The Picture Frame

The Picture Frame

The smell of burnt toast, spoilt fruits, and farts somehow fills the room. Micheal stands there grimacing at the state of the place. His initial worry of getting entangled in a murder plot has subsided. He walks into the living room, trying to make sense of things. The darkroom feels like a cage, trapping and destroying his childhood all at once. The sound of things falling to the ground brings him from his daze.

“Hello! Dad?” His voice comes out squeakier than he would admit. He nervously toys with his ring waiting for an answer.

The older man groans as he stumbles out of the bedroom, barely dressed and with a bottle in his hand.

“Mikey boy!” 

Alton raises his hands in excitement before plopping them down as if they were heavy. The man could barely stand. He rubs one hand through what’s left of his hair then takes a swing out of the bottle in the next hand.

“Isn’t it too early for that?”

“It’s never too early for a beer boy.”

Micheal looks at his father. Naturally, his lips curl with disgust. He looks around the room with a scowl. The place is a mess. Nothing is where it used to be, in fact, nothing is where it should be. The vase lies broken on the wooden floor; the flowers it once housed lie next to it dead. Even the walls had given up. Rust, stains, and dirt pile on the white coat. 

“It looks like someone broke in here.” 

Micheal waits for a response from his father. The older man simply takes a sip, finishing the bottle then slams it on the counter. He pushes past his son as he makes his way to the fridge for the next one.

“You can’t live like this.”

As soon as the words hit his ears, Alton laughs, mockingly. He grabs the shirt on top of the fridge, smells it, grimaces then throws it on. Micheal watches painfully. He lowers his head in defeat, ready to leave and put this and any chapter involving his father behind him. Without speaking he begins to walk to the door. The sight of a broken picture frame catches his eye. He stares at the thing for what seems like forever. His eyes daze, making everything blurry. He feels everything in him shaking, and the room moving him. He stumbles back, quickly catching himself by holding on to the couch. The material is sticky and he retracts his hand quickly before rubbing it onto his grey sweatpants. His eyes, however, never leave the frame. 

“Where is it?”

Micheal bites his lips to fight the tears threatening to fall. His fists decide to fold and he stands there shaking with anger, hatred, and whatever else emotion his father forces him to feel. The older man’s brown eyes follow his son’s eyes. He looks down unable to meet the brunet’s graze. This only fuels Micheal’s anger. The frame once held the most important thing in his life.

“Tell me where it is! Tell me!”

The man says nothing as he stands beside the furnace in the apartment.

“You can’t even look at me. What kind of father allows himself to reach a place where he can’t look at his son.”

“You don’t understand, you couldn’t understand.” The words come out in a croak. 

“Where is it? Huh, where is my mother’s picture?”

“It’s gone.”

“No, the fuck it is not!”

The words came outer than he intended, the old man jerks before taking a seat on the floor.

“It was fading, Micheal, and the more I tried and I swear to God Micheal I tried but it only got worse.”

“Because you break everything. What do you want? You want sympathy. I am sorry Alton, I have none to give you right now. Check back when a fucking time machine has been invented or when they start raising the dead.” Micheal pauses and he tries to catch his breath. His breathing is labored as the weight on his chest presses down, crushing him.

“Micheal, please relax.” The older man rushes to his feet. He quickly erases the distance between them and grabs his son’s hand.

“It's okay,” he soothes, rubbing his son’s back gently.

“You got this, just find your way back. I am here. I am here son, I am always here.”

Alton’s words are both a knife and a saving hand for Micheal. Broken, he sits on the floor afraid of what he might find on the couch.

“I begged you,” Micheal whispers. He finally loses the battle with his tears as they stream down his face unapologetically. 

“I begged you to give me that picture dad. It was all I had left of her. It was the only picture we had left and I begged you.”

Micheal places his head between his bent knees, rocking himself back and forth trying to find some comfort.  Alton sits beside him and reaches out to hug him but Micheal pulls away. As if finally realizing that he was losing her again, a wounded sound comes from Micheal’s lips. He grips the yellow carpet needing something to hold on to. He pulls up taking with him some of the fabric as he screams and screams. The pressure needs to come off his chest, if not the weight could kill him.

At the sight of his son, Alton feels his body comvulges. He closes his eyes, unable to look at anything, unwilling to feel anything more than what he is already feeling. How had he become this person?

“I am so sorry Micheal. I should have given you the picture. I knew it was safer with you, I did. I just couldn’t part from her again. I couldn’t.”

“So you took her from me instead.”

Alton stands and walks towards the counter where he left his bottle. He takes a swing of it then another and a next until the taste of cheap beer was the only thing on his mind. In that brief minute, he was not the husband who couldn’t provide nor the father that failed. He was just him and all needed was to be forgiven.