Flashback Friday

Friday the 13th, 6.30pm, 17 Dove Lane, Sandringham.

The lights of the house are on; I can see them from outside and his X5 is parked in the driveway. I was in trouble; any fool, drunk or sober, could see that. In the entrance hall, I was met with a gruesome sight. Plaster of Paris now covered many parts of my wife that 10 years ago were perfect. Her petite hand, the same hand I once placed a wedding band on, promising to be with her through sickness and in health. A now-broken collar bone that was once complimented by everyone for the way her wedding dress rested on it. A bashed lip that once kissed me so tenderly on our wedding day.

I whisper “Hi” and the broken scratched voice, which once sang so beautifully in the church choir, responded:

“They are taking Simone”.

So this is what he meant when he said I should face reality. Did he know that one day he would be taking my daughter away from me? Had he planned this all along, since the day she was born, seven years ago? “She is only seven years old, for Heaven’s sake, and you left her on the doorstep of her grade one classroom for five hours, Pete!!!”

My eyes quickly moved across the room past him, past my mother, and there she is, my perfect little girl. She darted across the room in my direction but did not get very far. Before I knew it, his hand was clenched tightly around her wrist.

Not having the power to stop something bad from happening is a scary thing. It can make you do things you usually wouldn’t do, like move halfway across the globe. That’s just what my sister Carmen did.

I was about Simone’s age and he regularly cornered me in his office, spitting all sorts of foul things at me. This time I was not going to stay and listen, so I turned to run away, determined, just like Simone was today. Before I knew it, his hand was clenched tightly around my wrist, almost bending my arm backwards.

From the corner of my eye I could see her and I knew that frizzy, out of control hair could only belong to my sister, Carmen. She watched quietly from the corner of the room without him knowing she was there. Once he was done punishing me, he briskly walked out and left me there as he had done a million times before. Carmen immediately ran to me and took me in her arms. She sobbed uncontrollably and told me how sorry she was. She wasn’t his favourite either, we both knew that, but at least he treated her like a human being, which is a lot more than I can say for myself.

Carmen was always fighting for some or other Human Rights cause and on this day it seemed that her younger brother had become her latest cause to fight for. She wanted to let mother know what was going on but how could she, when I myself did not understand it. Was I an abused child, or just the victim of a deranged man that fathered me? Even worse, was I an abused child making excuses for a deranged man that fathered me? I could hardly move and that was the last memory that I have of my sister Carmen. She was 17, going on 18, which meant that when she took a flight to Australia, she didn’t even need an adult to see her off. She did not even need me.

I did not get to hold Simone before I left the house and the thought of him raising her cut through my heart like a million knives at once. I left because I thought that no one in that room (not Amanda, nor my dear, oblivious, mother Mary) would believe that Peter Withers Senior was not the man that they thought he was. That, in fact, he was a deranged, abusive psychopath who not only drove his only daughter to the other end of the globe, but drove his namesake to a drunken stopper that no one recognised. Yes, in that moment it became clear that he had won yet again. I knew it and I could see from the smirk on his wrinkled, pale, white face that he knew it too.

And that brings me back to Niki. Not even a second seemed to have passed and suddenly I opened my eyes to find her naked body pressed against me in the ladies restroom. This was it! I was having my way with Niki the waitress and just when I thought I had found my piece of heaven again, she spoke. Flashbacks of Amanda singing in the church choir. They really did not sound anything like each other. I was so disappointed and then I was angry. Before my head could tell my body what to do, I found myself on top of her, but not the way I had originally planned to be. I just could not control my fists. They pounded into her face like a ton of bricks coming down on a building site.

And there it was. A memory of more than 15 years ago. The haunting sound of his voice calling out to Nicky but not Niki the waitress. Nicky my little brother, and the apple of his eye.

Nicky was just three at the time and I was ten. He loved following his older brother around. We spent most school holidays at dad’s building sites. It was always fun but this day was different. This day just felt as if something terrible was about to happen, and it did…

The sound of a ton of bricks coming down was a familiar sound at the site but, for some reason, it caused me to look around and Nicky was not next to me. My bones dissolved as I wondered where he could be.

Dad’s voice quickly answered that for me as he called out “Nicky, Nicky my boy, are you ok? Nicky please answer me! Nicky”.

It was then that I knew that Nicky was under that pile of bricks, and I knew that I would be to blame.

I knew I had to stop this memory from playing out any further. I opened my eyes and there she was. Niki, the waitress, lying covered in blood on the bathroom floor. Just three days ago, I had beaten my wife to a pulp and fled the scene. Everything within me was telling me to finally be a man and take the blame for what I had done, but I am a drunken man with a criminal record already. So I did the only thing that made sense to the alcoholic part of me.

I was out of there, but I am no monster. I am nothing like Peter Senior and that was my only consolation for all of these years!

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“I have definitely gone too far this time.”

“Mr Withers, is that you sir? I have your location as downtown Main Street.”

The fact that the operator knew my voice finished it for me. I need to find a way out of this, I just need to.

I finally manage to get the words out again: “She needs a paramedic!”

“Mr Withers, what is your…?”

Just like that, I found myself in a coffee shop downtown on 3rd and 66th Streets, not far from the No Shame Bar.

Still reeling over what I had just done, I could not stop wondering whether Peter Withers Senior even looked for me in that pile of bricks. I know he did not see me standing there on the side of the mixed heap of rubble that my brother’s lifeless body lay under, so how did he know that I was safe? Did he even care?

Flashback to reality: Of course it was just Nicky.

“Stop!! Why are you still giving him so much power, Peter? Why?” I realised I am shouting out loud at myself and as I lift my head, there he stands. Joe, the man who would later become my ‘big brother’.

***

Tell us what you think: Where could Peter go for help?