Michael Collings - The Slab

“Huh-uh,” Elizabeth said. “Josh hit me.”

“What!” Jay swung his attention back to the small, pale face pressed against his wife’s shoulder.

“Josh hit me.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to play. With the video game. He didn’t want me to, and he grabbed that glass thing and hit me.”

Jay surged to his feet. Linda grabbed his arm and held him tightly.

“Jay, please, try to stay calm and find out what happened.”

“Calm! Stay calm! That little bastard nearly kills your daughter and you tell me to stay calm.”

Linda blanched at the anger in his voice, then her face flushed red and hot.

Jay was out the door in an instant. He shouldered past his father, not noticing the distanced, glazed expression in the old man’s eyes, not noticing that as he passed his father Jay almost knocked him off balance. The old man slumped against the wall. Already Jay was in the family room yelling. But Mitch was there also, running interference, hunched aggressively between his son and Jay.

Jay accused. Mitch defended. Josh burst into tears and threw the glass ashtray. It spun in the bright winter light, catching sunlight and refracting it in rainbow spirals as it shattered the family room window and disappeared into the dead yard.

The crash of glass startled both Mitch and Jay, enough at any rate for the nearly crazed fathers to catch their breaths. They stared at each other, realizing with a unanimity that was itself breathtaking how close they had come to blows. Mitch’s fists were clenched at his sides. Jay’s breath was ragged and shallow, and his voice shook as he spoke.

“Anna, come here.” She came. Without a word, she slipped across the room and stood behind her father. Jay took her by the hand and led her down the hall. As he passed the bathroom, he looked in at Linda and Elizabeth.

“We’re leaving. Now,” he announced. “Anna, pack your things and Elizabeth’s.”

“Yes, Daddy.” She disappeared into the bedroom the girls had shared.

“You stay here with Elizabeth,” Jay said to his stunned wife. He rushed down the hallway and threw his and Linda’s things into their still-open suitcases, hammered the Samsonites shut, and yanked them up. Without speaking to anyone, he stalked through the hall and out the front door. He thrust the unoffending cases into the trunk of the car, slamming the lid hard enough to jostle his key ring loose. The keys dropped to the pavement with a harsh, raucous clatter. Blood throbbed in his temples as he leaned over to retrieve them.

He re-entered the house, carefully avoiding any words with Ellen, who now fluttered protectively around her boys. Thad was in the family room as well, Jay noted, his long frame slouched in Mattie’s favorite chair, his feet hooked over the arm. The boy’s shoes were filthy.

He helped Anna close her bag and Elizabeth’s, then took them outside as well and, moving like an automaton in spite of his mounting fury, went inside for a final time. By then Linda and Elizabeth were on their feet, standing together in the bathroom doorway.

“Jay,” Linda began. “Don’t you think…”

“Think, nothing. I’m leaving. Now.”

He swept Elizabeth into his arms and carried her outside. Anna followed, her eyes dark with unwept tears. Jay sat Elizabeth on the back seat, then held the door open for Anna and waited until both girls were securely seatbelted in. He looked up. Linda was on the door-step. He could see Abe’s silver hair glistening in the darkness behind his wife.

For a moment, Jay faltered. This is absurd, he heard himself argue. You haven’t even talked to the boy; you don’t know what really happened. Elizabeth is fine; she probably won’t even have a scar in a couple of weeks-shallow cuts like that bleed like hell but don’t really do much damage. Why are you acting like this, like Attila the Hun with raging hemorrhoids, setting out to rape and ravage and slaughter.

For a moment, he almost turned back to the girls and unbuckled their seatbelts and helped them from the car. Part of him wanted to. But that part was weaker than the part that repeated incessantly Get out get out get out. Even that part knew that Elizabeth’s injury had little to do with the need to be away-away from obsessive Ellen and her obnoxious brood, away from Mitch’s unfeeling superciliousness, away from…

Away from this house!

Admit it, Jay old boy, that’s the real thing. Away from this house. He swallowed convulsively and gestured for Linda to get into the car. As she passed him, she reached out for his arm again, as if she were his mother trying to help him realize for himself the enormity of his mistake before things went too far.

He shook his head. “I know what I’m doing, hon.” He waited until she was in the car, then he returned alone to the front door.

Ellen and Mitch were still in the family room. They were not speaking; they were watching him with an intensity that unnerved him. The boys were gone-whether out back or into the bedroom Ellen and Mitch were using, Jay didn’t know. He didn’t care, either. After the way Thad had acted the first day, after Josh injuring Elizabeth today, he didn’t give a damn if he never spoke to his sister again. He focused his attention on his father.

Abraham Morris looked old and frail in the filtered light. His skin hung loosely from his face, his lips trembled even though he was not speaking, and his eyes darted back and forth, as if he were trying to discover who this stranger was standing in front of him.

“Dad,” Jay said as gently as he could. “Dad, Linda and I have to leave. You understand?”

Abe nodded.

Jay wasn’t sure that the movement meant; there was something about it that suggested his father did not understand anything that had happened in the past few minutes.

“Look,” Jay continued, “I’ll call you as soon as we get home. We’ll have you out to our place soon. Maybe later this week. You can come out and stay until New Years if you want. Longer. We’ve got the room. And I don’t like the idea of you staying here in this house…alone.”

Abe’s eyes cleared. His lips stopped their nervous tremors, and when he spoke, Jay heard his father’s voice the way he remembered it from years before.

“I’m fine, Jay. I’ll be fine. You just take care of Lizzy-Bizzy and Anna-banana and Linda, and let me worry about me.”

Jay swallowed. He hadn’t heard his father use those pet names for years.

“Okay, Dad.” He paused, unsure what to say next. “Look, tell Ellen that…tell her I’m…I’m sorry and I’ll call her later, too. When I’ve had a chance to cool down.”

Abe nodded. “That would be wise. I’ll talk to her.”

Jay looked at his father and-on an impulse he would never quite understand but for which he was grateful for the rest of his life-reached out abruptly and threw his arms around his father. He felt the angularity of bone beneath the bulk of Abe’s clothing, and realized anew that his father was old and frail and thin. He hugged Abe with all the strength he could muster, and when the two men finally broke their embrace, both had tears in their eyes.

“Okay, Dad. And…thanks.”

“You drive careful, now. You hear?”

“Sure, Dad.” Jay left. Abe followed a few steps out onto the porch and waved at his daughter-in-law and granddaughters in the car. Then he turned and went inside and shut the door.

“Jay?” Linda’s voice was calm but subdued.

“I’m okay.”

“Should we…?”

“I told him we’d call. We’d have him out soon. For a long visit.” He cranked at the engine, relived that it turned over right away. “For a real long visit.”

The Slab- A Novel of Horror (retail) (epub)

Michael R Collings