The Birth of Bane by Richard Heredia

up.
    “ Bullshit,
Jerry! You were fucking holding the door shut, so I couldn’t come
in.” He glared at me through his bushy, salt and pepper eyebrows,
his head angling to one side as though he couldn’t control its’
movement. “I know this, because I unlocked the motherfucker
beforehand.”
    “ Dad,” I said,
attempting rationality, “I was on the deck. No one was holding the
door.”
    He came within a
foot of me, his acrid breath filling my nostrils. He was rank with
drink. “You wanna play games with me, you sonofabitch?”
    My eyes found
his. I’m not your
wife…
    “ You wanna fuck
with me?” He leaned even closer. I felt a heavy finger poke me in
the chest and stay.
    I leaned into
the pressure, my eyes boring into his. “I. Was. On. The. Deck.” I
was hot of a sudden. Perspiration beaded my forehead and upper lips
so fast, I was damp before I knew it.
    For a second, I
thought he was going to head-butt me. I saw the idea of it flash
across his orbs like a wisp of smoke blown aside by the cold wind
of hate. But, he didn’t. Instead, he turned his shoulders to the
side and slid passed me. “You better watch yourself, Jeremiah. One
of these days I’m gonna fuck you up.”
    My chest was on
fire. My eyes never left him. My tongue felt like sandpaper in my
mouth. My spit had gone dry.
    My mother came
from upstairs, walking briskly through the kitchen. “What’s going
on?”
    My mouth twisted
with an overburdened scowl. It stopped her in her
tracks.
    “ You better get
your delinquent son in line, Pillar. He’s cruisin’ for a bruisin’,”
warned my dad just before he strode into the master suite and
slammed the door.
    My
m om and I looked after him for a
spell, then shared a tired stare.
    It was my mother
who broke the silence. “Come on, son. Let’s go to bed.”
    We began to
button-up the house for the night.
    From there, she
led me to my room and tucked me into bed – something she hadn’t
done in ages. She sat on the side of the bed once I was under the
covers, her hand reaching out to brush at the short hairs
protruding from the top of my head. “I love you,” she
said.
    I could barely
hear her, but I had. “I love you too, mommy.”
    I was asleep
before the soft touch of her fingertips left me.
     
    *****
     
    Within a week,
my father began to complain the house was cold, though, to the rest
of us, it was warm, comfortable even. He would turn up the
thermostat until it was near-sweltering, going on long tirades over
the “draftiness” of the house.
    “ You better this place in order!” he’d yell at my mom, standing
over the floor heater next to the massive fireplace in the living
room, shivering. “You better get those motherfucken contractors in
line, you stupid cow. It’s colder than a witch’s tit in Alaska in
here!” He’d paused, pulling the throw-blanket about his shoulders
tighter about his person. “What the fuck am I paying for, if you
can’t make those sons-a-bitches do what they’re supposed to be
doing? How in the fuck are we ever going to sell this
hell-hole, if we can’t figure out how to heat it properly. Jesus
Christ, you’re a stupid motherfucker!”
    He’d go on and
on, an unending diatribe about the chill, always deriding my
mother, always using his most vulgar language, even when Eli was
around. Sometimes, he’d call out when no one was around, just to
hear himself talk. That was my guess, because after a while we
tuned him out. We went about our business as he stood atop the
grate of the heater talking shit the entire time.
    It was relief
when he was at work, when he was fucking Roxanna. It least then
there was peace and quiet.
     
    *****
     
    The time we
spent together, Myra and I put to good use. We decided to back off
the whole “sex thing” for the time being, despite the fact neither
of us felt our first attempt was “botched” in any way. Our physical
incompatibility was funny to us, which was how she and I typically
dealt with anything