Becoming: Pushing Back

Strong. Dad’s forearms were like Popeye’s: beefy, the result of a lifetime of physical work. His chest, broad and deep; hips, shoulders wide.

At fifteen, I was a fair bit taller.

I don’t remember how the argument started. But it did. Right there in the kitchen. Mom was putting dinner on the table in the nook. I’d just come down from my room, called to dinner.

I must have said something that challenged him.

Did I mean to piss him off?

No, I don’t think so. I must have crossed some line I hadn’t seen. Usually, I’m aware, very aware. I’d spent most of my life being aware of his edge, the edge between ‘everything is okay,’ and he’s pulling out his belt.

He hadn’t used his belt on me since fifth grade. Maybe I’d lost my sense of the edge with the passing years.

As I stepped into the kitchen from the hall doorway, he turned, faced me, and I noticed his face, usually without much color, turning red. I took a step back into the hall, still facing him. He took a step towards me as I backed further, now adjacent to the bathroom with its octagonal tile floor. For some reason, to escape this escalating moment, perhaps, I notice the wear on the runner at the base of the stairs, thinking, “Of course, that’s where all the traffic is.”

Dad’s lips were moving, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I took another couple of steps back, watching Dad take off his apron and wad it with his hands.

He threw it on the floor.

I thought about my boxing experience. I’d been boxing at the Y and had had a couple of official bouts at this point. I knew how to hit.

I continued backing up, passing the built-in vanity where the “sharp things” drawer was, where Mom stored the sheets in the drawers below, for the downstairs bedroom.

I could see that Dad was continuing to talk, but I couldn’t make out his words. Now I was at the threshold of the downstairs bedroom. I continued to back up as Dad rolled up his sleeves, like he used to do when I was little, and he was about to pull his belt out from the loops of his pants.

Now I was backed up against the bed. And I could hear him say, “You’ll never, never, speak to me like that again.”

And he pushed my chest with both hands, hard. And I fell back on the bed.

Back on my feet in a flash. Fists more than ready.

I took a breath and looked him in the eye.

And he asked, “Are you sure you want to go there?”

I didn’t.

We stood facing each other. He shook his head, as if he knew the balance of his power and my weakness had changed in that moment. His color faded. He turned and headed back down the hall to the kitchen, stooping to pick up the apron.

I didn’t stay for dinner.

Sometimes I wished I’d hit him. Sometimes I thank wisdom for keeping me in check.

But then, I’m sure Mom would have called the cops if we’d actually come to blows. I’d been in jail a few months earlier for spending a wild night with Tom, stealing cigarettes out of parked cars, and shooting our zip guns at streetlights. Ah, the exhilaration when we actually hit one, and it shattered, bits flying everywhere.

“He’s just a regular juvenile delinquent,” Dad had said to the cop as he picked me up from the precinct, just before dawn.

If I’d hit him, I imagined jail was a real possibility.

But I know deep down, wisdom didn’t restrain me.

Fear did. Fear of him.

That was the last time he threatened me.