Caleb

I would’ve run ‘til it killed me if I’d seen him coming. He would’ve caught me if I’d tried.

The son-of-a-bitch had me bandaged up nice and pretty, like he hadn’t done this before. Like he was some kind of saint. I should’ve bled out in the fields—soaked the mud red ‘til his poison was out of my blood. Guess you can’t kill where you come from.

The old man hadn’t cleaned out his room since I’d left. The beating cage still stunk of whiskey and vinegar. Vinegar to cover my old piss stains in the floor and whiskey for his pain, like he understood it. He didn’t know a goddamn thing.

My body didn’t feel like I owned it anymore. Half the work was waiting out the hurt. I’d broken a bone or two in my life, but trying to tough out a hole near my hip stole the life outta me. I gripped the brass bars on his headboard and pulled myself upright. I thought I’d pass out sitting up.

If he saw me like this he’d laugh ‘til his ribs bruised. Maybe he’d finish the job the cops started—give me one of his army right hooks and settle it. Cut the shame outta the family tree.

I dug my knuckles into the side of my head so I’d quit thinking, but just being back at the house again did bad things to me. I hadn’t been up five minutes and I was halfway back to being half the man I was when I lived here.

I slid my legs across the sheets an inch at a time and bit into my lip to keep from screaming. A slow burn tore away at my tissue whenever I moved and licked the insides of my wounds like a dog with an acid tongue. 

Once I got my feet on the ground, I threw up an empty stomach. I’d lived through bad beatings, but this was worse. Every time I tried to stick out the hurt and keep going, some break, tear, or bullet hole stopped me dead. If I couldn’t get a hold on the pain I wouldn’t make it past the nightstand.

That was it—the magic place where my old man kept his old bottles of morphine. He used to lie to the V.A. to get them to send him meds. He didn’t need those pills any more than he needed his cane to walk ‘cause his bad leg did its job when it came to kicking me around.

After Ma died, he’d beat me ‘til he felt better. So I’d sneak a couple pills just to sleep. Those were the worst days—when little white pills were the only things that kept me numb.

I reached out a little too far, too fast and pulled the top-drawer clean outta the wood casing. I caught it before anything could spill. I had seventeen years of reasons why I knew better than to break his stuff. He didn’t have much inside, just a couple of old bills, tobacco, and the bottle I needed.

Four pills left—wouldn’t keep me longer than forty-eight hours but forty-eight hours was more than enough.  I threw two back and choked them down dry. God willing they’d work fast.

Shoes scuffled across the old wood floors out in the hallway. I hadn’t even figured out how I’d ended up back in this hellhole, and the devil himself was about to walk in on me. I held my breathing hoping it’d be Hailey instead. The idea of her wandering dad’s house by herself was enough to get me over to the door.

I crashed shoulder first into the frame and sucked hot, dead air through my nostrils like I’d been running for miles. Those ten steps across that postage stamp of a room ripped through every broken part of my body.

The pain-killer-kick was stuck between my belly and my bloodstream, and the lag time left me almost delirious. Standing there with my face smashed against the wall, I wasn’t sure if throwing the door open would take everything I had.

Whether it did or not, I wanted whoever was outside to believe I was better off than I was. Even if you’re not strong, the least you can do is pretend to be.

I swung the door open and my old man was standing there, staring me in the face. All the blood in my body shot up the back of my neck seeing him in the flesh for the first time in years.

God knows what I did to shake him up, but he looked scared. Didn’t think I’d live long enough to see him afraid of anything, but there he was struggling to figure out what to say to a ghost.

        “You’re up,” he said.

He looked me up and down once or twice like I expected. I waited for him to pick out the first problem he saw like he always did. But he stayed quiet. I couldn’t even read him. He kept his eyes on me like he had something he wanted to say. Whatever it was, I didn’t care too much to hear it.

        “I’ve been up,” I said.

The spit in my mouth got so dry my tongue stuck to my teeth.

        “You alright, Cal?”

        “Fine.”

I steadied up against the door.

        “You don’t look it. Get back to bed and stop walking around before you hurt yourself.”

Five minutes in and he’d already started with the orders. Typical.

        “How’d you get me here? Did Hailey say something to you?”

My skin went cold just thinking about the things he could’ve done to get answers out of her. I shouldn’t have left her alone.

        “I picked you up last night. That girl of yours said enough for me to know she’s trouble, Caleb.”

He shifted his weight on his feet. The bastard still wore his combat boots around the house. The heels on those things left bruises for days.

         “Where is she?” I asked.

        “In the other room. She flagged me down last night on the way home. Lucky she did. I worked on you half the night to see that you made it through ‘til morning.”

 A glimpse of the monster in my old man came to life in the darker parts of his face. He spat a mouthful of tobacco on the floor and looked up at me like he expected a thank you. I didn’t care how much gauze he’d stuffed me with, as far as I was concerned, Hailey was the only reason I was still here.

        “You didn’t need to that. I would’ve been alright, sir.”

        “Alright? Do you have any idea what you’d done to yourself? Don’t be stupid, Caleb.”

An almost forgotten anger rattled to life when that ugly word came flying out from between his tar-black teeth. I hated him calling me stupid ‘cause everytime he said it, it felt true. I wished he’d lie to me but he’s never done anybody any favors.

        “I’ll get outta your way, just let me get some of my stuff,” I said.

I had it in my head that I was gonna walk past him easy. Like he didn’t matter to me, like I was fine. Two steps in, I lost my footing and he had to sling an arm around me to keep me upright. He never should’ve touched me.

The second he did, I snapped. It took me over half my life to hit him, but I finally did—skin and bones against skin and bones. Blood against blood. I knocked him into the opposite wall so hard he crashed into a picture frame of my brothers and stumbled around in the broken glass.

The old man wasn’t as sturdy as he used to be. Didn't mean he scared me any less. He steadied himself, straightened out the wrinkles in his shirt, and stared at me over the reds of his eyes.

I screwed up. Really screwed up. Two years out of his house and I’d come back swinging like I was in charge.  He’d kill me before that happened. The way I was now, he’d have an easy time at it.

        “Dad--”

        He threw his shoulder back and sent his fist crashing through the dry wall inches away from my face. Whatever strength I thought I had slipped right outta my spine.

I couldn’t swallow, my legs felt like water underneath me, and I held my head back waiting for him to take his pick of what to punch. He grabbed me, palmed my face in his hands, and forced me to look at him so he knew I would listen. So he knew I couldn’t run.

        “Don’t you start that, boy. Don’t you even think about it. You’d better thank heaven I found God before you or I would’ve left you for dead. So get that smug look off your face before I regret saving your life’.”

        “I didn’t ask you to.” 

For a minute, I was ready to say anything, to scream at him, or hit him again ‘til I stopped feeling small.  But when the fire in my blood died down, my spirit sunk with it and I cried—full on to the point where I bled through my bandages. All it took were his fists to make me feel nine again.

A knock on the front door stopped the two of us from killing each other. Jack backed away from me, like he hadn’t hit or broken anything at all, and limped down the hallway to answer the knocking.

I couldn’t get that hollow sound out of my head.  Maybe it’s ‘cause it felt like bad news. Bad news has a funny way of showing up. You know it’s coming before it’s there.

Jack straightened out when a cop’s silhouette cut through the dusty lace curtains. He’d nearly crushed my jaw minutes before, and now all he cared about was looking presentable. That’s what he did best.

Cleaned up his messes nice and neat so nobody knew the kinds of crazy things he did at home. I never told anybody about what he did either. Maybe I would today.

Maybe I’d run to the cops, and let them have me as long as they’d sent that six-foot vile of piss someplace he’d never come back from. Someplace he’d die alone.

        “Morning, officer.”

        “Morning sir. I’m looking for a Mr. Jack Evans.”

        “You’re at the right place, what can I do for you?”

Dad cleared his throat, long and loud. He couldn’t hide his nerves for shit. Any man with a suit and badge made him feel like nothing. He was a blue-collar man with a white-collar complex.

If he wanted to, he could’ve snapped that country twig of a pig in two, but instead he stood there with that fifty-cent smile on his face, hunched over like he was all ears.  He was the biggest liar in the world.

        “Mr. Evans, we got a call this morning—.”

        “Not from me, sir. I hadn’t planned on calling you here ‘til midday.”

        “—From the Feds. They had some news come in about your sons. I’d like to speak with you about it if you don’t mind.” 

As quick as he’d showed up, the wireframe cop slithered in through the door. Guy was too skinny to fit into his uniform. Every time he moved, it looked like he’d fall right out of his clothes.

He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his greased down hair. Not even thirty, and he needed to cover up the naked patches on his head. Sad.

I leaned up against the wall and snuck down the hallway so I could hear everything. If I didn’t listen close, dad would lie about the conversation later. He’d tell me everything was fine when things were anything but. Last time he did that, Ma ended up dead. I never forgave him.

        “Mr. Evans, I wish I was here on better business this morning. You may wanna have a seat.”  

There it was again. That cold, quiet fear he never showed to anybody. I’d seen it twice today. There’s something about seeing your father look small that stays with you. God knows, the weakness behind his smile buried itself in me.

        “I thought your department stopped looking for my boys a while back. There’s no need to involve the Feds. I don’t have the money for anything fancy. I just asked sheriff Russ to keep an eye out as a favor, but I haven’t heard from him in ages.”

I stopped breathing at the sound of Rusty’s name. Dad didn’t even know he was gone—dead and cold in a meat locker. He didn’t even know his darling Liam was responsible. He hadn’t changed at all. He was still blind, blind and stupid.

My brothers and I used like that he was ignorant back when we moved out of his house. He never came looking for us. We never wanted him to. But now some ugly part of me wanted him to know everything that had had happened to us. Everything he’d caused us to do out of desperation.

Jack went on talking about Rusty to that toothpick cop like he’d known him. He didn’t know anything. Rusty made sure of that. He kept our slaughterhouse a secret up ‘til the day he died. He knew the kind of animal my dad was and I respected him for keeping quiet.

I respected him for looking out for us. I stopped counting the times I wished Russ could’ve been my father. In another life maybe he would’ve. But life doesn’t give a damn about what you need, you get what you get and you hope you live through it.            

        “Mr. Evans,”

        “Call me, Jack.”

Skeleton cop looped his fingers through his belt and rocked back and forth on his feet like a twig in the wind.

        “We got a call around six this morning from a coroner at the bureau. Two of your sons were killed last night, the others are facing federal jail time at best.”

Dad stumbled back into one of the kitchen chairs like his legs went numb. He grabbed on to a corner of the table and straightened up, like standing sturdy would make him better able to take it.

But that stupid pig got it wrong. He said “sons”. He meant son. Marcus and Liam probably ended up in a jail cell somewhere, but they were fine. Beat up, but still breathing.

        “Who the hell are you to say something like that to me? My boys? What the hell are you talking about?”

The cop slid his hand to his gun holster, and sweated out any bullets he planned on shooting. I’d never seen a guy in uniform look so small.

        “Mr. Evans, I know this is difficult,”

My old man grabbed the pig by the collar and crushed the starched fabric in his hands.

        “The hell you do.”

        “Sir, I’m gonna have to ask you to calm down. If you have a seat, we can get to talking. If you’re not going to cooperate I’ll have to arrest you. Please, take a seat.”

        Dad withered into his chair and waited for the news while he struggled to keep breathing. But I kept on breathing, slow and shallow, just to hold back hard ache pulling at my chest. It took everything I had not to run into that room and knock that cop’s jaw backwards.

He didn’t know anything. He couldn’t know anything. He was some yuppie who’d been sent out to deliver the worst kind of news—the wrong kind. He didn’t know what happened. There wasn’t a Manassas badge on our property last night. Just military grade cops in black uniforms.

The most action this idiot ever saw probably didn’t involve anything more than the dull side of a speeding ticket.

        “There’s still information coming in on the case, but the Feds have intel on your sons being involved in some kind of kidnapping. You know anything about this?”

        “What in the hell are you talking about?”

The cop backed off his accusation fast. Even he knew better than to push my dad in the wrong direction.

        “An eighteen-year-old girl went missing out of D.C. about twenty-four hours ago. Name’s Hailey Anderson. We got word from the bureau that your sons were holding her at the old slaughterhouse up the road. They raided the place last night. Reports didn’t come in to this morning confirming the dead. Two of your boys were in the count,” he said.

Something behind his sorry excuse for a voice ate away at my gut. He kept saying “two”. “Two” like it was set in stone. I hated hearing him talk, hearing him stutter every time he spit out details he didn’t understand.

I should’ve run into that room and shook him ‘til he told the truth. The truth I wanted—the truth needed to keep going.

All the strength dad’s body gave way to pain a muscle at a time. He shut his eyes, while the color burned out in his face the way whiskey eventually burned out in his blood.

He dragged his fingers across his eyebrows, and dug the tips deep into the skin over and over again like it would stop the cop’s words from burying themselves too deep.

        “One of your boys is being held at Prince William Hospital under police observation until he’s ready to be transported to court. Your other son has a warrant out for his arrest. We believe he’s still holding the Anderson girl which is also why I’m here,” he said.

        “I don’t understand. Not a word a’ this.”

        “I’d like to bring you down to the station and ask you a few things. If you can cooperate at this stage, Mr. Evans, it’d be in your best interest. We need to know if you’ve heard anything from your son. He’s in a lot of trouble, and if you’d like him to have a chance, we need you to help us find out where he is.”

The cop reached into his back pocket and pulled out the same black and white Xerox sheet of me and Hailey I’d seen plastered all over the news.

        “Can you identify this young man as your son? The young woman in the picture is Hailey Anderson. We’ve got reports that they fled the slaughterhouse late last night.”

Dad nodded his head a couple times, like he was listening, like he understood, but he wasn’t there. Maybe he was thinking about how many times he’d driven by that slaughterhouse on his way home from work.

How many times he’d seen it looming over the crop-dusted cornfields and thought nothing of it. We’d been right under his nose. Bleeding, struggling, dying and he didn’t even know we were there. Now there was nothing to go back to, now there was nothing for him to find.

        “Can I ask you something, officer?” 

Dad looked up from under his eyelashes with all the hope, terror, and sickness a grown man could hold on to. He didn’t move, didn’t rise from his seat, didn’t blink an eye, just waited to ask the terrible question that would bend the both of us past the point of being broken.

        “Which of my boys have I lost?”

The willow man behind the uniform let his stiffness slip away and finally showed himself. It was real quick. If I’d blinked, I would’ve missed the kind of genuine sadness one man feels for another when he understands the gravity of a loss greater than grief.

He walked over to my old man, who was shriveling away under the eleven o’clock sunlight, and told him the ugliest truth I’d ever heard.

        “Cillian and Marcus Evans.”