In his Eyes

IMMEDIATELY AFTER

I hovered over him panting with anger, and bellowed the guttural grunts of my primal rage all over the room. Instantly, I transformed into a dragon, discharging my fiery breath of pent-up frustrations into his prickly pale face. A mist of drool spewed out of my mouth with every dejected howl I belched, and my throat grew raspier with each bark. Though I was fueled by all the absent years of his love for me, I was mostly supercharged by the meat cleaver he had chased after me with only a minute earlier. I was in fact just defending myself. So, on this night, either by my cold-blooded hands or on my own two feet walking out of this place, my choice to become step-fatherless seemed inevitable.

MINUTES BEFORE

I found myself blindsided in the fresh heat of a household disagreement, which was a common way of communicating for my family, but I was not quite sure how this one began. Somehow, I was caught between my mother demanding that I start producing rent, only two weeks after graduation, and my step-father telling me to move out with immediacy. It's not that I didn't foresee having to grow up, pay bills, or start partaking in a society like everyone else, but I had a hard and confusing end to my senior year that I was still mentally recovering from. Two big spoilers; Before the football season even began I had broken my leg, which literally shattered any opportunity for a college scout to see me on the field. Implausible, yes. Impossible, not quite. In ninth grade, I was named Vermont's Best Lineman, and we won State in the same year, though Florida was a different breed of humans, and I was small, there was still a chance for a smaller school to pick me up. Secondly, in the final weeks before graduation, I lost my opportunity for an academic scholarship, mostly due to the fact that my parents neglected to get me properly prepped for S.A.T. Though having been loosely diagnosed with A.D.H.D, which did affect my test-taking abilities, it was mostly a financial issue that was exacerbated by lack of saving anything, the lack of care from my parents, and the failure to see the benefit of investing in their talented son. I in fact was closely a straight-A student, on the honor roll for more quarters than I could remember, and among the top percentile of my class. It certainly wasn't an intelligence thing. I remember my mother's words of wisdom spoken out of the corner of her mouth as she handed me the sixty-two dollar money order for the last possible test that I was able to schedule for the year.

"You got one shot, don't fuck it up!" while she puffed her cigarette, and placed the car abruptly into the park at the school entrance minutes before test time. The weight of my future rested upon my success.

Both of those things could have gotten me out of this place, and both would have prevented this night from happening. I was overwhelmed with anxiety fueled by the stress of abruptly needing to find a home or a job, or both. So, I walked away like I was taught to do by my therapist ten years prior. I found a brief comfort inside my so-called bedroom, which was a walk-in closet inside my parent's room. Her slow-relaxed voice resonated over and over in my head while I attempted to control my breathing and plan my next move. Count to ten. Think before you speak. Create space and allow time before reacting. I knew that going outside would be good for us all, especially me, and listening to music would be relaxing while I went for a walk in a neighborhood park. So, I had a plan. I slammed my feet into my shoes with no time to tie them, then made sure to grab the earbuds off the dresser while hastily shuffling towards my bedroom door, but I was met in the doorway by my step-father yielding a large knife that was intended to chop through bone. Accompanying him was my mother actively fighting him off, and with a strained urgency, instructed me to leave.

Maybe I was in shock from seeing the bright flash of the sharpened metal when the knife caught the light just right, or perhaps the overall excitement from the heightened stress and immediacy of the moment, nevertheless, I continued towards the exit without a reaction and blindly obliged my mothers to request to leave. I brushed passed them unaffected until my hand eventually found its way to the knob, and I began turning it. Even though my back faced them I could feel their animated presence behind me, which re-enforced my need to leave. My awareness of the room had lifted the hairs off my skin in anticipation. Each one was fully erect and standing at attention; Ready for their assignment; Ready for war. My heart thumped inside my chest pumping apprehensiveness throughout my veins, but I continued opening the door knowing that I was only inches away from being safer on the other side. In one moment, all of my efforts to calm and distance myself from the situation were sabotaged as I was struck from behind by a massive blow to my back. I carried enough momentum to slam the door shut with my head, and my survival instincts immediately took over. A six-year flame ignited a wildfire within me. My stepfather and I became entwined into a pretzel of anger, and I speedily salted him with my years of pain-turned-hate.

THE IN-BETWEEN

When someone says they "blacked out" it's hard for another person to comprehend what that really means. I think that our minds protect ourselves, and default into a sort of "survival mode," so that we won't have to deal with the emotional side when we are forced to recollect the horrible events. Maybe there is truth in that, or perhaps we really just blackout in a blind rage, but I don't think it's an absolute thing, and I assume it's not the same for everyone or the same every time; It's circumstantial.

For me, on this night it was a total darkness that infected my sight, my mind, and my heart for short periods of time, and I am left with snippets of silent, black-and-white, time-lapses of going ape-shit crazy. There were moments that I remember pounding his body like one would imagine a silver back to do when protecting its troop; my shirt ripping to shreds over my head with every strike and with every uncontrollable scream. It was the purest of rage that I delivered to him. It was the most honest I had ever been with him since he and my mother met. Unfortunately, it was the most painful of honesty, the kind that actually hurts. Then there are the moments that may never be found, lost in the black hole of hatred, and tumbling through the endless void of my mind's darkness.

AFTER THE AFTER

I gathered any moisture I could find in my mouth, and hocked it into his face with cruel intentions, then dug my elbow deeper into his neck ensuring I would employ more pain. I wanted him to feel my strength; To inflict a sense of humiliation on him. I was empowered, yet still in total fear for my life. I was barely in control, and running on adrenaline, which is not a good combination for a kid who lacked maturity and had nothing to lose. Every vein pumped with the compulsion to end him quickly. I had the capability, and I had the motive. I was compelled to stand up for myself finally, prove I could be a man, and gain the respect any loving son would deserve even if it meant beating it out of him. So there I was, eager to inflict pain on him and watch his life wither away slowly, so that it may match the loneliness that I felt inside. Having the urge to fight to the death was only natural, as men have been doing it for thousands of years, but for whatever reason, that night, I didn't kill him despite having an undeniable justification to do it. Maybe it was my mother pulling and grabbing at me or her constant pleading for my release of his throat. Maybe it was a lesson for me to observe what I am capable of, and where my demons can lead me if left unchecked or they became inflamed. Maybe seeing what a man looks like when he thinks he's going to die or that I am even capable of making someone think or feel that way is what saved his life that night, because when I looked into his eyes, I was afraid, but I was mostly afraid of myself.

I let my grip up just enough to allow air to enter into his lungs, yet maintained most of my weight on his body, to ensure he would stay put. He was frozen in place. His tail was tucked between his legs, and he stared at me with enormous dread, as if he accepted his fate, and knew he was going to die. My spit rolled down his cheek, and onto the carpet as tears pooled into the corner of his eyes. His pupils were dilated and remained that way without fluctuation regardless of the light. The fear on his face was impactful to me, but only in retrospect. As I retell it, I also relive it. With each time, the memory is branded deeper into my soul, and I can assume I will only be relinquished of it, many years from now when I pass on. I will never forget the glossed-over stare he held on me, while he anticipated my next infliction. His eyes seemed to conclude that it would be the last feeling he would ever experience, but it would have been something to experience instead of the raw emptiness that existed in his death. His head was jammed into the carpet and pinned between the couch, and my arm. I straddled his body pressing all my weight onto him, but it was pointless as he stopped struggling almost instantly after our brawl had started. He just laid there like when a dog cowers down showing its belly in surrender. As if he realized he was not the alpha wolf anymore, or that he never really was, yet he was the grown man, and I was only seventeen, fresh out of high school. How was I the stronger one? Why is he cowering to me?

Though I believe I was right for defending myself that night, it's what I did afterward, that bothers me to this day. He deserved his ass-beating, and I would do it again with the same intensity and the same brutality, but taking from him the tiny part of manhood that he had left, destroying the bits of pride that remained within him, and the humiliation that I inflicted after he was already down and had given up, was plain wrong. It was arrogant and destructive. It was a horrendous act of violence against a person's soul. It is saddening to live with. We can all heal from the bruises, the broken ribs, and the concussed head like he did, but it takes a lifetime for some, to mend a broken and battered soul. Even when I remember his glazed eyes staring back at me, I can't help by see a hurt boy staring at a hurt boy, both of which never healed, never had a real father to look up to, never had time to mature, and both were never taught how to talk about it. In a fucked up twisted kind of way, that day was the moment that I realized, that he and I were more similar than we ever thought. The day that we chiseled in stone a permanent void between us was also same the day that we connected the most, and actually shared our feelings with each other, not with our words or our fists, but instead with both sets of eyes.