Page 25 of Fury

“Oh yeah?”

“Is that why Meghan’s in an epic snit?” asked someone else.

A roar of laughter.

“Hey, kid, come sit here if you want.” They made room for me on the sofa. I climbed in and sat down with them.

“Wanna slice?” A beer bottle gestured at a half empty pizza box. “Have at it.”

I ate. We watched TV shows about bounty hunters, crocodiles, shark attacks. They talked loudly. I fell asleep on that sofa.

I woke up and the TV was off, but heavy breathing and soft crying filled the darkness along with the smells of old beer and smoke. I rubbed at my eyes. A girl and a man kissed and wrestled on another sofa like I used to sometimes watch Mommy do in our house.

My mouth was dry, and I got up to find something to drink. I found a cola in the fridge back in the kitchen where the light was on. Around the corner from the kitchen, feeling down the walls, I found the room where I’d slept before. I was relieved I didn’t get lost. I nosedived back into that nice smelling big bed, wrapping the soft blue cover around me.

I woke up the next morning and I was still in my clothes, on that bed, in that room. Dad hadn’t come for me. Tears welled up in my eyes and blinded my vision. I couldn’t see the room no more. I was alone in a strange place. More than alone. My insides ached in a new, different way than all the other times before when Mom would leave me and Miss Sally would come get me.

I saw my dad two days later.

“Hey kid, how you doing, huh?” He gripped my shoulder. “You having fun?”

My stomach squeezed together like an accordion.Fun? I guess. Sure. Wait, what?What if I said the wrong thing?

“Uh, yeah,” I replied.

“Cool.” He rubbed the toe of his right boot into the ground as he stared at me. He turned and strode off, taking the moment with him.

I didn’t realize it then, but that’s what I’d get with my dad. A bunch of moments here and there.

I ended up staying on my own in that bedroom at the clubhouse for the next sixteen years. I was the club’s kid. One of the old ladies or the girls who’d hang out would take me to school. I got fed three square meals and plenty more each day.

I didn’t want to leave, so I figured out how to be useful.

By the time I was eleven, I’d learned how to cook for myself and for the others, making big batches of spaghetti and meat sauce every Thursday night for everyone. I figured out how to do laundry, separating whites, bright colors, and darks. Figured out the dishwasher, too.

At family type dinners, I watched my dad sit with Meghan and their two daughters. He sometimes ran a hand over one of the girl’s braids, and the girl would barely notice as she yakked with her sister and played with her Barbie. If it had been me, I would’ve noticed. I would’ve.

I didn’t live with Dad and Meghan and their two daughters at their house, and Meghan didn’t let me and my half-sisters hang out or play together either. The three of them usually eyed me from a distance like I was a dirty curiosity, until eventually they’d lost interest. I barely knew them.

The “old ladies” took turns looking out for me, and Kerry was my favorite. She’d pick me up from school, help me sometimes with my homework, take me to the movies with her two kids, and bring me her homemade brownies and pie. I was older than her kids, so by the time I was thirteen, I’d babysit them once in a while.

The nights when it was just the men partying at the clubhouse without their old ladies, like when they celebrated the membership of a new brother, I’d get locked in my room. A few times they’d forget though, and I’d watch the party from the kitchen. On one of those party nights, I spotted Dad with a girl on his lap I’d never seen around before. He pulled her top off and stuck one of her boobs in his mouth. She was laughing and rubbing herself up against him. All the guys were doing different shit with different girls, drinking, smoking from bongs or just plain cigarettes.

“Oh aren’t you a cutie pie?” A blonde girl came up next to me. “Hey, do you know where I can find a lighter or some matches?”

I took a lighter out of my pocket and handed it to her. I was always prepared. Someone always needed something. That was me. Water carrier. Beer bringer. Lighter bearer.

“Yay.” She planted a wet kiss on my cheek and took off into the thick of the party.

The girl Dad was with did a little dance for him, and he laughed loudly.

Meghan’s outrage at my existence hadn’t died down all these years. Years later he’d tell me he’d brought Meghan home the clap after being with my mom. First a disease, then a kid. No wonder she was super pissed with him on a permanent basis.

I’d learned that Dad couldn’t help himself where women and booze were concerned, like I couldn’t say no to Oreos or chocolate ice cream. But I didn’t get it. Seemed like he had stuck himself in one big stupid mess.And he still couldn’t be my dad. Not like the other dads were with their kids. Like he was with his daughters.

I remained the one thing he openly denied and rejected to appease Meghan. The booze and the bitches were okay, though. He’d slapped me on the same scale as his raunchy habits, but I was the one who weighed the whole damned thing down.

I made sure I fit in at the club. This was my home now. My more than before. There was no more to be had. This was good enough, and I was good with that.

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