Pain in the Ass
Pain in the ass, that’s what his father often called him. He thought of his mother who often shed tears every time she ran from the window to hold her boys’ bloody swollen face in the early hours when he made it home. At one point, he wanted this path. To follow his father down a road of family, God, and country. The father who he admired, and thought was always there to protect him even when he wasn’t physically there. Eli knew better now as the pain tore through his shoulder and the shirt against his skin felt sickly wet.
Alone, Eli limped up the driveway to the porch he knew too well, the cold wind bit at his already raw cheeks and stung his swollen eye. Passing the patchy grass lawn towards the front porch, he remembered his childhood, how he had grappled with his father who once proudly called him “son.” His mother would sit on the porch swing and cheer for them both though he’d often argue that he would one day win. The yard was unkempt these days since his father left. Making his way to the door, he noticed the light sway of the white window curtains where he knew his mother must have stood, breath fogging the window in waiting.
The front door once fresh with navy blue paint that now peeled from more lousy weather rather than age. Opening slowly at first, Eli’s mother held a hand softly to her face at his sight. A pretty crappy sight to see was he thought. He was rushed in by her caring hands and as usual, she tried to lecture as she made her way to the kitchen leaving him standing in the foyer at the bottom of the stairwell. The foyer his father once stood tall in on all the days before his deployments. The most previous deployment he stood tall in his navy uniform, pride pulling his smile ear to ear with the new promotion. It was the final day Eli saw the father he was once proud to look up to.
There were no calls, no emails, not even a letter during the time his father was gone. Eli thought he was dead and his mother always told him to never think of such a thing. In a way, when his father did return, but a part of him really seemed to have died or was maybe left behind where his father stood last. He never spoke about the events that occurred during that spring. Eli remembered his mother’s terrified face the first time he snapped, and then the anger that later replaced the shock and fear. He remembered when his father called him a pain in the ass son for the first time and had been the only greeting he had received every day he saw his father since. The nights she would wait in that browned leather chair by the window until the early mornings her husband would come home drunk, and depressed. Until the night he didn’t come home at all.
All his mother gave about the leave of his father was simply that she couldn’t give him what he needed. She gave the same line in the lectures she gave him now and the few weeks before when he came home early in the mornings bruised and broken but she didn’t know it wasn’t just from the fights. Eli assured that the boxing was just for lessons and they weren’t getting violent and it was the truth. The fights with guys who mocked him, his father, his mother, however, were getting worse but he didn’t like to tell his mother about those fights. Though he realized his mother must have already known since boxing didn’t involve clean or jagged cuts.
His mother didn’t hide her caring and angry concern as she pressed a cool damp washcloth to the cut over his good eye. Eli wondered what brought about the change in his father if the man was even his father anymore. He wondered how long he could hide his bloody shoulder underneath his jacket from his mother and what she will say. He wondered if his father would come back home and if he found what he needed. His mother’s words became a blur behind his thoughts, as Eli wondered when his father would finally return home.
