A Reckoning...
(Trigger Warning) If this were real, maybe......A Fic on revenge.
He sits. He waits. Cigs on one side, Irish coffee on the other. If it’s gonna happen, he wants his nerves to be calm. But the way his knee bounces up and down reveals the truth.
It was 30 years ago today that the government decreed that victims of abuse could start taking revenge on their abusers. At first people balked, using eye for an eye and all that, but the government grew tired of the jails filling up and asked the taxpayers if they really wanted to keep paying for it. As usual, money talks waaaaayyyy louder than your moral ambiguity.
Of course, the revenge wasn’t meted out all willy nilly. Everything was arranged. For example, people had to apply for Certificates of Revenge after all the necessary investigations were done. Court and Juries were still a thing. It’s just that now, guilty ones don’t get taken from the courtroom. They get branded, and released with a “Go with God.” If the victim is 19 years of age, once they get their certificate, happy hunting. Victims under 19 go through mandatory counseling until they reach the Age of Revenge. The abuser is held in custody until one week before the victim turns 19. Older or disabled victims who are not able to avenge themselves are assigned a Revenge Proxy, a third party who will take action on their behalf. And so on and so forth.
Reports of abuse went down dramatically. Jails cleared out. Grades went up. Some people got tubal ligation and vasectomies as soon as possible to prevent having kids. (If that sounds extreme, think about the worst parent you’ve ever heard of. That’s what I thought) Assisted living facilities were the place to be, because all the staff wanted to be there. See how well it worked?
Admittedly, the first decade was chaos. A lot of well known, famous, rich, powerful, and influential people….disappeared. Most victims (now victorious) did not make the event known. Why give these people any publicity? They were all put in mass graves, as a convicted abusers body did not go back to the family. It belonged to the victim to do as they saw fit. And so it was.
He felt then that it was all woke liberal nonsense. (Although there were enough woke liberals in mass graves to show that it was not partisan.) He only felt this way because he found himself on the wrong side. If he wasn’t being hunted, he would have been apathetic about it. As he had been about most things. Unfortunately for him. And at this age, long in the tooth, he was finally, finally, being honest. Finally starting to feel something. (Too late for him, and that feeling will soon probably be replaced by unimaginable terror, but let us allow him his moment, shall we?)
She was a beautiful girl. Just like her mama. Too much like her mama. Her mama got scorned once and decided to give her love to whomever she pleased. Sometimes it pleased her to have more than one lover. He had to give it to her, though. A liar she was not. She could drip honey from that smile and in the same moment the tongue would fork out to let you know you wasn’t the only one. Hell, you wasn’t even the main one. But besides having the devil in her (as he felt most women did) she also had that sticky, sweet, oh so addictive honey inside her too. And so he stuck around. They all usually did.
But when she fell pregnant, it was between him and the main man. She counted her weeks and was pretty confident that it was his. Nobody came to the birth. But that baby had her mama’s face… On that man’s head. With that man’s color. His cotton wool hair. Nah, couldn’t be his. But she went to court over it and the law said she was his, so…….
He did nothing. Literally. He felt nothing for the child but a passing affection. Not one a parent has for a child but one where an adult recognizes that a child is present and is funny the way kids are and cute and so here is a little pat on the head, for existing. He would deposit her with his mom or one of his sisters, who was eating herself to death while she watched The Young and the Restless, and he would go who knows where to get drunk off his arse.
The other man treated her as his own, so he let him. Didn’t give the child one nickel or thin dime. But the law said he had to do the visitation thing, so he did. It wasn’t until now that he wished he had terminated his parental rights.
She was a good child. Quiet, obedient. Didn’t look put off or offended when he stumbled in, threw a crumpled dollar at her (which big auntie took and got a Big Gulp. She shared it during Days of Our Lives, don’t worry) and drifted towards the garage, hooch in hand. She would not see him again for the rest of the weekend.
As she got older she began to come over moreso to spend time with her cousin and Big Aunt (who had gotten so much bigger). At this point there was no need, so he thought, to pretend they were not strangers. How was he supposed to know she still thought of him as her daddy? Yeah he knew she was told that, called him that, but come on. By this time the other guy had left too. How was he to know that know she thought he would finally fill the void?
She started being more affectionate toward him. Started wanting hugs, to sit on his lap, to know what he was doing. (Even when he reeked of that rot gut liquor. She was not ashamed of him, as children are very forgiving, understanding, in their way.) She got older, more talkative, able to hold a real conversation. He knew her mama wasn’t affectionate towards her kids. So he should have known why she turned to him.
He instead, shall we say, misinterpreted her affections. Blamed her for his confusion, his mistake. Claimed she had the devil in her, the seductress, just like her whore mother, just like all of them women. Said she knew what she was doing. Said he was drunk, had a moment of weakness, was not a bad man. A bad father, yes, but not a bad man. Certainly not a pedophile!!!
His ex stood by him. Said she was (fairly) certain he wouldn’t do something like that, but she couldn’t be one hundred percent. His mother loved her grandbaby but our people just didn’t do this kind of thing (or, they certainly didn’t put their business out here like this!!). His sister stood by him, yeah she often fell asleep after her binge sessions of her stories but (aside from sometimes playing “hospital” when they was kids) she knows her brother could never! His oldest daughter, from a previous relationship, declined to comment-but she would not meet anyone’s eyes.
Ultimately his own testimony (“Maybe I did, but-”, and “If I did, it was only because-” or, “I cannot recall”) and DNA evidenced convicted him. He was sentenced to 7 years in prison (see previous) until she came of age. His ex, mother and sister were charged with child endangerment. Because they testified for the abuser, they were sentenced to probation. For 7 years. They would enjoy freedom. For now.
He’s been out here or a while. But she hasn’t come. He finally isolated himself in the woods. He thinks he vaguely remembers the story of Little Red Riding Hood scaring her when she was little. But was it because of the woods? Or because of the wolf? Hell if he knew. There were both out here, so…..
In the time he’s been out, the others have gone. Not naturally. And not so anonymously. Wherever he went, she would find him. And leave them there.
His loving mama was first. He woke up and she was in the guest bedroom, lovingly placed on the bed, in her finest two piece dress suit and her biggest Sunday hat. She looked so good he couldn’t even tell how she died. It wasn’t until he picked her up to take her to the backyard that her mouth fell open and he realized her tongue was gone. He screamed. The tongue was found the next day when he opened the Bible his mama had gifted him when he went to prison. It was at Revelation, if you care.
He fled to another location and lived in relative peace. He woke up to the static of the tv in the living room, and walked in to find Big little sister on the Couch, in her most festive XXXXL caftan, with a scalpel protruding from her chest. He found it ironic that she had been set in front of the boob tube, you know, since both eyes were gone. He later found those in the fridge. Go figure.
Again he ran. Her mama was next. Came from hunting and found her in his bed, naked, still gorgeous even in her old age, and with the mask of death upon her face. She was posed with red ochre spread across her womb and her hands over her ears. The ears, however, were gone. He found those in his bottle of moonshine. Goddammit.
So now, here he sat. In the woods. He thought he was the only one left until his Oldest daughter showed up a year or so ago. Said she got a letter saying time was up and she best go to this address and make the most of it. Or not. But his oldest girl was always a good girl, his little woman, and she came to her papa. They was going to go out together, he thought.
She used to be more chatty but all of that changed when she hit puberty. He admits He drank a lot around her and roughed her and her mama up a bit. Quite a bit. But she would be good to him when her mama wasn’t. At least that’s how he chose to see it.
She got real closed off all of sudden. Didn’t like to meet your eyes when she talked to you, if she talked at all. He (sort of) remembered the night her mama finally kicked him out, one night after a drunken brawl, she found him in their daughters bed, drunk, passed out, curled around the sobbing teen. She said she asked the girl if her daddy crept into her bed to “sleep” often. She dropped her eyes. Daddy woke up to a baseball bat to the noggin, and a packed suitcase.
‘Damn women’, he thought as he took a drag on the cig. He yelled at Older Daughter to get him some more damn coffee. Why’d he have to ask? Couldn’t she see the mug was half full? Idiot. And why’s it so damned cold in here? Didn’t that moron put enough wood on the fire. Where the hell is she, anyway? If he gotta get up-
The blow seemingly came from nowhere, knocking him out of his seat. He was ready to cuss Older Daughter to hell but looked up into- her face. A face that, over time, had become the perfect mix of his ex’s face… and his own. The sound that arose from him was bone chilling, a mix of anger and futility. (It evokes the feeling you get when you’re watching a movie and you realize that your favorite character might die, and they look into the camera with that, “I’m dead and I know it,” look. ugh.)
He turned his head to see his older daughter huddled in the corner, her legs pulled up, face buried in her knees, hands over her ears, rocking back and forth. He got the feeling that he had seen her that way before but couldn’t place it-
Orange hot pain erupted along with stars as the heel of Baby Girl’s boot came down on his nether regions. He could only whimper as she placed a heavy, booted foot on his chest. She waved a scalpel in front of his face. “Now, oh Daddy Dearest, you and I have a date. A daddy/daughter date!”, she said through gritted teeth disguised as a smile. “One of the clearest memories I have is when the nurse gave me a doll and asked me to circle with a red marker allllll the places you touched. Me and you are gonna replay it. Are you ready, daddy?” He looked through slitted eyes. The way she asked-“Are you ready, daddy?”, dripped with honey and venom. A memory tickled the back of his head. Damn.
She took a long time washing the blood off her hands. She took one last look at the mutilated corpse in the dining room, and turned to her older sister, still huddled and rocking in the corner. She walked over and stood in front of her for what seemed like forever. She crouched down in front of her. Older sister looked up. Met her gaze. Baby Sister stared back for a bit.
“You free now, too.”
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Therapy and art. The pic was a good match too. Brutal legal Justice. What a graphic yet calmly subdued story. So glad you wrote it. Glad 😌 I was privileged to read.
Thank you. Beautiful imagination for change.