The Bully, the Mother by Mike Miller
When Jesse learned what the word "bitch" meant, he knew right away that his mom was one. What Jesse didn't know was why his good friend Fernando was giggling so hard.
"Seriously?" Fernando asked between coughing guffaws. "You never heard the word 'bitch' before? Ever?"
"Sure," Jesse tried to lie, bashfully looking away from his condescending eyes. "I've heard the word before."
But Fernando could tell Jesse was clueless. "I mean, don't you ever watch TV? The internet? These days, everyone's a bitch. I guess you don't watch any good shows."
"I told you I know," Jess said and forcibly shoved Fernando playfully. It caused the small boy to trip to his side as they walked along the pavement, but didn't phase him for a moment emotionally.
"Yeah," agreed Fernando. "Good." He made his hand into a tiny fist, and the two bumped them together to bid their daily farewells. Fernando hopped up the steps of his apartment's stoop while Jesse roamed head to his apartment on the next block.
At the top stair to his building, he turned and shouted, "Your mom's a bitch!"
Jesse returned the sentiment with a friendly wave. But when Fernando dashed away with delivish glee while other passers-by watched the exchange with looks of revulsion, Jesse wondered if he really understood the meaning of the word.
So after letting his backpack and shoes fall into a dishheveled lump on the hallway floor as if the rest of the boy had just evaporated, Jesse decided to get another opinion.
As was usual for the afterschool return, Jesse's mother was standing in the kitchen watching TV. On the tiny countertop screen was a large woman with short hair. The lady wore fancy makeup with lush lips that sparkled like pink glass. Yet all that glamour was lost in her sadness. With her bombastic sobbing and downpour from each turqoise-painted eyelid, it was as if the woman felt compelled for the depth of her agony to match her girth. Next to her was a man in a beige suit, holding a microphone with one hand while rubbing the sad woman's shoulder. An audience continued to applaud at the entire spectacle.
"Dumbass," scoffed Jesse's mom. She tapped some smoldering cigarette ash into a coffee cup. A slow exhale of smoke surrounded the small tv set as if damning the on-screen characters to die in a miniature gas chamber.
"Hey, Mom," called Jesse as he dived into the refrigerator. Fetching a bottle of fruit punch and oversized souvenir cup, he began to pour himself a drink with his two small hands carefully steadying the heavy tube of fluid.
Jess didn't bother to look at his Mom when he talked, and she didn't look at hm either for the response. "Hey, sugar."
Once the glass was filled to the top, Jesse ravenously guzzled it down. He always liked to pretend that he was drowning, that he had to take the whole thing in one long gulp or else die. Once again, Jesse did not drown and rattled the cup into the sink, which clattered atop some other dirty dishes.
In the living room Jesse's baby sister Tonya played with some blocks, picking them up then smashing them down again. It looked like fun and he was eager to join, when suddenly he remembered what he wanted to talk about with his mother.
He thought for a moment that maybe he should say, "Mom, what's a 'bitch?'"
But instead he said, "Mom, you're a bitch."
Jesse's mother slowly turned around. The old plastic chair creaked from the motion, and with equally deliberate slowness, she lowered her gaze upon Jesse.
Jesse's mother was good-looking when she cared. Her eyes were large and bright, though they now slimmed coolly at her boy's remark. Her round round and small chin almost made her look like a cute child. Her skin was always smooth and soft because she took great care of it. But her lack of makeup, humorless express, frumpled clothes and dirty hankerchief tying her thick black hair back were almost a coordinated attempt to make her look as plain as possible, to hide her attactiveness.
She looked her little boy up and down. "Thanks, sugar," and smiled.
Proud of himself for pleasing his mom, Jesse joined Tonya on the living room floor, joining their forces in block smashing. Tonya saw her brother approached and gleefully proclaimed, "Jaja!" sending a block hurtling through the air over her head, clattering across the wooden coffee table behind her.
Later that night at dinner, the three were solemnly munching through Mom's mac n' cheese and canned green beans. Some healthy dallops of salt and hot sauce helped improve the dining experience for Jesse.
But Tonya was getting fussy. "Come on, girl," coerrced Mom, slowly dangling the green and yellow spoonful of food before her daughter's little wary eyes.
"Ah!" With a flurry of flailing, Tonya's tiny arms batted away the food, sending it tumbling onto the floor.
"Damn it, Tonya," cursed Mom as she stooped over to clean up the mess.
Jesse giggled when he tried to deliver his sarcastic joke with a straight face. "I think she needs some hot sauce and salt."
"Very funny," responded Jesse's mom with droll apathy. The kid said the joke on an almost daily basis, and it amused her less and less each time. She realized that maybe his cackling laughter wasn't from the corniness of the joke but at her frustrated irritability. With the littlest one giving her even more shit than usual, it made her especially peeved.
With a heavy sigh, Jesse's mom loaded up another spoon of gold and green gruel and began its careful journey to her daughter's tightly clenched mouth. "Rah!" the baby snarled in defiance.
"Rah!" shouted back the mother.
Jesse giggled. "Wow, Tonya's really a bitch, huh?"
And then Jesse froze. Paralyzed with panic and fear, he saw his mother transform with rage. It was a subtle difference, but the biggest symptom was her own stillness to match Jesse's. While the spoon of food had been steadily approaching Jesse's sister's mouth, it had halted mid-flight. The muscles up and down Jesse's mom's exposed arm were taut, as if under great duress, as if holding the spoon up or back took great effort.
When Jesse's mother slowly turned her head, her eyes were alight with a dark fire, sending flickers of white and red through her brown pupils.
"What did you just say?" Her slowly spoken words gave each syllable a heavy and intimidating thud.
Shrinking in his chair, Jesse's small legs struggled to reach the ground and shove hmself away from her reach. "Nothing, Mom."
With her free hand, she quickly struck him across the back of his head.
Though Jesse could have expected the shot, he was still in shock from the hit. Once the surprise subsided, the dull throb at the top of his skull crept tendrils of burning agony down towards his face.
"Don't cry," cautioned Mom. With her right hand still holding the baby's food, her left hand sharpened into a pointed index finger aimed directly at the boy's soul. "No tears. You deserved that, so don't cry."
Despite the cautioning, Jesse couldn't restrain his lips from quivering and eyes from gowing wet. The sadness was less from pain and more from humiliation, at being upset for having so displeased his beloved mother.
"You don't ever call your sister that word. And you don't ever let anyone call her that word either. Or else you do to them what I did to you times ten."
"But…" When opening his mouth, a whooping sob tried to escape. He caught himself, focused his thoughts into a cohesive word. "But I thought…" but he wasn't sure what he wanted to say, nor how to say it. "But I thought bitch is a good thing. You're one, aren't you?"
Jesse's mom sighed deeply as the memory of the day's earlier exchange sharply slapped her own skull. She rubbed her temple and summoned her best parenting abilities.
"You know, Jesse, yes, I am a bitch. But that's not a good thing. A bitch is a… bad woman. And that is not you sister."
The language of the statement led Jesse to the realizatino that his mother was saying she was bad. That was a bit mind-boggling of its own accord, but Jesse could sense his mother's sorrow and was content enough to finish his meal.
"Ain't that right, sweetie?" Jesse's mother jiggled the spoon playfully in the air before Tonya. The tiny girl behaved perfectly as she sat completely motionless while dutifully lowering her jaw to robotically accept the food. The baby munched it down without any fuss.
"Good girl," said Jesse's mother.
The next day after school, Fernando was waiting for Jesse in the usual spot. "What took you so long, loser?" was the greeting Jesse received, though he was exactly on schedule.
Jesse strolled right past his schoolmate, determined to make the short four-block walk home alone.
"Yo, what gives, man?" asked Fernando. He hopped off his perch on the staircase rail to chase after his friend
Jesse ignored the remarks and stomped forward as fast as he could.
"Jesse, I'm talking to you," said Fernando.
"I don't wanna talk to you," answered Jesse tersely.
"Come on! How come?"
Still without making any eye contact, Jesse said, "You lied to me, and it really P.O.'ed off my mom."
Fernando was confused. "What--?" He paused to think about their recent conversations. "Oh!" he exclaimed upon the realization and recollection. "Ohhhhh!" he repeated the expression and dragged it out obnoxiously.
Jesse ignored the leering and resolutely marched ahead.
"Hey, don't be like that. Come on." Fernando ran up and grabbed his friend's fleeing shoulder, which Jesse quickly slapped away.
Growing weary of the repeated rejections, Fernando settled upon a new, more aggressive rssponse.He jogged up behind Jesse, placed his foot on Jesse's rear, and pushed.
The unexpected blow through Jesse forward, who tripped on the pavement and tumbled forward. As he crashed down towards the ground, his forehead banged off a stop-sign pole. Next his face crunched first against the sidewalk cement, before his awkward momentum carried himself off the curb to scrub his skin on the asphalt street.
To Fernando, the violent set of collisions was hysterical. He exploded with mocking laughter, pointing at the spectacle while holding the other hand over his stomach as if his guts might rupture from the guffawing.
Fernando wanted to say something, to pile on the humiliation with some verbal auxilliary fire, but the merriment was so overwhelming he couldn't speak.
When Jesse pulled himself from the ground, he could taste the warm blood in his mouth. Spitting it out helped to confirmed his bleeding wound.
"Man…" Fernando gasped, "I really kicked you ass." A new round of riotous laughter began.
Placing his palms on the ground to lift himself up also stung, and Jesse noticed his right hand was skinned badly, the flash scraped away which buzzed with pain as he flexed his fingers.
An older gentleman with a look of concern approached and said, "You okay, boy?"
Before any other emotion or thought could displace himself, Jesse ran. His backpack had partially fallen off to a lone strap, and it bounced back and forth against his back the whole sprint home as if he were being mercilessly paddled by a large hand.
He didn't mean to slam the door on his rush through the entrance, but he did. He raced to his room and fell down on his bed. With eyes clamped tight and heaving deep breaths, he fought back the looming urge to cry.
The tactic failed when his mother emerged in his bedroom doorway just seconds later, her arrival announced when the door was slammed open. "What on earth--?" She stopped when she saw the boy.
She rushed over to his side, flipped him over to find his face bruised, wet with tears and blood. The boy was exhausted too, heaving breaths and dripping sweat. "What happened to you?" she demanded.
"Nothing, mama," he pleaded.
Her grip tightened on his bicep. "Don't lie to me. Ever." Her eyes focused into blades that cut through Jesse's feeble defenses.
"It was Fernando," he offered meekly.The confession exposed his wounded soul and he sobbed a quick explosive burst when speaking. But then he quickly recomposed himself.
His mother's eyes sharnk, her head craned sideways, shifting into a new mode of weary interrogation. "Who?"
"He's my…" What is Fernando though Jesse? Friend, acquaintance. Though the Fernando was in the next grade up, they just started walking hom together when they realized they had the same route. Surely right now Jesse would've defined their relationship on hatred, "He's this kid from school." A very diplomatic and correct answer.
Jesse's mom licked her thumb and scrubbed away the blood and grit from the boy's temple. The wound was wide and lookedhorrific, though it wasn't very deep.
But the gashes were severe enough to send Jesse's mom into an absolute coniption. She howled, long and loudly like a lonely animal, wildly thrashing her hand out so that a small ceramic lamp shattered against the children's bedroom wall.
With another shorter cry of anguish, she stooped over and picked up the loose electrical cord from the broken light, coiling it around her palm. With the other hand, she clenched Jesse's wrist, dragging him from the bed. This hurt the boy's shoulder but he knew better than to complain, rushing to keep his feet under him as they marched out the bedroom, down the hallway and out the front door which slammed loudly behind them.
After a brief moment, the door opened again, and Jesse andhis mother marched back into the house. Heading into the living room, she stooped down to collect the baby girl under her free arm like a football.
"Gah!" cried Tonya cheerfully, as the family left the apartment again.
"Where is this creep?!" yelled Jesse's mother outside on their aparment building's front stoop.
The question was hollared aloud for anyone to answer, but practically cried as a challege to the boy himself. Even while holding the baby in the same hand, Jesse's mother thrashed the electrical plug against the ground, the little metal tines cracking against the stone ground.
Jesse answered immediately, "He lives up on the next block," pointing the way.
The trio advanced up the street. The "Do Not Walk" sign was lit up at the intersection, but with barely a side glance, they stormed across the road anyways. This was a tremendous no-no for Jesse, but he figured it was allowed since he was holding his mother's hand. Or rather, her hald was clamped around his wrist.
Fernando was just beginning to approach his own house when he heard a voice cry, "You!" He froze in his tracks and saw a crazed woman rapidly marching towards him, giggling baby in one arm and Jesse in the other.
His first reflex was to take one quick step to sprint home to his house. But quickly his survival instinct realized that Jesse and family would reach those steps before he ever could, and to try and beat them there would only be rushing into their grip and his doom.
So he paused in absolute fright, pondering his next move but sincerely regretting having stopped for so long to inspect the snoozing bum a few blocks back.
Jesse and his mother stopped a few paces before the the terrified lad. "This is him?" asked Jesse's mother.
Jesse didn't say anything, but nodded slowly in the affirmative. On one hand he was glad to see his tormentor filled with fear. But he couldn't help but sympathize with him too.
"This. Is. Him."
Fernando managed a wimpy little smile. "Hello," he gulped.
"Yeah," said Jesse.
Jesse's mother released Jesse from her grip, then turned his wrath upon her own son.
"You mean this puny, little runt did that to you?" she bellowed. "He must be half your size, Jesse!"
Both Fernando and Jesse were too surpised by the turn to react with anything other than blank astonishment.
Jesse looked over at Fernando to summon his response. Shriveled in fright, Fernando seemed tinier than ever. For a third grader, he was already small, which maybe explained why he gravitated towards a second-grader like Jesse, who by most accounts was a solid lad for his age. To an outside observer they were about the same height and build.
"I-- I--" he stammered but couldn't finish a sentence.
With a quick snap of the wrist, the makeshift lash struck Jesse across his arm and back.
Jesse shouted in pain and cowered beneath his arms for protection while his mother whipped him again and again. Between blows she shouted, "You don't lose fights to any wimps! Never!"
Still holding the girl under one arm greatly hampered Jesse's mother's ability to get her hips into beating and properly swing the cord. But that was really okay because she wasn't really trying to damage the boy, just trying to teach him a lesson.
She felt that a half dozen blows were sufficient to prove her point, and threw the cord to the ground.
As Jesse's mother and sister departed down the sidewalk leaving him a small pile of sniveling whimpers, Tonya solemnly cried, "Jaja!" while holding out her stubby arms towards her little brother. But Mom quicly shuffled the girl to face forward towards home and away from her defeated sibling.
Fernando waited until the crazed adult had vanished into the horizon before exploding with his disparaging laughter. "Man, you're getting all kinds of messed up today!"
Jesse slowly stood to his feet and studied his forearms. The various lashes left streaks across his skin, almost like tiger stripes which looked kinda neat.
"I told you your mom was a bitch!" howled Fernando with glee.
With a low roar, Jesse tackled his tormentor, and Fernando stopped laughing.
Back at the apartment, Jesse's mother had just strapped the girl into her high chair when an opening door announced the boy's return. Jesse's mother fetched a pair of plates of leftover enchiladas for the table, almost crossing paths with Jesse who entered from the other side of the kitchen. Once she sat down she scooped out a bite for the baby.
As Jesse's mom tenderly blew away the heat from the food, she could hear the refrigerator door open and close. A series of gurgling glugs announced both the pouring and drinking of what was likely some punch.
When Jesse sat down at the table, he did not look his mother in the eye. He picked up his fork and shoveled some food in his mouth. He tried not to wince from the heat.
Jesse's mother placed her hand on her son's bloodied forearm and said, "Should I be sorry?"
At first Jesse didn't respond, simply letting his fork swirl in the food. But then he said, "No."
Jesse's mother kissed her son on the head and left the table.
"Jaja!" proclaimed Tonya happily as she crushed some cheesy tortilla in her tiny mitt, which made Jesse smile.
When Jesse's mom returned to the dining table, she brought with her some hot sauce and salt for the food, and some bandages and hydrogen peroxide for her son.
When Jesse learned what the word "bitch" meant, he knew right away that his mom was one. What Jesse didn't know was why his good friend Fernando was giggling so hard.
"Seriously?" Fernando asked between coughing guffaws. "You never heard the word 'bitch' before? Ever?"
"Sure," Jesse tried to lie, bashfully looking away from his condescending eyes. "I've heard the word before."
But Fernando could tell Jesse was clueless. "I mean, don't you ever watch TV? The internet? These days, everyone's a bitch. I guess you don't watch any good shows."
"I told you I know," Jess said and forcibly shoved Fernando playfully. It caused the small boy to trip to his side as they walked along the pavement, but didn't phase him for a moment emotionally.
"Yeah," agreed Fernando. "Good." He made his hand into a tiny fist, and the two bumped them together to bid their daily farewells. Fernando hopped up the steps of his apartment's stoop while Jesse roamed head to his apartment on the next block.
At the top stair to his building, he turned and shouted, "Your mom's a bitch!"
Jesse returned the sentiment with a friendly wave. But when Fernando dashed away with delivish glee while other passers-by watched the exchange with looks of revulsion, Jesse wondered if he really understood the meaning of the word.
So after letting his backpack and shoes fall into a dishheveled lump on the hallway floor as if the rest of the boy had just evaporated, Jesse decided to get another opinion.
As was usual for the afterschool return, Jesse's mother was standing in the kitchen watching TV. On the tiny countertop screen was a large woman with short hair. The lady wore fancy makeup with lush lips that sparkled like pink glass. Yet all that glamour was lost in her sadness. With her bombastic sobbing and downpour from each turqoise-painted eyelid, it was as if the woman felt compelled for the depth of her agony to match her girth. Next to her was a man in a beige suit, holding a microphone with one hand while rubbing the sad woman's shoulder. An audience continued to applaud at the entire spectacle.
"Dumbass," scoffed Jesse's mom. She tapped some smoldering cigarette ash into a coffee cup. A slow exhale of smoke surrounded the small tv set as if damning the on-screen characters to die in a miniature gas chamber.
"Hey, Mom," called Jesse as he dived into the refrigerator. Fetching a bottle of fruit punch and oversized souvenir cup, he began to pour himself a drink with his two small hands carefully steadying the heavy tube of fluid.
Jess didn't bother to look at his Mom when he talked, and she didn't look at hm either for the response. "Hey, sugar."
Once the glass was filled to the top, Jesse ravenously guzzled it down. He always liked to pretend that he was drowning, that he had to take the whole thing in one long gulp or else die. Once again, Jesse did not drown and rattled the cup into the sink, which clattered atop some other dirty dishes.
In the living room Jesse's baby sister Tonya played with some blocks, picking them up then smashing them down again. It looked like fun and he was eager to join, when suddenly he remembered what he wanted to talk about with his mother.
He thought for a moment that maybe he should say, "Mom, what's a 'bitch?'"
But instead he said, "Mom, you're a bitch."
Jesse's mother slowly turned around. The old plastic chair creaked from the motion, and with equally deliberate slowness, she lowered her gaze upon Jesse.
Jesse's mother was good-looking when she cared. Her eyes were large and bright, though they now slimmed coolly at her boy's remark. Her round round and small chin almost made her look like a cute child. Her skin was always smooth and soft because she took great care of it. But her lack of makeup, humorless express, frumpled clothes and dirty hankerchief tying her thick black hair back were almost a coordinated attempt to make her look as plain as possible, to hide her attactiveness.
She looked her little boy up and down. "Thanks, sugar," and smiled.
Proud of himself for pleasing his mom, Jesse joined Tonya on the living room floor, joining their forces in block smashing. Tonya saw her brother approached and gleefully proclaimed, "Jaja!" sending a block hurtling through the air over her head, clattering across the wooden coffee table behind her.
Later that night at dinner, the three were solemnly munching through Mom's mac n' cheese and canned green beans. Some healthy dallops of salt and hot sauce helped improve the dining experience for Jesse.
But Tonya was getting fussy. "Come on, girl," coerrced Mom, slowly dangling the green and yellow spoonful of food before her daughter's little wary eyes.
"Ah!" With a flurry of flailing, Tonya's tiny arms batted away the food, sending it tumbling onto the floor.
"Damn it, Tonya," cursed Mom as she stooped over to clean up the mess.
Jesse giggled when he tried to deliver his sarcastic joke with a straight face. "I think she needs some hot sauce and salt."
"Very funny," responded Jesse's mom with droll apathy. The kid said the joke on an almost daily basis, and it amused her less and less each time. She realized that maybe his cackling laughter wasn't from the corniness of the joke but at her frustrated irritability. With the littlest one giving her even more shit than usual, it made her especially peeved.
With a heavy sigh, Jesse's mom loaded up another spoon of gold and green gruel and began its careful journey to her daughter's tightly clenched mouth. "Rah!" the baby snarled in defiance.
"Rah!" shouted back the mother.
Jesse giggled. "Wow, Tonya's really a bitch, huh?"
And then Jesse froze. Paralyzed with panic and fear, he saw his mother transform with rage. It was a subtle difference, but the biggest symptom was her own stillness to match Jesse's. While the spoon of food had been steadily approaching Jesse's sister's mouth, it had halted mid-flight. The muscles up and down Jesse's mom's exposed arm were taut, as if under great duress, as if holding the spoon up or back took great effort.
When Jesse's mother slowly turned her head, her eyes were alight with a dark fire, sending flickers of white and red through her brown pupils.
"What did you just say?" Her slowly spoken words gave each syllable a heavy and intimidating thud.
Shrinking in his chair, Jesse's small legs struggled to reach the ground and shove hmself away from her reach. "Nothing, Mom."
With her free hand, she quickly struck him across the back of his head.
Though Jesse could have expected the shot, he was still in shock from the hit. Once the surprise subsided, the dull throb at the top of his skull crept tendrils of burning agony down towards his face.
"Don't cry," cautioned Mom. With her right hand still holding the baby's food, her left hand sharpened into a pointed index finger aimed directly at the boy's soul. "No tears. You deserved that, so don't cry."
Despite the cautioning, Jesse couldn't restrain his lips from quivering and eyes from gowing wet. The sadness was less from pain and more from humiliation, at being upset for having so displeased his beloved mother.
"You don't ever call your sister that word. And you don't ever let anyone call her that word either. Or else you do to them what I did to you times ten."
"But…" When opening his mouth, a whooping sob tried to escape. He caught himself, focused his thoughts into a cohesive word. "But I thought…" but he wasn't sure what he wanted to say, nor how to say it. "But I thought bitch is a good thing. You're one, aren't you?"
Jesse's mom sighed deeply as the memory of the day's earlier exchange sharply slapped her own skull. She rubbed her temple and summoned her best parenting abilities.
"You know, Jesse, yes, I am a bitch. But that's not a good thing. A bitch is a… bad woman. And that is not you sister."
The language of the statement led Jesse to the realizatino that his mother was saying she was bad. That was a bit mind-boggling of its own accord, but Jesse could sense his mother's sorrow and was content enough to finish his meal.
"Ain't that right, sweetie?" Jesse's mother jiggled the spoon playfully in the air before Tonya. The tiny girl behaved perfectly as she sat completely motionless while dutifully lowering her jaw to robotically accept the food. The baby munched it down without any fuss.
"Good girl," said Jesse's mother.
The next day after school, Fernando was waiting for Jesse in the usual spot. "What took you so long, loser?" was the greeting Jesse received, though he was exactly on schedule.
Jesse strolled right past his schoolmate, determined to make the short four-block walk home alone.
"Yo, what gives, man?" asked Fernando. He hopped off his perch on the staircase rail to chase after his friend
Jesse ignored the remarks and stomped forward as fast as he could.
"Jesse, I'm talking to you," said Fernando.
"I don't wanna talk to you," answered Jesse tersely.
"Come on! How come?"
Still without making any eye contact, Jesse said, "You lied to me, and it really P.O.'ed off my mom."
Fernando was confused. "What--?" He paused to think about their recent conversations. "Oh!" he exclaimed upon the realization and recollection. "Ohhhhh!" he repeated the expression and dragged it out obnoxiously.
Jesse ignored the leering and resolutely marched ahead.
"Hey, don't be like that. Come on." Fernando ran up and grabbed his friend's fleeing shoulder, which Jesse quickly slapped away.
Growing weary of the repeated rejections, Fernando settled upon a new, more aggressive rssponse.He jogged up behind Jesse, placed his foot on Jesse's rear, and pushed.
The unexpected blow through Jesse forward, who tripped on the pavement and tumbled forward. As he crashed down towards the ground, his forehead banged off a stop-sign pole. Next his face crunched first against the sidewalk cement, before his awkward momentum carried himself off the curb to scrub his skin on the asphalt street.
To Fernando, the violent set of collisions was hysterical. He exploded with mocking laughter, pointing at the spectacle while holding the other hand over his stomach as if his guts might rupture from the guffawing.
Fernando wanted to say something, to pile on the humiliation with some verbal auxilliary fire, but the merriment was so overwhelming he couldn't speak.
When Jesse pulled himself from the ground, he could taste the warm blood in his mouth. Spitting it out helped to confirmed his bleeding wound.
"Man…" Fernando gasped, "I really kicked you ass." A new round of riotous laughter began.
Placing his palms on the ground to lift himself up also stung, and Jesse noticed his right hand was skinned badly, the flash scraped away which buzzed with pain as he flexed his fingers.
An older gentleman with a look of concern approached and said, "You okay, boy?"
Before any other emotion or thought could displace himself, Jesse ran. His backpack had partially fallen off to a lone strap, and it bounced back and forth against his back the whole sprint home as if he were being mercilessly paddled by a large hand.
He didn't mean to slam the door on his rush through the entrance, but he did. He raced to his room and fell down on his bed. With eyes clamped tight and heaving deep breaths, he fought back the looming urge to cry.
The tactic failed when his mother emerged in his bedroom doorway just seconds later, her arrival announced when the door was slammed open. "What on earth--?" She stopped when she saw the boy.
She rushed over to his side, flipped him over to find his face bruised, wet with tears and blood. The boy was exhausted too, heaving breaths and dripping sweat. "What happened to you?" she demanded.
"Nothing, mama," he pleaded.
Her grip tightened on his bicep. "Don't lie to me. Ever." Her eyes focused into blades that cut through Jesse's feeble defenses.
"It was Fernando," he offered meekly.The confession exposed his wounded soul and he sobbed a quick explosive burst when speaking. But then he quickly recomposed himself.
His mother's eyes sharnk, her head craned sideways, shifting into a new mode of weary interrogation. "Who?"
"He's my…" What is Fernando though Jesse? Friend, acquaintance. Though the Fernando was in the next grade up, they just started walking hom together when they realized they had the same route. Surely right now Jesse would've defined their relationship on hatred, "He's this kid from school." A very diplomatic and correct answer.
Jesse's mom licked her thumb and scrubbed away the blood and grit from the boy's temple. The wound was wide and lookedhorrific, though it wasn't very deep.
But the gashes were severe enough to send Jesse's mom into an absolute coniption. She howled, long and loudly like a lonely animal, wildly thrashing her hand out so that a small ceramic lamp shattered against the children's bedroom wall.
With another shorter cry of anguish, she stooped over and picked up the loose electrical cord from the broken light, coiling it around her palm. With the other hand, she clenched Jesse's wrist, dragging him from the bed. This hurt the boy's shoulder but he knew better than to complain, rushing to keep his feet under him as they marched out the bedroom, down the hallway and out the front door which slammed loudly behind them.
After a brief moment, the door opened again, and Jesse andhis mother marched back into the house. Heading into the living room, she stooped down to collect the baby girl under her free arm like a football.
"Gah!" cried Tonya cheerfully, as the family left the apartment again.
"Where is this creep?!" yelled Jesse's mother outside on their aparment building's front stoop.
The question was hollared aloud for anyone to answer, but practically cried as a challege to the boy himself. Even while holding the baby in the same hand, Jesse's mother thrashed the electrical plug against the ground, the little metal tines cracking against the stone ground.
Jesse answered immediately, "He lives up on the next block," pointing the way.
The trio advanced up the street. The "Do Not Walk" sign was lit up at the intersection, but with barely a side glance, they stormed across the road anyways. This was a tremendous no-no for Jesse, but he figured it was allowed since he was holding his mother's hand. Or rather, her hald was clamped around his wrist.
Fernando was just beginning to approach his own house when he heard a voice cry, "You!" He froze in his tracks and saw a crazed woman rapidly marching towards him, giggling baby in one arm and Jesse in the other.
His first reflex was to take one quick step to sprint home to his house. But quickly his survival instinct realized that Jesse and family would reach those steps before he ever could, and to try and beat them there would only be rushing into their grip and his doom.
So he paused in absolute fright, pondering his next move but sincerely regretting having stopped for so long to inspect the snoozing bum a few blocks back.
Jesse and his mother stopped a few paces before the the terrified lad. "This is him?" asked Jesse's mother.
Jesse didn't say anything, but nodded slowly in the affirmative. On one hand he was glad to see his tormentor filled with fear. But he couldn't help but sympathize with him too.
"This. Is. Him."
Fernando managed a wimpy little smile. "Hello," he gulped.
"Yeah," said Jesse.
Jesse's mother released Jesse from her grip, then turned his wrath upon her own son.
"You mean this puny, little runt did that to you?" she bellowed. "He must be half your size, Jesse!"
Both Fernando and Jesse were too surpised by the turn to react with anything other than blank astonishment.
Jesse looked over at Fernando to summon his response. Shriveled in fright, Fernando seemed tinier than ever. For a third grader, he was already small, which maybe explained why he gravitated towards a second-grader like Jesse, who by most accounts was a solid lad for his age. To an outside observer they were about the same height and build.
"I-- I--" he stammered but couldn't finish a sentence.
With a quick snap of the wrist, the makeshift lash struck Jesse across his arm and back.
Jesse shouted in pain and cowered beneath his arms for protection while his mother whipped him again and again. Between blows she shouted, "You don't lose fights to any wimps! Never!"
Still holding the girl under one arm greatly hampered Jesse's mother's ability to get her hips into beating and properly swing the cord. But that was really okay because she wasn't really trying to damage the boy, just trying to teach him a lesson.
She felt that a half dozen blows were sufficient to prove her point, and threw the cord to the ground.
As Jesse's mother and sister departed down the sidewalk leaving him a small pile of sniveling whimpers, Tonya solemnly cried, "Jaja!" while holding out her stubby arms towards her little brother. But Mom quicly shuffled the girl to face forward towards home and away from her defeated sibling.
Fernando waited until the crazed adult had vanished into the horizon before exploding with his disparaging laughter. "Man, you're getting all kinds of messed up today!"
Jesse slowly stood to his feet and studied his forearms. The various lashes left streaks across his skin, almost like tiger stripes which looked kinda neat.
"I told you your mom was a bitch!" howled Fernando with glee.
With a low roar, Jesse tackled his tormentor, and Fernando stopped laughing.
Back at the apartment, Jesse's mother had just strapped the girl into her high chair when an opening door announced the boy's return. Jesse's mother fetched a pair of plates of leftover enchiladas for the table, almost crossing paths with Jesse who entered from the other side of the kitchen. Once she sat down she scooped out a bite for the baby.
As Jesse's mom tenderly blew away the heat from the food, she could hear the refrigerator door open and close. A series of gurgling glugs announced both the pouring and drinking of what was likely some punch.
When Jesse sat down at the table, he did not look his mother in the eye. He picked up his fork and shoveled some food in his mouth. He tried not to wince from the heat.
Jesse's mother placed her hand on her son's bloodied forearm and said, "Should I be sorry?"
At first Jesse didn't respond, simply letting his fork swirl in the food. But then he said, "No."
Jesse's mother kissed her son on the head and left the table.
"Jaja!" proclaimed Tonya happily as she crushed some cheesy tortilla in her tiny mitt, which made Jesse smile.
When Jesse's mom returned to the dining table, she brought with her some hot sauce and salt for the food, and some bandages and hydrogen peroxide for her son.
