“Oh goody, it’s here,” Jeannie said racing toward the front door to greet the Postman.
“Good morning, Jeannie,” he said, handing her a short stack of envelopes and a miniature square box.
“Thanks, George,” she returned. “I’ve been waiting for this.” Her eyes widened as she took the mail from his hand.
“Somethin’ good, I hope,” he said.
Without looking up from the box, she said, “It’s something my dad has always wanted. I found it on-line and I’m going to surprise him for his birthday.”

She closed the door and took a moment to gaze at the small box. She imagined the look on her father’s face when she gave it to him. She smiled and then walked toward the kitchen. She passed several family pictures: some of her mother, her two brothers at different stages of their lives, various aunts and uncles at special occasions and one solitary photo of her father. She stopped in front of it and addressed it. “Oh Daddy, you will be surprised, won’t you?”
Knowing she wouldn’t be getting an answer from the stern two-dimensional likeness of her father, she proceeded to the kitchen. She put the box on the table and tossed the envelopes. Instead of landing next to the box, they slid across the bare oak plane and stopped just before falling off the table’s edge. Standing in front of the box as if in a gleeful trance, she wrung her hands and mumbled, “Goody, goody, goody.” She felt like a child ready to open a carefully wrapped gift.
With a sharp rip of the packing tape, she tossed the interior travel cushion into the trashcan. Gently, she reached down into the box. She lifted the small spool of fishing wire into the light. “Hello, my little friend,” she greeted, cradling the small treasure. “Yes, yes, Daddy will be surprised indeed.”
A knock at the front door interrupted her trance. Quickly scanning the room to make sure she was alone, she replaced the spool in its package and stashed the box under the sink. Another knock on the door caused her to shout, “I’m on my way.”
Peeking through the eyepiece, Jeanie was relieved to see her brother Charles.
“Hey, kiddo. I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by to check in on my baby sister.”
“Hi, Charles. C’mon in. Want something to drink?”
“Nah, I’m not staying.”
“You know I’m fine and you don’t have to keep checking in on me.”
He held the bottom of her chin in his hand and said, “Yeah, I know, but I worry about you living here all by yourself, so far away from the rest of the family.”
Jeannie tried to change the subject. “Are you sure you don’t want something?”
“I have to pick up my kids from their mother’s. I’m taking them for new sneakers today. She only lets me see them when they need something and she can’t pay for it.”
Changing the subject again, Jeannie said, “Wanna see what I got Dad for his birthday?”
“You bought him a birthday present?”
“Yeah. Wait ‘til you see.” She walked to the sink and pulled out the package from its hiding spot. She pulled out the fishing wire.
“You’re giving him a spool of thread?” Charles asked with confusion.
“Not a spool of thread; a spool of that fishing wire that he’s always talking about. The strong kind that he says never fails to catch the biggest fish. I was going to give it to him Saturday, when we take him for lunch.”
“Well, I’m not getting that old bastard anything.”
“Charles, that isn’t nice. He’s your father.”
Charles looked at Jeannie with a serious expression. “After all that rotten son-of-a-bitch put us through, he’s lucky I don’t get him a coffin for his 75th birthday.”
Jeannie was not surprised by Charles’s hatred for their father. “I know he has put us through some horrible things, Charles, but he is still our father.”
“Jeannie, he’s a monster. He hides behind alcohol and thought it was okay to beat his wife and children. And when he wasn’t hitting us, he would say cruel things. He screwed up all of our lives, Jeannie. Do you think Joey wanted his future as a football superstar thrown away? He was only sixteen when dad fractured his spine. I certainly didn’t want to have to rely on a therapist to get me through every waking moment of my life. And what about you? I’m sure you didn’t want him to ruin your chances at having a family of your own. I know Mom said that we were supposed to do what he said, he was the father – the man of the house, but I don’t live under his roof or his rules any more. In fact, I don’t want to have anything to do with him any more. You know I only go to these occasional events because you ask me to.” Charles stood up and pushed the chair away with the back of his legs. “I’ve gotta go,” he said walking toward the door.
“Charles, don’t go. We don’t have to talk about him any more. Let’s talk about something else. I’ll make coffee,” Jeannie pleaded. But Charles was already out the front door. Without looking back he closed the door behind him, leaving Jeannie in solitude once again.
She felt distraught, but held back her tears. She learned a long time ago that crying wouldn’t solve any of her problems. Her mind catapulted back to when she was a little girl. Joey held her small collection of Barbie dolls hostage. Most of them were hand-me-downs from her cousin, but they were the only dolls she had, and she loved them. Seven in total, Joey dangled her three favorites from Mom’s clothesline.
“Look, the trapeze,” he teased.
“Don’t, Joey! Give them back!” Jeannie shouted out the dinning room window as Joey clipped each of the dolls on the line with clothespins. Jeannie reached out the window, trying desperately to catch “the girls.”
Jeannie thought her father was coming to rescue the dolls for her. Instead, he grabbed them in exchange for a fierce slap across Joey’s face, before sentencing him to the room the three children shared for the rest of the day. But, he wasn’t finished. He walked back to the house and found himself another target – Jeannie. He blamed her stupidity and fatuousness for causing the incident in the first place. Jeannie listened to his wrath as tears stained her small, alabaster cheeks. He finished with a matching slap across her face to match her brother’s. The blow was so hard it caused her to loose her balance. She stumbled backward toward the stairs that led to the basement. As she tried to grasp the doorframe, she missed and fell, awkwardly plunging downward.
Almost an hour later, she woke to find herself lying in a pool of water in the basement. The bottom step was hard on her back. No one had come to help her. She winced as she tried to stand up. The pain was sharp. Quietly, she got on her feet and made it up the stairs. She peered from the door into the dining room, afraid that her father would see her. She saw that her entire collection of dolls were scattered on the kitchen floor. They were in horrible condition. They had all been stabbed with a knife, which her father left on the floor alongside the plastic massacre.
Jeannie’s mother came racing in. She tried to keep Jeannie calm so that her husband’s attention wouldn’t waiver from the television set. Jeannie could barely move and parts of her were already turning purple from the bruises. Jeannie’s mother helped her into the car and drove straight to the hospital.
After several x-rays and tests, Jeannie was told that she would need surgery and that she would be a slave to a colostomy bag for the rest of her life. The doctor also informed that her that she would never be able to have children, at least not naturally.
Inside Jeannie’s anger grew. Not only did her father rob her of playing sports or living without the use of a ‘shit bag’ but he forced her into an emotional corner. He paralyzed her abilities, both physically and mentally. His reaction was, “Good, now I won’t have to worry about her coming home pregnant.”

Jeannie’s father had belittled Charles so often in front of anyone who was around that Charles suffered two major emotional breakdowns. His ex-wife left him because she couldn’t take his bouts of depression and self-loathing.
Joey, the second oldest, became wheelchair bound when their father broke his spine. Their father was not pleased with how Joey raked the leaves one autumn. Joey was bitter and avoided the family as much as possible. Who could blame him?
As for Jeannie, she could never keep a relationship long enough to celebrate a month’s anniversary. Sometimes it was because she was honest enough to tell the young man that she would never be able to give him children, other times it was because Jeannie couldn’t commit emotionally. She lost the little confidence she had and became accustomed to the solitude of single life.
But the evil didn’t stop with her father. It was a trait that ran through his family’s blood. Her aunts and uncles on his side, all seemed to posses the same cruel ability to verbally mutilate all they encountered. The rest of Jeannie’s paternal family displayed their evilness on a regular basis as well. Her Aunt Marie always criticized Jeannie on her choices in life. “Look at you. How are you ever going to get a man looking like that? Don’t you care what people are saying about you?”
Aunt Marie was even responsible for scaring away the one boyfriend Jeannie wanted to continue having a relationship for more than a month. Aunt Marie blurted out Jeannie’s lack of knowledge on how to please a man. She offered to show him a good time instead. Jeannie’s boyfriend was uncomfortable and disgusted with Marie’s advances and he left the house, never to return. Later in the evening, Jeannie checked her answering machine. He left her a message saying that he didn’t want to be a part of her ‘sick and twisted’ family.
Jeannie shrugged off the dreadful images from her past and began humming a light tune to change her mood. She went to the closet and searched for some wrapping paper.


The next day Jeannie answered the telephone. It was Joey. “Hey sis, how’s it going?”
“Joey? How are you?”
“Doin’ great, but listen, I have to tell you something. I’m not going to join you guys for Dad’s birthday lunch on Saturday,” he said gently, trying not to hurt her feelings.
“But why?” Jeannie asked disappointed.
“Well, because, I…well, its because I hate him, Jeannie. I don’t want to have anything to do with him. He’s sadistic and a drunk. I thought he’d change when Mom died, but he hasn’t. I thought he’d break his habits when he moved in with Aunt Marie. But even she kicked him out. I just can’t have him in my life.”
“I understand how you feel, Joey, but do it for me. I haven’t seen you in a while. You don’t have to talk to him,” she pleaded.
“Sorry, Jeannie. How about if I come by on Sunday? I’ll stay the whole day.”
Jeannie couldn’t blame him. She hated her father, too. She didn’t want to push. “Alright, but I’ll miss you not being there. You better be here on Sunday.” She said ‘good-bye’ and hung up the phone.

Eleven fifteen, Saturday morning. Jeannie finished putting on her make up. She wanted to look nice for the birthday luncheon. The phone rang. Jeannie ran to it, hoping Joey had changed his mind.
“Hey darlin’,” a rough voice greeted. Jeannie recognized the voice immediately. It was her Uncle Clive.
Although Clive was her father’s youngest brother, he towered over him and was extremely muscular. He was always suave around the ladies, but was just as diabolical as the rest of her father’s family. Jeannie remembered the time he cornered her inside Aunt Marie’s house during a summer barbecue. She had gone inside to use the restroom, but was intercepted by Clive. He grabbed Jeannie’s arm and pushed her into the master bedroom. He began to caress her cheek and told her that she wasn’t as bad looking as Marie always said. He complimented her on her soft form as he moved his hands up and down her body. Jeannie tried to get away from him, but Clive pushed her down onto the bed. He held her down with one hand as he managed to take his belt off.
He warned her not to scream or he’d “show her that her father’s hand wasn’t tough at all.”
At that moment, Charles had come into the house to refill the ice bucket. He heard the commotion and came to Jeannie’s rescue, pulling Clive off of his sister. Clive backed away, but not without connecting his fist to Charles’s jaw first.
“If you ever lay a hand on her again,” Charles began, “I’ll put a bullet through your brain.”

“Er, hi, Uncle Clive. How’d you get this number?”
Clive’s cool attitude steamed through the phone. “Your daddy gave it to me when he invited me to join ya all for lunch. Said you was in charge of the R.S.V.P.s. I was wonderin’ if you wouldn’t mind givin’ me a ride to your daddy’s shin-dig? I don’t really know how to get there.”
Jeannie was uncomfortable talking to Clive, even after so many years. “O-o-okay. I can pick you up in a few minutes. Just tell me where you are.”
“Well darlin’, actually I am right outside your door. I’m callin’ you on my cell phone. So, why don’t cha just come to the front door and let your Uncle Clive in.”
Jeannie looked out the peephole and saw Clive standing in the front archway, waving with a sardonic smile. Jeannie had no choice now. She opened the door and let him in.

Twelve o’clock on the dot and Jeannie walked through the restaurant toward the maitre ‘d. She gave the name of the party and he ushered her to a table where Charles and her father sat uncomfortably across from one another, trying to make small talk.
She sat between them. “Happy birthday, Dad.”
Martin Boggs was a tall, broad man, who was comfortably in his mid-70’s. In his youth, he was a well-built man with little worries from neighborhood bullies. Now, his shaky hands lifted a glass of water to his near toothless mouth. His tongue cradled several prescription drugs, waiting for the liquid to ease their flow down into his system.
Aside from cirrhosis of the liver, from years of alcohol consumption, and a recent on-set of pancreatic cancer, he was still “fit as a fiddle”, as he would describe. A fiddle that Charles always said was playing the “Devil’s Waltz.”
“You’re late,” he said looking at his wristwatch.
“Only a minute,” she defended her tardiness.
“Where’s Clive?” he pressed. “He said you were bringing him.”
Jeannie placed her napkin on her lap and lifted the menu in front of her face. “He called. He said he had something urgent to take care of and couldn’t attend. He said he was sorry.” She perused the menu a short moment. “Shall we order? I’m famished.”
Charles looked puzzled. “What about Aunt Marie?”
“I’ve been trying to reach her since last night,” Martin said. “She doesn’t answer the phone. Maybe she’s still mad at me.” He turned his focus to Jeannie. “Didn’t you say she mentioned something about visiting your cousin Myra down south?”
“Yes, I think that’s what she said,” Jeannie agreed.

The three enjoyed a tense lunch, mostly in silence. Jeannie made the occasional attempt at conversation here and there. Everyone was well behaved, until Martin began to pick on Charles. “You should eat slower. You eat too fast. Maybe that’s why that wife of yours left ya. You’re too fat.”
Charles focused on finishing his dessert, trying to ignore his father’s usual string of insults.
Martin excused himself and headed for the men’s room. “Jeannie, can you take dad home? I can’t take him any more. Besides, I have a date in twenty minutes and I don’t want to be late.”
A trite smile mixed with disappointment painted Jeannie’s face. “Sure, Charles.” Charles was up from the table and out the door. Jeannie dug into her wallet and matched the bundle of money that Charles left for his half of the meal. The ample difference made a nice gratuity.
As Martin returned, Jeannie got up from the table. “Okay, Dad. I’m taking you home.”
“Where’s Charles?” he asked, looking around the restaurant.
“He had to go.”
“To another money-hungry, blood-draining hussy, no doubt. He’s wasting his time, if you ask me.” His tone indicated a harsh disapproval. “So now I have to ride with you?”
Jeannie wrestled with herself on whether she should defend Charles and her driving or just let the topics drop. She paced herself alongside her father as she escorted him down the street to her car. After securing Martin in the passenger seat, Jeannie walked around the car and took a deep breath before entering into close quarters with the man she despised most in the world.
She wasn’t even away from the curb, when he began his usual incessant badgering. “So, what? You gonna sit in your pathetic dump the rest of the night after you drop me off? Your life is such a waste.”
Pretending to focus on the road, Jeannie tried to block out his demoralizing old voice, but he kept on. How much longer before she got him home?
“No wonder you don’t have a man in your life. Your Aunt Marie is right. Look at you. You don’t know how to present yourself as a fish worth catching. You’re a looser.”
Jeannie felt her blood begin to heat up. Her heart raced. But, she maintained a tender, collected smile. She allowed him to rant a few minutes more before she spoke. “Dad, how would you like to come to my place and visit a while? I have a little birthday surprise for you.”
As though he was settling for a fate worse than death, Martin Boggs reluctantly agreed.

Once inside, Martin edged his way through the long hallway, sneaking peeks of the photographs on the wall. He walked toward the living room and glanced at the shelves on the wall near the window. Proudly displayed was Jeannie’s new collection of Barbie dolls. She had all of the pretty blondes in pristine outfits with matching shoes. There were a few collector’s edition dolls still in their boxes.
Martin eyed them up and down with displeasure. “You really should move. This place is a dump. And these dolls… You need to find a guy who’ll take care of you; get you a decent house and a few brats to take care of.”
That was it. He had hit Jeannie’s soft spot. “Well, Dad, I probably would be married with a bunch of ‘brats’ as you refer to them, if you weren’t a lousy, drunken bastard of a father. Because of you, I can’t hold a relationship long enough to learn a man’s last name, not to mention the fact that you destroyed any chance of my having children.” Her look pierced Martin.
His face gave way to shock. “How dare you speak to me like that,” he rebuked. “I am your father.”
Jeannie walked into the living room and pointed to the armchair that was positioned caddy-cornered at the far end of the room. “Sit down,” she commanded. “I’m going to give you your birthday present.”
She waited until he was sitting before retrieving the nicely wrapped box. Slowly, he tore away the paper, watching her from the corner of his eye. He opened the box. “What’s this? A bunch of broken dolls?” he said with a puzzled look.
“These were my dolls that you destroyed years ago. They were my only happiness. They helped me pretend to live in a nicer world, instead of the world you provided us. You took that away from me. The only thing I had left was Mom, but you took that away, too, when you beat her to death.”
“I didn’t kill her,” he insisted as he waved his crooked finger in the air. Jeannie closed her eyes, knowing that the years of abuse had caused her mother’s body to break down. She never blamed her for giving up.
“Oh, but Dad, this isn’t your real gift,” she said as if the conversation were not bitter. She disappeared from the room. Martin reclined in the armchair, happy with what he thought was another conquest. As he tried to shake off the topic he felt a sudden sharp pain in his neck. He tried to jump out of the chair, but he couldn’t pull himself up. He lifted his hands and pawed at his neck. A thin strand of wire was tight around his neck. He struggled to break free.
“See, Dad, I bought you that fishing wire you’re always raving about. I thought you would be surprised.” Jeannie pulled the wire tighter as she forced her father’s struggling body in the chair. Martin succumbed to the loss of consciousness.

The basement door creaked as she pushed it open. She turned the light switch on before she carefully walked down the stairs to the basement. The feeling was damp as the aroma of must and mildew wafted together. Jeannie walked to the far end of the basement and stopped before the metal shelving unit against the wall. She placed the carefully wrapped head of Martin Boggs on the top shelf, between the one of his sister Marie and his brother Clive.
“Now this is a collection I can be proud of,” she said out loud before climbing back up the stairs. She started to hum and sing the words,
“...R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Find out what it means to me. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Take care, TCB” before she shut the door.

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 15.07.2011

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