The Boots My Mother Gave Me

by Brooklyn James

  “Please, Dad.”

  “Please what?” he whispered, mocking me. “Am I embarrassing you?” His voice grew louder. “You’ve been an embarrassment to me from the day you were born. What the hell good is a goddamn girl to a man? Every man should have a son. What did I get, two worthless goddamn girls and the worthless goddamn woman who gave birth to ‘em!”

  My father’s favorite word was goddamn.

  I heard Mom’s footsteps coming up behind us. I turned around and saw Jeremiah in the middle of the road, watching in frozen disbelief.

  “John, go back to bed. We’ll finish up at the barn,” Mom spoke softly, approaching the front porch steps. “Harley, take Jeremiah home.” She leaned down taking my father by the arm, helping him to stand. Once he was on his feet, he shoved her, hard. She fell back into me.

  He came toward her, his eyes raging, shoving his infamous finger in her chest. “I will snap your head off and shove it up your goddamn ass!”

  I spun Mom around putting her behind me, facing him. “Just leave her alone, Dad.”

  “Leave her alone, Dad,” he mocked me again. “Poor Marilyn. Everybody sticks up for Marilyn. Everybody loves Marilyn. What about poor John? Nobody gives a shit about John! Not a goddamn one of ya, worthless pieces of shit.”

  He reached around behind me and grabbed Mom by the hair, jerking at her. I tried to deflect his grasp but he kept at her, like he always did. I heard Jeremiah approaching, Kat’s footsteps quickened behind him. What a freaking circus.

  Jeremiah’s voice was edgy as he approached us, “Leave them alone.”

  “Jeremiah, don’t! You’ll only make it worse. Just go home,” Kat pleaded, sucking in air amidst her tearful release.

  I heard my father’s devious, provoking laugh, as he shoved Mom and me out of his way. “You want a piece of the old man, too?” He turned to Jeremiah, holding his arms out from his sides as an open invitation.

  Jeremiah did what came naturally as he picked up his pace toward my father, dropping his shoulder and catching him around his ribcage, as if he were running drills on the football field. He followed through, shoving Dad up against the front porch wall.

  “Jeremiah!” Mom yelled. Heeding her call, Jeremiah let him go. Dad sat there slumping against the front porch wall, the wind and words knocked from his body. What an uncanny picture, my father, powerless and quiet, his invitation answered and served, his authority questioned. Jeremiah stood over him, his chest heaving, his fists clenched. The thought that if he only had a red cape he would rival Superman, flashed through my mind. Mom quickly found her way to Dad, assessing him. He nastily swatted her hands away.

  “Marilyn, go get my gun,” my father panted.

  I moved to Jeremiah, taking his hand. “Come on. I’ll take you home.” Kat stood on the sidewalk, her gaze shifting back and forth from Jeremiah with admiration, to Dad with pity.

  “I’m not leaving you,” he said.

  “The hell you’re not!” My father’s voice grew stronger, his breath returning. “Get the hell off my property! You goddamn bastard.” My heart sank at his words. He wouldn’t. Would he? I pulled at Jeremiah’s hand. He turned with me walking away. My father, steadying himself on his feet, his lungs functional again, continued his favorite pastime.

  “Your own mother didn’t even want you. Left you on your daddy’s doorstep. If he is your daddy. With a slut for a mother it’s anybody’s guess.”

  “John,” Mom scolded.

  “Shut up,” I said. I couldn’t believe the words actually came out of my mouth. It was too late to take them back. My father had heard them.

  I positioned myself between Jeremiah and my dad whose finger jabbed in my direction, yet again encroaching on my personal space. “You better watch your goddamn tone, young lady. This is my goddamn house and I will not be disrespected.”

  I could feel Jeremiah closing in on me from behind. I stopped him with my hand, gently keeping him at bay. My father started in with his maniacal laugh. “You want another round with the old man?” he taunted Jeremiah, grabbing me by my neck with one hand as he had many times before.

  “John, don’t!” I heard Mom plead.

  I kept my hand on Jeremiah’s chest behind me, holding him off. I could feel his heart against my palm, beating so fast and so hard it seemed ready to jump out of his ribcage.

  Used to such adrenaline rushing through my system on a regular basis, I almost felt normal. I had weathered this routine before. My father would threateningly clasp his hand around my neck and tell me how he could snap it in two with one movement. After all, he had done the same to hundreds of “gooks” in Vietnam. He never followed through, and I lost my concern that he would this time. Frankly, I was unimpressed with the whole dress rehearsal.

  Like clockwork came the expected words, “I could snap your neck with one move.”

  Usually I said nothing, simply endured. But I felt so embarrassed and ashamed that Jeremiah had seen all this unfold. What would he think of me? I could feel tears pressing hard against the backs of my eyes. Stop it! I coached. I bit down on my lip, taking my mind off the pain in my heart, calling on my almond for much needed backup.

  I put my hand around my father’s on my neck and squeezed, a low steady guttural tone slipping through my vocal chords, “Do it. Might be the biggest favor you ever do for me.” My teeth clenched, tears welling and on hold in my eyes, I prayed, Please, God, don’t let them fall. I held my hand tightly over my father’s as it laced around my neck. “I am so tired of this shit. Just do it. I dare you. Come on!”

  “Harley!” Mom and Kat cried in sync.

  I stared at him; he glared at me. For a moment, he thought I was as crazy as I believed him to be. I could see it in his eyes. He looked at me, my hand around his on my neck, bearing down, daring him to squeeze the air from my body.

  He saw a piece of himself in me, bitter, crushed, angry, and desperate to be loved by the one person who never could. His mother could not make herself love him, and my father could not make himself love me. In that moment, my eyes as empty as his, devoid of feeling or concern, he recognized it.

  He had killed me so many times with his words, he might as well do it with his hands. Probably wouldn’t hurt as much. I thought he might pull me into him and hug me. His eyes anguished, he looked as though he wanted to. He did not.

  “You’re not worth it.” He pushed me away, releasing his hand from my neck.

  I fell backward into the warmth and comfort of Jeremiah’s frame. He caught me, wrapping my torso in his arms. “I got you,” he whispered, holding me up, my legs like Jell-O.

  My father walked back to the front porch, settling on the top step in front of the door to the house. My mother followed him, attempting to coax him inside. She stood on the bottom step, beneath him, her rightful place since they married. Kat came to Jeremiah and me. Tears running down her face, she busied herself inspecting my neck. I wiped her tears, hugged her tightly and kissed her on the cheek, insisting she go inside and get to bed. After all, it was a school night.

  “Come on, Miah, I’ll take you home.” I motioned to the old flatbed Ford.

  “You’re not going anywhere in my truck,” my father said.

  I turned to see him standing on the step, his perch, looking for all the world like a banty-rooster with his arrogant smirk and exaggerated posture, attempting to make himself big and important. I shook my head, returning the same arrogant smirk laced with contempt. “We’ll walk.”

  “Get the hell off my property and don’t come back, you or the bastard,” he called after us. Jeremiah and I made it to the road.

  “Harley, you come in, get ready for bed, and I’ll take Jeremiah home,” Mom said.

  “Shut up, Marilyn. You’re not going anywhere. I’m going inside to get my gun, and you better be off my goddamn property when I get back.”

  “I’m not on your property,” Jeremiah challenged. “I’m in the middle of a state-owned road. Why don’t you join me? I see you’re g
ood at putting your hands on your wife and your girls. How about putting your hands on me, one bastard to another?”

  “Harley, you gonna let that son-of-a-bitch talk to your old man that way? If you want a roof over your head, you better get your ass in the house and send him home.”

  “Come on old man, let’s see what you got!” Jeremiah was amped full of fight-or-flight hormones, his voice and body shaking, aching for release.

  I faced him until his focus shifted from my father to me. “Don’t let him do this to you. Don’t give him that kind of power. Come on.” I pulled his hand, his body following as we started the half-mile walk to his house.

  My father remained safely on his perch with nary a thought of actually taking Jeremiah up on his challenge. In his self-proclaimed victory, he laughed. “That’s right, you don’t want any of the old man. Never send a boy to do a man’s job.” I could feel every fiber of Jeremiah’s body fighting me as we walked away but he stayed with me, never breaking his stride. “You leave with him, Harley, you stay gone. I got no goddamn use for you around here anyway.”

  “It doesn’t have to be this way,” Mom called after us, our silhouettes fading in the distance.

  I swore Jeremiah to secrecy, but he never looked at me quite the same. Before that infamous night, we were equals in our relationship. Now, sometimes I could see it in his eyes and his actions, he pitied me.

  He became cautious with me, as if I might break. The kid who never let me win anything, the one who always treated me fairly in every way, suddenly treated me like a wounded bird. We played hoops and miraculously I won. We played football in the neighborhood, and if I got tackled, Jeremiah would run to me, helping me up, asking if I was okay and insisting the other guys lighten up.

  I did not want his pity. I wasn’t pitiful or broken or wounded. I didn’t feel like a victim, and I hated it when he looked at me like one. I wanted to hate my father for casting me in that role for Jeremiah to see. I wanted to hate my father for many things. At times, I thought I did.

  Charlene The Chevelle

  I had worked for Benny Goodman, owner of Benny’s Automotive, since age fourteen as a gopher in his shop. A retired New York City firefighter, Benny and his wife moved to Georgia for a peaceful country retirement. After a year of such retirement, Benny’s wife decided he needed a hobby because she needed her “me time.” So he opened the shop and found himself working more hours than he did as a firefighter.

  Benny, larger than life at over six feet tall, came equipped with a big handlebar mustache and a gruff voice that spouted words in a New York accent. He was boisterous and quick-witted, his hands, each as big as my face, calloused from years of hard work.

  I loved Benny Goodman. The garage was my sanctuary. I could just be, live, and breathe. At Benny’s I appeared likable and capable. Contrary to the home I grew up in, my gender was not a handicap. As with everybody else, after my first year, he gave me the opportunity to advance from gopher to mechanic. I apprenticed at my first trade, grease-monkey.

  After my father kicked me out, Benny offered me the apartment above his garage for fifty dollars a month, with the stipulation I stay in school with good marks. In my mind I had no option but to maintain straight A’s, always pushing myself, attempting to prove worthy. Strange how completely adequate a person looks on paper, yet how inadequate they feel inside.

  Mom and my gram brought me packages full of food and hygiene supplies every week. Gram tried to convince me to stay with her. “No seventeen-year-old kid needs to be living on her own,” she said.

  Mom tried to convince me to come home. It didn’t look good, me living above Benny’s. “What will people think of the family?” she asked. Apparently my father agreed I could move back in.

  Hell, no! My pride, swollen by this stage in my life, emerged so formidable at times I thought I might choke on it. I’d rather be homeless than give him the opportunity to throw me out again.

  As my mother’s confidant, I questioned her motives for wanting me to come home. I felt guilty she and Kat would now face the brunt of my father’s behavior on their own, but I also felt betrayed. I knew my return would make things more bearable for her. Did she want me to come home for my sake or hers? My father did me a huge favor by kicking me out. He let me off the hook without even trying. Mom chose to live with him. Kat and I lived there by default. After seventeen years, I found in my possession the ultimate choice. Without a moment’s contemplation, I chose my life. I was in a good place, right where I needed to be.

  As early as I could remember, I dreamed of getting out of the town I grew up in. It sat there, so small, with no opportunity, no excitement. The town was my father and my father was the town, suffocating, narrow-minded, a dream stealer—a succubus. There had to be more to life than this, and I was determined to find out.

  My English teacher, Ms. Thoreau, told me the world was my oyster and I actually believed her. Upon graduation, I would search for my pearl. Living on my own proved the perfect prelude to my plans.

  I settled into my four-hundred-square-foot apartment over Benny’s Automotive like a baby bird in a nest. It felt cozy, comforting, and safe, a completely different world from the house in which I was raised. For the first month, I worried myself to sleep at night, feeling guilty, wondering what turmoil Mom and Kat were going through.

  My father’s abuse came in cycles. One day or week, he might feel good and allowed everyone around him to feel in kind, expected us to feel so. Then in an instant, he would blindside us. I often wondered if he flipped a coin, heads I’ll be good, tails I’ll be bad. It seemed that easy for him. I never knew anyone more in control of manipulation and abuse. That’s the bitch of it, really. He wasn’t mean all the time. Maybe that would have been easier. He was the puppeteer, we the puppets. Send in the clowns.

  It was a crisp, fall Saturday morning at the shop. I greeted a customer who brought his car in for a transmission and engine rebuild. He parked an old-school muscle car, my favorite, a 1970 Chevelle SS 396. He bought it at auction a few years ago for his son’s first vehicle. The idea was they would spend time together restoring the car. How cool would that be?

  Unfortunately, the son had no interest and no time for his father. Why is that? The universe gets turned around sometimes, ass over tin cup. Here’s this guy, trying to find a way to bond with his son and have some semblance of a relationship, and the kid has no interest. And there I was, wishing my father would want something, anything, to do with me.

  The car had potential, a real beauty. The exterior was primer gray and the interior needed a lot of work, not to mention all the rusted parts under the hood. But the frame was gorgeous, mean and sleek. I could see it with a shiny red paint job, black racing stripes from bumper to bumper, black leather interior, some wide tires and a few inches of lift under the rear-end. Just the thought of it made me a little weak in the knees. The shop wall offered support as I leaned against it.

  “More trouble than it’s worth...a money pit,” the man said, throwing the keys to me.

  The keys hit my hand, and I knew that car was meant to be mine. I looked at her in all her dreary grayness, her headlights—her eyes—devoid of any light. I swear I heard the cough of her sickly engine calling, “Help me!”

  Once among the premiere sports cars of her day, she pioneered Chevrolet’s entrance into the muscle car arena. I wondered, was she the first car of a vibrant young teen or a middle-aged man’s way of recapturing his youth? Surely many had lost their virginity in her backseat. How many speeding tickets was she an accomplice to? Someone used to scrub her up every Sunday, taking their time, caressing every little nook and cranny to bring out the radiant color underneath a week’s worth of road dirt and grime.

  She strutted her stuff as the hottest car on the block at some point in her life. Now, like the aging Hollywood starlet, she took a backseat to younger models. She had her time in the limelight, her heyday long past expiration.

  “How much?” the words slipped from my m
outh.

  The man paused a moment, calculating. “I’d need $2600 to make it worth my while.” Twenty-six hundred dollars! What was I thinking, asking how much he wanted for his car? I didn’t even have twenty-six dollars to spare.

  “She’ll give ya $1500 and nothing more. There’s a lot of work needs to be done to that car,” Benny said, walking toward us. “$1500 cash.”

  The man walked to the passenger side of the car, opened the glove box, took out the title and handed it to Benny. In the meantime, I fired up Charlene the Chevelle to pull her into the garage for a mechanical assessment. I always named cars. It seemed fitting as they had so much personality. She sounded like she had a cold, plugged up and froggy. It took a few cranks of the starter before she fired up, then she shook a bit, her engine knocking rhythmically. I identified with her. She sure wouldn’t stand out in a crowd, and she was a little rough around the edges, but she had so much potential.

  “Take it for a spin, kid. Not too far, though, I’m not sure you’d make it back in that thing. And you better sign your title. When you do get back, pull it up in the bay, and we’ll get to work on it.”

  “Benny, I don’t have $1500. You can’t give me a car.”

  “I’m not giving you anything. You pay me back, as you can.”

  “Any extra money I make, I’m saving. Benny, I’m getting out of this place.”

  “We’ll do it like the furniture store, no interest, no payment for the first year.” Benny closed the door to the car, shutting me inside. “Now, get outta here.”

  I sat there inside Charlene, dumbfounded, as I watched Benny walk away. There went my almond again. I felt all warm and mooshy, my eyes building with tears, sure to leak. Rumor had it Benny and the missus could not have girls. They had three boys, all men now, carrying on the family tradition as New York City firefighters. Benny had a soft spot when it came to me, and I for him. I often wished he were my dad. What a different life I might have had. I climbed out of the car and bum-rushed him with a bear-sized grasp. He returned my hug, laughing jovially.