best part of you ran down my leg!” and Leon shrieking scared and trying to get away, into our room, with Dad right after him; he flipped over the bed Leon crawled under, then he punched him with his big fist and dropped him on the floor. Leon tried to defend himself, kicking and screaming, “I hate you! Some day I’ll kill you, cocksucker!”
Finally Dad stopped and tried to hug Leon, but Leon dodged between his legs and ran out. We girls were up against the wall, scared stupid, Mom screaming at us to get away. Dad came and said he loved us, don’t worry, Leon has to stand and take what he’s got coming like a man. Let him run, he’ll come back and I’ll straighten him out. He left us, and later came back up to use the bathroom, and then into Karen and Minnie’s room, where we were all lying together, to say goodnight. Evenings like that we two smallest girls slept with Karen and Minnie, their beds pulled together. The other girls acted as if they were sound asleep, but I didn’t know any better, I was so scared I moved, and he tucked the blanket up tighter, saying very quietly, “Goodnight, goodnight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
I loved my father, and pitied him, and I feared him as well. I learned to watch him like I learned to watch everyone. There was no trusting him or what he might suddenly do, no warning when he’d yank off his belt. Just wham! When he came home drunk, he did it to any one of us. Now he fell asleep on the bed beside us and after a while I heard Leon come back, so I got up carefully and went to tell him, “Dad’s in our room.”
Mom was with Leon and she told us to be very still, but Dad woke up anyway, furious. Why was everyone tiptoeing around like thieves? And Mom was the worst, he said, teaching his own kids to hate him.
“And you, Mom’s suck,” he yelled at Leon, “just a thief and a lousy one at that, why don’t you get a job instead of stealing bikes!”
“Leave him alone,” Mom yelled back. “You call him a black bastard anyways.”
At least this time Mom did not have to take the blows intended for Leon. The next day everyone was sober; you could feel everything that had happened in the whole house, but it was very quiet and calm. Dead calm.
The kitchen was Mom’s room, that’s where she was boss even though she didn’t want to be cleaning and cooking all the time. She loved those narrow stairs going up at the back.
“Servants’ stairs,” Mom would say, and she was so proud. Our big, beautiful house had once had everything proper and in order; it had had servants working in it.
The kitchen itself wasn’t very large; we never ate in it, though I remember Mom and Earl sitting there together and eating. By then Earl was big enough to beat off Dad when he came at her, drunk. Earl was hardly ever home, either at school or working, and if he was he’d just eat and run. He had lots of friends and at one point he left home completely, bought himself an old Chevy van from a dealer across from the gas station where he worked. But even after he came back home again to go to school, he wouldn’t go logging in summer with us any more. He got a better job in Eddy’s Bakery, I could smell the bread he made from my school yard. He was becoming a man.
Earl loved driving the foothills; he knew every road over the mountains where we worked logging. Once he drove a blue fin-tail Caddy convertible—it must have been my auntie Rita’s new car, though I don’t know how she got it—and I rode in the Caddy with Earl on a mountain stretch of road like a roller-coaster. He would carefully speed up over each hump and we’d throw our hands up into the open sky and lift over the top as if we were flying, all us kids laughing, screaming as we soared. He got the golden eagle from that straight stretch of dirt road off the highway, where it crossed the fields and hit the treeline. Driving there was like vanishing into a new world, cool, dark, so sudden inside the forest.
It
Finally Dad stopped and tried to hug Leon, but Leon dodged between his legs and ran out. We girls were up against the wall, scared stupid, Mom screaming at us to get away. Dad came and said he loved us, don’t worry, Leon has to stand and take what he’s got coming like a man. Let him run, he’ll come back and I’ll straighten him out. He left us, and later came back up to use the bathroom, and then into Karen and Minnie’s room, where we were all lying together, to say goodnight. Evenings like that we two smallest girls slept with Karen and Minnie, their beds pulled together. The other girls acted as if they were sound asleep, but I didn’t know any better, I was so scared I moved, and he tucked the blanket up tighter, saying very quietly, “Goodnight, goodnight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
I loved my father, and pitied him, and I feared him as well. I learned to watch him like I learned to watch everyone. There was no trusting him or what he might suddenly do, no warning when he’d yank off his belt. Just wham! When he came home drunk, he did it to any one of us. Now he fell asleep on the bed beside us and after a while I heard Leon come back, so I got up carefully and went to tell him, “Dad’s in our room.”
Mom was with Leon and she told us to be very still, but Dad woke up anyway, furious. Why was everyone tiptoeing around like thieves? And Mom was the worst, he said, teaching his own kids to hate him.
“And you, Mom’s suck,” he yelled at Leon, “just a thief and a lousy one at that, why don’t you get a job instead of stealing bikes!”
“Leave him alone,” Mom yelled back. “You call him a black bastard anyways.”
At least this time Mom did not have to take the blows intended for Leon. The next day everyone was sober; you could feel everything that had happened in the whole house, but it was very quiet and calm. Dead calm.
The kitchen was Mom’s room, that’s where she was boss even though she didn’t want to be cleaning and cooking all the time. She loved those narrow stairs going up at the back.
“Servants’ stairs,” Mom would say, and she was so proud. Our big, beautiful house had once had everything proper and in order; it had had servants working in it.
The kitchen itself wasn’t very large; we never ate in it, though I remember Mom and Earl sitting there together and eating. By then Earl was big enough to beat off Dad when he came at her, drunk. Earl was hardly ever home, either at school or working, and if he was he’d just eat and run. He had lots of friends and at one point he left home completely, bought himself an old Chevy van from a dealer across from the gas station where he worked. But even after he came back home again to go to school, he wouldn’t go logging in summer with us any more. He got a better job in Eddy’s Bakery, I could smell the bread he made from my school yard. He was becoming a man.
Earl loved driving the foothills; he knew every road over the mountains where we worked logging. Once he drove a blue fin-tail Caddy convertible—it must have been my auntie Rita’s new car, though I don’t know how she got it—and I rode in the Caddy with Earl on a mountain stretch of road like a roller-coaster. He would carefully speed up over each hump and we’d throw our hands up into the open sky and lift over the top as if we were flying, all us kids laughing, screaming as we soared. He got the golden eagle from that straight stretch of dirt road off the highway, where it crossed the fields and hit the treeline. Driving there was like vanishing into a new world, cool, dark, so sudden inside the forest.
It
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