The Time Keepers

Chapter 55

CHAPTER 55

W HEN C LAYTON GOT HOME, HE FOUND HIS FATHER SPLAYED out on the sofa drinking whiskey, the soft velour upholstery sinking beneath his wiry frame. His belt half unbuckled, Ross Mavis lifted the glass tumbler of Jack Daniels to his lips as he watched the evening news.

“Hey, boy,” he spat, lifting up his glass to acknowledge his son. Clayton had spent the past several hours putting the finishing touches on his fort with Bobby. His body was sore and covered with patches of dirt. A thin coat of perspiration glistened on his skin.

His father lifted his thick wrist from his lap and looked at his watch. “You’re late.”

Clayton eyes narrowed. “I was busy with something,” he answered curtly before he kicked off his shoes that were caked with mud and left them in the hall. “Jeez, I wish you’d just lay off.…”

“Don’t you go talking to me like that or I’ll shove some rocks down your throat to shut you up.” The old man snorted and lifted his glass to his lips. The orange hairs of his mustache cupped the rim of his tumbler as he took another swig.

There was a time, perhaps even as little as three months ago, that Clayton would have quivered at his father’s threats. But this time something has changed within him. His body has transformed over the past few weeks from sawing branches and constructing the fort with Buddy. Long, thick ropes of muscles have emerged on his once scrawny, freckled arms. So, as he pulls off his damp, sweaty T-shirt, revealing his stronger physique, he wants his father to take notice that he is no longer the little boy who had once been called a weakling and cowered in his shadow.

He stares at his father and considers if this should be the evening he finally knocks him down, and teaches him what it’s like to be hit with a fist.

He has endured his old man’s beatings for too many years. He’s been fed on a diet of anger and belittling as long as he can remember. The first time his dad hit him, he couldn’t have been older than four or five. He had no recollection of what he’d done to ignite his father’s ire, but he remembered the consequence, the force of his large, pulpy hand striking him. The pain as it flooded through his body and made tears spring from his eyes.

There would be so many more that followed, a dance of anger between his glass of whiskey and his son.

While his mother shrank in the kitchen, her hands knotted between the cloth of a tea towel, he was forced to count the number of lashings he received. What first began with the back of his father’s hand, soon expanded to include the strap of his leather belt. Recently his father had graduated to his clenched fist.

“You need to be punished, boy,” his father liked to say before sliding his belt from the loops or cocking his fist up to his eye. But now Clayton wanted to do the same thing to his old man.

He wanted to punish his father.

Ross Mavis, six feet tall, with ginger hair and matching mustache, rose from the mustard-colored sofa. The ice in his drank jingled as he steadied himself and began walking toward the table.

“What are you looking at, Clayton?” he jeered as he came closer until they were only inches away from each other. Clayton could smell the alcohol on his breath.

His father had been in a foul mood for nearly the entire three-month period since he’d been transferred up to the Northeast. He disliked everything about Bellegrove—perhaps even more than Clayton did. He detested his commute on the train. He hated his neighbors, who lived in such close range that he could hear their television when the windows were open. In Texas, they had lived on several acres, and he could do or say as he pleased without worrying whether anyone was spying on his business.

Clayton’s mother emerged from the kitchen. Pale and tiny as a church mouse, she lifted her hand to her mouth, but nothing came out. Over the years, Clayton had come to see his mother as one of those Russian nesting dolls. She had shrunk so many times into herself that one day he thought she might just disappear.

Clayton clenched his fingers to his side. His heart pulsed with adrenaline. His father had taught him many things, like how to shoot a deer, how to skin a squirrel, and how to clean the barrel of a shotgun. But he had also taught Clayton something he hadn’t intended. He taught him how to inflict pain.

“Your father …” His mother finally spoke. Her words floated through the air like spun sugar, weightless and without substance. “Doesn’t mean what he …”

Clayton lifted his arm back just as his father stepped closer, his menacing bloodshot eyes all too familiar to him. At the moment, his fist hit his father’s cheek, he felt the thrill of the impact ricochet throughout his entire body. Ross fell backward and his drink flew out of his hand. The glass fell to the ground and shattered into dozens of dangerous, tiny shards.

“You fucking idiot,” his father bellowed as he tried to raise himself from the ground.

Clayton threw his shoulders back and stared down at his old man as he struggled to regain his footing. Still drunk, and swearing incoherently, the left side of Ross’s face was red and had begun to swell.

“Yeah,” Clayton said as his mother scurried back into the kitchen to get the broom. “Tell me something you haven’t already said before.”