It had been a long time since Joseph and Matthew had laid eyes on one another. Joseph had no way of knowing that while he worked, Matthew was in and out of that very home.
Joseph wanted me to say it, to tell him that we’d gone for a walk because lying lips, just like the thoughts of the wicked, were an abomination to God. He wanted me to say it aloud. He wanted the words to come from my mouth.
And they did.
And then he looked toward his son and said, “What did I always teach you, Matthew? Bad company ruins good morals. Isn’t that what I always said?”
And then it happened, just like that. Joseph was moving across the room, striking Matthew with that lamp base again and again on the side of the head. There were words my Momma only ever muttered under her breath hurled at the top of their lungs.
I tried to stop Joseph, to get him to stop beating Matthew, but he knocked me down to the cold, hard floor. It took a minute to get my bearings, to get back up on my feet, but before I knew it, Joseph had me on the floor again, and this time, there was blood oozing from my nose, thick and red and sticky.
It happened so fast.
The sound of the lamp base against solid bone.
A streak of crimson blood soared through the air, splattering on the oatmeal-colored wall.
Epithets muttered between gasping breaths: son of a bitch and bastard and prick.
Random objects used as weapons: the telephone, a vase. The TV’s remote control. Breaking glass. A cry. More blood.
Me, on the floor, in the tornado position, feeling the ground shake as though an earthquake was passing through.
And then Isaac was there, too, home from school or work I assumed, and Isaac and Joseph were beating Matthew so badly I don’t know how he managed to stay on his own two feet. I was crying out loud, Stop! And Leave him alone! But no one was listening to me. Matthew groped for a candlestick and managed to connect with the side of Isaac’s head, immobilizing him for a split second.
Isaac lost his balance and staggered, thrust a hand to his own head.
And when Matthew raised that candlestick, Joseph managed to knock it right on out of his hand.
I don’t know how long it went on. Thirty seconds? Thirty minutes? It seemed like forever, that I knew for sure.
And there was nothing I could do.
“So this was in self-defense, then?” asks Louise Flores. “Is that what you’re implying?” She thrusts up the sleeves of the scratchy cardigan and fans a spare sheet of paper against her head. She’s sweating. The day outside must be warm, spring morphing into summer. Beads of perspiration form on the bridge of her nose, in the wrinkles of her raisin-like skin. I see the sun through the lone window, pouring across the dismal room and filling the darkness with light.
“Yes, Ms. Flores,” I say, “of course.”
I still see Matthew when I close my eyes: the sight of him with blood streaked throughout his dark brown hair, running crossways down his face. He looked like he was ten years old that day, there in the living room, with Joseph and Isaac ganging up on him. I hated that I couldn’t do anything to stop it, but even worse, I hated what I knew Matthew was feeling: powerless and weak. His eyes gazed past mine and I knew that more than anything, he felt ashamed.
“After some time,” I admit to Ms. Flores, “Matthew left. He didn’t want to, you know. He didn’t want to leave me there in that home with them. But there was nothing he could do.”
I tell her how Matthew managed to drag himself out the front door and leave that ugly March afternoon.
I see it, still, Matthew all but crawling out the front door. I hear Joseph and Isaac laughing.
I hear them heckle Matthew as he crawled away.
“To where?” she asks. “Where did Matthew go?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know.”
I picture it: his sorry eyes settling on mine before he turned and moved out that door. Joseph and Isaac laughing mockingly, taunting Matthew out the door.
They figured they’d won.
But I knew this was far from through.
“And then what happened? Once Matthew had left?”
I pull back my hair and show her the crater Joseph left behind when he pummeled me with that lamp. He waited until Matthew was out of sight—Isaac still snickering, still calling Matthew a * out the front window—and he turned to me with the meanest eyes I’d ever seen in my whole entire life. He picked the lamp base up from the floor—dented at both ends—and smacked me point blank on the side of my head. I don’t remember it hurting so much, but I do remember its crippling effects: the way my body lost all feeling, lost its ability to stand on my own two feet, the way I crumpled to the floor and Isaac stood, watching and pointing. Laughing. I remember the blackness that crept in from the edges of my eyes until I could no longer see, the ugly words and voices in the background that ebbed until all was silent.
When I awoke I was in that bedroom of mine, on the bed, on top of the patchwork quilt, the door locked from the outside.
CHRIS