Keeping a Handle on Things

10 year old Pete sat in the passenger side of his father's dingy green nova and looked out the window while his father drove along the interstate. The orange street lamps seem to float by his eyes, each one acting like a beacon that told him he was going far away from home.

The sickly green interior seemed to match how Peter felt inside this mobile prison. The air inside the nova felt heavy, almost suffocating with a stench of old motor oil soaking the inside, while the headliner drooped downward like a deflated balloon.

He dared not look at his father and his baleful, bulging green eyes and malicious grin. Peter tried his best to keep his eyes from watering, but he found it difficult. 

His father, John, a big and heavy-set man in his 40s, had recently won parental visitation rights from the court, and he was...relishing this victory. His vicious smile grew uncomfortably wide, almost alien. The gutteral giggles sounded even more repulsive. It was like watching a hideous parody of a clown.

John grinned again and started chuckling. "Here we go! I'm taking you away from your mother, Petey!! Hee, hee, hee, hee! Just watch him! Watch him!" 

"Ya gonna open the door and jump out!? Ha, ha, ha ha ha ha!!. I'd love to see a little baby like you try!!"

Peter's eyes filled with tears as the seatbelt held him in place like a vice grip, cutting into his already aching ribcage.

 "The court decided this!"he wanted to scream. "The court didn't care! About me, my Mom, or what we went through! "

"Rules are rules!!"

His mind filled with memories of his mother. He remembered the nightly lullabies she used to sing that were comforting. Her voice was full and elegant as if she were a trained opera singer, yet soft as velvet.....until John came and ruined these moments singing the same melody with his raucous grating voice singing in an overbearing, mocking tone that was filled with all the derision of a jeering crowd watching the execution of a condemned prisoner.

Even now, that lullaby hung in his mind as a constant reminder of how small and helpless he was in the face of his father's unpredictable and violent mood swings.

He remembered that wonderful day when she came to pick him up from school unexpectedly. When he approached the car and saw her, he asked what was happening, and she told him that they were leaving his father for reasons of safety. For the first time, Peter felt a warm feeling inside, like that glimmer of light in long dark tunnel.

She had won custody in court, and she desperately tried to keep the idea of visitation off the table. She had come home that night in tears as she sat down on the rough, orange fabric of the old couch and placed her head in her hands.

"I tried!",she cried out. "I really tried! But the court didn't listen!!"  

Eyes brimming with tears at the memory, Peter turned away . He felt John's bulging green eyes on him, boring into his very soul, taking what he wanted and leaving behind a cowering child unable to move.. He could almost feel the mood in the little nova darken like a wall cloud forming on the horizon. 

He fingered the door handle slightly, as if it might be his only chance. The nova was going 60 miles per hour, and the road had lots of bumps and potholes that jolted the car. "You'll get crushed!",.he told himself. Suddenly, he pulled on the little handle and the door half opened, catching on the lock so that it rattled.

Peter didn't hear the backhand coming. It slammed like a steel ball against his left cheek, rattling his sinuses, knocking his face to the window and causing a welt to appear. At the same time, John reached across the seat and tried to shut the door, but the nova lunged to the right, almost running into the rocky cliffsde.

"Damn!!"....

John gripped the wheel hard,slammed on the brakes. The tires squeeled in protest as the nova careened sideways, nearly causing another vehicle to slam into us. The jagged rocks grew larger and larger in Peter's vision

He snarled and growled at Peter.

"Now look what you made me do! Quite acting like a baby! Act like man!!,"John growled through gritted teeth as he attempted to steer the nova back onto the interstate. The gravel rattled the wheel wells as the back tires screeched, trying to find some traction. This time, the little green nova slid backward towards the rocks.

John gritted his teeth and snarled, sweat dripping on his brow. Peter's breath caught in his chest while the seatbelt held tightly to him in an unforgiving embrace.

Suddenly, the little nova hit the rocks on the driver's side, glass shattering and spilling on the seats and peppering both of them. The doors groaned and buckled while Peter felt the passenger side rock and hit the ground. 

Peter's body felt the shock of the impact hit him like a tidal wave trying to rip him away for the car. For a moment, he his vision blurred, staring at the cracks in the windows.

He looked to his left and saw his father slumped over on his left side, a small trickle of blood splattered on the crumpled remains of the door.

"Ummmm.... Daddy?", his voice shuddering in a timid whisper. He whimpered as he thought about touching him.  

Suddenly the wrenching sound of twisted metal broke Peter out of his daze as he saw a trio of EMTs at his side, freeing him from the seatbelt.

"It's okay, son".one of them said. Peter looked at the man with brown skin and dense kinky black hair, peppered with gray. He felt his whole body being lifted and taken away from the wreckage of the little, green nova while others tried to free his father.

Bright red and blue flashing lights lit up the whole area, flooding his eyes while he was placed on a stretcher.

"What's your name, son?'

Peter looked up at the EMT. His mouth opened, but no words came out. "I know who I am," he tried to say, but he was frozen, and his voice barely made a crackling sound while the EMTs worked

His eyes drifted as he gradually started to fade.

"I've got no pulse!", he heard someone say just before losing consciousness. 

Fog

More fog.

"Hello?!"

"Hello, Peter, " a deep, resonating voice said to him. It seemed to come from nowhere and yet everywhere.

Suddenly, Peter turned around in the endless white fog and found himself looking up at the same EMT that pulled him from the car. He gasped, or at least he thought so.

The EMT's face seemed to soften and glow slightly as he put his arm around Peter's shoulders and guided him to a park bench and sat down.

"Peter," he said softly, his voice, pleading. "Did you want him to die?"

Peter thought about protesting and shouting, but here, in this place, it was like being covered in a blanket and just feeling safe. He didn't have it in him to protest or scream, but his eyes looked down, and his face flushed with shame.

"Peter, it's okay. I know you hurt! I'm not blind, you know."

Peter sat there on this park bench with this being that seemed to be able to see right into his soul and lay it out bare for him to see. Yet in spite of all that, Peter felt like he was okay here.

The being let go of Peter for a moment and looked him in the eye.  

"Peter, its time for you to go back.", he said gently.

"But......"

"Shhh.. Peter. Always remember that even when you face a hardship, I am with you and I will give a strength to endure and I guarantee you that it's an endurance like no other."

Peter sighed and bowed his head in acceptance.

"Now you keep a handle on things, you here?",.the being said.

Smiling, Peter nodded.

"Peter!!"

Suddenly, Peter awoke with a start hearing his father shout. They were back in the dingy green nova again and he looked out the window and saw his .mother's house.

Peter opened the door and stepped out into the gravel driveway and looked over his shoulder as his father drove off.

He had turned back and headed to the familiar flight of stone steps when he felt something in the pocket of his raincoat. He pulled it and found that it was a door handle from a nova..

.