You Always Hurt the Ones You Love
Like any objects of his obsession, Joe’s mother wasn’t perfect. That was partly the reason he felt the need to protect her. Like a flightless baby bird, she was vulnerable in her strength. She fitted her armor of secrets every morning. The arsenal included make up concealers of different shades, depending on the healing stage of her wounds. Joe would watch her from the door frame of the bathroom, quiet as a gluttonous mouse. She never noticed his peering eyes, no doubt due to the inner dialogue that plagued her mind with each stroke of the brush. This what when Joe first learned he could secretly gather evidence by simply being silent. He would perfect this craft through the years, becoming invisible when it was most beneficial. Which exactly how he found out his father was having an affair. This was when Joe learned those who are guilty often accuse others of their hidden secrets.
His father often tried to put himself in the middle of the connection with his mother. On nights when bourbon danced in the man’s eyes, he would use extra colorful language.
“Your mother’s a whore. I know she tries to get you to lie for her, but I also know you always tell the truth.”
Joe knew of his mother’s extramarital activities. He couldn’t blame her. He knew that someone as delicate as she couldn’t leave his father without help. So Joe withstood his own abuse, a lit cigarette his father’s favorite weapon.
The noise in his head made it difficult for Joe to concentrate at school. One particular day, he pretended to ride the bus and waited outside of the home until he knew everyone was gone. With one ear aiming toward the door, he watched his favorite cartoons, ate too much cereal, and curiously searched through the drawers in his parents room. This was when he found a number, hastily scribbled on a napkin from the Starlight Bar. This was his father’s favorite place to frequent, and this number belonged to another woman. Perhaps his father had simply pocketed it without a second thought. Could he really be considering cheating on the one person in his life who stayed with him while he wrestled his demons? He had to know. As if like clockwork, the door to the home burst open and Joe scrambled to hide underneath his parent’s bed. Two figures collapsed onto it, and it only took a moment for Joe to realize this was his father, and that was not his mother. Joe dug his fingernails into each palm until they bled, waiting until the neanderthal was through fucking someone who would never compare to his mother. He would’ve been less distraught if he knew this woman would somehow steal his father away from the family. That’s what Joe craved the most. He revisited a daydream in his head which involved he and his mother, West Coast bound, having breakfast on the beach and no threat of another male to disrupt the equilibrium. He craved his mother’s undivided attention more than air.
His mother, bless her naive heart, thought the day he killed his father was first time he’d ever killed. But that wasn’t true at all.
Joe soon hopped on the personal family computer, his father never the greatest at covering his tracks. The type of porn he preferred was reason enough to believe the man was a complete sadistic psychopath. But what piqued his interest more was the information he discovered in his father’s open email account. Dozens of emails between himself and a woman called Becky. It didn’t take long for Joe to uncover that this had been going on for quite some time, and Becky was the whore that was in mom’s bed hours earlier.
The first step was to block his father’s access to the email account. Which was simple enough. He didn’t need much time to work with. Only a day or two. He changed the password, also changing the back up email so his father would have no way to recover it without creating a new account. He then spun up an elaborate sexcapade scheme, seeing as the woman spoke quite openly about how much she craved his father and everything attached to him. Sex would be the quickest way to disengage her logical mind. Joe didn’t need to be having sex to know that. He sent her a flowery email, glittered with fantasies and a plan to meet in the park that night. Sharing as his father, he disclosed to the woman that he had a rape fantasy. This was a thin line, but Joe knew if this was going to work at all, the woman had to be totally vulnerable to outside stimuli. He instructed the whore to arrived underneath the cobblestone bridge in their local park, sit down, and blindfold herself. He knew this area was safe from overhead lights. During the day, it was a quaint little location to skip rocks in the man-made stream. At night, it was a safe covering from prying eyes. He waited with baited breath for her response, half expecting to eliminate the woman immediately just due to the admitted kink. Instead, the woman appeared to be excited about it. What was it with women somehow delighting in abuse? He knew he would never treat women the way his father did. They were possessions who bent to his will, nothing more. He would be different.
He hid in a small crevice the next night, his heart threatening to burst past cage and muscle as it pumped wildly in his ears. She finally arrived, right on schedule. Joe tightened the grip on the hammer, the handle slipping from the sweat of his palms. He knew he couldn’t hesitate, or it would be all over. As his adrenaline began rising, he remembered the pleasured moans that spilled from Becky’s lips. With each recall, his anger grew. The montage of their fucking looped in his mind. He knew he had to do this. It was the only way to protect his mother.
Frankly, Becky died peacefully. She never expected the blow to her skull, or the several hits after that. She barely made any sound. It was as if she surrendered to her fate, knowing she was nothing more than trash that needed to be taken out. He drug her body to the edge of the stream. He filled her pockets with as many rocks as he could, rolling the body to the water and pushing her in with one sneakered shoe. It was then he realized just how shallow the stream was. Her head bobbed above the water, a fixated gaze toward the sky as if the woman were admiring the galaxies above. He bolted from the scene, tossing the hammer into the opposite side of the stream. His lungs burned that night from how fast he ran away.
When he arrived home, his father was already passed out in the recliner after his nightly bottle of liquor. His mother jumped up from her seat at the kitchen table. “Where were you?! Do you know how worried I was?!” she exclaimed, pulling Joe with her into his room so as not to disturb his father. “I was at the library. I lost track of time,” he hurriedly responded. It was only then that Joe realized he had no books with him. “I was returning them and tried to find a new one I might like. No luck. I’ve read a lot of them,” he chuckled, trying to make the situation lighter as he hid a blood splattered sleeve from her. His mother sighed, seeming to settle into this vague excuse. “You’re a good boy, Joe. I have something for you.” She offered him a slight smile, reaching into the pocket of her linen robe to retrieve a book. The Count of Monte Cristo. “I know you like some classics, so I thought you might like this. It’s about a man who waits years for revenge. Just like you and me, Joey. We’re gonna get out of here. So you read that book, and you know that momma is going to find a way to change it all,” she said, her voice shaky. Joe saw a tear fall from her bruised eye. Apparently, the bottle wasn’t the only thing he’d hit tonight.
“I know momma. We’re always here for each other. Like the Three Musketeers,” he said with a weak smile. He hugged her, placing the book on his night stand. “I’m going to change and then I’m going to get you something for your eye,” he reassured. A pained sigh fell from his mother’s mouth. “I’m supposed to be taking care of you, mister. Not the other way around.” He paused for a moment, knowing the sentiment was truthful but also understanding the gray areas of the world. “You do. But that doesn’t mean I can’t take care of you too.”
