Anger and Disregard

When we recall the way we felt or cared for others it doesn't always tie the knot with how we behaved at the time. Actions speak louder than words some might say. The slight look of distress on my mother’s face was a piercing indication that maybe something terrible was wrong. My father’s laughter poured down relentless waves of joy, regardless of the storm that brewed within him. 

A slight smile ushers pure happiness. Disgust brings nausea. A puzzled look drives us into confusion. While a pair of closed eyes can transfer calm and cool to our bodies. All inflicted, absorbed and amplified through the eyes of a child. All considered, none of them can match with the weight and intensity of anger and disregard. 

My stepfather Kevin swore like a sailor. This may have had a little to do with the simple fact that he was once a sailor for the United States Navy. Stories be told, he had once lived an entire year under the ocean’s skin, in a state of the art submarine, with a dozen other bubbleheads. God knows how he passed the time in there. One thing was for sure, he never learned to mind his P’s, nor Q’s. 

He preferred to keep his past to himself. A past that we gained more and more insight to as we grew older. His parents were old fashioned. An abusive father, and a mother who did nothing as she looked on from the shadows. 

One summer, his old man had taken him and his sister to the Grand Canyon. Kevin always had a sweet spot for hiking, camping, and the great outdoors in general. When they arrived at Mather point, he stood seven thousand feet over the ravine, before his father picked him up by both of his arms, and dangled his scrawny eight year old body over. “You gonna fall, you little shit?”  

Decades later, he would bury his past at last, when he was able to finally put that miserable bastard in the ground. His mom would follow shortly after. When she died, it would be the first time I saw him cry. 

Up until the day he married our mother, He drank like a fish, and fished while he drank. Suds bubbling in the sun, as he cast his line into the water. He smoked stogies and the occasional weed from time to time. He was single and free. 

He had partied with the stars, but never let it get in the way of his work. It was always a constant in his life. He would wake up every day at the break of dawn, and eat the same slightly burnt peanut butter toast and watered down coffee. He packed his lunch in the same lunch pail and thermos like a mother would her child. He wore the same three piece suit to work, with the only daily variety being his choice in tie, in which his wardrobe held quite the selection. 

After walking down the aisle with our mother, he went from a single bachelor, to a stepfather of five. “Are you sure you are ready for all this?” she would ask. He loved my mother to the end of the earth. “I was born ready.” He wasn’t. 

He really did his best though, considering the circumstances. Jane couldn’t stand him. “I don’t have to listen to you. You aren’t my dad.” David never really got to know him. Benny was too busy immersed in the social realm of his teenage years. Kevin would slowly come to adore and empathize with Bryan, as he was the youngest of the bunch. As for myself, I would slowly bring out a temper in him that not even the greatest stoic’s could endure. 

  It wasn’t always that way, but it must have started somewhere. I mean, people don’t just come out full swinging. There is always a build up and a breaking point. If I were to guess, Kevin’s breaking point happened shortly after I quit the baseball team. He loved baseball. Loved it. He often watched the game on TV, and would follow the stats in the daily newspaper. When he signed me up for little league to play for the South Hill Colts. It was a way for him to connect with me in a way my father never could. 

He came to all of my games. As religiously as he did his morning routine, and watched me play. I was terrible at baseball, and didn’t really jive well with the other kids on the team. Their fathers’ would put so much pressure on them, they’d bet the title to their Mercedes to prove their boys were the best. Poor kids.

 Kevin wasn’t demanding of me at all. In fact, he just truly loved to watch me play. Maybe it was a way for him to relive a childhood he was robbed of. He would sit in the bleachers, bag full of sunflower seeds, and cheer me on. Every single game. 

I struck out often. Come to think of it, I struck out every time, save one. It was during one of our mid summer games when I stepped half confidently up to home plate, closed my eyes and swung hard. Swing and a miss. “Steeeeerike!” The umpire yelled. The next pitch came faster than the first. “Eeeerike!” Again the umpire shouted. I looked over to the bleachers to see Kevin give a confident nod, as a sunflower shell spit out from his bottom lip. The pitcher nodded to the catcher. I closed my eyes again and swung. “Crack!” I opened my eyes to watch the baseball fly high in the air and into center field. I was shocked. I looked over at my coach who was already shouting, “Run! Run! Run!” I ran. And ran. All the way to second base. My first double. 

I looked over at Kevin, and I could swear I could see tears in his eyes. Tears of joy, of happiness? Didn’t matter, he was ecstatic because of something that I did. A first for me. Neither of my two parents gave me much praise growing up. This was all too new. 

When the game was over, he doubled down, and we all went out for pizza. He replayed the experience to my mother with the look of splendor on his face. It was the proudest that I ever saw him.

 I quit the team the next day.  

As the following months and years came, I grew older, we grew apart, and his patience with me dwindled. No longer was I hitting doubles for his attention. The only kind of attention I would get from him onwards came in the form of four letter words and swift irritable outbursts. 

It grew progressively worse. He worked so hard from the start to gain our appreciation and respect. We gave him neither. We had a dad, and he wasn’t it. Over time, he kept to himself. He paid the bills, put food on the table, and made our mother happy in any way he could. And for him, that was enough. He cared for all of us deeply, but could only show it in ways us kids would never understand.  

I craved attention, and I needed a lot of it. As my mother was always too busy, and my father was never around, Kevin became a target for my attention. I learned to get under his skin the way a mosquito draws blood from its victim. Poking at him in just the right way until he would burst. 

The best time was at breakfast. Anything that would upset his routines, was a perfect time to draw out the worst in him. I would come into the kitchen and stand next to him, imitating all of his movements. He would sit down at the table. I would sit down at the table. When he got up to go to the fridge, so did I. He would let out a cough, I let out a cough. And so on. And so on. Until he couldn’t take it anymore. 

It would usually end with him storming off, yelling vulgarities, and my mother chasing after. “He’s just being a kid, Kevin. Lighten up,” mom would say. In his mind, “All the work and sacrifices I make for this family, and this is my treatment?” The anger and resentment steadily grew, and his capacity to better connect with all of us only diminished. 

Our mother tried. She really did. Although Kevin’s irritability was unwavering, unlike my father, he would never lay a finger on us. But the anger remained, and only grew the more that I poked at it. “Instead of yelling at him, maybe you can try to go for a walk. That way you can let off some steam. Save you the trouble,” she would suggest. 

One morning Kevin woke up. He rolled out of bed at the usual six thirty A.M., showered, flossed and brushed his teeth, put on his suit for work, and made his way to the kitchen at seven sharp. When he entered, I sat at the kitchen table waiting for him. “Good morning Kevin,” I said with a devilish grin. He hesitated, before returning the gesture. “Morning.” 

Walking over to the toaster, he inserted two slices of sourdough bread, and pressed down on the lever. Turning toward the fridge, I followed close behind. “Whatcha gonna have to drink? Orange juice? Milk? Water? Hmm? What’s it gonna be Kevin?” I poked. He let out a long sigh, and brought out the milk, ignoring me as best he could. The toaster popped the toast up, dark and crispy the way he liked it. “Toast is ready Kevin. Looks a bit burnt. Whatcha gonna put on it? Jam? Peanut butter? Cream cheese?” I poked. Kevin muttered a few curse words under his breath before reaching for the peanut butter. “Peanut butter, good choice.” I poked.

He sat down at the table and brought out the crossword puzzle, took a big bite, and eyed fourteen across. I sat close next to him, unnervingly close to him, eying his every movement. When he lifted his glass of milk to take a drink, I pretended to do the same. When he scribbled down a word, I did the same. I followed his every single movement, and stared, as his mood worsened and worsened. 

At that moment, I was about to open my mouth and say something snarky, when he anticipatedly stood up, with his fists clenched and yelled, “I can’t fucking take your shit right now!” He then got up, grabbed his coat, and stormed out the front door. He was going for a walk, so I followed him. 

“Are you angry Kevin? Going for a walk to let off some steam, huh?” He stormed up the street hard and stiff, with his fists still clenched from before. I followed. “Why are you so Angry Kevin?” I said, fully aware of the reasons why. Making it all the way to the top of the hill, he stopped, and turned around to face me. When he did, I looked at him and knew right then and there, that there was a limit to a person’s fury. All his past, present and future. The pain, the torment, the anguish, the suffering. All right there in front of me. 

“Will you please just leave me alone?” He was almost in tears. I looked back up at him with guilty eyes. Eyes from a child who wanted nothing more than to be understood, to be loved. I watched him as he stormed up the road and vanished, leaving me regretful, ashamed, and alone. So I went back. Back down the hill, and up to the house, where my mother stood waiting, disappointed and eyes cast down, as I sullenly made my way back inside.