And the Winner by Knockout Is . . .by Héctor Hernández

The month before my thirteenth birthday, my parents’ marriage stumbled. Its arms pinwheeled for balance, and it might have recovered if not for the present I got. It was that seemingly insignificant little thing that pushed their marriage from behind, sending it over the edge of no return to land chest first onto the steel rebar of divorce below.

I blame myself. I wanted a BB gun, and I had schemed to get it. My two best friends, Steve and Joe, each had one. We’d go down to the river, the three of us, and shoot at anything that flew, hopped, crawled, slithered, or lumbered, even things that just stood still. Hell, we even shot each other, which at the time seemed like a good idea, but then Steve shot Joe in the neck, and we ended that game pretty quick. Head shots hadn’t been allowed, but Steve said it wasn’t his fault because Joe had ducked.

I asked Dad if I could get a BB gun for my birthday. My parents were already in the middle rounds of their domestic twelve rounder by then—this was a title fight, hence the twelve rounds. Mom found out Dad was cheating on her, and the bell for the first round had sounded on a cliché: lipstick on the collar. Scarlet, no less! Dad had bobbed and weaved, and that round ended in a draw.

But the second round went to Mom. Dad came home really late from work one day smelling nasty. I was no stranger to wet dreams, and I could smell that expelled bodily fluid mixed with Dad’s cheap cologne and a woman’s fragrance of rose water.

My little sister ran up to him like she always did and hugged him. That rancid cocktail of smells nearly knocked her over. “Phew! Daddy, you stink!”

He might have gotten away with his dirty little secret that time, but he made a mistake when his hand shot out and left my sister with her mouth and eyes wide open, her cheek blooming thick, red fingers. It took a second or two, but when she finally reacted, all hell broke loose.

Mom showed up, and she was no fool. Her nose was as keen—if not keener—than mine. She let loose a barrage of profanity that pelted Dad from all sides. My little sister stood between them, wailing like a siren the whole time.

I’d never asked my parents before for a specific present for any of my birthdays. None of us kids had. It just wasn’t done. You got whatever they thought you should have—what they could afford, really—even if you didn’t want it.

But I was a clever little pisser. I figured I could take advantage of the tornado of domestic chaos that had been tossing our family around and use it to my selfish advantage. Dad might get me a BB gun just to gain my loyalty and take his side in my parents’ constant battles that had us kids waking in the middle of the night to screams, shouts, accusations, tears, and threats.

It worked. But Dad didn’t do it to gain my loyalty. He did it to stick it to Mom. He knew how much she was against even the idea of my having a BB gun, and it would be sweet victory that she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

The second Dad and I stepped into the house after returning from the store, my brothers and sisters rushed us like a pack of hyenas, yapping and snapping, wanting to see my “boss” BB gun. “Boss” was the term we used back then for something really cool. But my BB gun was better than boss because it wasn’t a BB gun. It was a pellet gun, and not just any pellet gun. Dad had gone over the top and bought me the most expensive one in the store. It had cost him nearly $50 dollars. That was in ’68. Today, fifty-seven years later, that would be $450.

Dad had swung a haymaker hoping for a knockout, and Mom took it square on the chin. It rocked her head back like being plowed from behind while sitting in a ’68 Ford Country Squire before headrests were a thing.

But Mom didn’t drop to the canvas, didn’t yell, didn’t demand he take it back. She didn’t say a word, but man was she seething. It was in her eyes, and she burned Dad with them. The surprising thing? Dad was scared. And that scared me. For that one brief moment when their eyes  had locked, he’d been the one to look away.

Dad planned to take us all down to the river on Saturday to shoot my new gun—all of us except Mom, obviously. That had been the plan, anyway.

But Friday evening a heavy hand pounded our door—the twelfth and final round had begun. Mom quickly disappeared into her bedroom while Dad went to see who it was. He opened the door and was stunned to find two police officers. They walked in before Dad could react.

While the three of them talked in heated whispers, Mom came out of her room and started ushering us five kids into our own rooms. I caught a glimpse of her neck. It was mysteriously red, like she’d scratched herself all around. It hadn’t been like that before the knock.

Inside our rooms, we could hear Mom and Dad jabbing one another with short, stinging words. Then an ugly silence. We peeked out and saw one of the officers looking at Mom’s neck. Dad started yelling, protesting he hadn’t done it, but in the end, he had to pack his bags, and the officers escorted him out of the house. He never came back.

My parents divorced shortly thereafter.

As for my pellet gun, I never shot it. It disappeared that night Dad hit the canvas and stayed down for the count.

Héctor Hernández

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay – an air rifle on a white background.