight. Great. Maybe one of his clients at work didn’t pay him enough. That’s usually what bothers him most. Money. How much more he wants and what my mom is spending it on, or—as he calls it—“wasting it,” on. Which is rich coming from a guy that spent a king’s ransom on a gold watch last month. I have no idea how much that thing cost him but it must’ve been a pretty penny. His face was so joyful when he took it out of the fancy velvet case and clasped it around his hairy wrist you’d have thought it was an engagement ring. I was actually surprised he didn’t cry. He put it on and tilted it back and forth under the kitchen light and listed all these things that made it so great. Like how it supposedly can tell you the time when you’re one thousand feet under water. My mom and I traded this look of…so what? She even sported a little smile in the corner of her mouth, too. Because when is my dad ever going Scuba diving? Never. Even if he did, why would he care what time it was? So he wouldn’t be late for dinner? He could just grab a fish if he wanted something to eat. But I guess that’s his idea of a toy. Yet he had the gall to give mom grief about buying a book—one of the most valuable things you can ever own. She bought a really old book by this poet named Jack Frost. He’s from New Hampshire like she is and there’s even notes in pencil he made on some of the pages. I’m sure it was really expensive because that started World War Three between them. She kept crying after dad harangued her, telling her how stupid it was of her to buy that it without asking him first and that’s when I watched a tear stream from her cheek and plop onto the faded brown cover of Mr. Frost’s book.
I got so nervous seeing her weep and wilt in front of me like a flower on a hot August day until I just couldn’t take it anymore. I had to say something. Not as a peacekeeper but more like a referee because both of them needed a time-out. So I turned to my dad and asked him what time it was. He acted all surprised by that question. An ironic moment if there ever was one. Like you’d think a watch that cost as much as his did would tell him the time so he wouldn’t even have to look. Then he cleared his throat and consulted it and informed us it was half past six. Which meant we were supposed to be having dinner, not yelling at each other. Which also meant he was hangry. So then mom made dinner and afterwards and everything went back to normal.
Or as normal as things ever can get in this family.
But later on that night those sounds ricocheted off the walls of their bedroom. Followed by the same old whispers and banging and name-calling. Do they think just because they fight behind closed doors I don’t know what’s going on? It makes it worse, actually. It’d be better if they just went ahead and brawled in the living room and aired out all that dirty laundry right in front of me. But, no. Instead they prefer to hide all those secrets from me—or try to, at least. That’s the thing about secrets. You can’t hide them forever. No matter how hard you try to bury them, they’ll always rise back up to the surface and stink up the place.
II
A lot of people tell me I have my mom’s nose which is a pretty weird thing to say but now that I’ve heard it a million times I finally understand it’s a compliment because my dad’s schnozz is thick and long and crooked like the beak of a raven. He’s even got raven-like eyes, too, gloomy and cavernous. The kind you’d expect to see under the cloak of a Dark Wizard. I’m pretty sure that’s where my brown eyes come from. But who knows? I’d like to believe I inherited mine from a distant ancestor who happened to be a kind person. Someone who maybe took care of old dogs no one else wanted.
Not a mean guy like him.
I’m clutching Cleo real tight, mustering as much courage as I can before we head into the warzone. Cleo Iguana Gilbert is the name of my stuffed lizard, the one I sleep with every night. I’ve had him ever since I was a baby—before that, technically, because my daddy got him for me when my mom was pregnant with me. Apparently she sent him down to the hospital gift shop because he was driving her crazy. You see, I was one of those babies who never wants to leave the womb. They ended up having to use a vacuum to get me out. Anyway, before they did that my daddy bought me Cleo and we’ve slept together ever since. Some people, when they find out I still sleep with a stuffed animal, think it’s either weird or babyish. Maybe it is. I don’t care, though. Cleo’s been there for me by my side through the stormy nights when the thunder shakes the windowsill by my bed and the times I’m blue, too, like when my goldfish Rainbow Dash died. Basically, Cleo, she’s way more than just a stuffed animal. She’s the best companion a kid could ever ask for. If you ask me, the fact I talk to her sometimes is a whole lot weirder than when my grandma talks to God whenever she prays. At least I’ve got something to hold onto.
Which is what I’m doing right now, wrapping my fingers tightly around Cleo’s tail like she’s a good luck charm and I’m about to spin the Roulette wheel. I take a deep breath and swing my feet onto the floor. All of the sudden things get quiet and I start hoping maybe they’ve stopped and my mom just surrendered like she usually does and I can go to sleep already. But then I hear a smack. That’s when I know this has gone from bad to worse.
That’s when I know it’s time for me to attack.
III
Slowly and softly, we snake our way down the hall. If there’s one thing I know for sure in life, it’s this: never underestimate the element of surprise. I learned that from my favorite graphic novel, The Samurai Diaries, about this kid named Sato from Vermont who finds out he’s the last of a long line of great samurai warriors. Since he’s adopted, Sato has no idea who his biological parents were until one day this old dude shows up and explains to him who he really is. Sato doesn’t believe him until the old guy gives him a sword and he starts swinging it around like he’s been using it all his life. But the thing is, before the old man disappears he makes Sato promise to never kill anyone. Instead, he tells him to always the element of surprise and, if he needs to, fear. Sato actually finds those two work much better, anyway because, as the old man explains, leaving your enemy wide-eyed and breathless also leaves the door open for a teachable moment.
It sounds crazy but it really works. Like, at the end of the book this big Japanese mafia boss, Mr. Yoshimoto, takes out his gun and shoots Sato. But Sato’s swinging both his katanas so fast the blades are blurry like a windmill so the bullets just ricochet off. Yoshi keeps shooting until there’s no bullets left then Sato edges close to him and cuts the barrel of the gun right in half. Then they just stare at each other and you see a big blotch in the middle of Yoshi’s pants because he’s peed himself. Sato just walks away leaving Yoshi white-faced because he knows the best way to handle someone like that isn’t through violence but by scaring some sense into him.
And that’s exactly what I’m gonna do with my father.
The hallway is dark and long and spooky making me wish there were some nightlights dotting the walls. I can barely see two feet in front of me but there’s a sliver of light at the bottom of their door leading me to the combat zone.
The closer I get, the more gruesome it is. Real bad words. Real bad sounds, too.
I take another deep breath and run my fingers over Cleo’s soft, spiky head. I’ve been sliding my bare feet all the way across the wood floor just like Sato does when he attacks the Dragon Dojo in Issue # 9 of The Samurai Diaries. One of the first lessons the old man teaches him is to always be barefoot when you’re on a mission. Sato asks if this is to make sure you stay undetectable and the old man says no it’s so you stay comfortable.
I twist the doorknob and crack open the door and that’s when my eyes go as wide as the moon.
They’re in the middle of a fight alright—a physical one, no less—and it looks ugly as sin.
Daddy’s got mommy pinned down by her wrists. She looks as though she’s been struggling for awhile now. Her face is beet-red and pinched, like she just sat on a cactus. My father, meanwhile, has his back to me and it’s blotted with sweat with patches of wiry hair around his shoulder blades that make him look part-Gorilla.
He’s laying on top of mommy, pushing into her the same way Mason Donnelly does at recess whenever he pins a kid down. Mason always does that to the kids who won’t join his group when we play King of the Hill. He tried to do that to me once last year and I kneed him right in the testicles.
I’m ready to do that to my father right now, too, but the angle isn’t working for me. I’d have to climb onto the bed and if I did that it’d be bye-bye element of surprise, so instead I just stand there watching in horror as he keeps banging into her and grunting and panting.
I’m thinking they probably got into a fight right before they fell asleep because both of them are half-covered by the bedsheet. I can barely see mommy now but I can definitely hear her and it makes my throat go dry and my eyes well with tears. She sounds like she’s drowning, each breath more labored than the next.
Then her face, blushed and blotchy, finally emerges from the corner of my dad’s shoulder and her eyes meet mine.
“Albert!” she gasps.
My father whips around and covers himself with a sheet, looking both surprised and aggravated, like I just stopped him mid-air from a ride in the World’s Best Rollercoaster.
Mommy’s voice is panicked.
“Albert!” she repeats. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough,” I answer.
“We’ll—” she says. “—You should knock before you come into someone’s room.”
My eyes stay locked on my father. “What were you doing?”
“I was just…looking for something,” he replies quickly.
Mommy nods at this, but her face stays distressed as she pulls the sheet all the way up to her chin.
There’s an awkward block of silence between us, me still standing there clutching, Cleo watching them watching me until my father speaks again.
“It’s past your bedtime Albert,” he reports.
“I know.”
Mommy clears her throat. “Go back to bed, sweetie,” she says. “I’ll be in there in a little bit to tuck you in.”
“Okay.”
With that, I turn from them and shuffle out of the room. I’m not sure what time it is but somehow the hallway is darker now like night has fallen inside our house like a thick, inky blanket. I hear my parents whispering back and forth until I turn the corner and lope back to my bedroom.
Once I’m back in bed I just lay there awhile. They’re right—it is way past my bedtime. But even though my body is tired my mind is still running fast. I can’t stop thinking about how much my father looked like Mason Donnelly when he was pinning down Mommy. Just a fatter, hairier version of the same kid who pushes kids on the playground and takes what he wants whenever he wants it. I still haven’t managed to surprise Mason nor instill any fear in him and I’m not sure I ever will, either. The playground at my school can me quite the unforgiving place. You can have a lot of fun out there and get beat up all in the span of twenty minutes. Most days I prefer to steer clear of trouble and just avoid him. But maybe that’ll all change after tonight. Because if I can stand up to my father, then I can stand up to anyone.
The realization runs a few laps inside my head before my eyelids finally start to get heavy.
Just looking for something.
See, that’s the problem with grown-ups.
They’re always looking for things in the wrong places.