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The next strike sent him backward, a third into a heap on the concrete where my father laid into him with his boots as well as the tire iron.
Terrified, I hit the horn. I didn’t care if I got a beating off my old man. I had to stop what was happening in that car park.
The horn grabbed my father’s attention and stopped another kick of his boot into the man’s ribs. He looked down at the bloodied mess, his face twisting with rage as he leaned down and spat on him.
When he returned to the car, he was covered in blood.
“And that is how you deal with men who think they can put their hands on your wife.” He was breathing heavy and sweat trickled down his temple, mingling with the blood on his face. He didn’t look at me, just kept his mean eyes on the man stirring on the concrete.
“Is he… dead?” I asked, terrified.
My father shrugged as he started the car. “If not now, he will be in a few minutes.”
He didn’t know I had called 911 from my cell phone. Now I prayed an ambulance wasn’t far away.
As if on cue, the sound of a siren cut into the quiet Sunday afternoon air.
“Time to go,” my father said as he put the car in reverse and drove away.
We didn’t speak on the way home. I stared out the window, trying not to think about the man lying in a crumpled bloody mess on the ground.
Instead, I thought about how much I hated my father.
And how, given the first chance, I would run as far as possible from him.
When we arrived home, he pulled into the driveway but didn’t move to get out. As I went to open the door, he stopped me.
“Best you don’t say anything to your mom,” he said calmly. I looked at him. He’d wiped the blood from his face while we waited at a set of lights, but there was still a drop of blood in one of his eyebrows.
I struggled to swallow. “Okay.”
He nodded and then added, “And, Son, if you ever honk my horn again, I’ll cut your fucking hand off.”
Feeling the terror of his threat, the last vestige of my childhood burned to ash and broke apart because I didn’t doubt him. He would hurt me if it somehow suited him.
I said nothing as I climbed out of the car and followed him solemnly into the house, wondering how I was going to keep this from a mother who knew everything just by looking at me. But the moment he walked through the front door, my mother stormed up to him and slapped him so hard across the face it left a bright red handprint on his skin.
She already knew.
The second slap to his face was with equal force and probably hurt my mom’s palm, but she was so wild with emotion I doubt it even registered.
“You monster!” she screamed at him. “You cock sucking monster.”
Rage lit up my father’s face as he squared his shoulders and walked toward her. “Let’s not kid ourselves here, Veronica. I’m not the one who’s been sucking cock! It’s just a shame you weren’t sucking the right cock.”
My father was an intimidating man, but my mother was fierce. “Like you don’t get your cock sucked by every whore who visits the clubhouse,” she yelled. Tears streamed down her face. “Why? Why did you hurt him?”
I wondered how my mom knew.
She was holding her phone in one hand. If he was okay, maybe the man had called to warn her.
My father towered over her, his teeth gritted. “Because that cunt stuck his dick in my wife. And no one…” he grabbed my mom by the arms “…no one gets to fuck my wife but me.”
My mom’s face brightened with white-hot fury.
She shook herself free. “I want a divorce!”
He snarled and walked her backward until her back was against a wall. “There’s only one way you’re leaving this marriage and it’s in a body bag. Do you understand me?”
“And what would your precious club think about that?” she seethed, her eyes full of loathing, her voice calm but hateful. “They will disown you.”
He leaned in. “They’d have to prove it first.”
“I’m not frightened of you, Garrett.”
Evil was bright in my father’s eyes. “You should be.”
Swerving off the main street, I steered the Harley toward the playground and killed the engine. Realizing what I’d done, Bull peeled back and signaled for the others to keep going before pulling into the playground car park and parking next to me. He climbed off his bike and walked over to where I was standing.
“You remember Joey Atwood?” I asked him.
“Name sounds familiar.”
I kicked the concrete with my boot. “This spot right here is where my old man beat the fuck out of him with a tire iron.”
