The Birth of Bane

by Richard Heredia

I hit the-man-I’d-once-called-my-father resoundingly in the side, beneath his arm. It was a linebacker’s sort of hit, meant to cause maximum damage through the direct transfer of kinetic energy. All of mine passed into him. My forward motion stopped cold. He went down hard, end over end. I went after hit him, cocked and locked.

  That’s when I heard Elijah impact onto the lower portion of the deck, smashing directly onto one of my mother’s wicker chairs, completely destroying it before he smacked gruesomely onto the unforgiving wood. Even from where I was, I heard bones break – a lot of bones break.

  I don’t remember much else after that moment. The instant it had registered my little brother had been reduced to a pulp. Everything was red and hazy. I don’t remember moving. I don’t remember anything of what I felt. I don’t remember a lifetime of anger and resentment coming to the fore, expressed all at once and without impediment. I don’t know why, but I don’t recall anything for what had to be the next few hours.

  I woke up in the hospital, my hands bound in gauze and tape all the way beyond my wrists. There were policeman outside my room. Myra was at my side staring at me with an expression had had yet to see upon her beautiful face and have never seen since.

  It was fear, real, unfettered.

  It hurt me to see her look at me that way, because I had seen Lenny procure they very same cast from my mother more times than I care to recall here. I looked into the eyes of my rambunctious, life-loving girlfriend and vowed, before I even cared to know what had happened, I would never be anything like my father. As far as I was concerned, he was dead to me.

  There’s not really much more I can write about it. It was one of the few times in my life beholden to such finality, it left little in the way of additional explanation. The decision was simple, a clean cut from the past. I would never go there again. I wouldn’t have too.

  I no longer had a father. It was as simple as that.

  “What happened?” I tried, though my throat felt like someone had been sandpapering it while I slept.

  Myra grimaced, her eyes welling. “You don’t remember?” It was tiniest I had ever heard her speak. Myra wasn’t built that way. She wouldn’t temper her personality for anyone, and yet…

  I shook my head.

  “We were so confused we didn’t know what to do,” she began, but had to stop. Her tongue was suddenly too thick. She swallowed a few times. “It was the man, the guy living in the back house who finally pulled you off him.”

  It was my turn to frown. “What are you talking about?”

  She wiped away the tears beginning to fall. “It was Bruce.” She breathed deeply. “He was the one who pulled you off your dad.”

  “But -.”

  “By then, he was nothing but a bloody mess, a horrific… indistinguishable mess.” Her forehead wrinkled. She appeared nauseated. “I couldn’t tell if he still had a nose… Oh god, Jerry, it was atrocious!” She was in my arms before her words had sunk in.

  Who was she talking about? Was she talking about me? But, I didn’t remember turning Lenny into a bloody pulp. And why would he be a ruined mess in the first place? How could he have lost his nose?

  “I d-don’t understand, My-My. What happened?”

  She stiffened in my clench, pulling her head back to look me in the eyes. “Are you fucking with me?”

  Once more, I shook my head, concerned over her choice words.

  She grabbed my head with both of her hands. “You almost killed your father, Jerry.” I tried to jerk free of her, but she wouldn’t let me go. “You beat him. You kept hitting him and hitting him and hitting him - for so long and so hard. I couldn’t pull you free. You were so strong. I wanted to yell for Valerie, but she was taking care of your brother.”

  ELIJAH!!! His name sounded in my head like the tolling of a bell. Oh my god, what happened to my baby brother?

  Myra must’ve sensed the intensity of my curiosity, because her face softened instantaneously. “He’s hurt, Jer, pretty bad,” she said carefully. “He broke ribs that have punctured a lung and… he ruptured his spleen. The doctor’s had to remove it. He came out of surgery about an hour ago.” She gulped down a lump in her throat. “The doctors are keeping him in an induced coma for the time being, to give his body time to heal from all the trauma.”

  I couldn’t do anything but cry.

  She held me the entire time. Her small arms felt like the world had come to comfort me. Though one portion of my heart was being torn asunder, another was fortified by my love for her. I knew, despite the fact we were young and had our lives ahead of us, I was going to marry her. She was the one for me. I felt so blessed to have found her so early in life.

  “And my mother?” I inquired after a time.

  “She’s sleeping. She’s got facial fractures, a broken nose and a concussion.”

  I felt my heart lurch.

  Suddenly, she was kissing my face, soaking up my tears with her puffy lips. “She’s stable, my love. She’s resting. The doctors said it could’ve been a lot worse, especially if you and Eli hadn’t intervened when you did. One more punch to her face could’ve sent bone fragments into her brain…” She stopped abruptly, realizing what she’d said. Her eyes were wide with shock. “I’m sorry, Jerry. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” I whispered, feeling the weight of the entire planet upon my chest.

  She was kissing me again. Her lovely lips were trailing along my jaw and down the curve of my neck.

  “Why are my hands wrapped up in all this crap?” I wondered aloud, enjoying the feeling of her.

  She was licking my clavicle, then snorted derisively. “You broke your left hand on your father’s face. Your right is just badly bruised.”

  “Why don’t I feel anything?”

  “You’re on a mild morphine drip, you dope,” she said, her eyes twinkling. She wasn’t afraid of me anymore.

  I glanced through the safety-glass at the middle of the door to my room. “Why are the cops here?”

  Myra turned, following my gaze. “They need to get a preliminary statement from somebody. I guess they figured you’d be the first one to wake-up.”

  “Makes sense.” Then another thought hit me. “Where’s Lenny?”

  “Who?”

  “My father, where is he? How is he?” I clarified for her, more curious than concerned for his well-being.

  She traced my eyebrow with her finger. “He’s not at this hospital anymore. Once they stabilized him, they took him somewhere else, where they specialize in reconstructive surgery, I assume.” She shrugged. “Other than that, I don’t know anything else.”

  “Is the family here?” I was wondering why Myra and I had been alone for so long.

  She kissed me on the lips, slow and lingering, just the way I like it. “They’re here. They’re with Valerie, watching over Eli and your Mom. The cops shooed them away when it looked like you were going to wake-up soon.”

  I mock frowned at her reply. “And how is it you’re still here?”

  “You think a couple of freakin’ cops are going to keep me from you?”

  I had to laugh. It hurt, mostly about my neck, but it was worth it. It was alive, and so was my family. We might be a little broken right now, but we were all still alive.

  “Is Valerie ok?”

  “Just scrapes and bruises,” she smiled her retort. “Besides, she’s got Jose keeping her spirits up.” Her eyebrows shot up and down like Groucho Marks.

  I rumbled with mirth, more careful this time. “Good, good. I like the guy.”

  “Me too. He seems nice enough,” she said, but couldn’t say more.

  Right then, a tall man in a wrinkled shirt and tie, and slacks walked in. His face was square. Its’ skin was weathered, ruddy and pot-marked. His hair was close cut, combed back, light brown. His eyes were matching. He had a flip-top notepad and an air of authority about him. “Well, I see you’re awake now.”

  I nodded.

  He came further into the room. “You feel up to tel
ling me what happened back your house last night?’

  I scowled, glancing at Myra.

  She knew what I was thinking without me having to tell her. “You’ve been asleep for a while, babe. It’s already passed eight in the morning.”

  “Wow,” was all I could think to say.

  “I’m Sargent Detective Rollins, Mr. Favor,” said the man, using a more formal approach. He extended his hand.

  I shook it as best as I could manage, my hands resembling a pair of zucchini than anything else. “What do you want to know.”

  “Just the truth, young man, that’s all - nothing more, nothing less.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

  I sighed, helped Myra take a seat on my bed and proceeded to fill in Sargent Detective Rollins about the scourge of our family – Leonard G. Favor.

  It was a long tale.

  ~~~~~~~<<< ᴥ >>>~~~~~~~

  Chapter Fourteen: Aftermath

  Of the three of us hospitalized patients, I was the first to be released, which wasn’t too much after my conversation with the LAPD detective. That conversation had gone well enough. Actually, there hadn’t been much back and forth communication at all, so it was more like regurgitation on my part. Detective Rollins mostly listened, intervening on occasion to ask something specific, but no more. Though the only other people he’d talked to were my sister and Bruce, our tenant, it seemed to me as though he’d already formulated a theory as to what had transpired at the house upon the hill.

  The only question I couldn’t answer was what had started the argument between my parents in the first place. I told him Roxanna could probably answer the specifics of his question and he did something kind of funny. He had tilted his head, squinted out of one eyes and asked me, “Who’s Roxanna?”

  I replied, “Why she’s my father’s Administrative Assistant.”

  Again, I got the “hinky-policeman’s-eye”.

  We sort of stared back at one another for a time, then he said something extraordinary.

  He said, “Your father doesn’t have an Administrative Assistant. His position with the studio doesn’t require he have one.”

  I frowned.

  He frowned.

  Silence befell us.

  Abruptly, he stood, put away his tiny notepad and said he’d look into what I’d told him. He made for the door, but stopped. He turned back, eyes very Dirty Harry-ish. “Can you describe the woman,” he asked.

  I said absolutely, and gave him a detailed description.

  He nodded the entire time, but didn’t write anything down. He merely thanked me and left.

  Myra had leaned in to kiss me once again. “What was that all about?”

  I shrugged.

  Instead of leaving upon being discharged, I stuck around. By then, I’d discovered we’d been taken to Glendale Adventist, which was an extremely well equipped medical facility less than five miles from where we lived.

  Myra and I met up with Valerie and her boyfriend in my mother’s room. She was still in a medically induced slumber, though not comatose like Elijah. She was lying on the bed, propped up by a multitude of pillows, her face heavily wrapped in gauze and tape. Moreso, than even my hands were at the time. Because of it, I couldn’t see the swelling or the bruising I’d been told was underneath. Her head was already misshapen and ungainly looking. Other than that, she appeared peaceful enough.

  I walked up to her and took one of her hands within mine, feeling the soft skin on the back of her palm. “I love you, Mom.” I brought her hand gently to my lips, bending a bit at the waist. I kissed her, hating the fact she smelled like anapestic. She shouldn’t be in the hospital. It wasn’t fair what had happened to her, to Eli or to any of us.

  I hadn’t realized I was trembling.

  My sister came from Jose’s arms and into mine the moment she realized I wasn’t quit myself. Her tears felt wet and warm upon my chest. Somehow, her proximity, the familiarity of her smell calmed me, pushed back the rage welling within. Though Myra had told me I had literally beaten the living shit out of Lenny, I hadn’t experienced it firsthand. I couldn’t remember. I had blacked it out. Some hidden part of me, some over-arching governing slice of who I was wanted to keep the rest of me separate from the person I’d been on the deck. A part of me was grateful, but there was a drawback. There wasn’t closure. There had been no accounting of the injustice Lenny had sowed amongst us as far as I was concerned.

  Valerie made all of that disappear. My sister, in my embrace, had made it all inconsequential.

  “I know I never tell you enough, Jerry,” she began after a time, “but I love you. I know I don’t show it and I know you don’t show it much either. But, from me, I want you to know that I do.”

  “I do too, sis. I love you with all my heart.” It wasn’t the time for false bravado or any like mucho bull-crap. My family needed to mend, needed to bond. We might’ve dodged a few bullets the night of my graduation, but it didn’t mean we were entirely out of the woods. We still didn’t know if Elijah would completely recover from his injuries. The road ahead might be just as tough as the one we’d been traversing for longer than any of us cared to remember.

  She sighed and came away from me, though only the upper portion of her body. “I don’t care what anyone else says, I’m glad you did what you did, Jerry.” There was steel in her eyes. I had never seen her look so menacing before. “That motherfucker deserved everything he got.”

  I nodded. I was bone-tired. I needed to sit. “Where’s everyone else?”

  “They’re taking turns sitting with Eli,” she said at once.

  My brow furled. “How many people are here?”

  She chuckled. “I think just about everyone from your party, except that bitch Roxanna.” Her eyes were cold again. “She went with… with him, wherever the fuck they took him.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. That chick had bigger balls than me and Elijah put together! Who the hell are you, Roxanna?

  “I told everyone I needed time alone with Mom,” she said, sitting back down, next to Jose. Her hand quickly found his.

  I nodded at the dude.

  He reciprocated.

  “So,” I started, unsure if I really wanted to know the answer to the question I was about to ask, “What’s the plan?”

  She bunched her shoulders. “I don’t know. I really don’t want to leave Mom or Eli her in the hospital,” she said after some thought.

  I sucked my lips, thinking as well. “Somebody ought to check on the house, or at least give Bruce a head’s up as to what’s going on, so he can hold down the fort if need be.”

  She agreed, but still did not want to leave.

  In the end, we decided Myra and I should see Elijah, then get a ride home from one of our family members. She didn’t smirk too much when she said I should get some rest, take a load off, maybe even nap. Her eyes had been on Myra at the end of the sentence, so I knew why there’d been a small smile on her lips. With no one home who would interrupt us if Myra and I decided to get a little “snuggly”.

  I merely shook my head, although the thought of freshening up properly sounded wonderful. I told my sister I would get things situated at home and then drive back in our mother’s car. The hospital wasn’t all that far away, so it wouldn’t take too long. Since I was eighteen, I was old enough to take her home as well. We didn’t need help from anyone else once we got my mom’s vehicle.

  We figured when I returned we’d hammer out the schedule long term. We both knew Eli’s stay at Glendale Adventist would be a long one.

  Myra and I said our good-byes and made our way to Eli’s room.

  I will never forget what she told me just before I closed the door.

  “Be brave,” she’d said, then turned to Jose and began to cry into his neck.

  I watched her for a second or two, then left before tears threatened to overwhelm me.

  We found my aunt Bernice, my uncle Frank and my grandmother Candice – my mother’s mother – in the room, s
itting about my little brother talking quietly. They all looked up the moment the door creaked open. I could read the uneasiness in the looks they gave me.

  It didn’t matter if the cause was good or not, if the action was righteous or rooted in evil, looking upon the face of someone who nearly killed another human being was always a disconcerting act.

  I could tell they weren’t offended or disappointed in me in any way. It was merely the cast of their expressions. They were anxious, possibly a bit curious as well. The same question was in the corner of each of their eyes. What did it feel like to be that furious? Did being as enraged as you were change you forever? Are you still the same little boy we have grown to love so much over the years?

  I acknowledged each of them, but I wasn’t there to see them, or even talk. I was there to see my little brother.

  Though Valerie had told me told steel my heart, to gird my loins when my eyes fell onto Elijah, I couldn’t find any degree of intestinal fortitude. I rushed to the foot of his bed, made all the more huge by the fact he was so small laying I the middle of it. He was in bad shape. He looked like he was the brink of death. If I hadn’t already been told otherwise, I would’ve truly feared for his life.

  He was wearing nothing garment-like upon his person at all. He was so covered in bandages and pads and what not, the doctors and nurses had decided the best way to attend him was to have direct access to his body without an encumbering gown.

  Surprisingly, most of his face was in plain sight. He was intubated; tape covered his jaw and the lower portions of his cheeks, but I could see his nose around a feeding tube, the delicate set of his brow and his narrow forehead below his formless, bowl-shaped haircut. They had him in a combination neck brace/chest immobilizer that covered the upper regions of his torso. I imagined they had him in this to protect his broken ribs, keep in him still so he could heal properly. Underneath, he was wrapped in a myriad of ace bandages, though his left side bulged slightly more than his right. I realized that was where they’d operated, right below his pectoral muscle, in order to remove his spleen.