Two Killers

3. Act! The Old Days The first memory I have, the first one that matters. I was young, six or seven. We were staying in a worn trailer on the outskirts of a small town in southern Alabama. The lot the trailer was on was surrounded by thick woods and there were few neighbors. I believe the lot was owned by mv mother’s boyfriend of the month, Bill, a real swell guy with a serious drinking problem and a right hook that would bring down Goliath. He wasn’t mv father, I never knew m father. I do not know much about this man either. To be honest, I never asked and I’m perfectly content not knowing. Miserable beings should not be immortalized through talking about them. On that note, let’s make this quick. At first, I thought the rain had awakened me. I gazed at the drops streaming down the glass of the nearest window. I remember starting to go back to sleep, ignoring the strange uneasy feeling growing within me. Then I heard it. Just the sound brought back several associated memories that gave visual aid to what was going on in the other room. I hadn’t been around him long, but long enough to have tasted the back of his hand several times. He was doing it again, beating Mom senseless until he was tired enough to sleep. Oh, Mother, what had you gotten us into this time? I did what any child could do. I covered most of mv face with the blanket and stared at the door. I hook and lumped each time I heard the smack of bone against flesh. I could hear another squeal helplessly. I can’t begin to describe the fear. The fear your brain only produces when it firmly believes that your life is in danger. I’m not sure what happened. Maybe it was a fluke, maybe I was just troubled from the beginning, or maybe the constant powerlessness broke something inside of me. Something changed in me and has never changed back. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do. I was a child, a scrawny child. I had never won a schoolyard scrap or even played a fighting game, but something inside told me to get up and teach him a lesson, whatever that may be. I threw mv covers to the side and stood up. I was angry, but it felt good. It felt good to finally do something about it, not just being quiet with my thoughts and pain. No, never again would I take on anyone’s pain. Never again.They weren’t in the living room, which means they were in his room. I had to tiptoe across the kitchen, avoiding any creaks in the floor on the way to his room. Nervousness settled in. His roars to my sobbing mother became louder as I approached that side of the trailer. I kept moving forward though. I had to. I wasn’t going back to bed, just to let mv mother not handle the situation as usual. I was in the kitchen when hesitation won and stopped me in my tracks. What would I even do? That’s a good question, not to be overlooked. I had went stomping into the lion’s den with nothing but mv super hero underwear. I turned my head to think, then it all made sense. The moonlight creeping in through the blinds glimmered on its handle. It stood out from the

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