After he kept questioning me about my age and got over that I was his size and he was a grown man, I lost my first two games but by the time the streetlights had come on I beat Duffy seven games and walked away with five hundred dollars in my pocket.
Twice a week I’d go to the park and play him for money. He found it challenging that I kept beating him when I had never played before. Today I went and beat him but left after I had to fight with Cassian for putting dirt and bubble gum in this girl’s head because she called him a snagga tooth dirt rat. She brought her brother Isaiah to the park to beat up my brother, well tried to.
“Thank you but please don’t come back here. My dad doesn’t like random people around our house.” I watched Duffy eye my door with a clenched jaw. His sudden change of mood surprised me.
“It’s cool. I understand. Let me know if you ever need anything.” He looked at my door one last time before walking down the steps and disappearing in the dark of the night.
“Where The Hell Are They?”
His loud voice boomed through the house making me flinch. I hadn’t been able to sleep much after Duffy left. After I got the boys settled for the night I laid down in my bed staring at the ceiling. Mom called again and I made the mistake of answering the house phone. Atlas and Cassian were playing in their room and Dad was still laid out on his bed from the first time she called. I said ‘hello’ four times before she said a word and when she did, I got ‘oh, it’s you’ instead of a greeting that showed that she missed us.
“Foolish for me to think different.”
“Where in the hell are you summa bitches?” Dad slurred closer to my door.
I laid there with my hands behind my head praying that he’d stumble back to his room. I hoped that he wouldn’t come in. My luck ran out when he kicked my door in causing me to sit up. “Agghhh,” I yelled out in pain. He burst through the door swinging his leather belt with the metal University of Miami buckle. Right when I sat up the buckle hit me right in my left eye. My head started to hurt, and my eye felt like it was about to fall out.
“Here go the bastards.” He barely stood on his two feet without losing his balance. Pants hanging off his hips. Hair hadn’t been cut in months. You could smell the funk of liquor like it was coming out of his skin.
This wasn’t the man I grew up admiring and idolizing. His yellow and red eyes filled with so much anger, that’s not the man I used to be proud to call dad. Fitness and staying healthy were once important to him. Now his stomach was twice the size of mom’s when she was pregnant with Atlas. Cassian and Atlas were both asleep right next to me. They learned since babies to sleep through his drunk rantings.
With my one good eye, I watched him stumble over to the middle of the bed and raise his belt in the air. It felt like my heart had stopped as I watched in horror as he raised the belt towards them. Before it could strike, I pushed the boys off the bed. Atlas was the first to cry from the impact of hitting the floor. Cassian jumped up ready to fight me but then froze. Their slight pain of hitting the floor compared nothing to a leather belt on their bareback.
“You think you can save them.” Dad jumped on my back and started to beat me. Sprawled out under him with nowhere to go and not strong enough to get him off of me, I gritted my teeth and silently cried with each hit.
Daily I playfully fought Odom and Pacino at the park. We beat Duffy and his friends in pushup battles. My friends did it for fun and I did it to stay strong. I had Dad with my height and size, but none of that mattered if I had weak strength. Some days his blows hurt no worse than getting stung by a bee. Other days, like tonight, his blows were so painful that I knew death had to be easier.
My brothers sat in the corner of the room crying, looking at me with sadness. Long ago I vowed to never let them be at the mercy of his beatings. I’m not sure how many lashes before my skin broke but I knew it did because of the wetness on my skin. It wasn’t long until Dad had exhausted himself to the point he fell over and stumbled out my room, mumbling that we were abominations and he wished we died.
“Trust me, I wished the same every day.”
As soon as his bedroom door closed Cassian jumped up and went into my connected bathroom. I tried to move. It felt impossible to do without crying. It hurt to move. My left eye closed with a gash above my eyebrow. Seeing Atlas stuck, afraid, and unsure of what to do, I tried to move. It felt like someone had split my back into two.
I tried to control my crying. I had to be strong for them. Had to show them that I was strong and could take it.
“Get the bandages and aloe, Atlas.” Cassian rushed in with a bowl of water and a rag.
“Stop,” I begged Cassian. He barely let the rag touch my skin. The stings of the warm water and soap hurt too bad.
“I’m sorry, Amell, but I have to clean your back so we can cover your cuts. I promise to move fast.”
Atlas ran back in with the medical kit and cold jar of aloe ointment we kept in the refrigerator. This wasn’t my first time on the receiving end of that belt. Last time dad caught me in the shower but at least then he hadn’t been able to hold me down.
“Grab my hands, Amell.” Atlas sat in front of me. It hurt to stretch out to him but I held on.
“I've been to lots of places, I've seen a lot of faces, there's been times I felt so all alone.” Atlas sang, his tiny little hands wiping my eyes. “Sing with me, Amell. Please. But in my lonely hours, yes, those precious lonely hours, Jesus lets me know that I was His own. Sing, Amell. It will make you feel better.” He kept pleading. At five years old he had to grow up too fast. He saw too much.
Finding my voice in the pain I sang with him. “Through it all, through it all, I’ve learned to trust in Jesus, I’ve learned to trust in God.”
Back In Time (cont.)
Amell
“Please, Amell, take us with you. Please.” Atlas pouted on the verge of crying. His body hadn’t stopped shaking since I told him that I was going to the store and he couldn’t go. The governor of Florida had officially declared a state of emergency for the incoming hurricane and we had nothing in the house to cover us. I’d just beat Duffy in another afternoon chess game. With the money I saved since he dropped by my house unexpectedly that night, I had more than enough to get whatever we needed.
“Atlas, I promise to come right back. I’m only going up the street to the blue store to get some food for us, okay? Cassian will be here with you.” I lightly thumped Cassian on the head to get his attention off of Dad who sat in his recliner watching A Price is Right drinking a beer.
“Cassian, watch over Atlas. Y’all stay in my room and don’t come out until I come back.” Usually, I took them with me but it had been drizzling all day and I didn’t want them to get sick. Plus, it would take me less time to go by myself.
“Okay. I gotchu, Atlas. Be safe, Amell.” Cassian took Atlas’s hand and went into my room. The whole time Atlas looked back at me with the saddest eyes. Once the bedroom closed, I rushed out the house taking both of their red Radio Flyer wagons with me. The blue store was our local food market. They had everything I needed. My teacher at school made me a list of all the things we’d need after I asked her about whether we would lose power. Like all the other adults around me, she pitied me and helped whenever she could.