by D Krauss
*
Junior came downstairs. Cautious. Carl sat at the table watching and frowning. Dammit, the stupid kid didn’t even see him.
“Where you going?”
Junior whirled, startled, and saw immediately the disadvantage. Carl seethed. The many times had he'd trained this idiot how to enter a room, and he still gets caught with his pants down. Made what was coming easier.
“Uh,” Junior fumbled, “I’ve got class.”
Carl held up a note. ‘Play along’ was written on it. Junior blinked, confused. That was half the problem, right there. Kid just wasn’t fast enough.
“Well, enjoy it, jackass, ‘cause it’s your last.”
“Huh?” Junior went slack jawed and Carl didn’t know whether to congratulate his acting or despair over his stupidity.
“I’m enrolling you in the Army.”
“Dad!” Junior almost shrieked it and that was acting way too good. The dumbass was actually believing it. Carl gritted his teeth and glared at him and shook the note at him and raged as the idiot babbled, “Dad, no! No! I’ve still got deferment for two years and I’ll get killed over there and you said you’d…”
“SHUT! UP!” Carl roared and came out of his chair and smashed Junior across the mouth hard, stopping those next condemning words that would mean doors coming off hinges and indiscriminate gunfire and a whole neighborhood packed in vans and disappearing down some dirt road. Carl stroked him three more times, busting the lips and getting a good spray of blood all the time shoving the note into Junior’s eyes. Read it, you flippin’ idiot!
“Carl!” Louise screamed from the kitchen but Carl didn’t have to show her the note, she knew, and stood there eying the ceiling, trying to locate a new dimple in the plaster or a discoloration and shaking her head no, nothing there. “You’ll kill him!” And they were all three screaming but it was now all acting because Junior had, finally, gotten it and was sitting there trying to put his lips back together while giving Carl a thumbs up. Those two cried about certain combat death and ‘my little baby’ and Carl roared about ‘ungrateful kid’ and ‘serving the State like I did’ and Louise pointed and, yes, there, in the corner, a spider web that did not move.
He dragged Junior by his shirt to the front door and hurled him onto the lawn. He saw, with satisfaction, Chucky already sprawled on his. “You get your ass home after you resign your class standing.” Carl kicked Junior through the gate hard enough to ensure it wasn’t acting when Junior fell to the pavement. He stalked back inside and went directly to Louise. She had already placed a neutralizer underneath the web. “Talk,” she said.