Jonathan's blog: "Poems"

He sat at his dinning room table looking at the blood on his hands in the dim light of the streetlight coming through the back window. Tears ran down his face slowly, pink trails creasing the blood that covered his face as well. What did he do? Where did her go? Whose blood was this, his, or worse yet someone else? Soft weeping gave way to loud sobs as he buried his face into his hands again. Looking through his bloody fingers, he could see that the clock on the wall read three am in its red digital glow amid the darkness of the room. The red, he thought, looked like the color of blood. This brought a new wave of sobbing muffled by his bloody palms. "Shut yer fuckin’ hole," pierced the darkness coming from the living room. Randle did not need to look through his fingers to know who it was. He knew it was the old man, the one who always insulted him, the one who always laughed at him, the one who always made fun of him. The one who calls himself Daddy.

"Don’t talk to me like that," came Randle’s muffled reply.

"Don’t make Daddy come in there, boy."

"You are not my daddy," Randle said softly.

"What did you say?"

"You are not my daddy," Randle repeated through tight fingers. Randle did not want to look, did not want to part his bloody shield. The truth was, Daddy scared him. Daddy scared him in the way that imaginary monsters scare a child, only when the lights come on, Daddy is still there. There was something about Daddy that sent an ice cold shiver down Randle’s spine strait through to his very soul. It was in the way that Daddy talked, the way that Daddy moved, the way that Daddy looked at him. It was in the way that Daddy made him do things that he did not want to do. Through his bloody fingers, Randle could feel the sharp stare of Daddy. Through the darkness of the house, through the darkness of his closed eyes behind his trembling hands, Randle could almost see Daddy’s eyes looking strait through him. A sound in the darkness, the sound of something powerful and heavy shifting across the carpet, caused Randle to jump in his chair. Revealing his blue eyes to peer in to the blackness of the living room, a hulking formed eased into the dim light of the entryway. Daddy towered, staring at Randle, his eyes were almost electric as the froze Randle to his seat. Underneath Daddy’s white t-shirt, powerful muscles rippled as he spoke again. "Speak up, boy, Daddy can’t hear you."

"You are not my daddy, YOU are not my daddy, You are NOT my DADDY, YOU ARE NOT MY DADDY!!!" Randle screamed jumping up from his chair. Tears came back fresh to his cheeks, his hands clinching in the sticky blood. Daddy stood in the entry way from the dinning room to the living room unflinching. He just kept his cool electric eyes on Randle. A small sound escaped Randle’s lips and with it any strength that he had to face Daddy. Randle’s body slumped into the kitchen doorway. "Turn on the goddamn light," Daddy commanded. Randle did what he was told.

Once light flooded the room, Randle could get a full view of the carnage that was in the kitchen, the dining room, and through the living room to the front door. Everywhere he looked there were bloody footprints over the carpet of the living room, the wood floors of the dining room, the linoleum of the kitchen. There were bloody hand prints on cabinet doors and drawers. One drawer in particular held more gore than others. The drawer that held his kitchen knives. The sight of all the blood made his stomach lurch. "What did I do? Oh, God, Daddy, what did I do?" Randle whispered. He turned back to the old man standing in the dining entryway. Daddy did not move at all. He just stood there keeping his electric eyes centered on Randle. Randle looked away to his bloody shaking hands. Small drops of blood broke away from his hands and fell to the floor. "What did I do?" he asked again, this time to his hands.

"You did exactly what needed to be done, boy. You made Daddy proud."

"Why do you keep calling yourself my daddy?" Randle asked.

"Cause you keep acting like a big fuckin’ baby, that’s why."

"Stop talking to him like that," the girl in the kitchen scolded. Randle turned to see a teenage girl standing in the middle of the kitchen shaking her head as she looked over the bloody carnage that was the kitchen. Her red hair shook in fiery waves across her shoulders and around her beautiful cream face. It reminded Randle of fields of wild grass moving in a mild autumn wind. She looked up at him with sadness and fixed her green eyes on his. There was so much compassion in her eyes that he felt for the first time ashamed of what he might have done. She then looked out past him to Daddy. Her green eyes focused into anger. "Just leave him alone you old asshole. He doesn’t need you talking to him like that."

"Shut up, Carla. Make yerself useful and mop this mess up," came Daddy’s reply. Randle turned and looked at Daddy. In his eyes, Daddy seemed to have just as much dislike for Carla as he had for Randle and the others. The others except for Laura. Daddy liked Laura a lot. It was almost as if Daddy had a crush on Laura, but Randle knew better. Daddy always had a biting remark for someone. The only time Daddy seemed to approve of anything was when Randle had hurt someone. Then a small thin smile of pride would spread across Daddy’s lips showing thin crooked teeth. Randle again turned to look at the teenage girl in the kitchen. To his surprise, she was busy making a sandwich. The scene of something so ordinary amid the carnage of the kitchen struck Randle as amusing. Carla finished the sandwich and walked past his to the dining room table placing the sandwich where Randle usually sat. A look crossed her face as if she had forgotten something and she turned and walked past him to return to the kitchen. There she quickly drew a pitcher of tea from the refrigerator and poured a glass. Again, she brushed past Randle as if he was not there and placed the glass of tea next to the sandwich pleased with herself.

"Don’t pay him any mind, Randle. Eat this and calm your neves," she said.

"Child, shut up and take your damn sandwich with you," Daddy bellowed.

"I don’t know who you are talking to," Carla replied turning to smile at Randle.

"Girl, don’t make me..."

"Don’t make you what?" Carla asked coldly. "What will you do? You are not my father, you are not Randle’s father, you are not anybodies father! You are an old nasty man and I bet that you couldn’t even pay a woman to keep you company! Why I will just bet..." Carla was stopped short by the back of Daddy’s hand. The slap was so hard that she fell back into the dining room table and over a chair. Randle quickly dropped to his knees and helped her to sit. Carla sat with the back of her hand pressed firmly against her bloody lip glaring up at the old man standing over them. "How dare you," she breathed.

"Stand up and I will put you down again," Daddy threatened.

"What’s all the yellin’ bout?" came a small tired voice from behind Daddy. Looking past the old man, Randle could see a small boy of ten walk sleepily from the darkened hallway leading to the living room from the lone bedroom. "Go back to bed, Danny, or you will get a taste of it yerself." Danny stood behind Daddy rubbing sleep from his eyes looking from Carla to Randle to Daddy and back to Carla. Randle could see the footies of Danny’s pajamas were wrong. The plastic rough side were on top of his little feet. His pajama bottoms were on backwards. Randle knew that he was to young to have to see any of what was going on and tried to stand up. Danny’s eyes grew wide as he finally took in the bloody scene of the dining room. "Ran-ran, what happened?" he asked softly. Before Randle could speak, Daddy turned to Danny.

"He killed someone, Danny, now go the fuck away."

It was as if all the air had been sucked form the room including the breath that was in Randle’s chest. The silence crushed Randle as all eyes fell upon him. Carla’s fantastic green eyes, Daddy’s shocking blue eyes, and Danny’s wide brown eyes bore into him like hammers into his skull. A second wave of nausea swept Randle as he tried to suck any remaining air in the room back into his lungs. It was Carla who mustered the breath to speak first. "Is that true?" she asked softly. Randle could do nothing more than melt to the floor in the corner. His body felt heavier by the minute. "I don’t know," he whispered. Suddenly they all began to speak at once.

"Ran-ran, no!"

"How could you Randy? Why did you..."

"The boy did good, he did the right thing..."

"Please say it’s a lie, Ran-ran. Please."

"Who did you kill? What did you do?"

"The both of ya, shut up and leave the boy alone..."

The voices began to pound into Randle’s head. Even as he slapped his hands over his ears, the voices rang through his head as if he was at the center of an echo. It was as if the voices were a physical pain. He closed his eyes and began to kick his feet as if he could drive his way through the wall behind him. The pain was a pulsating white light behind him. The voices grew louder and louder. A woman’s voice thundered above the noise. "Would you all shut up?"

Randle did not have to open his eyes to know who it was. He knew the voice well. It was Laura.

"What the hell is going on here?" she asked sternly.

"Randle killed someone," came Carla’s tearful reply.

Randle opened his eyes and looked out at the tangle of people standing in the dining room. Through their legs he could make out Danny collapsed in a heap on the floor. He was curled up in a ball, his big brown eyes were staring vacantly off into the unknown. Huge tears were slowly making their way down his tiny face. Randle wanted to cry himself. He could se ethe pain flowing out of Danny’s face as easily as the big wet tears flowing frm his eyes. Randle would kill himself if he felt that it would somehow ease the anguish the young boy was feeling. The innocence that once burned brightly in Danny’s face was now shattered and crumbling revealing a boy that looked much older than ten. The shattering of youth by a trama can do that, Randle thought, ashamed.

"Who?" asked Laura.

"Randle..." Carla blubbered absently.

"Were you there?" Laura demanded to Carla. "Then shut up!" Turning to Daddy, she asked again. "Who? Who did he kill?" A small smile creased his old lips, smacking of pride. "A nobody," replied Daddy. "A scumbag drug dealer." Laura looked around the dining room following the bloody trail first through the living room and then again into the gore of the kitchen. Slowly she scanned the scene of the kitchen taking in the amount of blood on the floor, the walls the cabinets. She then took three steps, stepping over Carla and took in the full scene of the living room. "Local?" she asked. Daddy chuckled. "No. South side. Caught him clean," he responded. Laura again crossed the dining room and looked back into the kitchen. Laura’s lips parted as she mouthed the word "Damn" to herself. She finally looked down at Randle melting into the corner of the dining room. He looked back up at her helpless. Carla crawled over to Danny and cradled the boy in her arms. Her touch brought a small whimper from his lips. Laura paid no attention to her as she finally turned to Daddy. "Only one kill?" she asked in disbelief.

"Oh my God!" screamed Carla. Her voice caused the boy to stiffen in her grasp. "How the hell can you be so calm about this? How can you talk about this as casually as if you were asking for butter on your toast?" The boy in her arms made a loud sob and she turned her attention back to Danny briefly holding him to her breast, comforting him as best she could. Danny began to plead softly into the softness of her sweater. Laura did not paid her or the boy any attention. "Only one?" she asked Daddy again ignoring the teen.

"No," Daddy said with a smile. "Got the buyer as well."

"Who was the buyer?"

"No one that will be missed. A street bum. Got them after the bum made the buy."

"Where on the south side?"

"Just some side street." Randle could hear the pride in Daddy’s voice.

"Care to tell all?" Laura asked. There was a flirting behind her voice that Randle did not like. He could see an expression on Daddy’s face that recognized it as well. Daddy actually looked like he was getting a joy of bragging about this to Laura who in turn looked as if she was getting turned on by the story. Carla clutched Danny’s head tighter to her as she looked back and forth mortified at the two people in front of her. She tried to cover Danny’s ears as Daddy made himself comfortable at the dining room table. Laura sat down as well eager to hear.

"We pulled in this alley off Crenshaw and Beaumont," Daddy began. "Randle turned off his head lights and we sat in the dark for a little over an hour. We recognized the area from when we were out driving around about a week ago. We had seen a deal go down a little off the street that we were now on and we knew that if we waited long enough, we would see another one. We got lucky. It was the same dealer that we had seen before. The bum just came stumbling up to this door and knocked. The dealer answered and they talked for a minute. The bum must have smelled like dead ass because the dealer shut the door on him and made him wait on the stoop. It took a little coaxing, but I got the fat boy out of the car and in motion. He knew what he had to do. He was crying the whole way down there, but as he got close, he shut off the water works and crept up on the bum."

Laura was beginning to grind herself into the chair listening to Daddy describe the action. Daddy noticed and leaned in to continue. "Fat boy kept real close to the buildings. He almost was invisible, swear to God! As he came close to the light, fat boy crouched down and waited. The dealer came back out and made the deal. Money for rock. Then the dealer went back in and slammed the door shut. The bum just stumbled off not even knowing what was around him. Hell he walked right by fat boy and never even noticed the gleam of the knife. But I did. God it was beautiful how that boy went to work! Like he had punched a time clock and was working for over time! Watching that knife shine in those high swinging arcs almost made me nut. It was as if the grim reaper had come up from hell himself. He cut off the bums head!" Daddy was smiling broadly now.

All eyes were on Randle. He could se the horror in Carla’s eyes, the smile across Laura’s lips and the crooked grin cracking Daddy’s face. The pride in that grin ate at Randle the most. "No, Daddy, please no," he pleaded softly. His lips began to quiver. Laura was definitely getting off on the story and Daddy was all to happy to give her the pleasure. She touched Daddy’s arm gently. "What Happened next?" she cooed. Smiling daddy went on. "Fat boy took the head and went back to the dealers house and knocked. You could see the bloody knuckle prints on the door clear as day. He held the head up to the peep hole in front of him. The dealer opened the door..."

"How did you know the dealer was alone?" Laura asked.

"We didn’t," Daddy replied still smiling.

"I am sorry. You didn’t?"

"No, we didn’t," Daddy replied slightly annoyed.

"Don’t you think that was a little dangerous?"

"Who gives a fuck?"

"What do you mean ‘who gives a fuck?’"

"What word do you not understand?" Daddy asked angrily. His smile had faded.

"‘Who gives a fuck?’ I give a fuck, dammit! What would have happened if Randle had gotten hurt?" Laura’s face began to crease in anger. Daddy looked like he was getting angry as well. He didn’t like to have his story interrupted. He did not like that Laura was no longer turned on by the tale. And he did not like to be second guessed. Daddy’s face twisted and her glared at her. "What would have happened if Randle had guessed the wrong time to go in there? What if there were five guys in there. If he went in, he would have gotten his ass handed to him. What if he went in just before a sting operation? What would happen if he would have gotten himself killed, or in prison? What would have happened to us?"

"He didn’t get hurt..."

"That’s not he point, old man. He could have!"

"But he didn’t..."

"HE COULD HAVE GOTTEN KILLED!!!" Laura screamed.

"What is wrong with you two?" Carla shrieked. "You cant just argue like this..."

"Shut up, girl, or I will slap you again," Daddy commanded raising his hand.

"He could have gotten caught..." Laura continued.

"Caught?" Carla asked. "Are you worried about Randle or just yourself?"

"Myself," Laura shot back coldly. "I am all I care about."

"Shut yer face, girl," Daddy commanded again looking back at Carla.

Danny began to gurgle again into Carla’s chest. It sounded like a well that was backing up into a basement. It was as low thick sound that seemed to cover the room. Carla clutched Danny tighter to her, trying to protect him from the argument, the gore of the room, from Randle himself. Randle lay in the corner still listening with a morbid fascination to the story that was flowing from Daddy’s mouth. The voices all began to pound in his head again. Wave after wave of sickness washed over his body. It felt like he was being thrashed around in a violent ocean. His breathing was labored as if he was breathing through a thick cloth. Randle clasped his hands over his ears and closed his eyes trying to steady the pounding of his head.

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! LEAVE ME ALONE! LEAVE ME ALONE, ALL OF YOU! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" Randle screamed. Randle snapped his head back toward the dining room entryway and glared into the darkness. They were gone. All of them. Laura was no longer grinding into her seat, Carla was not clutching Danny to her chest, Daddy was not towering over them. He was alone in the dining room. Silence filled the room like a heavy fog. Randle climbed slowly to his feet and looked around him. His eyes scanned the dining room and out into the dark living room. Breathing a deep sign, his eyes finally fell to the dining room table where sat a sandwich and a glass of tea.

Randle felt sick. He dashed from the dining room and down the dark hallway to the bathroom. Inside, by the faint yellow light of a nightlight, he vomited into the toilet. His chest hurt and he could not see without shooting pain behind his eyes. The toilet felt cold to his touch as he knelt with his head pressed against the basin. He finally stood and stumbled to the sink barely able to lift his eyelids. Absently he flipped the light switch to his right and turned on the water to hot. As steam began to rise out of the bowl of the sink, he ran his hands underneath the water. The water burned his hands, but he welcomed the burning to counter the pain that was behind his eyes. He began to rub his hands together trying to ease the dried blood from them. He raised his head and looked in the mirror only to see the face of Daddy grinning back at him. Startled, Randle fell back into the bathroom door.

"Don’t stop washing yer hands, boy," said Daddy. "Wash ‘em right good. But no matter how much you scrub, no matter how long you soak ’em, you ain’t never gonna wash away the sin. Try as you might. We are you, boy. We are your family. An’ this family is all you got, so don’t ever raise your voice to me again." Randle walked back to the water, steaming from the sink. He looked at the smiling old man in the mirror. "Tidy up, fat boy. You have work to do. There is a whole city of dealers, whores, thieves, molesters, rapists... all waiting on you to come and show them judgment day. They are all waiting on you, Randy, boy. Go on and make Daddy proud."

Randle finished rinsing off his hands and turned off the steaming water. Smiling he reached for a towel and dried his hands. He took one final look into the mirror at Daddy’s proud smiling face, turned off the light and walked into the darkness of the hallway. He walked into the darkness of his own soul.