Roman is attacked by his friends father who's just escaped from a mental hospital and beaten within an inch of his life...
Roman is attacked by his friends father who's just escaped from a mental hospital and beaten within an inch of his life...
BEATEN BATTERED AND BLOODY
Roman pinched what was left of the roach between his finger and thumb, determined to get the last toke and practically cinched his eyebrows in the process.
“Hey don’t Bogart that joint faggot” Parker said, one of his best friends.
“Bite me, Dickface…” Roman replied and passed what was left of the roach to Tim, also in their class. The three of them were in the seventh grade at Carver Junior High, and lived in the same apartment complex, and they were all from newly minted divorced parents.
“Parker, you’re as queer as a two-dollar bill” Tim said as he sucked what was left of the roach into his mouth and swallowing it, smiling he said, “Well I’ve got the munchies… let’s go to my house get something to eat.”
Parker punched Tim in his shoulder, “Fuckin’ queer-bait! You didn’t save me the last hit!”
Tim unfolded himself and got up off the ground, brushing himself off… “That WAS the last hit you Cobgobbler…” coughing, laughing and spitting.
Parker and Roman burst out laughing at the choice of Tim’s vocabulary… laughing at really, well, nothing… that was the whole point of getting high after all… right?
That’s how Roman and just about every other Jr High kid spoke to one another… standard protocol as they say. growing up in the seventies… Roman guessed everyone was either a faggot… queer or a pussy.
The three friends walked out of the park and started down the street to their ‘hood… Greenbriar apartment complex. Hundreds of low-income apartments occupied by a majority of divorced parents with kids, or single divorcees trying to piece their broken lives back together.
Parker lived with his Mom, and two younger sisters in Phase 3… around the corner from where Roman lived with Mora in Phase six, the latest model… where the rooms still smelled of fresh paint. Tim lived with his Mom and little brother over in phase one, the oldest units, infested with cockroaches, peeling paint, faulty wiring, generally falling apart.
Tim was a relatively a new member of the circle. He had started hanging out with Roman and Parker when he spied them sparking a joint behind Blockbusters and asked… if they had a light.
The universal opening in just about every smoking culture gathering in the world.
Roman passed the joint to Tim and the rest as they say… is history.
Tim has, what Mora calls, dirty dishwater blonde hair… too long in her opinion and she had plenty of those… it was always hanging over his eyes, which just about drove Mora crazy… she threatened to give him a haircut on more than one occasion… he had the saddest, washed out blue eyes that Roman had ever seen, they darted about like a mouse afraid it would soon be a snack…when you tried to talk to him, it was about impossible to keep his eyes on yours Roman thought he was like a bird trying to find a safe place to perch, he was the sort of kid that was always looking around afraid he was getting’ ready to be beat up or something… he mostly kept to himself, a loner.
Roman and Parker had noticed more often than not… Tim eating breakfast at the school cafeteria… which meant he wasn’t eating it at home like Roman and Parker did. He always looked like he had slept in his clothes the night before or not even slept at all… He wore this dirty army jacket that he said was his father’s, from back when he was in Vietnam, like many kids in our class, his father didn’t live at home, and he wasn’t around much Roman gathered… he was all too familiar with that.
Tim always sat in the back of the classroom, staring out the window or asleep at his desk. Maybe his home life sucked, but he had a razor sharp wit and the blackest humor Roman had yet come across in his thirteen years on this earth. Tim didn’t give a damn about anything, and everybody was fair game as far as he was concerned. That included Parker and Roman as well.
Parker and Tim knew why Roman’s parents had divorced… like cons in prison knew of the offenses of their cellmates, the trio shared our stories when they were ready to… usually after a few tokes and a beer or two when the walls came down.
The three of them shared many similarities of the broken family dynamics, alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic abuse… but Roman’s situation had so far yet to be trumped. It would take some pretty messed up shit to topple his family history.
Parker and Tim never brought it up or threw it back in Roman’s face when they argued… as a matter of course they slung as many demeaning remarks towards each other as they would anyone else.
They raced the last hundred yards flying up the front stoop of Tim’s apartment… taking the three steps as one. Once inside the door panting like race horses, the three of them were bent over trying to catch their breaths in Tim’s kitchen.
That’s when from around the corner a man appeared. He looked disheveled, like he’d just got up from an afternoon nap. He wore glasses, that kind of thick coke bottled lenses people wear who are blind as bats. He wasn’t a big man by any means, maybe five foot eight, medium build, the beginnings of a pot belly was starting to show. His three day growth of stubble only added to his already cultivated bum-like appearance.
“Why hello boy… aren’t you gonna give your old man a hug?” Tim’s father said.
Tim head bent, drudged over and gave his Dad a halfhearted hug. “I didn’t know you were… out… back… home whatever.” Tim muttered under his breath.
“Oh yeah, I got out this morning, its all good… when your Mom gets home we’ll all sit down and you’ll see… it’s going to be fine.”
“Mom doesn’t know that you’re…” Tim’s words trailed off as he started putting it together.
“So who’s your pencil dick friends you’re hanging out with…” his father queried as he peered at Roman and Parker, his eyes magnified like a bullfrogs about to explode.
“Hey… Mr. Hauser…” the two boys said without the slightest bit of enthusiasm.
Tim’s father stared at Roman and asked his name. “Roman… Roman… Bayley.” he stammered, cursing under his breath, that Tim’s dad had made him nervous enough to start stuttering again. As a young child Roman had a pronounced stuttering problem… he thought he’d grown out of it but whenever he got nervous or excited it would re-surface.
“Bayley… eh?” He said it drawing out the word. “Robert’s not your old man by any stretch of the imagination is he? Rob… Robbie… The head shrink over at that place where all the loonies live, eh?” He was eyeballing Roman now, like a snake laser-focused on a rat… right before it strikes.
Roman felt Tim’s dad setting a trap… he didn’t like where this was going. He just wanted to get out of there. But everyone was looking at him now, and Parker and Tim both knew that his father worked at the mental health center and halfway house for people with mental problems.
“Yeah…” Roman said barely above a whisper. “He’s my Dad… but my folks are… divorced… he doesn’t live with us.” Roman said feeling that somehow he needed to show distance between his father and himself… to show separation see? We’re different.
Tim’s old man had thrown an arm around his son and threw his head back roared, “He’s a fuckin’ homo… if Robbie is your old man! He’s A fudge-packer… a cock sucking faggot is what he is.” Tim’s father barked at Roman,
the tiny kitchen seemed to shrink even smaller, it was getting hard for Roman to breath… He had to get out of there.
Tim’s Dad swung Tim around with one hand and pulled him away from Roman with the other and said, “I don’t want you hanging out with a fuckin’ queer’s kid… you hear me?
Pointing at Roman, has he tried sucking your dick yet?” He said it like it was just a joke, but there wasn’t anything funny in how he said it… his words dripped with an underlying menace.
Tim opened his mouth to speak… tried to talk but his old man backhanded him across the mouth with a vicious slap. “Shut the fuck up!”
Now he was glaring at Roman… daring him to open his mouth… anything to give him cause. Roman knew what he wanted was for him to start crying like a baby or something… and it felt that any second he would. Roman could feel his eyes getting hot, and beginning to water.
“Fuck You.” Roman said with as much venom as he could muster and turned to go.
“You little piece of shit” Tim’s dad roared and reached out to grab Roman as he slipped past him and bolted for the door.
Roman could hear Tim’s dad moving across the room, pushing Parker out of the way. “Get the hell outta my house” He screamed.
“You little punk, goddamn faggot… the apple don’t fall far from the tree eh?!” He yelled rushing towards Roman as he raced down the steps and took off down the walkway… he stopped at the curb of the parking lot and turned to look back.
Step on a crack and break your mother’s back… was running through his head when the front door exploded open and Tim’s old man came rushing out and down the stoop in a blink of an eye. He was wearing a stained, wife beater t-shirt, army fatigue trousers, his hair wild and crazy looking, matted on one side. His wild eyes were magnified and absolutely bulging out of their sockets.
In the two seconds that it took for him to reach Roman… who just stood there and stared, wide-eyed, like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. Tim’s dad grabbed him with both of his hands and lifted Roman… all seventy some odd pounds, off the ground, up Roman went and he just kept going, his arms started wheeling backwards, then with all of his force brought Roman crashing down on the hood of a Buick that was parked in that particular spot thinking… What a great spot I found, along the curb!
Roman’s head bounced off the gold colored hood, leaving a indentation the shape of his head behind. All Roman saw was the blue sky above him and images in his peripheral vision going up and down as Tim’s dad slammed him over and over onto the car. His head smashing into the windshield… CRACK…. fissures spreading out from where his head had impacted it.
He screamed over and over at Roman, spittle flying from his mouth, “YOU aren’t gonna turn my kid into some faggot ass homo like you and your old man… you little fuckin’ fairy!”
Roman was starting to blackout, his eyes rolled back and he could taste blood in his mouth. He had to get away from this lunatic… was the only thought in his mind as his survivor instincts kicked in.
He scrambled out of his wildly strong grip and jumped across the hood to the other side… keeping the Buick between them while Roman was doing all he could just to remain standing.
His head was pounding and throbbing, one of his eyes had swollen shut from the repeated blows to his face, and blood ran down his face and head. Parker was yelling for Tim to do something… call the police…make his dad stop.
Roman heard a woman scream, “Leave that boy alone! I’m calling the cops!” Roman ran around to the back of the car and decided it was now or never. He made a dash for it and ran as fast as his legs would go. He ran across the grass covered area that separated the apartment buildings… around the corner of Tim’s building towards unit six, where he and Mora lived. It wasn’t even five in the afternoon yet… she wouldn’t be home for another hour or so.
He could hear people screaming and yelling for the madman to stop. Roman could feel him… could sense… that he was right behind him… chasing after him… the mad dog was loose, after the cat… and nothing was going to stop him.
“He’s got a bat!” Roman heard Parker yell.
Roman burst through his front door, smearing it with blood. He ran straight down the hall towards the back of his apartment to where the kitchen was located. He frantically searched for something, anything to use as a weapon, to protect himself. He wasn’t going to let that crazy son of a bitch get his hands on him again. Not if he had anything to say about it.
He saw scissors and grabbed them, then he saw a steak knife laying on the counter and grabbed that instead… then his eyes landed on the butcher block knife collection that Mora was so proud of. It was made by some high-end German company, Wusthof, and one of the few nice things they owned.
Roman pulled out the biggest knife from the set, an eight inch piece of German - tempered steel, gripping it in his bloody hand he went to the front door.
He pushed open the storm door and stepped outside. Crazy Dad was standing there with a Louisville Slugger in one hand… he was swaying back and forth trying to catch his breath, winded from running after Roman.
A neighbor from across the parking lot came out on her stoop screaming she had already called the police. “Get away from him before I shoot you myself!” she yelled, waving her pistol in the air. “The cops are on their way!”
Crazy Dad never took his eyes off of Roman… there was no recognition that he had even heard the woman. People that had been home were starting to come out on to their stoops to watch. Roman already knew most of them were just rubber-necking… no intention of getting involved they just wanted to watch the drama unfold.
Tim’s dad slowly started to move towards Roman, his eyes never letting him go. Roman kept well clear from where he could reach him with the bat. As he closed the distance on Roman he took a backhand swing with the bat at Roman’s head. Roman leaned backwards easily avoiding the Kentucky wood. Holding the butcher knife with his right hand he was prepared to use it… keeping his left hand out ready to grab the bat if given the chance.
Crazy Dad swung again this time stepping in closer forcing Roman to duck in order to avoid being struck. He grabbed for the bat but was too slow and missed. Roman slashed out with his knife keeping him back when he had tried to dart in. Crazy Dad held the Louisville Slugger high over his head and charged at Roman determined to bash his head in… Roman caught a flash of light from the corner of his eye… and saw Parker run up behind Tim’s dad… swinging what looked like his bike chain and lock around his head… then connect with Crazy Dad’s head… he dropped to his knees with blood spurting down his neck. As Parker was getting ready to hit him again, Crazy Dad swung his bat and clipped Parker on his leg… hard enough to make Parker scream in pain.
Roman saw his opening and lunged, thrusting the knife at Tim’s dad aiming for his head… but Crazy Dad wasn’t down and out just yet. His quick reflexes surprised Roman, then he had remembered that Tim said his dad suffered from something called PTSD, from the war in Vietnam… jungle fighting, tunnel combat… all that shit. The combat training must of kicked in as he swung the bat up holding it with both hands effectively blocking Roman’s attack.
The afternoon split open with a crack… a shot from a gun exploded commanding everyone to pay attention. Roman’s neighbor lady from across the street had been true to her word and had fired her pistol up in the air as a warning shot.
Police sirens could be heard approaching, with everyone distracted by the gunfire, Crazy Dad jumped up and ran for the woods behind the apartment complex… He was running in a zig zag pattern as if someone was still firing at him, ducking and weaving as he disappeared into the trees and underbrush.
Just as quickly as it had started, it was over. The woods were thick and the foliage heavy this time of the year. He was gone.
The police arrived, along with an ambulance. Roman was taken to the hospital to get stitched up and x-rayed for concussions. Mora, herself a RN, hovered over him and made sure that he received the very best medical care.
The police report disclosed that the man who attacked Roman was indeed Tim’s biological father, that he had escaped from the State mental hospital where he had been confined receiving treatment for PTSD… He had a long list of previous charges, including assault and battery of a police officer, domestic abuse charges were pending and his ex-wife had a restraining order against him.
“Fat lot of good that did her” Mora said to the police. “What in the world was he even doing there then?” She asked. "He was basically holding up in her apartment while he hid out after his escape” the policeman said. He had used his wife as a punching bag before and after the divorce… it’s pretty unpleasant situation for all concerned the officer said, shaking his head thinking about the kids involved… as if he was disgusted with it.
Roman and Parker eventually had to go to court and testified against Tim’s dad. Roman’s testimony put him back in the State Hospital, behind bars and locked doors. He felt sorry for Tim, it certainly wasn’t his fault that his Dad was a raving lunatic. But the war didn’t make him hate people different from himself, didn’t make him want to hurt homosexuals. He did that all on his own. Or maybe he was a fucking lunatic before he went to Vietnam… and that just screwed him up even more.
Roman and Parker stopped going around Tim’s place, too much bad mojo, Parker said. They eventually drifted apart and never saw Tim much that summer… Roman wasn’t feeling very sociable after everything that had happened recently… it seemed to him that his life was spiraling out of control and he didn’t know what to do to get it back.
A couple of months later, Mora had started dating Jon… he was older by almost fifteen years… who worked as a substance abuse counselor at a rehab clinic downtown. He was a reformed alcoholic, twenty years sober. Mora, on the other hand was a practicing alcoholic so they made a great couple. Roman liked Jon immediately. He had an aura to him, that of a genuinely good person. He was as a civilized hillbilly he liked to say, raised deep in the hollows of Kentucky he escaped his family’s extreme poverty and made a fortune as a salesman. Jon could sell coats in hell.
He lived on the West side… the ritzy area, well ritzi-er than the East side, where they had been living. The old money was on the North side of the city, Lincoln Park area… the homes there went into the millions. The West side homes were nice enough, and the lots were wooded, with a few acres.
Roman was transferred to a private school on the north side… at Jon’s insistence. Mora was over the moon about Jon and never dated anyone else from then on. Roman hardly ever saw anyone from the old neighborhood and spent more time getting high and being alone.
That incident with Tim’s deranged father had a profound and deep impression on his young psyche. He knew that his father was gay… but I never thought of him as a faggot, or a fairy, never thought about him like Tim’s father did. Roman was certainly upset about the whole thing, getting attacked by a escaped lunatic didn’t happen to people every day.
On the one hand he understood perfectly well what Rev. Rob was doing, the decisions he had made. In the very back of Roman’s mind he just wanted his dad to be happy, really. But on the other hand, he was so mad with him for leaving them, for changing the game just as Roman was starting to figure it out.
Rob had always been the father to look up to… literally. His protector… six feet three inches tall, he was a big man. No one had ever dared to mess with him. But now?
Things were different. There were a lot of people like Tim’s old man who felt like that towards homosexuals, and some were just as violent. Roman was very confused, he didn’t understand how his father could be the strong man he’d always looked up to… to some gay who wanted another man’s penis. The world was upside down.
Roman’s other protector, Erin Rose was gone now. She lived with Rev. Rob these days… and Roman had chosen to stay with Mora, someone had to look after her. The only problem was now… who was going to be looking out for him?