The Summer That Melted Everything(53)

He grabbed me by the shoulders, as he’d so often done before when checking my strength. This time it was to throw me to the floor.

I heard a weak grunt. When I looked up, I saw Dad on Otis’ back. Dad wasn’t a fighter. He tried, but it was like watching a spider struggling to take down a bear. Long legs and arms coming around, but doing nothing more than irritating the beast beneath him.

Otis flung Dad to the floor. Their wrestling sent them into a roll. Fedelia, improved from her own shove, grabbed the nearby broom, using its handle to prod Otis, on occasion accidentally prodding Dad, who moaned on impact.

Tall, lanky Dad was no match for square, boxy Otis, and he quickly wound up in the bad position of a choke hold. Otis was really squeezing too. Dad’s eyes bulged until I thought the blue was going to burst from his face and scatter like the blue chicories cut up by the lawn mower and spewed out the chute.

I got into the fight, wrapping my arms around Otis’ bulging neck. It was like holding onto a wet log.

Grand, who had been upstairs, came running down. He would later say he’d had his headphones on and hadn’t heard our fighting over the music, until I started screaming for Otis to let Dad go.

I thought Grand would be the god to save us all, but he became just another spider on the growling bear’s back. It was Mom who did the most damage when she grabbed the porcelain vase and broke it against Otis’ head.

He just stood there, blood trickling over the tight curls of his perm. Suddenly he threw a confused punch that hit the air. He swung around and threw another. Punch after punch, until his glazed eyes landed on me. Before I knew it, his hands were coming. They are why I am still afraid of skillets. His hands big, round cast iron things of heat that pushed into my chest, sending me back against the wall. Hard enough to make the mirror behind me drop to a shatter.

“Stop!”

We turned to Sal’s scream. Otis’ punch had lacerated Sal’s right cheek, and the blood, while not profuse, had gathered like the blooming flora of his already swollen cheek.

“It bleeds?” Otis dropped down to the floor in a squat. That’s kneeling to a muscleman.

“Of course he bleeds.” Dad wheezed. “He’s just a boy. For heaven’s sake, Otis.”

“I thought he was…” His fingers raked through his blood and perm, trying to rake what he’d thought from his brain, his brain that felt like a pulled muscle.

“You thought he was the devil.” Dad was still recovering from the choke hold.

Otis nodded his head slowly before apologizing to Sal. “They said you were what done it to Dovey and our baby. I was just bein’ a good daddy, you know. I wouldn’t have hurt ya if I’d known ya was just a boy. I mean I don’t know you. I didn’t—”

“You nearly strangled me to death, Otis, and you’ve known me all your life. And just look how you shoved Fedelia and Fielding. You could have hurt them beyond repair, Otis.” Dad slumped by the front door, wearily motioning with his hand out. “It’s time you go home.”

Otis stood from his kneeling squat. When before he might have loved the perfection of his strength, he stood before us ashamed by it.

“I said I’m sorry. Stop lookin’ at me like that. Didn’t y’all hear me? I’m sorry. Hey, I’m gonna pay for that mirror.” His finger shook as he pointed toward the pieces of glass around my feet.

“And who’s gonna pay for all the years of bad luck?” Fedelia shooed me away as she used the broom to sweep up the pieces. “Seven years, we’re lookin’ at. You gonna pay that debt, Otis Jeremiah?”

“Shucks, Fedelia.” Otis grasped the back of his neck, log to log. “Seven years is a long time for just one person to bear when it comes to unlucky things. There’s seven of us here. We could all take a year.”

“Oh, no.” Fedelia shook her head. “I have just come into an awakenin’, and there is no way I’m gonna go through it unlucky. No, Otis, this bad luck will be all yours.” She began to pick up the pieces of glass, spitting on each as she said Otis’ name.

“What ya doin’?” He took a step toward her but no more. He had already threatened us enough, he knew.

“I’m markin’ ’em for you, Otis Jeremiah. So this bad luck knows the name of its victim.”

He hugged himself because there was no one else to do it. “I’ve got bad luck enough. I’ve just lost my baby, don’t ya know? My son is dead. I already had a name for ’im and everything. Not just that but the nickname too. Now what am I supposed to do? This nickname rollin’ ’round in my head. I saved it up for all the times I would call ’im that. Now it’s just a pile inside me. I can’t throw it out. It’s not garbage. I can’t throw it out. But how can I live with it?”

Fedelia left the glass on the floor, the tears in her eyes glistening for that grieving father who loved the fetus as much as most men love the fully grown.

He had already prepared himself to be a father. Already prepared himself for what his son would be. He would’ve looked like him. Been strong like him. That’s how he pictured him. Truth was, he didn’t care. That child would never have to lift a dumbbell into Otis’ heart. His love was easy.

He would have praised his son for dropping the football when others booed him for not catching it. He wouldn’t have cared if his son was scrawny. Couldn’t fight. Didn’t know who Arnold Schwarzenegger was. If he was fat. Ate candy bars and television shows and smelled like sofa cushions. Just as long as he came. It was the not coming that Otis couldn’t handle. The not having the son to see.