The man shakes his head and pounds a fist into the wall in a series of loud thuds. “You…make…me…sick…you…dad…blamed…sissy,” he spits out to the rhythm of his thuds. He finally stops pounding and shakes his stinging fist. “Sissy,” he spits again.
The boy hangs his head and stares at his dirty toes, unsure what the man is carrying on about. “I ain’t no sissy,” he says timidly.
“You’s a lie too,” the man says. He pounds the wall one more time and then shakes his fist, either at the boy or in pain, the boy can’t tell which. He wonders if the man has been drinking again. He sniffs the air, searching for the sour smell that means whiskey.
The boy looks to his mother, but she remains expressionless, staring out the open window behind the kitchen sink, smoking a cigarette. She takes a long drag and blows the smoke at the window, but most of it clouds up around her like a fog. She doesn’t appear to be listening at all.
“Mama,” the boy starts, but the man slams his fist into the wall.
“Don’t you go crying to her now,” the man says. “This here’s between you and me. You and me, boy.”
The boy balls up his tiny fists in useless anger. He’s seated directly across from the man, the kitchen table all that separates them. He wants to run outside, to go hide. To go play with Ruby like nothing is wrong, but something is wrong. He’s made some mistake, once again, his life all one protracted misunderstanding.
The man narrows his dark eyes and levels them on the boy. They seem to vibrate in their sockets. They are black like the nighttime shadows. Blacker, like dark holes waiting to devour him. Vacant chasms. Round and wet and relentless. The boy looks away. “Look at me, boy,” the man demands. “I said look a-here now.”
The boy raises his eyes to meet the man’s but he can’t maintain the connection. The man’s features are too severe, too sharp and pointed. A jagged mouth covered by a wispy mustache. The boy looks away. Up, down. Anywhere else.
“Look me in the eyes, boy,” the man says.
The boy sighs despite himself, and the man pounds his large fist again. “Don’t you go sighing at me like some ninny woman,” he says. His fury fascinates the boy. “Sissy,” the man says again.
“I ain’t no sissy,” the boy says quietly. “Ain’t no ninny woman neither.”
“You talking back to me, boy?” The boy shakes his head. “I said, are you talking back to me, boy?”
“No sir,” the boy says. “I ain’t talking back. I’m just talking.”
The man coughs a laugh. “You just a-talking, huh? Figures. Talking’s for sissies too.”
The confused boy clenches and unclenches his useless fists. He has no idea what the man is talking about and figures he must be drunk. “What did I do?” he asks. He makes brief eye-contact with the man and then looks away again. “I don’t know what I did.”
The man glares at the boy with his brow furrowed in concentration. “I’ll tell you what you did,” he says. “I’ll tell you what.” But he doesn’t say anything else. He just stares at the boy intently. Then he pounds his fist against the wall once more for emphasis, as the boy’s mother calmly drags her cigarette, the smoke slowly filling the room with a subtle grey haze.
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author bio:
Joe Seale is a PhD. candidate in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Georgia where he also teaches writing and literature courses. He received his MA in Creative Writing from the University of Tennessee in 2014. He hails from rural southwest Alabama and has been teaching college writing since 2011. Primarily an author of short stories, Joe is currently working on his first novel, but he hasn’t quite figured out how to talk about it just yet. His work has appeared in journals such as Red Dirt Forum, Grist, The Southern Tablet, Red Fez, Dead Mule, and The Emerson Review, among others.