Shady Oaks Trailer Park

Lot #19

Chehalis, Washington

United States of America

09 August, 1986

2145 Hours

        "I don't want any trouble." I tried to deescalate the situation. I doubed Jed or Martha would care, and I knew Logan would actively try to make it worse, but still, I needed to get answers and get something of the plan to work right.

        "I just want to know who beat up Niamh and where Jessie Doutree is. Once I find out, I'll submit to the Matrons." I lied. No way in Hell was I going to kneel to a bunch of power mad tyrants.

        "Knew you didn't have the guts." Jed sneered.

        ...if we were in Alfenwehr I'd shove those words down your throat with my fist..

        "I didn't come for trouble." I tried again.

        Martha came thundering into the front room like a dyspeptic buffalo, snorting with each step. Tera was shoved aside by Martha's bulk, but she still kept the knife behind her back like I hadn't seen it. Logan was moving up quickly on my side, while Jed was still sneering as he took one step toward me.

        "Don't do this." I warned. "You don't want to do this."

        "You little shit!" Martha howled at me, stepping up near me at the exact time that Logan reached for me. Martha's rings were turned backwards, so that the gems and the settings would rip and tear my skin when she hit me.

        "Time to take your medicine, boy." Jed's sneer was mocking and cruel.

        The lizard slapped the button and the world slowed down.

         Before Logan could even realize what was happening I grabbed his wrist, pulling him into me, my other hand going to his hair and pulling his head back. Martha's hand was already in motion, there was no way she could stop it, and she didn't even realize what was happening until her hand impacted with Logan's face, her rings ripping and tearing.

        Logan's scream was one of pure agony as for the first time in his life his mother hit him. Martha screamed with him as her rings cut open her baby boy's face, ripping across the eyebrow, tearing at his eyelid, and covering his face with a sheet of blood.

        I pushed Logan into Martha, turning slightly to face Jed.

        "Oh, God, pumpkin. Mommy's sorry. Let Mommy see!" Martha screamed as Logan stumbled into her arms, his hands going to his face as he kept screaming, a high pitched scream like a gutshot rabbit.

        "Don't do this, Jed." I warned him.

        "Little punk." Jed snarled, his fist  coming back. "Gonna teach you..."

        Same threats. Same exact threats.

        Only I wasn't a nine year old little boy, skinny from having my meals given to my siblings or the dog, afraid of everything, and helpless in the face of an adult's anger.

        His fist met my palm with a meaty smack and stopped dead. Part of me wondered when he had gotten so weak, if it was age, dissapation, or the drink that had robbed him of his strength. I noticed that his hand was small, soft feeling, as I started to squeeze.

        Jed's eyes bulged as I stared him in the eyes.

        "You got nothing, McDaurn." I told him. "You're weak."

        He yanked his fist out of my hand and stepped back, and I wondered if he knew that I could see the fear in his eyes.

        "It hurts, Mommy, it hurts!" Logan was screaming from where Martha had knelt down on the floor, pulling my twin brother into her lap.

        "We don't have to do this, Jed." I told him.

        "Daddy!" Tera said, handing Jed the carving knife.

        "Don't be stupid." I tried again as Jed grabbed it from her. Tera turned and vanished back into the dining room.

        "Put your hands up, boy." Jed tried, waving the knife around in what he probably hoped was an intimidating pattern. The lizard paid more attention to him than the knife. He was holding in his fist like a monkey with a stick, his center of balance was off, and his stance was all wrong.

        Old fear and anger urged me to take the knife from him and feed it to him through his eye right in front of his 'only son' and his wife, do it slowly and savagely and relish the screams.

        "We don't have to do this." I tried again.

        "Cut him, daddy!" Tera yelled.

        "Gonna teach you a lesson, boy." Jed said.

        So much for de-escalation.

        "It hurts, Mommy!" Logan howled.

        Screw it.

        Jed swiped the knife at me and I moved, grabbing his forearm in midswing, stepping into him, and driving two short punches into the middle of his face, the first hitting his nose, the second smashing into this mouth. I felt the nose go, and blood sprayed from underneath my knuckles on the second punch.

        Jed dropped, his hands going to his face as he dropped the knife and went to his knees.

        The lizard warned me and I turned in place, Tera's grab missing. She stumbled past me, tripped over Logan's legs, and went face first into the floor.

        "Gonna kick your ass like it's Vietnam, boy." Jed's threat went right to where they always had when I was a kid.

        The word Vietnam practically gave me flashbacks thanks to Jed.

        "Since you were stationed in Thailand during the war, I don't think you can, McDaurn." I sneered, looking down at him. Tera was pushing herself up, and I resisted an urge to make sure she stayed down.

        Jed's eyes bugged out as I kept going. "Flunked out of Infantry, reclassified as a cook, stationed in Taiwan, never saw combat." I smiled at him, the damaged nerve making one side of my face jerk up. "Three years, never left your chow hall."

        "You little fuck!" Jed snarled, getting to his feet. "How dare you?"

        "Jed, teach him a lesson, he hurt Logan." Martha screeched, still cradling Logan in her lap.

        "Get up, McDaurn." I echoed his words from all my life.

        Jed got to his feet as Tera edged away from us. She suddenly whirled and ran, and I knew she was going for the phone.

        "You think you got the guts..." Jed started.

        I just slapped him. Open palm, across the face. Jed went down.

        "Why do you dipshits always say that?" I asked idly. I could hear Tera dialing the phone. She dialed four numbers so far, so I knew she wasn't calling 9-1-1, so this would be all internal.

        Jed looked up at me.

        "Get up, McDaurn." I repeated.

        He got to his feet and took a wild swing at me. It hit me in the side of the head, and to my surprise it didn't even phase me. I took a half step to the right and then smiled at him.

        "You got nothing, McDaurn." I told him.

        Martha was up suddenly, swinging at my head. I ducked underneath it, popped up, blocked Jed's punch, as stepped backwards out the door.

        "I didn't want this." I told them. Jed was standing still, staring at me. Martha pushed in front of him and raised her hand again.

        "You touch me again, bitch, and I'll break your goddamn arm." I snarled at her. Her mouth opened in shock.

        "You little shit, I should have drowned you at birth." She snarled, and pushed through the blinds to join me on the porch.

        "Don't do this." I tried again.

        I wanted her to. I needed her to. I knew she would.

        She raised her hand, her rings still glittering as I spotted the jewels on her rings turned inward.

        She intended on tearing up my already ugly face.

        "Disgusting little pervert." She snarled, and her hand came down.

        I blocked it, and had to admit she was strong, stronger than Jed, the shock of the blow making my shoulder flash with sudden pain.

        "I warned you." I told her.

        And drove my fist into her. Under her left breast, stepping into it, knowing good and damn well what it would do to my obese birth mother.

        Martha went gray, gasping, her hands grasping her chest as she stumbled back.

        "Goodbye." was all I said as she stumbled back into the front room. Jed caught her as I stepped forward and grabbed the door handle. The door slid shut silently.

        I stared for a moment at what could have been my life. Martha held in Jed's arms, Tera coming into the front room to kneel down and cradle Logan.

        Jed and Martha had robbed me of it. Taken almost everything from me.

        I turned away from the scene, part of me shriveling up and dying as my feet took me down the stairs.

        The rottie whined, his tail thumping, as I started to walk past him.

        Why not?

        I reached down, undoing his chain, and slapped my leg.

        "Let's go."

        The summer night felt good as I walked back to my truck, whistling, the rottie following me. I was trying to act nonchalant, when my inside were starting to roil. I wanted to run back inside, beg forgiveness, beg Martha to love me like she loved Logan, beg Jed to let me be his good son, that I could be a good boy. Tell them I was in the wrong, that I'd deserved every beating I'd gotten at their hands.

        The legacy of the abused child I had once been.

        Letting Jed know that I knew that all his stories were bullshit felt good, letting him know that I knew that all he'd done was cook for the Air Force for three years in Thailand. Drafted in '65, went to Basic Training at Fort Dix, washed out of infantry training, moved to cook.  Poor marksmanship scores, barely passed AIT even with the draft on. Was supposed to go to Vietnam, got switched at the last second to cook for the Special Forces troops in Thailand, as well as the Air Force.

        All those pictures of him hanging out with snake eaters were just them humoring a REMF cook.

        Goddamn. One of these days, I'd meet someone, ask them when they were in, they'd say Vietnam, I'd ask what they did, and instead of claiming to be bad-assed infantry or some kind of snake eater, he'd say he was a mechanic, or a cook, or a clerk. I would buy that man drinks the rest of the day.

        Just once. Just. fucking. once. I'd like to meet someone, outside the current military, who would admit to being just support during Vietnam. I mean, there was nothing wrong with support. The Vietnam vets in 2/19th had mostly been support, and they were proud of what they did. Support Platoon's Platoon Sergeant, Master Sergeant Cartiagh, bragged that he had never killed a man during five years in Vietnam, and when he had been a squad leader, neither had his men. None of his men died, either. He was proud of that. That he had kept people from dying, while he sent ammunition to the front and handled the incendiary munitions, so that other men could fight the war.

        He stressed to his troops all the time how the safety and survivability of the rest of the soldiers was the primary job. More important than medals or glory, was keeping us fed, supplied with ammo and war material, and alive.

        I respected the hell out of him.

        All of that was going through my mind as I walked over and pulled open the truck door, the hinge squealing in the night. At my urging the dog climbed in, scrambling over to the passenger side and sticking his head out the open window. I climbed in, lit a cigarette to calm my shaking hands, and sat behind the wheel for a long moment. I should have felt victorious, should have felt something inside at once again being able to show Jed and Martha I wasn't the child they once abused. Instead, I wanted to throw up.

        The truck fired up with a low rumble and I drove the circle to leave the trailer park slowly, making sure the shakes weren't affecting my ability to drive. I reached down, digging in the bag, and pulled out a Mickey-D's burger. I handed it to the dog, who wolfed it down.

        I wanted Nancy, or John, or maybe just four fingers of Bicardi 151 in a glass with no ice.

        I pulled out onto the street, the tires crunching on the gravel. I had enough time for some food and a nap before the meeting. I'd completed most of the tasks I'd set for myself, including facing Jed and Martha in their own den. It just... it just... didn't feel like I thought it would.

        No sense of victory, just ashes in my mouth. Same as the last time.

        The more things change, the more the things stay the same.

        The dog barked the whole way. Happy in his escape.

        At least one of us got something out of it.