Sometimes the Fearless

The boy had just cleared the far tree line and was now crossing the meadow toward the cabin. Flowers blossomed around his feet and their intoxicating scent trailed by his nose as he sucked in cool, fresh air. He automatically picked up his pace, his eyes squinting into the sun as it climbed the morning sky over the distant mountains.

Then, like shattered glass, a scream echoed in his ear.

A woman’s frightened scream...

Eleven year old Jack Mulligan’s eyes flew open as he struggled to orient himself. He was now in his freezing cold bedroom on the second floor of the run-down house on River Street. There was no heat in the upstairs bedrooms, as he shivered violently under the thin covers. Across the street, the glow from Cromwell Steel’s furnaces bathed his room in a dull orange. It was like a built-in night light. Jack didn’t like the dark; so living in this location in Steubenville, Ohio, had a singular benefit.

Even with the covers pulled to his chin, Jack was cold. His starved body shivered uncontrollably as he suddenly heard the groan of his mother in the next room and the gruff sound of his father’s voice.

He was “straightening her out” again.

Hatred burned like a glowing ember in Jack’s chest. Why couldn’t the ol’ man leave them alone or better yet, die? The bastard kept beating them and the abuse never stopped. Nobody could help...not the neighbors or the cops.

Another slap echoed off the walls.

“Stop!” mimed Jack’s mouth silently. “Stop...please.”

“You fuckin’ bitch,” his father bellowed, “you been holdin’ out on me. Where’s my money?”

“I don’t have...”

Two more slaps resounded through the paper-thin walls.

Jack could tell by the thick-tongued slur of the words that the ol’ man was really loaded this time. When he was drunk, he got mean. That was always bad for Jack and his mother. The fear of his father’s violence clung to him like an unwanted odor.

ack hated his lazy, shiftless father, an out of work steel worker. He watched his mother grow frail and old as she tried to deal with the old man’s drunken tirades and placate his dark, unpredictable moods. They both walked on egg shells around him. Each hoped they wouldn’t be his next target. But, nothing worked. The old man was a mean drunk. Nothing could change him as he sank further and further into alcohol and violence.

This was it though.

Tonight, Jack decided, was the last time he was going to tolerate his father’s cursing or his violence. Soon, his father would kill his mother. She was now breaking her back working two jobs but was beginning to get warnings from her bosses concerning missed days due to the constant physical abuse she received.

Slipping out of bed, Jack tiptoed to his closet where he had hidden the hunting knife that Warren, the junk man down the street, had given him for protection. Warren and all the neighbors knew the kind of man his father was, but all of them, except Warren, lacked the courage to say or do anything about it. At least Warren had given him a means to protect his life.

Jack dug under some boxes and old shoes until he saw the shiny, six inch blade lying flat on the floor. The handle had black tape for a better grip, and Warren, an old World War II veteran, had shown Jack how to thrust the blade to get the best and deadliest results.

Another loud slap and a dull thud sounded from the room next door. Jack’s mother was now begging his father to stop. This had happened before. Didn’t she know that pleading with him only made him hit her more? The old man possessed no pity or remorse.

Jack’s anger intensified. Damn him! No more! The screaming and abuse had to end.

Quietly entering the dark hallway, he could see into his parent’s room through a crack in the doorway. His mother was lying on the floor in a fetal position with her nightgown half torn off. His father stood over her, naked. He was a big man with a fat beer-belly, rheumy eyes and, at that moment, a large erection. The beating must be turning him on.

Warren’s words echoed in Jack’s mind. He had told him that if he ever used the knife, not to hesitate but go for the kill.

“If you stab to the belly, be sure to twist the blade,” the junk man had instructed. “Tear things up inside, and he’ll not get up then.”

The knife felt heavy in his hand. Could he do it?