“You lazy bitch, get your damn ass out here and get this mess cleaned
up!”
Darlene hoped her husband was in a good tonight. If he was then all he
would do was yell.
“
Yes, dear!” She hurried into the room to clean up the mess from
Harry’s spilled beer and overturned ashtray.
Harry belched and his ample belly jiggled in counterpoint as he giggled.
He seemed to think his burps were the height of witticism, equaled only
in eloquence by his frequent expulsions of flatus.
“
Good,” thought Darlene; “He hasn’t got that look in
his eye. Maybe things will be okay.” Not that she couldn’t
handle him whacking her once in a while, but lately he’d taken to
punching nine-year-old Randy when he got angry, and she’d seen him
eyeing the baby in his malevolent way when little Valerie was crying. “God
help him if he ever hurt the baby,” she thought.
Harry downed his twelfth beer of the evening and gazed blearily at the
TV screen. He’d rented “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” again.
Darlene hated blood and gore movies, especially when the kids were up,
being exposed to senseless violence. Of course they saw enough of the
real life kind from their dear old dad.
“
Harry, Honey. Couldn’t you wait until Randy is in bed before you
watch that?”
“
Don’t you tell me what the f… to do!” He took a swing
at her. Luckily, he was too drunk to hit as hard as usual, but she knew
there’d be a bruise in the morning…
…
and more questions at work.
Darlene worked as a C.N.A. at the Mill Creek Hospital. Good thing too,
as her husband hadn’t worked in years, due to his “bad back”.
Funny how he could get out during hunting season and drag home a 200-pound
buck. On the other hand, Darlene would work a twelve-hour shift, then
get the kids from the sitter. She’d come home, cook dinner, put
the kids to bed and try to get some rest. Presuming Harry didn’t
try to get “amorous”. Fortunately he would usually fall into
an alcoholic stupor before he formulated the idea of “making love.”
Harry was Darlene’s biggest mistake in life. She’d only been
18 and he seemed so cool with his own car, a job at the mill and his swaggering
self-confidence. She’d been pregnant with Randy when they’d
gotten married and she found out quickly that she was on her own. Harry
would take off on most weekends to go “out with the boys,” and
often she wouldn’t see him until the next morning, disheveled and
smelling of stale liquor and cheap perfume.
She should have known better. Harry’s jealous rages and insistence
on controlling her every move started soon after they’d begun dating.
Darlene’s father had treated her mother in exactly the same way.
She always tried to deflect dad’s rages to herself and away from
the kids. Mom’s desperate efforts to placate her brutish husband
had disgusted Darlene, but she had insisted that this was the only way
to keep the family together.
It was funny how there had been a perverse familiarity about her relationship
with Harry, that somehow seemed to draw her to the man, almost against
her will. Of course Dr. Bill, the TV shrink, said many women are attracted
to the same personality type as their father. Lessons learned to late.
A few years after they married, Harry lost his job at the mill for showing
up drunk, then milked every disability plan he could until nothing was
left, getting nastier every day, blaming everything on his wife and kids.
What was it Brando had said? “I could’a been a contenda!” No,
that wasn’t right. Harry was never in the running for anything.
Darlene stifled a high-pitched, despairing sob and blotted her eyes with
a scrap of tissue. Then she heard the front door open and Randy enter
the house. Hurrying protectively into the living room she saw him quickly
lose his boyish grin as Harry’s attention focused on him.
“
What ya got there boy?” Randy tried to hide the object behind his
back, but too late. Harry grabbed his son’s arm and twisted it,
then snatched the object from Randy’s hand, cuffing him across the
side of the face for good measure. “It’s j-j-j-just some c-c-c-andy,
Daddy.”
“
Yeah, Nelson’s Peanut Clusters, they’re my favorite!” Harry
opened the package and contentedly munched on the treat.
“
Bastard,” Darlene thought. Then Harry started gasping…within
minutes welts covered his body and his lips and face ballooned. Darlene
hesitated a moment, then grabbed the phone and dialed 911. There seemed
to be a long delay as Harry gasped for breath, before the ambulance pulled
into the driveway. The uniformed attendants came rushing in. One was a
young woman named Heather. Darlene recognized her from the hospital. She
placed an oxygen mask over Harry’s face and then helped wheel him
out to the ambulance.
The hospital was only a short drive away and soon the ER physician, Dr.
Taswell, had given Harry a shot of adrenaline. He was starting to settle
down and was breathing more easily. Taswell injected Harry with some antihistamine
and had him admitted to the third floor in the medicine wing for observation.
The next morning Darlene brought 16-month-old Valerie in to visit her
father, hoping it might cheer him up. They sat down next to the bed and
saw that Harry looked considerably better, little the worse for his ordeal.
He did not look happy.
“
How are you doing Honey?” she asked.
“
You stupid moron!” he bellowed at Darlene. “They told me I
had some kind of anna f’in lactic reaction from peanuts and I could
have died. All I need is a sniff of the stuff and it could happen again.
Now I gotta wear one of them faggoty Medic Alert bracelets. How could
you be so stupid to let Randy bring that stuff into the house?”
“
But you never reacted to peanuts before, dear.”
“
Don’t you EVER talk back to me!” howled Harry, shaking his
fist. Baby Valerie, who was sitting on the bed, stared wide-eyed at her
dad, then started to weep.
“
Stop that you stupid little turd!” he snarled, swinging the back
of his hand and hitting the child across the face. The baby went silent
and a trickle of blood traced a crimson line down her pale cheek. Darlene
quickly bundled the stunned infant into her arms and hurried out of the
room, beyond her father’s reach.
“
They’re sending me home this afternoon and you damn well better
be ready for me!” yelled Harry after her.
Darlene was just finishing her lunch when she heard the taxi pull up. “He’s
finally here. Good.” She smiled to herself. The baby was asleep,
Randy was at school and she planned to give Harry a very special welcome
indeed.
She heard the front door thrown open. Taking a final bite of the thick,
gooey peanut butter sandwich, she rushed to the door, grinned and gave
Harry a deep, passionate kiss goodbye.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
George Burden is a family physician, a graduate of Dalhousie University, who has practiced for over twenty years in the small village of Elmsdale, Nova Scotia. In his spare time he loves to write. He has published in genres ranging from humour, horror and historical fiction to medical history and on-the-edge travel. His writing has taken him from the depths of the ocean to the cockpit of a CF-18 fighter jet, from Antarctica to the palace of the King of the Ashanti. He was recently named by the Explorers Club as regional chairman for the Atlantic provinces, and published his first book, Amazing Medical Stories in May of 2003.
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