Page 10 of Deserter

He’d get it in his head that I’d done something wrong and that was the end of it. There was no chance to plead my case before his fists were coming down on me. Something changed after that night. Because I stood up to him, I was his new favorite punching bag.

After Ma lost the baby, she wandered around the house like a ghost, sometimes curling up in a ball on the floor and crying until her whole body would shake.

Angel told me that she blamed herself for it and felt like if she would’ve stayed out of my old man’s way, the baby would’ve lived. He said she just needed time to grieve.

I never admitted it, but I was relieved the baby hadn’t been born.

It would’ve been one more person I had to try to keep safe. My old man didn’t deal well with loud noises or crying; he was constantly screaming at Ma to shut up when she had one of her spells. If it weren’t for me stepping in when he got like that, she would’ve taken the brunt of his rage.

I couldn’t imagine what he would’ve done to an infant.

He hadn’t just killed his own child that night; he’d killed something in her too and she hadn’t been the same since. The smiles she used to save for me and Angel disappeared, along with our evening prayer and Rosary.

That first night back home, I’d limped in after my father beat the shit out of me and dropped the rosary necklace into her hand, thinking we’d pray for her health and recovery. She’d stared down at it for a few seconds before launching the beads into the wall with a cry.

We never knelt at the altar again after that.

In spite of it all, Ma still dragged herself out of bed in the morning and went to her typist job while my old man slept off last night’s activities on the couch. They hadn’t shared a bedroom since she returned home from the hospital.

Every night, after kicking off her heels, she mixed orange juice with the vodka from my father’s liquor cabinet before drinking herself into a stupor.

Somewhere over the last six years this had become our normal. I got used to making us TV dinners and sitting beside her on the couch, desperate for some sign that she was still in there.

On Mondays, we watchedGunsmoke.Tuesdays, it wasHappy Days. Wednesdays were devoted toLittle House on the Prairiewhile Thursdays were spent withThe Waltons.

The shows changed over the years, but our routine didn’t. When I got sick of eating frozen meals, I taught myself to heat up canned soup on the stove and if I was feeling particularly ambitious, I made beans and franks.

Ma would squeeze my hand and thank me when I set the tray in front of her, but other than that, our evenings were spent in silence in front of the television.

As the years passed, my old man began staying at the clubhouse for longer periods of time, giving us the peace we’d craved for the last nine years. If he was on a run, Angel would come over and bringJack in the Boxtacos, breaking our food monotony.

“Hey, Jamie. You in there?” John nudged my leg with the toe of his boot.

I closed the comic. “Sorry, I spaced out for a second there. What’d you say?”

He laughed and sank back down onto his bean bag. “I said that no one gives me shit because my old man owns the place.”

“Well, I work for Phantom, that should count for something.” The tape player stopped, and I got up to stretch my legs and flip it to the other side.

Phantom’s body shop had become my second home in the year and a half I’d been helping out. It started as a summer gig, but now I was here almost every day. He’d even given us free rein over the apartment above the shop as long as it was after hours.

I wasn’t sure how much they knew about my old man, but neither one of them ever brought up the number of nights that I slept on the couch, unable to go home and watch Ma self-destruct.

The intro to Pink Floyd’sThe Show Must Go Onfilled the room and John lit up another joint with a contented sigh.

When Phantom took off for church, John and I would get high in the apartment and rotate through his dad’s collection of tapes. Sometimes, we got lucky and found beer in the fridge. The best nights of my life were spent with him; laying on the worn bean bag chairs, drinking and smoking dope, while talking about life.

“You think anymore about what we talked about?” He took a hit and passed it over to me.

“What? Patching in? I don’t know, John. I’m trying to get away from my old man. Joining a club with him seems like a shit idea all around.” It was bad enough getting my ass kicked at home, but to have it happen in front of a band of bikers?

Yeah, count me out.

John was two years older and, unlike me, looked forward to graduation so he could join his old man in the club. Me? I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was an okay student, and I liked working on cars. I just didn’t know if it was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

“C’mon, Jamie.” John sat up. “Where the hell else can you get that kind of cash right out of school? Wolverine’s fair too.”

I agreed with him there. Wolverine took care of the bikers and, while he still scared the shit out of me at times, he lived and breathed by the club rules.

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