Adam’s Morale

Adam Morale was a good man. He woke up every day in his countryside home, washed, kissed his wife, and worked the land to provide for his family. Always consistent with his duties, overwhelming in his affections, and present for his four sons. A husband twice over in devotion, a father unyielding in care, and a man whose righteousness seemed unshakable.

His life, to anyone who knew him, was near perfect.

But even perfection doesn’t bloom from nothing.

Adam was born in New York City, where sidewalks pulsed with life and the streets were an endless stream of yellow cabs. He lived in a rather luxurious studio on 121st and Broadway — a place rich in appearance but hollow in warmth. Adam’s father, a man of hunger and vices, was rarely far. He drank in his study, entertained women of the night, and carried on as if the boy were invisible. Invisible until Adam was reminded otherwise.

Adam’s father was not a gentle man; his lessons were not tender to the needs of a young boy. Where there should have been love, there was only discipline. Where there should have been safety, there was only pain. It was these trials that shaped him, strengthening both body and spirit, until nothing in the world could bend him.

In his later years, Adam left the city as soon as he could, graduating at the top of his class with a degree in agriculture. It was there he met Sherry, who turned out to be the love of his life. They married soon after, and not long after that they welcomed their first son, Amon. With Amon’s arrival, Adam felt the cycle could be broken — that he could give his children what he was denied.

Unbeknownst to Adam, he was about to face one of his greatest struggles yet. For sons are not blank slates. Amon grew clever and defiant, a fox in the henhouse. Each day’s labor became a battle of wills. Adam, who sought peace, now faced the same struggles his own father once faced. And in this tension — between the man Adam strove to be and the man he had been shaped into — rested the true measure of his character.

Every decision, every correction, was for their good. Sometimes an iron fist was needed, sometimes a stern word. This was a father’s duty: to guide, to shape, to ensure the webs of his sons’ lives were twisted straight, even if that meant leaving scars unseen by the world. Adam reminded himself, calmly, that the heart sometimes demands discipline over comfort. And if the family didn’t realize it now, then one day they would understand.

Amon was clever, yes. And extremely stubborn. But the world would be a cruel place if a father did not prepare his son. A life lived soft is a life shattered when the hurricane hits. Adam wouldn’t allow it. Not to his children. Not ever.

Sometimes a lesson needs to be felt, not understood. It is only then that a boy learns his place — and his limits.

Amon’s Will

Do you think you know my father? You think you know Adam? The man who is supposed to be my father? I can assure you, anything you think you know is a facade. A farce presented to the public while the family takes the brunt of his true self behind closed doors. See, my father is a farmer, that much is true; but it is only his blessings that he has ever soiled for as long as I’ve lived.

Father was never truly present. His body in the home, while his mind floated into another plane — at the bottom of a bottle or wandering the fields he never bothered to tend.

I recall one night in particular. Mother and Father were in the kitchen arguing, though the only voice heard for the next few miles was my father’s. I viewed it secretly from the stair railing, so it was hard to make out what was being said by my mother. The words I could catch from her whispers, from reading her lips, led me to the conclusion it was something about the home going into foreclosure. But before she could finish her thought — like a crack of lightning to a dry field — my father threw his open hand across her face, leaving her stunned and beet red. His handprint was clearly visible. This was his discipline.

“Only out of love,” he’d say. To him, love was the mark on her skin. The fear in the eyes of his sons when he roared. The bitterness of dinner from a harvest he’d forgotten to pick. Love was him telling us all that we should be grateful for his mercy, that he could always do worse.

And the worst part? For a while, we all believed him.

This guise he presented was used to twist everything. If he struck me, I needed to “toughen up.” If he humiliated my mother, it was only to “teach her a lesson.” When he disappeared for days and returned with only the stench of whiskey and days-old perfume, he’d smile and claim, “A man will do what he wants.”

Our land held the truth. It told tales of neglect, with the soil cracking beneath the sun, strangled by weeds. Weeds that my brothers and I were left to manage while my father stumbled around with a flask pressed to his lips. The only thing my father planted was poison. My brothers and I had to learn early on that food came from our mother’s labor, from scrubbing the floors of other homes, not from the sweat on our father’s brow.

Even when my grandfather moved in — after being left in a chair from an accident — Father’s charade was always on. “Family is family, I’ll take care of the old man,” he told the neighbors. But in truth, all my father cared for was the settlement Grandpa received, just so he could use it to pay the bills.

To this day, Grandpa still has to wheel himself out to the porch, his tired face embraced by the beams of morning light peeking through the trees — as my father made his way out the back door with a half-empty flask, off to continue another one of his benders.

I’ve held my tongue for years, but I can’t pretend anymore. To live in this madness, this never-ending cycle of people I love and care for so deeply getting hurt just so this man’s pride and image won’t be tarnished.

No more.

So hear me now. If I’m gone, if my voice is silenced, let these words hold my truth:

My father is not the man you think he is.

He is not righteous.

He is not honorable.

He is most certainly not the “good man” who wakes up in the countryside, kisses his wife, and works the land to provide for his family.

He is a liar, a cheat, and a manipulator. Do not fall for his mask. For underneath it all is only the rotting face of a man being devoured by angst and self-pity.

If these pages reach you, know this: I did not die by chance. I did not wander off or run away. If I vanish, it was my father who did it himself.

Epilogue

Adam Morale stared into the journal. Still. Silent. Amon’s handwriting slanted across the page like an open wound, breaking down the character that was Adam. For a moment, silence pressed against the walls of Amon’s room.

Then, Adam dipped his pen.

“Adam Morale is a good man,” he wrote carefully, the words steady, intentional, smothering everything that came before. Leaving streaks of red as his hand crossed the page.

With a twisted, serpent-like grin stretching across his face, he whispered, “Adam Morale is a good man.”

He underlined it once. A chuckle, low and restrained, began to echo through the room. Then again. Until the ink bled through the page. Until the truth was torn through and burning in black.

And in the quiet corner of his mind, he smiled, and thought: Look how easily a story can be rewritten.