The Black Chronicle

by Oldrich Stibor

  But always the plane went down. The black smoke of the engines trailing behind the screeching metal and glass like the tail of an American-made comet.

  The Germans would look up from their fortified nests and celebrate. The flames from his brother’s exploding aircraft reflected in their gleeful, bloodshot Aryan eyes, sauerkraut and foam dripping from their snarling lips, “Heil Hitler, Heil Hitler, may the Reich never end!”

  And sometimes right before Pete's plane exploded into the cold ocean or crashed against the jagged rocks of some foreign mountain, he would turn to him, his eyes full of that calm strength Jacob admired so much, and say, “Don't let him hurt you.”

  And then he would awaken back in his room. Back home in his lonely little war against one. His father still Fuhrer of his life.

  But the Germans were defeated. American had its revenge. The enemy now was the Reds, the evil champions of Communism. Jacob secretly hoped for all-out war.

  Fear seemed to live everywhere. Bomb drills were routinely practised at school. The bell would ring and the little children would dive under their wooden desks giggling like it was a game. The older kids with half a brain in their heads would comply only grudgingly for the sake of appearances, but left wondering what these Russian bombs were made of that they would be able to penetrate the roofs of their schools but not the one inch thick tops of their wobbly classroom desks.

  Jacob found it more ridiculous than most. Why on earth would the Reds choose to target anything in Tennessee of all places? That's right, he realized one day while sitting cross-legged under his desk, observing all the different flavours of fear in his classmates’ eyes.

  Targeting these bunch of hicks is brilliant. Kill off all the stupid because the intelligent people aren't threatened enough by the communists’ ideas to go to war over.

  And even though America had never been bombed, the fear and tension persisted. Kindly grandmothers set apple pies on windowsills like villagers setting out garlic to ward off vampires. Baseball games and barbeques and all-around good ‘ole boy-ness were observed like holy sacraments of the Church of America. It all bored Jacob to tears. But between school and chores and his sweetheart Becky, he barely had time to resent it all. He did manage to get his resentment in when and where he could , and nothing was easier to resent than his old man.

  “Roast beef again?” his father complained one night at dinner between sips of whiskey.

  “We haven't had roast beef in at least…” his mother started to explain.

  “—We have it all the time!”

  She knew better than to speak back to him.

  Jacob tried to block them out.

  “Don't you tell me,” his father spat and took another long drink. “You think I can't remember what I eat?”

  “Sorry dear,” his mother squeaked between timid forkfuls.

  Jacob could feel his father's rage building but didn't bother to look up. If they both just ignored him chances were he would get bored and calm down.

  “Yeah, ‘sorry’? I'm the one sorry to be eating the same sawdust-dry roast beef every night.”

  Cutlery clinked on plates. Food was slowly chewed and swallowed. The grandfather clock in the hallway measured the growing tension with its slow and steady tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

  “And what about you?” his father asked directing his disdainful drunken eyes towards him. Jacob could smell the liquor on his breath from all the way on the other side of the table. He tried to just ignore him. He was too tired and wanted only to finish eating and go to bed.

  “I'm talking to you, boy.”

  “Yes?” Jacob finally had to say.

  “You finish your chores?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes what?”

  Here it comes. Jacob looked up at his mother but she was still just staring down at her mashed potatoes. She's not going to find any help in those potatoes.

  “Yes sir,” Jacob said and started to cut bigger bites.

  “You muck them stalls?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You fill the troughs?”

  “Yes sir,” Jacob growled, feeling his blood begin to boil.

  “You better take that goddamn tone out your voice boy!” his father warned, straightening his big meaty frame upwards.

  Jacob opened his mouth but felt his mother’s tension immediately spike so he bit his tongue, literally. He swallowed his fear and anger along with another big mouth full of roast, which, incidentally was really not that dry at all.

  “Goddamn it,” his father cursed, his lazy drunkard hand pushing past his glass and going directly for the bottle. Lifting it to his lips he took a long harsh gulp, the whole time his menacing eyes fixed on his son. Jacob caught his eyes, and found himself unable to look away. Unable to tuck his tail for the millionth time and just let his father intimidate him. He stared back, barely trying to mask his hatred.

  “If there is a God,” his father snarled, “then He must hate me. He must see fit to reward hard work with punishment. Gives me a lazy woman, who gets fat as a cow no sooner than the ring is put on her finger. And gimme a boy who is as lazy and spineless as a worm. Praise be to God!” he declared loudly lifting his hands up to the sky in mock worship.

  Jacob glared, hypnotized by the man's ignorance, mystified that he was even related to this drunken old fool. How had this miserable son of a bitch been the door through which he had entered life? There were no words, so he just stared. He didn't try to keep his face and his eyes from saying what he’d wanted to say for a long, long time: that he hated him. He hated his father as much as anyone could hate anyone.

  “You got something to say to me, boy?”

  “Why are you such a bad person?” Jacob asked with as much measure as he could muster.

  Finally whatever fascination her potatoes were holding for her waned, and Jacob's mother looked up with the kind of shock one might display if their child had suddenly started speaking in perfect Japanese.

  “What did you say to me?” his father asked, half shocked, half amused.

  “You're a bad man. You're rotten. There's nothing, nothing, in you which I want in me. I hope, and I try and I pray every day that I will never be anything like you. And if there is a God, I promise you, you're going to burn in hell old man!”

  Their world had never stood so still, the old farm house never been so utterly, perfectly silent. Tick… tock… tick… tock…

  When Jacob glanced at his mother again she was already staring back down at her plate. She didn't want to see what was about to happen.

  In an instant his father was on his feet, his boots thump, thump, thumping around the table. Jacob just had time to stand before he felt his father's powerful hands grip him around his throat. A big fist came walloping down at him like a boulder thrown from a catapult. Jacob was too disoriented to notice that two of his front teeth had been knocked loose to the floor.

  His mother had left; her body was still there, but her mind had gone somewhere else. Somewhere where she didn't have to watch her husband beat her youngest like a dog who’d shit on the rug; Somewhere where she wasn't culpable for just sitting by while this happened, yet again.

  The fists came pummelling down on him faster than he could react. He turtled, trying his best to cover the most vulnerable points on his body, though every time he squirmed or used his arms to protect a rib or his stomach, his father's cruel fists would find a hole somewhere else, forcing him to try and protect that too. He felt small again, just a boy being spanked by a cruel parent, unable to do anything but try and get through it. It's not as though Jacob hadn't been in this position before, but this time something was different. This time, he wasn't sure if his father was going to stop. Trying to weather the storm might not work out this time.

  And then it hit him, hit him harder than his father's fists ever could. The realization that this sad, broken man hated his own son. That he may very well have been in the process of killing his own son. He didn't love him. He was
his boy—now his only boy—but still, he didn't love him.

  Something moved inside of him, something hot and growing and untameable, And just before the world dimmed around him like the lights going out before a picture show, Jacob found himself in the grip of a choice that wasn't much of a choice at all: it was fight or die. He could feel the blood rushing from his pounding heart to his head and then his fist. And before he knew it he had scrambled from underneath his father's massive frame.

  Jacob knew how to throw a punch also. His father thought he was spineless and weak but, what he didn't know was that his father was the only person he had ever let hit him. He had always fought back against bullies and could even have been a bully himself if he’d wanted to, but that wasn't him. But now he was going to show him he could be.

  Jacob was still on wobbly legs when the drunken old farmer got to his feet. The first punch Jacob threw was filled with so much wild rage that he would have spun himself around twice and landed right back on his ass if it hadn’t connected. And though it did, the blow didn't feel nearly as forceful as he’d hoped. But he knew he couldn't stop there. If he stopped there he was dead.

  So he kept swinging. He swung and swung and swung, landing more than he missed. His fists were pulsating balls of fire that exploded in pain each time he connected with his father's face. The punches came whizzing at his father so fast that he couldn't even mount a proper defence, he just sort of wilted.

  He saw a look in his father's eye. It was only there for a second, but Jacob had dreamt of putting that look on his father’s face every single day: fear.

  Finally with one last solid wallop to the jaw his father slumped back down to the floor dazed and defeated. Jacob stood over top of him, his mouth and fists dripping blood.

  “I can keep going! I can keep going! But I ain't you! My brother is dead because of you! He never would have left if it wasn’t for you! And I'd rather be dead too than be your son! I'm not your son! You hear me? I ain't your boy no more!”

  Heaving in his rage and victory he looked at his mother. She didn't know what to do or say, so as usual she did nothing, she said nothing. He knew right then that he was leaving. Leaving forever. He wanted to take her with him but he knew she would never come. She was grown. She had made her choices and Jacob couldn't let himself suffer any longer for her decisions.

  “Goodbye mama,” he said, his lips instantly trembling. Sobbing uncontrollably he ran to his room in mad fever of sadness and anger. He packed a bag and took the money he had been saving from under his mattress. Almost a hundred dollars.

  He left that small little farmhouse and the small little people in it, and never looked back.

  Biting down on a cloth to slow the bleeding, he found himself peddling his bike towards Becky's house. He knew that if he just had her, that if she just would leave with him, he would be okay.

  The ride to her house was a good hilly five miles but, lost in the feverish finality of it all, it felt like only seconds.

  Reaching the tiny row of small farms on Landmerry Road he jumped from his bike and walked it the rest of the way so he wouldn't seem so winded when he arrived. Her home was a small blue farmhouse that had faded to a pale grey. A porch, which he had helped her father and brother build last summer, stretched around the entire front half of the house. This was the undisputed territory of their dog Samson, a Labrador retriever who would become temporarily insane with excitement every time someone other than his owners approached the house. Fortunately Samson was sleeping indoors tonight and Jacob wouldn't have to call him away from the house to lock him in the shed.

  Grabbing a tiny handful of rocks from the dirt road he slowly crept to the back of the house. He began flinging the tiny rocks at her bedroom window but found he was trembling so badly that he couldn't hit his target. He had to stop and take a few deep breaths to steady himself before he was able to manage any accuracy. Finally he heard the soft clicking that told him he was making contact with glass. Just as he was about to search for more pebbles he heard the most beautiful sound he had ever heard in his life, Becky's part-scratchy, part-squeaky voice, whispering down to him like an angel from the clouds.

  “Jacob?”

  “Yeah, it's me. Come down.” he said, feeling suddenly panicked. What if she said no? What if she said yes?

  He spat and swallowed as much of the remaining blood as he could and hoped it was dark enough that his two missing front teeth didn't look too gross.

  They traditionally met at the row of black oak trees to the side of the house when she snuck out because the trees blocked the view from every window. Some odd minutes passed by and he began to worry that she had be caught but before he had a chance to really panic she appeared from the darkness.

  Becky was short even for a teenage girl. Five, foot one, and never did she grow an inch more.

  She had long dirty blond hair which curled and frizzed under any and all but the most controlled environments. Her oval blue eyes were drawn sharply to the corners like those of a cat, and her nose seemed handmade, as perfectly placed and cute as it was. Her breasts were responsible for his initial interest in her, which is of course, something he would never, ever admit to her. Even before he knew he was interested, he found himself thinking about those perfectly shaped breasts, which were freckled and, as he discovered on a night such as this, much more firm than he thought possible. Her back was straight as an arrow and her little shoulders always drawn back tight, her perfect posture a natural consequence of years of equestrian training. A blue housecoat was drawn tight over her little frame and when she got close enough to touch, Jacob thought he might start crying all over again.

  “Oh my Lord! Jacob what happened to you?” she asked, coming close.

  “I'm sorry to come here like this,” he said, trying to keep his mouth closed as much as he could while he spoke to her.

  “What happened?” she asked again. But he didn't want to answer her.

  “It's so good to see you,” he said wrapping his arms around her.

  “Jacob you're hurt,” she said, her voice full of worry.

  “I'll be okay.”

  “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

  “My father,” was all he said and all he needed to say. She knew what his father was like.

  And then Jacob tried to speak but he could feel the need to cry building. He knew if he opened his mouth, his voice would crack and then the tears would come.

  “I hate him,” he finally was able to say. “I hate him. And I'm never going back.”

  He looked up at her, knowing that tears were now streaming from his eyes despite his best efforts. He decided not to wipe them away because in this case they might actually be helpful.

  “You know I love you Becky. I ain't going back there. I'm not going home. Ever. But I don't want to lose you too.”

  “What happened?” she asked for a third time not knowing what else to say.

  “What always happens. He beat on me. For nothing. Only this time I...” He felt a sudden swell of pride, “This time I hit him back.”

  “Good,” she finally said after taking a long hard look at him. Jacob thought he maybe even saw a glimmer of pride from him in her eyes.

  And that was all the encouragement he needed.

  “Come away with me,” he said, bending his knees so he could align their eyes.

  “'‘Away’ where?” she asked, which was infinitely better than no, he thought.

  “Anywhere. Anywhere but here.”

  “What will we do?”

  He couldn't believe they were actually having a conversation about it. He’d been sure it wouldn't even have gotten this far.

  “I can work. I can get a job on a farm somewhere, or maybe even – who knows, in a restaurant or something. Just for now.”

  “Where…where will we live?”

  “Becky I don't care, as long as I'm with you.” He took her little hands in his.

  “We can move to a big city. New York. California. G
o see Hollywood. I already know I want to be with you. And I hope you feel the same. So why wait? Let's get away from this dead end town and start a family and get married and never look back. Ain't no future for us here. I don't want to live my life in the same twenty miles I was born. Do you?”

  “No, I guess I don't. But this is all so sudden.”

  “I know, baby. I know it is. But we can come back and see your folks. They won't be happy at first but they will get used to the idea in time and then we can visit.”

  “Jacob. This is... just so sudden,” she repeated.

  “Look baby, I'm leaving this place. I'm leaving tonight. And I hope more than anything else in the world that you will come with me. I love you.”

  She bit her lip and stared up at the myriad stars, her face tight and serious as she deliberated for just a moment; it felt like hours to Jacob.

  “Okay,” she finally said. “Okay. I'll come with you.”

  He scooped her up in his arms and was about to give her the biggest kiss he had ever given her but then remembered the state of his mouth.

  “Go get your things. Pack what you can.”

  “Okay!” she said, the excitement of the situation getting the better of her. She turned and hurried back towards the house.

  “Hey Becky?”

  “Yeah?”

  “That old truck next to the barn. Your Pa don't use that all too much, right?”

  CHAPTER 8

  Last night’s reheated pasta had long since gone cold. Mary absently forked at the tendrils of her linguine searching for a cremini or, if she got really lucky, a piece of sun-dried tomato. The hunt failed and with a sigh she set her fork down, leaned back deeply on her sofa and tried to convince herself that she had the motivation to continue working.