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  “Why does she yell at you dad?”

  The response was always the same:

  “Beth is sick son, she can’t help it.”

  Connor was never satisfied with this answer. She didn’t look very sick to him. She looked like she enjoyed yelling at his father, taking lots of medication, sleeping all day and watching rubbish on television. He always admired how strong his father was; able to take all this after working hard all day even if he couldn’t understand why he did. Even though he thought it would be in vain, on one occasion he had tried to talk to her, his childlike simplicity trying to highlight the situation they were in. However, just like his father, she had given him what seemed like a pre-rehearsed response.

  “This is between me and your father; it has nothing to do with you. Now go to your room and leave me alone!”

  She had covered all her bases, closing down any avenue of discussion in one sentence. Connor was not impressed, he would go to his room but his mind could not leave it alone. She was all he could think about. He would wonder why this woman thought she was his mother. She was not. After months of systematic mental abuse on Andy and Connor, Beth was still not satisfied with her work so she decided to up the ante. She started drinking. Although not heavily, she always mixed it with taking pills which created a much more terrible monster in her. Not content anymore with simply yelling at Andy when she was displeased with him. She evolved to throwing things like the candy bars she perpetually had in her hand or knocking glasses off counters in the kitchen. Also, not content with just Andy she would start making comments to Connor.

  “Where’s your friends?” she would ask him.

  Going to go play all by yourself again?”

  She would laugh and mock him until he left for his bedroom. He could still hear her laughing from the couch as he trudged upstairs. That laugh was extremely irritating to him, like a grain of sand in his brain, giving him no rest. Andy had become a subservient being, controlled at his every turn, and any attempt to step out of line met with an evening of yelling. All he wanted was calm. Andy still loved Beth and made every excuse for her behavior, he stuck by her regardless of how awful she was to him. When Connor came home from school he would move upstairs as quietly as possible to avoid her. She was always sprawled across the couch watching television. More often than not he would make it upstairs out of her way, however sometimes he would hear her dolloping up the stairs to come into his room just so she could be mean to him. Abusing Connor was something else that made her feel in control of her life. This almost ten year old boy would do his best to ignore her but she pushed and prodded at him with jibes and insults until he finally had to physically close the door on her. Taking this as a sign of victory she would waddle back downstairs to sit on the couch and wait for her next target to get home from work. Connor listened to the fat thighs causing creaks on the staircase and he knew his father was never aware of the mental abuse he endured at Beth’s hands because Connor never told him. Connor didn’t want to add to his dad’s burdens but mainly he wasn’t sure if his father was strong enough to do anything about it. This was something Connor did not want to test; the boy would have been crushed if his dad didn’t protect him and so, instead of trying, he just kept quiet. Laundry, cooking and cleaning was Andy’s reward at the end of the work day. Beth kept claiming she was too ill to do any housework and Connor was usually up in his room playing. If truth be told Connor deliberately didn’t help out with the chores, passively protesting against Beth’s sham excuse, hoping Andy would tell her off but he never did.

  Connor loathed that woman. Every day his hatred continued to grow. At school, Connor’s lack of interest stopped bothering anyone. His teachers had already given up hope on him, choosing to offer help to pupils who actually wanted it. Andy was never bothered by teachers and that was the way he liked it. He knew Connor was bright and that was all that mattered to him. At work, Andy was very good at his job, it was the only place he felt in charge of his own life and it showed. He made good money and was widely respected by his peers. The sad fact was that the one person he actually wanted respect from was Beth but she would never give him that. Instead she would make up wild unfounded accusations that Andy was having an affair. All he had to do was mention a female colleague in passing or be seen chatting to one and that was it, immediately there would be yelling and accusations.

  It was a Thursday when she hit him. Connor was unsure of the details. He remembered the usual one-way yelling but then that ominous slap stopped everything. Running to the stairs he peered into the kitchen through the gaps in the bannister and, watching the events unfold he pieced together what had just happened. Andy’s face was that of a beaten dog. Just like his mother’s death, he would never forget that moment. Standing beside him, arms folded was Beth. She had just landed a powerful slap to his face because he made chicken for dinner when she claimed she told him that morning she wanted beef. This time, instead of yelling, Beth casually poured herself a half vodka half Coke and walked past Connor into the living room, smirking as she did as if she knew he was watching all along. Andy stood in the kitchen staring at the floor while a tear of frustration slipped out. With a deep breath he lifted his head. His thoughts weighed heavy on his mind. He spotted Connor staring back at him and wondered how long he had been there. The boy’s eyes gazed into his and he wondered how he let it get to this.

  “What kind of father am I? What kind of man am I?”

  He felt he had betrayed the memory of his wife and so, was an embarrassment to his son. The kitchen grew silent around him as his thoughts closed in. Everything disappeared and all that was left was Connor’s stare, the stare that spurned a thousand more thoughts, fighting to be contained. Unable to face his son Andy strolled past him, lifted the car keys off the hook by the door and left. Getting into his car he pulled out the driveway, heading off for a long drive. He knew Beth’s wrath would be waiting for him when he got back but he had to leave. He did not want his son to see him breaking down.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Where’s your friends loser?”

  Beth stood in the doorway of Connor’s bedroom, high on a combination of Gin and Valium.

  “Did you hear me you little faggot? I asked you where all your shitty little friends were!”

  Connor sat with his back to her, playing with Basket. The house seemed darker now, dirtier, with less color.

  “You just going to ignore me like you do every girl you little homo?”

  Pointing a bottle of “London Dry” at the boy she continued her abuse.

  “You’re going to end up a loser, just like your father!”

  A single angry tear streamed down the child’s cheek. It reached his mouth and he tasted the salty bitterness. Connor had put up with this abuse for some time now but this time it was different. Connor heard her slap his father the night before and the atmosphere had been tense ever since. After returning from his drive Andy was spared a night of screaming, but they all knew the game had changed. Even Connor always thought his father would stand up for himself if he was being physically assaulted, but since he never did Beth now felt powerful, she felt real again. Connor’s emotions inside him were bubbling up like a volcano, only the sense of right and wrong his mother instilled in him kept him from lashing out but even that value was wavering now.

  “It’s in your genes” she slurred, words lined with malice.

  “Your dad is weak and you are too you little prick. Aren’t you too old to be playing with dolls?”

  Laughing, she pointed at Betsy.

  Connor seethed “My mom gave that to me.”

  “Well mommy aint here is she? I am. Tell you what kiddo; I’m going to help you become a man!”

  Beth stumbled over and grabbed Betsy.

  Reaction kicked in. Connor grabbed her arm and fought back.

  “Let go! That’s mine!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

  The drunk Beth however was double his weight (triple while drunk) and was able to
dust his arm off hers with ease. Laughing as Connor sobbed on the floor she headed back to the doorway to get a better look of the broken child in front of her. Connor’s tears were hot. Anger fighting it’s way to the surface quickened his breathing. She stood swigging her gin, proud of what she had accomplished. Downstairs, a key turned in the door as Andy came in from work. Hearing Connor crying upstairs he dropped his stuff and headed upstairs. Beth was too drunk to hear him coming allowing him to unintentionally catch her off guard.

  “What’s going on?” Andy asked, as he swiftly went to his son’s side.

  “She took Betsy!”

  Andy shot a look at Beth as he held his son. Andy seemed genuinely angry Beth would turn her attention to his son which made Connor a little happier, suddenly thinking maybe his father was not aware of their previous encounters.

  “What do you think you’re doing Beth? He’s just a boy! Put the doll down!”

  Connor slowly stopped crying, feeling his father would actually stand up for him.

  “What the fuck ever!” Retorted Beth casually.

  That kid needs to man up and this isn’t going to help.”

  Beth drunkenly tossed the doll over the bannister to the wooden floor below. Only a dull thud indicated its heavy landing. Connor held his breath. Betsy was his mom’s doll and if it was broken he would be devastated, furious even. Connor pressed his face against Andy’s chest and shut his eyes tight. Pent up rage was fighting to get out but instead only a few words quietly escaped.

  “I miss mom.”

  “I know you do son, but mom’s gone. She had an accident and she’s in heaven now.”

  “What?” said Beth chortling drunk from the doorway.

  An accident? Is that what you told him?”

  For the first time in years Andy spoke to Beth in a tone that would not resolve any argument.

  “Beth, don’t!”

  Beth grinned.

  “Connor…”

  …Your mom did not have an accident…”

  “Beth shuttup!”

  “She was murdered! She was raped and murdered down there in the hall where your dolly is now.”

  Do you know what raped means?”

  Connor world shut down, his mind collapsed in on itself and he was silent. Furious but composed Andy leapt to his feet and slammed the door in Beth’s face as if the door would be his revenge for months of torment. The backdraft blew his hair gently but Beth didn’t flinch.

  “He had to find out sometime” came the voice from behind the door.

  Andy rushed over and put his arms around his son. Appalled by what Beth did he held him tight, wondering if he would ever be able to express into words how sorry he was. He tried, poorly he thought.

  “Son, I’m so sorry she said that.”

  Connor was mute. Something inside him had snapped. He had heard the term “rape” on one of the police shows Beth was watching and he was smart enough to figure out what it meant. His little body was stiff and his brain was numb. For the first time in his life Connor felt rage. But his brain was trying and failing to contain that rage, instead it jammed up his mind and closed it down. An image of Beth’s grinning face as she spoke those terrible words was trying to show itself but another part of him tried to choke it down, knowing what happen if it surfaced. Tears felt like they should be coming out but they didn’t. He wanted to scream but he couldn’t. He felt this incredible urge to be destructive but his body wouldn’t move. He knelt, staring at the closed door while his father quietly embraced him. Feeling like he was actually consoling his son Andy held him tight, trying to shoosh away the anguish. Connor’s didn’t know it but his brain was writing new scripts for itself which would recreate him. A destructive force was being born in the depths of his mind, overruling intelligence and rational thought patterns his mother and father had instilled in him.

  The only image he could see in his mind when he went to bed that night was Beth’s mocking face. And her words; he did not hear them out loud again, he couldn’t, but some deep part of him was hearing them. Connor did not dream that night; instead his brain added the final touches to its rewrite, the coup de grace, changing his personality forever.

  Connor’s routine started out as usual the next morning. Out of bed, he bath robe and slippers on then headed to the bathroom to shower after his father did. Andy still remembered the events of the previous night, it had weighed on him all night. Straight after coming out of the shower Andy saw Connor standing in the doorway of his bedroom looking particularly somber. Dressed only in a towel Andy knelt down beside his son for a moment.

  “How you feeling today champ?”

  Connor replied emotionlessly “I’m ok”

  Andy squinted into his son’s eyes, searching for the truth.

  “You’re sure?”

  Connor simply nodded and although Andy didn’t believe he was telling the truth he didn’t really have time to talk about it, he had work to go to. No father could have seen what was about to happen.

  “Ok, we can talk more when I get home then.”

  Taking one more look into his son’s eyes Andy got up and headed down the stairs, leaving Connor to disappear into the bathroom. Lifting his briefcase from the living room he wanted to yell up to his son to say goodbye one last time but he knew that if he woke up Beth he would get an earful when he got home for sure. Andy did love Connor but the truth was he didn’t really want to stand up for him. Selfish motives always took over. He believed Connor would eventually get over the trauma of being told the truth of his mother and so, he never felt he had to say much more about it. Part of Connor’s newly developed psyche came from this constant “shock and ignorance” way of life where something would happen within the household that was detrimental to Connor’s mindset but essentially nobody cared. Beth sure didn’t. Her twisted mind would constantly put her own “illness” above anything else, particularly the feelings of others. Andy cared but his attitude was always to ignore it as best as possible, hoping it would all go away. He reasoned that if he never asked Connor how he felt about Beth then he wouldn’t know the truth. And, if he didn’t know the truth then he certainly wouldn’t have to act upon it. Andy closed the front door behind him, plunging the house into quiet. The shower had not been turned on. Instead, the bathroom door slowly opened and Connor emerged dressed in his pajamas. His eyes were dark, he felt nothing. Drifting down the wooden staircase he heard Beth snoring behind him, her breathing was heavy through her fat nasal passages. The kitchen was not as neat as it used to be, not like when his mother would clean it. Connor easily unhinged the child-safety lock on the top drawer by the sink. His mother had installed them years ago but Connor wasn’t an child any longer. They simply remained because it was on no-one’s priority list to remove them. Staring down for a moment at the metallic menagerie in front of him he was confronted by options. Had he not been nearly catatonic he would have realized the sadness in the fact that the kitchen had all the tools a gourmet chef would need to create sumptuous dishes but he and his father never ate more than oven pizza, tinned goods and microwave meals. This depressing fact was due to the lack of a maternal presence, with the drunken drug-addled Beth being the furthest thing from that. Surrounded by the “Easy Blend” blender, the “Coffee Boy” bean grinder/brewer and the hanging selection of ladles, spatulas, pronged forks and pastry brushes he felt a gentle comfort attempting to creep into him and change his thoughts. Although he had never used any of these tools, he remembered this was his mother’s domain and it was where she was happiest. Without any notion towards sexism Martha was simply a passionate cook. She always believed in fresh ingredients and loved slow cooking. Some days Connor would watch her for hours on end buzzing around making meals for dinner parties. Dinner parties had long been a dead tradition though, along with fresh ingredients. Looking down at the glimmering selection in front of him he made his choice.

  His mother had always told him she chose a knife by the weight of it, how it felt in her hand. So
he carefully lifted his tool and flicked it up and down, feeling it out like a pro tennis player feeling out a racket. After a long minute of careful testing he confirmed his choice was the right one. Leaning forward he looked into the blade. The shiny stainless steel reflected an image of a dark haired child, his once angelic eyes now overcast. Locking eyes with his reflection he watched a smile form that was truly his own and slammed the drawer shut.

  Standing at the bottom of the staircase he heard the snoring again. Every noise she made irritated him further and further, driving him to push on up the stairs to his goal. The knife by his side glided effortlessly through the air as he neared the top. The stairs squeaked as if sending out a warning that someone was coming. He got to the top and opened the bedroom door. There she was. For a long moment he watched her lie sleeping under her tacky pink blankets like some great slumbering marshmallow. Her stunning laziness was just one more reason Connor hated her. Moving round the side of the bed to see her face, he remembered her words the night before.

  “She was raped,”

  Do you know what that means?”

  Staring at her face, he felt no anger, no purpose, he felt nothing, this to him was as natural as breathing now. His face cracked into a scowl as he stared at her contemptuously, the weight of the decision he had already made wrapped him up tight but he tried to hold off a little longer. A twisted side he never knew he had before urged him to savor the moment before it was gone forever. He had been standing over her for minutes simply watching; waiting to make his move. Beth stirs slothlike, opening her eyes slightly she saw him standing there. Unable to see the knife from her lying position she sneered at him with a tongue laced with disdain.

  “What do you want?” she hissed.

  The unapologetic, resentful tone was the final ingredient in Connors pot. With a twitch in his eye he raised the knife above his head and sandwiched it in his small palms. The sudden look of terror in Beth’s eyes only served to motivate the boy further. Driving the blade down hard into her flesh, his aim was off, slicing through the shoulder of the fetal sleeper, stopping only an inch into her breast tissue. Reloading, he yanked the steel out and went in for another plunge. This time lower, through the ribcage, puncturing the base of her lungs and mincing up other organs. Her cries were not for help but for pain, no-one would hear her on the quiet street outside. Again Connor thrusted, changing aim again, this time higher, unintentionally cutting into her larynx. Later Connor would think back to this moment and this specific stab. He wondered if he did it to stop her screaming or not. He could not remember any noise that day. He remembered everything in detail; except if there was volume on his attacks, as if someone pressed a mute button to make the whole event easier to deal with. He remembered Beth doing this while watching scary films. She would mute the volume, as if that would make the horrifying scenes easier to view. Stabbing her again and again, each thrust represented a painful moment in his life, with much of the thrusting because of the loss of his mother. With no organized stabbing pattern, by the time was arms were sore he had managed thirty-four wounds to the torso and groin, fourteen to the arms and legs and eight to the face over a span of four minutes. The grisly scene in his mother’s old bedroom put a smile on a young boys face. Standing proudly, spattered in a crimson spray he wiped the knife on Beth’s pink dressing gown. In his mind, the day started out perfectly.