The Last Slap

I stepped out of the bus, leaving it empty except for the driver and shuffled up the gravel driveway to my house. There was a metallic gag that burped out behind me as the bus driver shifted into first and rumbled his carriage off to the end of his shift. I stopped halfway up the driveway and listened to the loud silence that always echoed through the woods surrounding my house. Trees cracked against the breeze and birds chirped out a cacophonic symphony. There were bull frogs croaking in the pond and and a dog barking off in the distance. I could hear the shuffle of leaves as all the tiny critters scurried in the underbrush and a dull hum from all the bugs filled up any empty spaces.
Interrupting everything, I could hear a tractor trailer thundering down the road.
I felt the illogical insanity of youth fill up my twelve year frame. I quickly scanned my surroundings and zoomed in on an egg sized rock two feet to my left. I took a step and scooped it up with my right hand. My thumb instinctively rubbed the dirt away so it could angle tightly around the back edge.
I waited until the nose of the semi passed my mailbox and then rotated my arm forward. The egg sized rock bee lined from my hand and smashed against the trailer..
I felt cool for less than a second and then the screeching tires panicked me into a run. All rational thought left me and intelligence just stood off to the side laughing. I thought I could get away by scurrying under my front deck, past a missing piece of lattice.
I low crawled between the damp earth and pressurized wood and tried to make myself small against the foundation of my house. The cold cement didn’t yield to my scared hot skin trying to melt safely into the basement and I was frozen in my fear.
I heard the driver wheezing and cussing her way up the gravel to my house.
Then hell broke loose.
I heard the side door open and the heavy footsteps of my dad pounded down on the boards above me. I gagged down the terror erupting inside my gut and tried to make myself smaller.
I looked out through the diamond holes of the lattice and saw the truck driver with her hands on her knees and gasping for breath.
She looked up and said to my dad “Your fucking piece of shit kid just threw a rock at my truck and I’m going to kill him!”
Well, my dad might not have been the best of fathers, and he may have agreed that I was a piece of shit, but damn if someone was going to talk shit about his kids. He started spewing out hatred and insults that whittled that big boned driver into a sniveling toothpick.
He took a few angry steps in her direction. She found herself in my world and I saw the fear knock her over.
Stumbling to her feet, she retreated down the gravel, got back in her truck and sped off.
I was safe.
My sense of relief was short lived.
Moments after the diesel growl of the truck faded into the distance, a shadow filled the space in the lattice and the large hands of my father cuffed each of my ankles. I was jerked out, face down, and then flipped over so I could see the anger.
I was afraid.
But….
This time I stared straight back into those angry eyes. I don't know why I chose then and there to make my stand. It just happened.
My defiance did not go unnoticed.
I closed my eyes and watched the bright lights. They flickered every time fist found flesh and the light show somehow made me numb to the pain.
It wasn’t easy to know when it was over, but there was this moment when I noticed the silence. I stood up and ran up the steps, past the door and straight up to my room.
I couldn’t lock the doors to my room because none of the doors in our house had locks on them, so I tried to disappear in the space between the left side of my dresser and the wall.
I wasn’t afraid, but I shivered as the stairs warned me that he was coming.
His presence pushed me deeper into the corner of my room.
I waited for the bust in.
I waited.
I could hear him breathing.
Then I heard the stairs creak with his retreat.
I didn’t believe it and stayed right where I was for at least twenty minutes. I couldn’t believe that was all I was going to get.
But it was.
It would be another six months until the last time my father beat me. He slapped me upside the head a couple of times when I got suspended for fighting and he managed to pop my ear drum. Something inside of him clicked at that moment and he cried, promising to never hit me again.
He never has