Turning Point
If I push hard enough against this door, I can keep him out.
They say mums can lift cars off babies with adrenaline.
My muscles are burning and I’m groaning deep within my stomach from the force. But I can hear him roaring in the hall. He’s not even near the door yet. Mum’s crying again. Why don’t the neighbours ever help? I bet they can hear him.
I lessen the weight of my body against the door. Might as well conserve my energy. But I shouldn’t have dropped my guard. Here he comes...
It’s too late. I slammed my body against the door, but my scrawny frame is no match for his.
I’m thrown back hard and land on the wooden floor. Pain shoots through my left shoulder and my mind flickers from the situation, wishing for a split second that I had carpet in my room.
I scramble to my feet and leap onto my bed, thinking I must ask mum for a rug for my room later on tonight. So it won’t hurt so bad next time Mark does this to me.
“You little prick, stop runnin!” he grunts as he lunges. I roll away from him and dart back towards the door. We’ve done this dance so many times before. He’s stronger than me, but he’s slow.
I’ve run away before. Out of the house and away from him. But it just makes him madder. And I have to come home eventually. Where else can I go? It’s my home, not his. And mum’s too scared to kick him out.
With my back against the door, I try pleading with him. It might work this time. “Mark, I’m sorry. I didn’t know they were yours, I swear!”
He’s clenching and un-clenching his right fist. It’s weird, but I’m not as afraid of him as I used to be. Somewhere along the way I replaced fear with acceptance that this is just the way it is. But I still don’t like the pain. I’m running from the pain.
I overheard Mark telling mum that this is good for me, that it’ll help me “become a better man” and “learn respect”. That his parents disciplined him this way and it made him stronger. No one ever picked on him at school.
Well no one ever picked on me either till YOU came along, I wanted to shout at the top of my lungs. I’m embarrassed of the bruises and too sore to muck around with my friends, so we’ve grown distant. And I can’t play sport like I used to, because I’m afraid the other kids will see the scars and bruises in the change room. And I don’t want their questions.
But if I told Mark all this, he’d just hit me again. Because that’s what Mark does. He hits people.
He’s smiling now. But it’s more of an evil grimace. He’s sweating with fury and I can almost see the anger pulsing in his veins. He knows it’s over and victory is his. He can now beat me until he’s panting. Until I can smell the foul sweat patch spreading under his arms and his crotch.
But then there’s an almost audible click in my brain, and clarity is mine. I straighten my back against the door as Mark steps closer, his wicked smile fading now. “It was mine, Joseph,” he growls, so close I can smell the nicotine on his breath now. “So be a good boy and stay still for me.”
My hand has moved to the door handle but I keep my eyes on his fist. Just as he pulls it back for the first punch, I roll my body swiftly to the side and reef the door wide open.
His fist slams hard into the wooden door, cracking with the force. The door almost closes completely, but my foot forms a wedge and I use my good shoulder to force it open just enough to squeeze through.
Mum is standing in the hall, fingers digging hard into her scalp as always, her lips pulled back like she’s about to howl like a demon. Dumbfounded, her eyes silently plead for me to stop and let him do it. To let it be over with. Not this time sorry mum, I reply silently before running hard as hell towards the front door.
I hear Mum yelp behind me. He’s hurt her again. I force myself not to turn around. I can’t help her anymore. She brought the devil into our home and now she’s unwillingly become one of his helpers.
My surroundings were a blur as I sprinted as fast as my legs would take me. A stitch began to tug at my side, but I had to keep up the pace if I was going to escape Mark.
I’d tried this manoeuvre before and Mark had chased me down in his hideously oversized gas-guzzling ute. He loves that thing more than anything or anyone. I’ve had wonderful dreams of carving unspeakable words into the garish red paint and tearing the leather interior to pieces.
Mark’s never caught me when he chases me down. He simply revs the engine and yells abuse, cackling like a hyena. But when I get home, that’s when I really get it.
But this time I’m not going home. That’s the decision I’ve made. God, why hadn’t I planned this earlier? I really don’t want to go back. My mind flickers to the leer he has when he’s belting me. He enjoys it. Always. I wasn’t going through it anymore. There had to be a way out.
I couldn’t hear the gurgling of his ute, so I slowed to a jog. The sunlight was disappearing quickly now and the air had become chilly. I rubbed at my bare arms and looked around.
I’d ran half way to town.
I decided to keep running to stay warm, so I’d head all the way there. If I couldn’t figure out what to do when I got there, I’d just go to the police station.
But it would be my last resort, because I knew how this scenario ended.
Mark would deny it, like he always does. Saying he was smacking me for being a bad kid. And mum would back him up. She always did. And who’s gonna believe a teenage boy over his mum and step-father anyway? Especially in a small town where Mark was the cheapest mechanic around.
But who knows? Maybe I’d get lucky this time.
The first place I came across that was still open was the supermarket. The bright lights are harsh on my eyes. There’s hardly anyone shopping and only one girl at the registers.
She eyes me warily as I hunch my shoulders and disappear into the aisles. I’m thirsty after my long run. I grab the cheapest water I can find, but it isn’t cheap enough for the change I’ve got in my pocket.
I carry it as I wander aimlessly up and down the aisles, wondering if I could pretend I already had it when I’d walked in. But the girl at the register wasn’t even hiding the fact she was watching me. I could feel her eyes burning into me back so I decided against taking the water put it back before jogging out the front door, back into the cold.
I was engulfed in darkness and the wind had picked up, blowing ice through my bones. An elderly woman swaddled in an oversized wool coat glared at me, clutching her bag tightly to her chest as she passed by.
I looked at the ground and scowled. I wanted to scream at her. Do I look like a criminal to you? But of course the answer would be yes. Every teenage boy, alone and in the dark, looked like a criminal to old ladies. It was just a fact.
I looked around, desperate for somewhere to go. I eyed the local pub and stopped to think. Everyone in town knew Mark, and that I was ‘his boy’ for all intents and purposes. So they’d probably recognise me and kick me out of there. Or call Mark. I decided not to risk it.
It was lucky I didn’t, because just as I walked past the open doors, Mark’s apprentice Bobby stumbled out, his arm around Eve.
Eve was a young blonde girl that Mark had pointed out to us a few times when we were in town. He’d tell mum and I that she was the ‘town bike’ and snort with laughter. Mum would shake her head in disgust, but I noticed Mark always stared at her longer than he should, his ruddy face turning redder as he watched her.
I often wondered if Mark had had a ride on the ‘town bike’ and wished fiercely that he had, so that mum would find out and leave him. But I knew she wouldn’t leave him anyway. Even if he was cheating on her.
At first I thought Bobby hadn’t noticed me and I increased my strides away from them. But I was wrong.
“Oi! Whatcha doin out ‘ere on your own?”
I cringed and turned to face him. Bobby was only a few years older than me and was a clone of Mark. He worshipped the ground Mark walked on. It made me angry.
“I forgot something...at school,” I lied. I glanced at Eve, but she quickly dropped her eyes to the ground as she struggled to hold Bobby up beside her. He was trying to look at me sceptically, but he was far too drunk and it just looked like he was in pain.
“Come on. Time to go,” Eve muttered, dragging Bobby towards his car. It was almost identical to Mark’s.
Eve gave me a strange, knowing look before getting in the car. “Git on home, Joseph,” Bobby slurred loudly. I turned away from them. Only Mark called me by my full name. Everyone else called me Joey. But Mark said Joey sounded like a ‘poof’s name’, and no son of his was a Goddamn poof. I’d wanted to smack him hard across the face and scream Well I’m not your Goddamn son, am I?
It was getting colder by the minute and the shops were closed up for the night. Only the local fish and chip shop remained open, its lights inviting against the gloomy dark of night.
Gabriella worked at Dommo’s Fish and Chip shop, and she was really nice. She was in the year above me at school, but so smart she may as well have been five years older. Gabriella was school captain and really cute, in an easily approachable way. I sat behind her in Advanced Maths and we’d talked a few times.
As I pushed against the glass door, the warmth of the small room filled with deep fryers enveloped me like a loving hug. Dommo was reading the newspaper and looked annoyed at my intrusion. “Gabriella!” he called out, looking back at his paper and ignoring me completely.
She came bounding in from a side door, her face flushed and greasy. She smiled widely when she saw me, then frowned at what I was wearing.
“You do realise its ten degrees outside, right?” she laughed. I nodded and shoved my hands in my pockets, trying to pretend I wasn’t frozen solid.
“I left in a hurry. Forgot my jacket,” I mumbled with a shrug.
“In a hurry to see me?” Gabriella joked, her eyes twinkling mischievously. My stomach knotted at how much I liked her. But I could never ask her out. Never put her in danger of being so close to Mark. Not that a girl like Gabriella would ever have any interest in a guy like me anyway. My heart sunk.
Dommo sighed loudly. “You want food or not, son? We’re closing in a minute.”
Gabriella rolled her eyes.
“It’s ok,” I stammered, backing towards the door. “I came in to say hi. I’ll see you at school.” Gabriella nodded and I slipped outside, the bitter cold slapping me cruelly again.
But worse than the cold, Mark’s ute was parked across the street.
I gasped and froze, hoping he hadn’t seen me. But he had. The door creaked loudly as he stepped out, leaning against the cab and watching me with that evil smile. “Get in.”
My brain raced as I tossed up my options. Should I run? Or just succumb to my fate and get in with him? My heart thudded hard against my chest as I struggled to breathe. I didn’t have a plan. God how I wished I had a plan!
Mark took a step towards me and my survival instincts kicked in.
Without thinking I bolted away from him, hoping like hell Gabriella hadn’t seen me. My face burned with embarrassment at the thought.
That damn stitch screamed at me as I ran, but I heard the ute roar to life, the fan belt screeching in agony. I pushed through the pain as I heard the wheels squeal as Mark did a u-turn to come after me.
I sprinted up an alleyway and was engulfed in darkness.
It was a really bad idea.
Within seconds I had tripped over a stack of boxes and gone flying, smacking my head against the side of a large metal skip bin.
I gingerly touched where it hurt and felt the warm ooze of blood on my forehead. I winced as Mark’s ominous headlights appeared, burning my retinas. I held my arm up to shield my eyes as I scrambled to my feet, turning to run.
But only a metre from where I stood I now saw a brick wall. It was a dead end.
Panic ballooned in my chest. I was trapped.
I heard Mark’s door creak open as the ute continued to idle, the deep thrum of the engine reverberating inside me, only increasing my fear.
I was trapped and I was alone.
Backing against the brick wall I slid to the ground, wrapping my arms protectively around my legs. I closed my eyes and rested my throbbing forehead against my knees.
I was hurt, I was freezing cold and I wanted to go home. Fear gave away to acceptance as Mark’s boots crunched in the gravel towards me.
I scrunched my eyes shut tightly and tensed my body in anticipation. A matching pair of tears escaped from the corners of my eyes at the thought of pissing blood for another week of my life.
As I drew a sharp breath and held it, I heard a woman’s agonised cry and the reverberation of metal clanging against something hard.
A man groaned loudly.
I flung open my eyelids to see Mark’s lifeless body hit the ground hard at my feet.
I couldn’t breathe while I waited. But he didn’t move. He was out cold.
I stood up slowly, squinting against the glare of the headlights at the silhouette of a woman holding a shovel in her hands.
Was it my mum? Or worse, was it Gabriella? Did she somehow know my horrible secret about Mark?
“I’ve been waiting to do that for so fucking long. You have no idea.”
She turned to face the light.
It was Eve, staring down at Mark’s body in amazement.
I placed my hand on her shoulder to steady myself, but she jerked away from me.
“Sorry! Sorry!” she stammered, looking up at me dolefully. “I just... I just can’t believe that I did it.”
“You saved me,” I whispered in astonishment.
“I saved me,” she corrected, dropping the shovel to the ground with a loud clang.
She turned to walk away from us, but I grabbed her arm. “No! You don’t understand!” I pleaded, the truth gushing forth like a tidal wave of relief. “He beats me up. All the time. He was about to do it again, but you stopped him! Thank you...”
I shook my head in disbelief as Eve narrowed her eyes at me.
“Look,” she hissed, pulling a cigarette from her tiny bag and lighting it with trembling hands. “I don’t care what you tell the cops, but I’ve got video evidence of what he did to me. I was gonna have him arrested, but I saw him come up this alley and I...I just had to do that, you know? Before they locked him up.”
Eve sighed as she took a deep drag on her cigarette. My mind bulged. Video evidence. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I looked at Eve’s delicate features and saw no signs of bruising, only dark hollows of sleepless nights under her eyes. She wasn’t wearing much, despite the cold, and she had no visible marks anywhere else.
But then I remembered what Mark used to say about her, and I cringed.
He’d abused her too, but in a different way to me.
I let her walk away from us now, my guardian angel in the form of a town whore. Eve’s blonde hair swayed in the ice cold wind and a trail of white smoke hung on the air behind her as she went.
I watched until she was out of sight before I climbed into Mark’s ute, which was still idling loudly, and drove it home.
The police would arrive at our house eventually, and I needed to prepare my mum.
As I drove Mark’s monster of a ute through the dark quiet streets, I longed to ram it hard into a tree or a pole before I got home.
But I wanted to get home alive. I wanted to get home safely.
Because it was over now.
We were finally free.