3 Ghosts of Our Fathers (5 page)

Sean had been hungry all day from
the moment he’d woken up. He’d eaten a couple of spring onions while working in
the fields with his stepfather, but they were still young and bitter and not
very satisfying. Still, it felt good to have something in his mouth to chew.
Since his mother died, that feeling had become increasingly rare.

The years with his mother now
seemed like a distant dream, a paradise. Then, he and Garth played at home all
day while she worked around the house. They had a large house and a large lawn,
and he and Garth would be sent outside by their mother when she couldn’t stand
them in the house anymore. In the yard they would drag an old red wagon around
and try to play badminton with an old set of rackets that were missing most of
the strings.

Sometimes they would venture into
the old stand-alone garage in the far corner of the backyard, but only to grab
a rake or ball or the badminton set. They were both afraid of the garage. The
open door entrance allowed the afternoon light to shine into part of it, and
they limited themselves to the areas where the light fell. They had ventured
deeper into the garage once, towards the back of it where the heavy doors had
once swung open to allow a car to drive inside. There were dirty windows in
those doors, and they didn’t let in much light. The doors hadn’t been opened in
a long time, and the garage was now full of cast-off junk from the house, their
mother and stepfather preferring to park the family truck on the street. The
one time they tried exploring back there they had both become frightened.  It
was now an unspoken agreement to limit their garage boundaries to the area
immediately inside the door with the light.

There were other areas in the
house that were frightening, too. They slept together in a basement bedroom,
and the basement itself was dark and unsettling. Every night when forced to
bed, they’d descend the wooden steps from the kitchen, and make a quick sharp
turn into their bedroom at the base of the stairs, shutting the door quickly
behind them. The rest of the basement was largely unexplored, a collection of
unfinished sections. In a far corner was a large pile of coal, used to feed a
furnace. They never played downstairs outside of their bedroom.

Inside the bedroom things were
less scary, but being a basement bedroom with a tiny window near the ceiling it
didn’t have a lot of light. There was a dim overhead fixture which helped some,
but not much. Even in the middle of the day with the light turned on it felt
dark.

They shared a double bed pushed
into a corner of the room. Laying in the bed at night, Sean and Garth would
point out the things in the room that calmed them, like the baseball pennants
they’d arranged on the walls and a bobblehead doll that sat on a dresser. They
were both afraid of a hole in the ceiling by the open closet, which was tucked
into the space under the wooden stairs that led down from the kitchen. The hole
was about a foot across. Neither boy knew how the hole got there. They avoided
looking at it, especially at night, because whatever might emerge from it was
too horrible to consider.

Their mother would listen to their
fears and try to console them. She was who they ran to when anything needed
solving. But after their mother died, things changed. Their stepfather Frank
became unfriendly to everyone, especially Sean and Garth.  With their mother
not there to stop him, he would drink and become mean. After a while Frank
stopped any pretense of being a loving father and settled into a daily pattern
of work followed by a few hours of liquor-induced stupor. Sean and Garth had
learned to make themselves scarce during the hours between, when he was at his
meanest.

Several months ago Frank had begun
taking Sean and his brother into the onion fields to work every day. The boys
were expected to help irrigate and weed the rows. It was tough work for young
children. Sean had learned early on that playing with Garth while they worked
was not a good idea. The sun beat down on them relentlessly, and having a drink
of water every now and again was essential to staying conscious. When Frank
found them playing instead of working, he’d punish them by eliminating their
breaks, which meant they couldn’t stop for water. It only took once or twice
having to go thirsty for hours while on his knees pulling weeds for Sean to
know it was better to leave Garth alone and stick to the chores.

This evening Frank had been
swearing and yelling ever since he raised the bottle to his lips. He and Garth
had decided to play outside so Frank wouldn’t notice them. They instinctually
played quietly, knowing that drawing attention from Frank while he was drunk
was a bad idea. Neither he nor Garth had any food throughout the day, and Sean
was hoping he could sneak inside the kitchen and grab something while Frank
wasn’t paying attention, so he and Garth could eat.

He tried to convince Garth to wait
in the backyard for him to return with something, but Garth said he was
starving and would go with him to help carry out more food. Sean didn’t think
having his five-year-old brother in tow would help make his task any easier,
but Garth was insistent.

They crept up the cement steps
that led to the kitchen door. They both knew how to get the kitchen door open
without a sound. Sean could hear Frank swearing and cussing elsewhere in the
house; it sounded like he was lying in his bedroom, which was a comfortable
distance from the kitchen.

Sean lead the way, with Garth
quietly tip-toeing behind him. Sean knew the best food would be in the icebox.
He was after the bread, and Frank always kept it there. After carefully
avoiding the floorboards that he knew would creak, he tried to open the icebox
latch slowly so it wouldn’t make its normal clicking sound.

Once he had the door open, inside
they both saw a heel of bread, about two inches thick. Sean turned to look at
Garth, who smiled back and nodded. This would be their prize if they could successfully
sneak it out of the house without Frank hearing them.

Sean grabbed the chunk of bread
and handed it to Garth, then he shut the icebox door, going as slowly as he
could to avoid any noise. When he was done, they both turned to tip-toe back to
the kitchen door.

“So you’re goddamn thieves now?”
Frank said from the doorway that lead to the living room. “Sneaking in here
like common thieves?”

“We haven’t had anything to eat
today,” Sean said, pleading. He could see the bottle in Frank’s hand; it still
had a couple of inches of brown colored liquid inside, but enough was gone for
Sean to know he was arguing with the devil.

“Oh, that’s right − you
gotta eat, I know that,” Frank said. He sat down in a kitchen chair next to the
kitchen table, positioning the chair to face the boys.

“Let’s see who wants it the most,”
Frank said. “Do you want it more than your brother?”

Sean stared at Frank, unsure of
what he was asking. Garth held the bread to his chest a little more tightly. He
wanted to take a bite of it, but was afraid to do it in front of Frank.

“Looks like your brother stole all
the dinner,” Frank said to him.

“He’ll share some with me,” Sean
said.

“No, he won’t,” Frank said. He
waved his hand at Garth. “Give me that, boy!”

Garth knew better than to go
against Frank. He walked over to where Frank sat and placed the bread in
Frank’s hands. As he turned to walk back to Sean, Frank raised a foot and
kicked Garth squarely in the back. Sean saw Garth’s frame bend into an arc as
the foot made contact with him, the surprise and hurt spread across his face, and
then his body was propelled forward towards Sean. He caught him just before he
made contact with the kitchen cupboards. Garth began crying.

“This bread,” Frank said, “is only
enough for one thief. Only one of you can have it. No sharing.”

Sean felt the pit in his stomach
widen.

“Who wants it?” Frank asked.

Sean and Garth looked at each
other. They both weakly said “I do” at the same time.

“The winner gets it,” Frank said
to them. “Fight him for it.” He took another long throat full of the booze. Both
boys stood in the kitchen, still. They weren’t sure they understood him.

Frank looked at Garth. “Fight him
for it! You can’t both have it. Hit him. Give him a good punch. Beat him up,
and it’s yours.” Frank pulled a piece of the bread off and ate it. “Sure is
good. I’m gonna wind up eating it all if you don’t fight him for it, then
you’ll get none.”

Sean looked at Garth; he could see
the hunger in Garth’s eyes. He wanted Garth to have the bread, but he knew
Garth would never start the fight. So he pushed him hard enough that he fell to
the floor.

Predictably, this enraged Garth.
He leapt to his feet and charged Sean. Sean pretended to fight back, but at
seven years old he could easily have beaten Garth had he wanted to. Garth threw
punches and Sean took them. He let Garth climb on top of him, swinging. Garth
was crying, partly from pain, partly from hunger, and partly from anger. Sean
felt his little fists pounding into his stomach. He raised his hands to defend
himself but let Garth make contact with each punch. Sean felt like doubling
over, but he couldn’t with Garth on top of him. He tried to grab Garth’s arms
to stop the swinging, but Garth had turned into a machine, running on
automatic, starving and determined to have the bread. Sean felt the pain from
the punches combine with his own hunger and humiliation at having to let his
brother do this to him just to satisfy Frank. As Garth’s punches slowed, he
started to cry and rolled away from Frank so he couldn’t see him, pushing Garth
off.

“Pathetic,” Frank said. “What a
pussy.”

Frank tossed the bread onto the
floor where Garth lay, panting and sobbing. “Here you go. Eat it now, in front
of me. I wanna make sure he doesn’t get any.”

Garth grabbed the bread and began
chewing it. Sean quieted his crying; he didn’t want either of them to hear how
angry and upset he was. After a few moments, he could hear Frank stand up.

“Now, get out of here!” Frank yelled,
walking towards them. Garth was on his feet and out the kitchen door
immediately. Sean raised himself up on one arm but felt the pain in the side of
his abdomen where Garth had made several successful punches, and he winced.
Frank walked over to him and kicked his arm out from under him; he went back
down. He grabbed his arm, afraid it might be broken.

“Out,” Frank said. “Or the next
one’ll be on your ass.”

Sean raised himself up despite the
pain and ran towards the door. As he walked down the steps that led into the
yard, he saw Garth disappear into the open door of the garage.

He stumbled through the backyard,
walking towards the garage. He knew he needed to talk to Garth. He wanted more
than anything to fall down on the cool grass and just rest, but he could hear
Garth sobbing in the garage and wanted to go to him, and he felt like putting
distance between himself and Frank.

As he walked through the door opening,
the smell of old wood that had been baking in the sun greeted him. The garage
had always smelled like this, old and musty and dry. Even though the sun was
starting to set and it was getting a little darker outside, the garage still
retained the heat from the day.

Garth was at the back of the lit
area, under a wooden bench. “I’m sorry,” he said as he gulped air between sobs.

“It’s OK,” Sean said, sitting down
on the floor, holding his side.

“Did I hurt you?” Garth asked.

“No,” Sean lied, “a little runt
like you couldn’t hurt a fly.”

Garth didn’t reply and kept
crying. Sean leaned back, thinking it might help the pain. It didn’t.

“What are you going to eat?” Garth
said, still under the bench.

“I guess nothing,” Sean said.

“We could sneak in later,” Garth
offered. “We could sneak up in the middle of the night, after he’s gone to
sleep.”

“Maybe we’ll do that,” Sean said,
rolling over onto his side. He looked into the back of the garage, into the area
where they never went. His eyes rested on the piles of junk. There was just
enough light still coming through the door that he could see the various pieces
of it.

“I’ll do it,” Garth said. “I won’t
get caught. He can’t hear me.”

Sean thought he’d reply to Garth,
telling him that was a bad idea, but instead he blinked his eyes, unsure if he
was seeing what he thought he was seeing. Sticking out of the pile of junk was
a hand. It was outstretched towards him, as though it was holding something. It
looked pale white and he couldn’t see anybody attached to it. He thought it
might be part of a dead body. He felt the hair on his neck rise.

“Shh,” he said to Garth. “Be quiet
for a second.”

Garth quieted his crying and Sean
pushed himself back up into a seated position. The new viewing angle confirmed
it was indeed a hand. Its palm was open as though it was offering him
something, but he couldn’t see what it was.

“Garth, come over here,” Sean
said. “Be quiet.”

Garth crawled along the garage
floor to where Sean sat. When he reached him, he sat next to him, mimicking Sean’s
pose.

“Do you see it?” Sean asked.

“What?” Garth asked.

“Look!” Sean said, nodding towards
the back of the garage. Garth raised his head and wiped his eyes.

“Yeah,” Garth said. “What is it?”

“It’s a hand,” Sean said.

“Whose hand?” Garth asked.

“Let’s find out,” Sean said,
crawling forward towards the back of the garage. The hand remained motionless,
extended and cupped as though it was holding something. Sean couldn’t see
anything it was holding, but Garth reached forward to touch it.

“There’s something in its hand,”
Garth said. “I could feel it.”