chapter 3
Cody Blue Smith was born to be somebody. His mother Jane, bored at becoming plain Jane Smith by marriage, vowed her son would never be. So she gave him a name that would upstage the Smith. Cody Blue would never be ordinary.
Life was hard for Cody Blue. He came from a poor family living in Pinetree, Florida, a small town in the middle of the state. It was a one light town, everyone pretty much knew everyone. The closest “big” city was Ocala which housed the nearest mall, the best chain restaurants and any decent kind of nightlife, save Pinetree’s local bar.
His family lived in a rundown wood frame house that his mother tried desperately to make a home. She had decorated it with needlepoint pictures and dried flower wreaths. Jane Smith was not a smart woman, but she was crafty and had a sense for color. So their house, while dumpy looking on the outside, did have warm touches inside.
Cody’s mother did not work. There were not many jobs to be had in their town and his family could only afford one car, so his mother stayed home and kept up the house while his dad worked as a mechanic at the local body shop.
But theirs was not a happy southern home in the country.
Cody’s father was a drunk.
An angry drunk.
People tried to sugarcoat his dad’s problem saying that he had a disease, that he was an alcoholic. Cody didn’t buy it. His dad was a sloppy lush and Cody hated him.
As a child Cody spent too many frightened nights hiding under his bed, waiting for his dad to come home. His arrival was like a tornado. Kevin Smith would barrel through the front door freshly pickled from the bar.
“Jane,” he yelled with a wicked mean drawl, “where’s my drink and dinner? How many times do I have to tell you to have my scotch neat and dinner hot ‘n ready when I get home?” His voice rose in anger as he stormed into the den. Kevin’s large frame filled the room, cold dark eyes darting back and forth.
“Kevin,” Jane said meekly, emerging from the kitchen, still clad in her apron. “Dinner is ready. It’s on the table.” She tentatively straightened her apron with shaking hands. “I think you’ve had enough to drink.”
“I think you think too much,” Kevin spat, moving closer so his words were just inches from her face.
She stepped back as tears filled her eyes. “Kevin, please.” Jane was a slight woman. Frail thin. “Don’t.”
“Don’t? Don’t? You gonna tell me what to do?”
As his voice rose, Jane began to retreat. “Cody’s here,” she whispered as the tears slowly rolled down her cheeks.
Kevin didn’t care. He saw her tears as weakness and like an animal with his prey in sight, he pounced. Kevin quickly grabbed Jane by the shoulders and pushed her up against the wall, pinning her wrists over her head. “I asked for something and I’ll get it! Why don’t you go to work and earn a living, woman? Then you can tell me how to be, but as long as I support you...you’re mine!”
Jane sobbed in pain, her wrists raw from his tight grip. “Kevin, I made you dinner. Please, please.”
“Oh, I love it when you beg baby,” he said, securing her wrists with one hand, unzipping his pants with the other.
“Kevin, don’t! Please.” Her voice was breathless with desperation.
“Don’t what, bitch?” he sneered, breathing his hot alcohol breath down her neck.
“Please stop. Please, please.”
“You’re not worth it you whore,” he said, releasing her wrists and zipping up his pants. She crumbled to the floor. “Where’s the boy?”
“No, Kevin. Leave him alone.” Jane tried to stand, but Kevin was already gone, plowing through their small house into Cody’s room.
“Cody!” he yelled, swinging open the door with such force and frequency that the wall had indented into a perfect circle where the doorknob had hit it so many times.
“Cody! Get out here!”
Cody held his breath under the bed. If he could be still long enough his dad might tire of this game and pass out.
“Cody!” his dad sing-songed, “Cody, Cody! Come out, come out wherever you are!”
His dad was suddenly lying on the floor staring straight into Cody’s frightened eyes.
“There you are you little bastard!” He ripped Cody out from under the bed.
“No, Daddy!” Cody was only ten. “Daddy, Daddy, no!”
His father didn’t care about his pleas or cries. He tossed Cody into the den. Cody’s mom trembled to her feet.
“Kevin, don’t you hurt him.” Jane threw her body in front of Cody’s.
“Outta my way.” Kevin hit her hard, causing her body to hurl back into a table. Her head smashed into a porcelain lamp. Large chunks of delicate blue crashed everywhere. Jane lie in a pool of her own blood, unable to move. But she was not unconscious. Her eyes flitted open, able to take in a scene her body could not prevent.
Cody began screaming hysterically in fear. He started to run to his mother, but his father pulled him back.
“You stay put,” he said taking off his belt.
Cody said nothing. Every muscle in his body tightened. He drew his arms over his face as a shield and tucked his head under knowing full well what was to come. Snap. The sharp sting of his father’s leather belt burned against his back. He refused to let himself cry in front of his father. He would not give his dad the satisfaction. Snap. The belt wrapped around him again like an angry snake. Cody bit his lip to prevent the wail that desperately wanted to escape his lips. He could taste salty blood in his mouth.
“What’s a matter boy, that doesn’t hurt?”
Snap.
The belt pummeled his little body. Cody fell to the floor unable to hold back the tears of pain.
“Just like your mother. Weak trash.” Kevin threw his belt to the floor and left the house.
“Cody,” Jane Smith said softly, “Cody are you okay?”
Cody tried to stand to get to his mother, but he couldn’t. He pulled himself forward with the palms of his hands, inching slowly across the floor.
“Momma, we need help.”
“No, no dear, I’m fine, just give me a minute.”
“No Momma.” His little voice was strong.
“Cody Blue,” she said with as much strength as she could muster, “you keep our family business to our family. You hear me?”
“Yes, Momma,” he answered, but he really didn’t understand at all.
His mother pulled herself up against an end table and stumbled to Cody. Pieces of the porcelain lamp crushed beneath her feet. She picked Cody up and took him to the bathroom to clean him.
Cody looked up at his mother. Her eye was red and swollen, blood trickled down her forehead, her cheek was turning purple.
“Momma, you don’t look so good.”
“Nothin’ a little make-up won’t fix,” she said removing his shirt, trying to hide her shock at the three angry red lashes that cut through her son’s skin. She lathered a washcloth with soap. “Now this’ll just hurt a little bit.” Jane gently touched her son’s back.
“Ow!” he cried in pain.
“I know baby, I know, I’m sorry. You know I love you. You’re my little man.” She cradled Cody in her arms, rocking him back and forth. Cody couldn’t figure his momma out. He wasn’t a man. He was just a little boy. And he needed her. If she loved him, why did she let this keep happening?
Jane finished washing Cody and put him into bed.
“I’ll be right back,” she said.
Cody heard her chain lock the front door on her way to her bedroom. A few minutes later she was back at his bedside in her nightgown.
“Cody, are you okay now?” She looked at him with care, face splattered with bruises.
“No.” She looked scary to Cody.
“Cody, your father is a good man.”
Cody winced.
“I know you don’t believe that, but he is. He supports us, keeps food on the table and a roof over our heads,” she paused, “You know when I grew up I didn’t have a daddy. My daddy left my momma to fend for herself with four kids. Now your daddy isn’t gonna do that to us. He just drinks a bit too much. But he loves us. He loves us.” She gently stroked his hair.
Cody knew this speech was more for her benefit than his. He knew she needed to tell him this to convince herself of why she should stay with his father. Cody didn’t get it. He couldn’t imagine anything worse than this.
True to form, his dad showed up the next morning sober with a big hangover and a small bouquet of convenience store flowers. His memory of the night before was predictably distorted.
Kevin knocked on the door. Jane opened it, leaving the chain firmly in place.
“Janie, I’m sorry,” he said, shoving the bouquet through the crack in the door.
His mother pushed the flowers back. “Sorry and flowers ain’t enough,” her voice was flat. A chained door gave her confidence.
“Aw, Janie, I know. I’m sorry though. Really I am. I don’t know what else to say.” He moved the flowers back through the door.
“This can’t happen again,” Jane said as if her words really meant something.
“I know. I know.” His southern drawl was soft.
“I’m serious. Cody and I can’t stay in a situation like this.” Jane pressed her body against the door and fingered the petals on the flowers, purple irises that matched the splotches on her face.
“Jane, I’ll try, I’ll really try this time.”
Cody listened from the doorway of his room. He couldn’t figure out why his mother even bothered. He knew it would happen again. She knew it would happen again. His dad knew it would happen again. He hated the charade that this time things would be different.
“You can’t just try Kevin. You have to do it. You’re a daddy. My God, what you did to little Cody...” her voice trailed as tears ran down her face.
“I love my boy, I do. I’m only tryin’ to do what’s best for him...workin’ long hours so he can have a nice life. My day’s a hard one...a drink takes off the edge. I guess I shouldn’t have so much.”
“No you shouldn’t.”
“Let me make it right, Janie. Get Cody, I want to talk to him.”
“I’m not going to let you hurt him.”
“Janie...I keep us clothed and fed, don’t I?”
“It doesn’t give you the right...”
He cut her off. “I support you and I always will.”
Jane thought for a moment. “Cody,” she said meekly.
“That’s my girl.”
Jane cringed. “Cody.”
This time, Cody did not come to the door as asked.
“Cody!” She called again.
Cody stood firm in his doorway, no apologies this time.
“Hold on, Kevin,” his mother said softly, walking from the door to Cody’s room.
“Cody,” she bent down to his level, “Your father’s sorry. Let him tell you.”
“No,” Cody whispered firmly.
“Cody, he’s your daddy, show some respect.”
“Momma, I can’t.” He had seen his swollen back in the mirror this morning. It was raw looking and it hurt, on the outside and the inside. This wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last. He was too afraid to see his father.
“Cody Blue,” she said sweetly brushing his bangs from his forehead, “do it for me.”
His mother touched on his weak spot. He couldn’t turn her down, but he couldn’t agree with her either. So Cody said nothing and let his mother lead him by the hand to the chained front door. He saw his dad’s eye peering through the crack.
“Cody,” his dad said, “I’m sorry boy. You know I love you.”
Cody said nothing.
“Cody,” his mother prodded, looking at him with expectant eyes.
“Yes Daddy,” he spoke to the floor.
“Now, Jane, why don’t you open this door and let me hug my family?”
Jane obliged and Kevin entered embracing Jane, then Cody. All Cody could feel was the sharp sting of his father’s arms against his swollen back.
And so was Cody’s life. There would be periods of calm and then the rage. By the time Cody was fifteen he’d learned to take it, but he also knew he had enough. For years, a journal had been his only escape. Cody wrote every thought, every action, every emotion on the neatly lined pages. The words were a release from his pain. He kept his journal in a lock box, safe under his bed. It was his paper psychologist, enabling him to relieve his pain and see his future clearly, a future far away from this life.
At fifteen Cody was no longer a young boy, he was a grown man. Six foot three and all muscle. Cody worked out every day strengthening his body as a defense against his father. He joined the track team at school. This gave him access to the weight room. Each day after class, Cody would go and train. He was extremely disciplined. He’d work with weights, firming every muscle, and do sit-ups until his stomach burned. Every rep was one step closer to unbreakable strength.
Cody’s training had other benefits. Cody already had the looks: short chestnut brown hair, bright blue eyes and model like features. His newly firm body brought a lot of attention from the girls. Cody wanted to date them, but couldn’t. He didn’t want to get into a relationship where someone would be asking questions or want to come to his house. So no relationship ever went beyond a casual date. This made Cody even more mysterious and desirable to the girls at his high school. He had a large contingency of female fans at every track meet. He loved the popularity, hated the circumstances.
His father still lashed out in drunken bouts, but Cody didn’t fight back.
Not yet.
He wanted his body in perfect condition before he took his father on. He was physically ready to do it, but when the time arose, he couldn’t. Something in him did not allow him to strike his father.
So Cody got a gun.
It was a rainy night. Kevin came home, drunk again, screaming his usual tirade at his mother who was cowering in the corner, taking punch after punch. Cody pulled the silver revolver from under his mattress. He bought it three weeks ago from his friend Roy who worked at the pawnshop in town. Roy sold it to him for fifty bucks at the back door of the store.
“Dude, don’t say where you got this, I could get in big trouble,” Roy said as he handed Cody the gun and slipped the carefully folded bills into his pocket.
“I won’t,” Cody promised and took his piece of mind back home, hiding it in his room.
All he needed to hear were the screams. He looked down at the gun in his hands. He’d never fired one before. He pointed it at the wall and took aim, placing his index finger on the trigger wondering if he had it in him.
“You whore bitch!” he heard his father yell. And then his mother was crying.
Oh, yes, he did.
Slowly, Cody walked out of his room, a sense of calm coming over him. He tiptoed into the room. His father’s back was to him. Kevin was bent over Jane, too busy screaming at his mother to hear Cody approach. He turned when he felt cold steel against his forehead.
“Get up,” Cody said evenly.
“What the...?” Kevin spun around and swatted at Cody. Cody ducked. His dad was drunk, Cody was alert and strong. He’d been preparing for this moment for years.
His dad came at him again. Cody stepped aside and turned to punch his father as he flew by. Kevin stumbled to the floor. Cody pointed the gun at his father.
“I will shoot you if you come after my mother or me again. I will call the police if you don’t leave.” His voice was strong, his hand steady, his heart terrified. “This is not a threat.”
Kevin tried to get up and lurch at Cody. Cody cocked the gun. The loud click silenced Kevin.
“Get up,” Cody said, motioning the gun at his father, “get up and don’t you ever come back.”
Kevin scrambled to his feet. “You’ll be sorry. Try livin’ on your own bright boy,” he spat and tumbled out the door. Cody immediately ran to the door, locked and chained it, then turned to his mother.
“It’s over,” he said, lowering the gun.
His mother looked at him with fear in her eyes.
“Cody Blue, what do we do now?”