Three Avenues of Escape
Copyright © 2006 Elmore Hammes
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This story first appeared in the Fall 2006 issue of The First Line
This is a work of fiction, and all characters are wholly of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
SMASHWORDS EDITION
Published by
KANAPOLIS FOG PUBLISHING EMPORIUM
Anderson, Indiana
Through Smashwords
Three Avenues of Escape
When my brother, Andy, went away to college, he left me his fishing pole, a well-read copy of The Wind in the Willows, and a stack of Playboys. Each of those, in different ways, would allow me to make my own escape from our troubled home.
I called it a home, but it wasn’t what most people considered a home. It provided shelter from the weather outside but held none of the familial love and guidance found in normal homes. Mom’s death from an overdose years ago had burned away what little compassion Dad ever had as he poured bottle after bottle of alcohol down his throat to drown her memory. Or more likely the memory of how he had beaten her, how he had sent her down the path of popping pills until she finally found her avenue of escape.
Andy’s way out was simpler. Less painful and less mortal, anyway. He had provided what little joy our father experienced by starting at quarterback for the high school. He ran for as many touchdowns as he passed for, and by the time he graduated he held school records in most offensive categories and came close to the Indiana state record for total points in a career. He didn’t have the size to play for the big schools, but jumped at the chance to start for a small university out west that offered a partial scholarship. The money was a bonus – he would have washed dishes or chalked the lines on the field if it meant he could go out of state. Since Andy’s athletic prowess was the only thing that Dad could brag about at the local bars, something that occasionally got him a free round, there was no trouble when Andy had announced his intentions. Dad could only think of clipping newspaper articles about another four touchdown game by his boy and showing it off to his fellow drunks.
Me, I had four more years before college was possible. Football was not in the cards for my five foot six, hundred and twenty-five pounds soaking wet body. Nor any other athletic endeavor – I had a hard enough time walking without falling down, let alone trying to coordinate more than one part of my body in conjunction with some moving object that was more likely to damage me than to respond in such a fashion as to score a goal or point.
I remember looking up at Andy as he stood on the bottommost step leading into the bus. He smiled, tussled my thick mop of brown hair, and said, “Don’t worry, Jeff. You’ll be all right.” I just stared at him, trying not to cry. He placed a hand on my shoulder. “Just keep out of his way.”
With Andy gone there was little to occupy Dad other than his drinking. Occasionally he would bring home some poor woman from the bar. For a few days I would have a break from his haranguing; it was hard for him to pick on me when he was either passed out or screwing in bed all day. But eventually he ran out of beer and whiskey, and he was worse coming off of a binge than when he was in the middle of it. He would slowly realize just how unlike Mom the woman was, and after a couple slaps across her mouth she’d more quickly realize it would be best for her to get the hell out of Dodge. After that he’d walk around kicking the furniture until he’d spy me hiding behind a book in an easy chair. He would scowl and ask me why I couldn’t be more like Andy, why I couldn’t get my head out of the book and go throw a baseball with my friends. Then he would laugh and say, “That’s right, you don’t have any friends.” A real enabler, my Dad, that’s for sure.
After a couple times of this happening I began to recognize the signs, to realize when the woman had enough and would be gone in the morning. I knew I would be the only outlet for his anger and it would be best if I took off before he was aware the woman had skedaddled. I had enough bruises from casual, absentminded slaps and punches when he happened to be walking down the hallway and passed by; I knew I wouldn’t last five minutes if he started to intentionally pound on me. I decided to grab the fishing pole and head for the small pond on the edge of town. Fishing wasn’t a contact sport, but it was a lot better than reading, in my father’s eyes, and he barely gave me a second glance when he saw the pole in my hands. Thankfully he didn’t notice the worn copy of The Wind in the Willows stuck in my back pocket.
I enjoyed casting: the feel of the pole in my hands, the whir of the line as the weights carry it through the air, the ker-plunk upon dropping into the water. I don’t enjoy actually catching fish, so I never used bait. Dad sometimes asks why I didn’t bring anything back and I just tell him they were too small to keep or that I only caught garbage fish that day. The pond is heavy with carp so he believes it. After all, Andy would be the one to catch something worth keeping.
So it didn’t matter that day when I headed out to the pond without a bucket of worms or can of corn. After casting for about fifteen minutes I snagged the line on a branch and lost the hook and weights. I shrugged and sat down, resting my back against a tree. I pulled out the book and began to read. It was an instant attraction. I fell into the world of Mole and Rat, Badger and Otter, with complete abandon. This was what things were supposed to be like, I thought. A place where houses became homes, where friends supported each other, where there was more love than hate. I also had to admit that the decidedly male companionship between the animals was of a nature more akin to my own than I would ever have told my father. It didn’t have to be about sex, and I am not implying there was anything funny going on when Rat and Mole bedded down together – I just know that if I ever get out of here, it will be to a place where I can be among friends, male friends, that will understand me. Friends that will care about me. And maybe love me. But it doesn’t have to come to that.
I read the whole book in one sitting. I couldn’t help it. Here was a world so foreign to my own yet at the same time one that called to me. It was a world I wanted to be a part of, to live in and escape to. I set the book down beside me on the grass after turning the last page. I wanted to reflect on the stories, on the companionship portrayed, but the setting sun brought reality crashing back to me as I realized how late it had gotten. I shoved the book in my back pocket, grabbed the pole and ran back to the house.
I let out a sigh of relief when I saw the lights were out. Dad was off at the bars again. There would be no punishment for being gone so long without permission. Sometimes I wondered why he would hit me for being away when it was so clear to me that he didn’t want me around. He would yell at me for wanting to read and ask me if I was a man or a pussy. How could I have answered him? Sorry, Dad, I like books not balls unless you’re talking about ones hanging between someone’s legs? That would have sent me either to the hospital or the morgue.
I went to my bedroom and pulled out the magazines Andy had left me. I opened one and flipped through it. The women were beautiful, but not in a real way. They looked so posed, so unnatural; I couldn’t understand how someone could find them attractive, could convince themselves that these robotic photos were real women that breathed let alone made love to lonely guys fantasizing about them.
“What the hell you reading?”
I looked up. I hadn’t even heard him come in. He must have been in his room. My face flushed red as I held the magazine up for him to see.
“Where’d you get those?” he asked, but not with malice in his voice. He was actually asking me a question, wanting a straight answer, confused at apparently finding me acting like a normal teenage boy.
“Andy gave them to me before he took off.”
“Oh. Well, close the door when you’re doing that stuff.”
He shut the door behind him as he left. I looked at it, dumbfounded. He had insisted on my door being open all the time – that it was his house and there was no reason for him to not know what was going on in it everywhere. I had never been able to have any privacy. Even the bathroom door was left slightly ajar. I looked back down at the magazine. The naked woman with the smile and the large breasts that did nothing for me all of a sudden represented the possibility of survival.
I felt a stirring, not in my loins but in my soul, as I realized that between the fishing pole, the book and the magazines that I had found my own avenues of escape. I would make it through the next four years, doubtless with a few battle scars, but that was okay. Once removed from this house, I could find a place to heal. A home.
THE END
About the Author
Elmore Hammes is a fiction writer whose short stories have appeared in publications ranging from obscure e-zines to nationally distributed magazines. His most recent book, Questionable Heroes, was his seventh published novel. His books can be ordered through most bookstores and online merchants in print and e-book editions.
Available Works:
The Cloud
The Holmes and Watson Mysterious Events and Objects Consortium: The Case of the Witch’s Talisman
Not Fit For Human Consumption: A Comedic Farce
Questionable Heroes
Through the Arch
The Twenty Dollar Bill
Belt Buckles & Pajamas (writing as Michele LeBlanc)
Three Avenues of Escape (short story, e-book only)