Page 6 of Who's that Girl?
It’s the way he says it. With disdain.
I’m twelve, practically a teenager. Jake is supposed to look up to me. But he doesn’t. He never has.
And his father basically hates me, so there’s that as well.
I can’t believe this is who my mother chose to be our family — Mac, a perpetually drunken trucker with a bad temper and a penchant for menthol cigarettes — and Jake, his demon spawn.
Although, she didn’t technically choose Jake. She got pregnant with him and he just came out this way. I can’t exactly blame her, although I do think the way she spoils him has made him worse.
I wonder what this Christmas tree thing is about. Probably Mac having a manic moment. He’s like this sometimes. Two years in a row, he’ll ignore Christmas entirely, the next, he’ll go all out, buying $500 worth of plastic decorative trash from the home improvement store, and stringing lights all over the exterior of our crappy little house, which is what he did a few years ago.
Those lights are still up. They don’t work anymore. Some of the glass bulbs are broken, with sharp shards and edges sticking out of the broken sockets. I’d fix them myself (or just take them down and dispose of them, honestly), but Mac would lose his mind if I did.
Any time I try to help out around the house, the guy takes it as if it’s some sort of personal attack. Like a challenge to his masculinity or something.
It doesn’t help that my mom’s favorite story about me is about how I said I would take care of her after my Dad died. According to the oft-repeated family lore, she was crying about his death, and I went up to her, patted her on the shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, Mama. I be the Daddy now.”
I was, like, three years old. I have no memory of this. I can’t even remember my real Dad. I have a few faded snapshots in my mind, but it’s all blurry, incomplete. I can remember a man’s big hands lifting me out of the back seat of the car, the smell of Old Spice, his big glasses. That’s it. I can’t remember the sound of his voice. And the man in Marla’s old pictures could be anyone. I don’t see him and think “Dad” even though I know he was. Is.
Anyway, Marla loves that story about me saying I’d take care of her. And Mac inexplicably hates it.
Imagine being jealous of a three year old. That’s Mac.
I’ve given up trying with him.
Last summer, when the city served us with a citation for having our grass too long, and I borrowed a push mower from a neighbor and cut it myself, instead of being happy, Mac lifted me up by my shirt collar and slammed me into the kitchen wall.
I remember exactly what he said, too.
“Oh, you think you’re a big man, eh? Mr. Man of the house? You want your mother to think I don’t do anything around here? That her snot-nosed brat takes up the slack? You think you’re gonna be some kind of hero because you cut some f—ing grass. You’re nothing. You’re nobody. Your mother loves that story about you taking care of her, but you don’t take care of anything, you little f—er. I do. I take care of everything. I’m the only man here. You ain’t s—. You understand? You’re nothing.”
He was wordy when he wanted to be.
And Mom wasn’t home. So she never saw that little display.
Jake did, though. He watched his father lift me up against the wall, tear my collar, and then drop me onto the kitchen floor. Didn’t say anything. Just watched. In fact, I’m pretty sure the kid smiled.
That night, I stuffed my ruined shirt into the bottom of the kitchen garbage bin. I never said a word about it to anymore.
“Get dressed, First Man! We’re going to get a real tree!” Jake disappears out of the door of my room. He’s going to be a tornado all day. I dread it.
I dress quickly and make my way downstairs. There’s no breakfast. The kitchen smells like coffee and cigarettes and the back door is open, letting a biting wind blow into the house.
“Hurry up, baby,” says my mother, Marla. “They’re already in the car.”
I can see that Mac is indeed already in the driver’s seat of Marla’s beige sedan. And Jake’s already in the back.
My stomach growls audibly, but Marla doesn’t seem to hear. I’m always hungry lately. Like, really, really hungry.
“Can’t I grab some food first?” I ask.
“Honey, can we just go? You know what he’s like when we keep him waiting. Come on.”
I nod. Angering Mac is in neither of our best interests. I grab my Dad’s old barn jacket from the hook on the back door and shrug it on. It’s still way too big for me, but I don’t care. I’m going to grow into it. One of these days. And I don’t want anybody thinking it’s not getting use and accidentally throwing it out. I trudge out to the car and get in while Marla locks the back door.
Across the backseat, Jake grins.
~
