Part Two

"Jimmy, get your ass down here!" His father's voice rose from the floor below and it did not herald good news. The old man was obviously in a bad mood and it wasn't even seven yet. He glanced at his watch.

"Damn." He was late again. "Coming, Dad." Jimmy called back. He hurried to throw his stuff in his school bag and raced down the front stairs. He skidded to a halt outside the dining room and continued in at a much more sedate pace. He found his father and younger brother in the dining room where Sally was dishing up breakfast.

"You're late, I told you to be here at seven not seven ten. I have to get to work and I am going to be late now because of you." His father's voice spoke of exactly how angry he was with his eldest son. The cold blue eyes, so similar and yet so different from Jimmy's own, flashed with a dangerous light. A light which Jimmy had long since learned to fear. He braced himself and quickly tried to explain his tardiness.

"Sorry, Dad, I was just doing some final studying. I have a test today." Jimmy hoped that would placate his old man. He did have a monster history test today and if he didn't do well enough to bring his grade up, his father would have his hide, literally. He had been just shy of an 'A' for most of the term. If he didn't get the 'A' for his report card there would be hell to pay.

In silence he waited for his father to acknowledge him again or signal for him to sit. Neither happened. Instead, without warning his father backhanded him, hard. The seventeen year old lost his balance and fell hard to the hardwood floors, knocking his head against the table.

Jimmy forced back the gasp of pain as red daggers shot through his head, his vision grayed slightly but he didn't lose consciousness. Things would always get worse if that happened. He wouldn't look up. He didn't want to see the next strike. He didn't want his father to see his tears or his fear.

"Don't talk back to me, Boy. When I tell you to do something, I expect it to be done when I say not when you feel like doing it." The senior Parker glared down at the boy cowering on the floor, holding his face in one hand the other raising to ward off another blow.

"God, I can't believe you are my son, you are such a pathetic, little shit. Get up and eat. We're leaving in fifteen." With those words, William Parker strode off towards his study. The tension in the room was thick. Nothing was said for a long time after William had left.

Finally, Jimmy climbed slowly to his feet, using the heavy oak table for balance until he could stand. When his head cleared enough he moved to sit down. Sally squeezed his shoulder gently as she placed his breakfast on the placemat before him. He could see his little brother watching him, tears glistening in the younger boy's eyes.

"It's okay, Stevie. Eat up and we'll go." Jimmy told the youngster. He pasted a smile on his face to ease his brother's mind and picked up his fork. He forced himself to eat a little though his appetite was gone now. Stevie returned his smile with his own watery grin and finished eating his own meal.

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Sally watched with an air of horrified disinterest as William Parker struck his son. She kept her face carefully schooled and free of emotion. She knew that if she tried to interfere she would be disciplined and perhaps even fired, and that would mean leaving her charges to the wrath of their father without any support.

Since the day that Grace Parker had walked out on her family twelve years before, William Parker had taken his anger out on his older boy. Jimmy did his best but nothing could completely soothe his father's temper and lately it flared more and more often.

She had lost count of the number of times she had fixed up cuts and bruises and worse. There had been a few broken bones, an arm a leg and a couple of ribs. She hated how she had become so proficient at lying to the ER doctors as to the nature of his injuries so she had learned how to treat most of them herself. Not something she was proud of but a necessary evil that she had yet to conquer.

Sally had watched Jimmy take beatings for which Steven should have gotten. But she knew that the older brother would not allow his younger brother to suffer unnecessarily even if he might merit punishment. Take last week for example. Stephen had been fooling around in the garage and had accidentally dropped a wrench on William's newest acquisition, a 1964 fire engine red Cobra. A classic car in pristine condition until the wrench had taken a chunk of paint off and left a rather good sized dent.

He had come crying to Jimmy who promised to take care of it. That night when William had come home, he had found the dent and Jimmy had taken the blame.

"Dad, I'm sorry." Jimmy cried as the belt fell again against the bare skin on his back. He could feel the wet stickiness of blood."

"Do you have any idea how much that car cost me?" William screamed, his arm raising and falling with determined ferocity. Jimmy screamed again as the buckle cut deeply. Tears fell on the mahogany desktop and no matter what Jimmy tried, he couldn't get them to stop. His father would be even more angry if the tears left salt stains.

"That car was specially rebuilt for me. I have waited twenty five years to be able to afford it and in one after noon you have destroyed the only thing I have ever cared about. Does that even matter to you?" Again the belt fell. Jimmy screamed but it was with little intensity. The pain from the beating was beginning to numb his mind. The only thing that kept him holding on was the knowledge that Stevie would not have survived this.

"I'm sorry, Daddy, please!" He was begging and he knew it but Jimmy couldn't take much more of this. Already he was feeling faint. The lashes stopped abruptly. And the belt was cast onto the desk beside his head. Jimmy flinched but remained where he was bent over the desk, his shirt bunched around his neck and his pants pooled around his ankles. Hot angry welts marred his back from the back of his calves to the top of his neck. Everything hurt and he just wanted to crawl off somewhere and die.

He waited until he heard the study door open then slam shut again before he carefully attempted to put his clothing back on.

That was when Sally had appeared. She'd been listening, waiting for the right moment. She had nursed the cuts and bruises from that beating for two days before Jimmy was able to get out of bed and go back to school.

Now she watched as the red mark on his face slowly faded from sight. The bruise would be faint if at all. For that small favour she was grateful though she fervently prayer that someday Jimmy would stand up to his father. He was already a tall boy, over six feet in height, nearly eye to eye with his father but he'd bee so badly cowed by the man that he couldn't see if for himself. Not to mention the fact that Jimmy was thinner and had much less muscle than his father and until that changed, Jimmy would remained tormented by his father's terrible rage and abuses.

"I can't eat any more, Sally. Thanks for breakfast but we'd better go." Jimmy rose and held his hand out to Steven. The younger boy took it and followed Jimmy to his room where his big brother packed his bag for the special school which helped Steven with his condition. A condition that could be blamed solely on his father's 'loving attentions'.

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