A Fist for a Fist Leaves the Whole Family Blacked-Eyed and Blue

Animated polar bear with a smirk and a chin up. Created in Canva.

The wooden door at our house was never shut. And the screen door was never locked. Drew Daluth, my step-father, often campaigned the slogan: “I’d like to see them try.” At everyone else’s expense, Drew’s pride kept our home open and ready for an ass-beating.

The towering man spoke in the octave as low as a tuba and shouted at the might of a trombone. All the time. “Wesley! Why is there a fork in the sink, boy?!” Whenever he berated my step-brothers for something stupid they did, the neighbors watched and waited in suspense. We weren’t a spectacle, we were quality entertainment. Never a dull moment passed, and never an opportunity for eager aggression was missed.

Drew also loved to fight. What he loved most about fighting, was inflicting pain. He enthusiastically described someone’s bones breaking under the pressure of his grizzly-sized fist and calloused, serrated knuckles. It gave him a belly-filled snort, right down to the diaphragm. Drew fought like a bear — a polar bear, as he’d put it. “The only bear that hunts humans with intention. Nobody fucks with a polar bear, Wesley.”

One night, I was watching TV on the couch in the living room. The couch was the size of our wall, which makes it a big couch or small house. Anyways, the highlight clips from the Tour de France were airing. I don’t cycle, but the idea of traveling through Europe — the open air, and the endless, cobble-stone roads — made me feel a mysterious feeling. Something I didn’t experience a lot. A melancholy smile stretched across my heart, not my face.

Suddenly, I heard yelling from my parent’s room, which was on the other side of the living room wall. Every shout animated the living room wall behind the TV, like one of those dramatized studio pictures logos that play before a flick: Marital disappointments studio; slurs and accusations entertainment; disses on each other’s children and judges them for becoming too much like the person they were yelling at pictures.

I, though, am the golden boy. That’s what my brothers say about me, anyway. They say this because nothing ever affected me — not a flint off my chin nor a stake in my reputation. I study for my useless degree, work my shitty job, and convince everyone that I’m smarter than I actually am. Either way, I am immune to harm. When the gloves drop, and the match is set, I’m off-limits. Like a viewer in the audience, I make like paint on the wall and hide in plain sight, storing the trauma of what I witnessed on the screen to ponder later. I’ll lay in bed analyze the plot, and rerun the dialogue between the characters.

Things are heating up in the kitchen, and dinner was over an hour ago. The opening scene is brewing.

My step-brother, Eric, says something snappy at my mother, harmonizing with Drew’s profane soprano. He’s in her face. I can hear it. The camera hasn’t revealed what’s around the corner, but the raised voices suspend my imagination. My mother’s pressed against the refrigerator, and two grown men are leaning in her face. She’s unafraid, though, and announces her disgust at both of them.

“You don’t talk to my pops that way,” Eric yells. “You’re the woman. Learn your place and keep your mouth shut.”

Before I salvaged for my mother some respite, Drew snatches his son away by the shirt collar and shifts his hydrant screams into Eric’s face. He’s heard enough. He holds his hands up to his head, revealing his palms, and says, “My bad. I’m not tryna disrespect your wife, dawg.”

“I’m not your dawg, dickhead. Show my ol’ lady some respect.”

“Cool. Cool. I don’t mean no disrespect.”

They disperse for the intermission. The first act finishes and the backdrops are reset. Eric returns to his room, which we share. And my mother recoils back to the bedroom. He follows my mother, who’s already begun packing her things.

She yells aloud, “We’re leaving, Wesley. I’m not putting up with his shit anymore.”

An ache pains my chest. Am I homeless? We don’t have a home. I can’t afford my own place. I need to finish college first, then get a job. The air forgets to return to my chest. This show hits deep. I’m hooked, and my toes press through the floor.

“Great idea, Annie,” said Drew, blocking the hallway outside the bedroom with his enormous, red body. He never wore a shirt and always rocked Levi’s. Once he came home from his warehouse job, he took off his shirt, threw it to the floor, and darted for the fridge, where he kept his beloved Guinness stout, poured it into the chilled pint glass that he stored in the freezer, flipped the bottle on its head for a proper foam-to-beer ratio, slammed his 250-pound body on the sunken-cushion couch, and lit up the television for the whole neighborhood to listen to as though our house was the local radio broadcast station.

“Fantastic! Now you and your boy are homeless. Smart move, Annie. You really thought this through.”

“And you think this is a life worth keeping?” She rebutted without a second loss.

While they bickered about the logistics of her decision, the shot cut back to my step-brother, who, while off camera, absorbed the last of his handle of Captain Morgan. When he returned to the living room, he saw me and asked, “What’s the matter, bud?”

I calculated each inhale and exhale with obsessive focus. Eric broke the fourth wall. This excited my expectations. I chose my next words carefully. Whatever I decide to say at this moment will impact the ending. A happy ending was out of the question. Most nights, I hoped for a cliffhanger. Less drama meant less bloodshed.

“Me?” I asked. “I don’t know.” I knew what dialogue must naturally be spoken, but I feared I didn’t dare to utter it. Forgive me, but I was a slender guy. The reserved type. I never played sports and never had my chest puff out. I lifted weights, but my pecs stayed flat.

Eric, on the other hand, was beef stew. Not defined, but underneath the fatty rolls were meaty fields. Where his father loved to inflict pain, Eric benefited from the pain inflicted upon him. The more he bled, the crazier the look in his eyes became as he rained down fists like an asteroid shower.

“I don’t know…,” I said again.

“You sure there, buddy?”

“Well, yeah. I mean… you yelled, man… at my mo — “

Immediately he pounced over to me. Standing overhead, he shouted down at me, “What’re you gonna do about it?” He pushed me on the shoulder. Drew, ever aware at all times, saw this.

I sat there in shock. Do I punch him? That’s the right thing to do at this moment, right? He disrespected my mom. He has it coming. But I can’t fight this rabid, 200-pound beast. Would it not be better to spare myself the dignity of not getting beat to near death in front of my mother?

“You ain’t nothing but a bitch boy. You won’t do nothing. Huh? Go ahead. Be a man about it then.”

Shock shot to adrenaline. Looks like it’s an action film after all. But before I stood up from the couch, Drew teleported out of nowhere and manhandled his son, foaming at the mouth, two feet backward — away from me.

“You’re not touching him, you hear me?” He pointed in Eric’s face.

“Man, this is bull shit,” he said, retreating into the kitchen. “You’re gonna let her talk to you like that.”

“I’m handling it! She’s my wife.”

Annie belted a quip I couldn’t understand. But it set off Eric.

In a flash, he picked up a chest-high aluminum rack that held between its two bars, three swinging baskets. Inside each basket were items such as bread, chips, and bags of flour — which now ricocheted off the walls and splattered across the kitchen floor. In a manner much like Donkey Kong, he hammered the oblong bread basket rack up and down, slamming it against the floor in an unreasonable rage.

My heart withdrew its reservations, and my stomach floundered with morbid laughter. The terror of the unchained dog subsided into the hilarity of the absurd scene in the kitchen. My breath was lost and abandoned in laughter.

In a final blow, he attempted to split the rack in two, but as he cast it up behind his head, it lodged into the ceiling. It hung there a moment. Then, with all his weight, he gripped both ends of the rack, twisted his body downwards, and ripped it out. The drywall snowed onto his bald, rosy head.

Drew couldn’t contain the raging rapids he created any longer. In a fit, he walked towards the door that was never locked, putting on his wife-beater. After he slipped on his boots, he dropkicked the screen door: “Everybody shut up! I’ve had enough of your bullshit. Now I’m pissed!” The screen door banged against the wall and slung back at his face.

Having not ceased my school-boyish chuckling, I burst into another stream of snickering. But this time, I kept it covert for fear that he might notice my amusement. Never that. I wouldn’t invite that upon myself.

“Annie,” he shouted, “if I come back and you’re still here, I better see the dishes washed and you sleeping on the couch. If not, good luck to ya. You ain’t seein’ another cent from me.”

He turned over to me. I swallowed my smile. “Wesley. You have a home here, boy. You hear me? Don’t ever think I don’t love you. And don’t you ever think I don’t love your mom. You got that? You’re welcome to stay here, even if your mom decides to screw up what she’s got.”

I stiffly shook my head yes. Just like that, he vanished into the black of night. In the street, I heard him start his Dodge pickup and drive off to the local bar, Champs — which ironically hosted the neighborhood’s opposite.

The evening fell silent once more, but the obscurity was colored red and blue. Moments later, I heard a knock on the screen and a voice shout: “SDPD!” I motioned to answer it, but my mom jumped to the entrance instead.

In a polished, rehearsed performance she said, “Yes. Please come on in officer. How may we help you?”

Flawless delivery, Mom.

The police officer entered our living room and stood in front of the TV. He was tall, broad-shouldered, tan, clean-shaven, and bore a generic face. They sent the muscle.

“We received a call about a domestic violence complaint,” he said in an open-ended declaration, holding his hands on his belt. He sounded routine. No passion.

Eric, however, never missing his opportunity, inserted the passion.

“Everything’s cool, officer,” he said, popping his head out of the kitchen. He walked toward him and reached into his back pocket. The officer tensed up, moving his hands to one of his tools. I read his name tag: Anderson. Classic.

“Sir,” Mr. Anderson said, “I’m going to have to ask you to keep your hands out of your pockets.”

“You’re in my house, officer, “ he said as he continued fishing inside his back pocket. “If I want my hands in my pockets, I’ll have my hand in my pockets, you fuckin’ pig.” With that, Mr. Anderson ordered him to turn around. He warned Eric not to resist. Eric mockingly pleaded that he wasn’t: “Go ahead then, pig. Do what you have to.” And when he turned to face my mother and me, who were still sitting on the couch in front of the tube, a cigarette magically appeared in his mouth.

“Eric!” my mom shouted. “Shut up. Don’t get arrested over your ego.”

“Shit, dude. I’m not saying nothin’,” he mumbled with his cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

I heard two metallic clinks and presto. The cop sat him down on the chair next to us, with his hands cuffed behind his back. His cigarette still drooped between his lips.

The rest of what transpired was frankly boring. The run-of-the-mill lines you hear after the outrageous stuff happens on Cops. My mom answered the basic, quarterly questions — and Eric was asked to keep his mouth shut. He pestered Mr. Anderson for a light and asked permission to smoke his Malbaro on the front porch. As long as he kept his mouth shut, Mr. Anderson entertained his requests.

Once the boxes were checked, Mr. Anderson uncuffed Eric, who smoked hands-free with his eyes squinting from the rising smoke. He advised my mom to “keep your eyes on this one.” Then he vanished off-set, too.

The red and blue lights drifted away. Eric filed into his car shortly after finishing his smoke in the front yard (now that his hands were free again) and sped off to his girlfriend’s place. Once he left, I heard the crickets chirping again. The final act concluded. The lights and the action faded into the sweet respite of black space.

My mother and I sat on the couch in silence, watching the cyclists bombing down the mountainside into some green valleys somewhere in Europe.

I sighed deeply. Thank, God — just another cliffhanger tonight.

“The Lord will protect you from all evil; He will keep your life. The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in. From this time forth and forever.”

Psalms 121:7–8