Back Door

My hand left my side as if it had been coiled there for years. He was the only thing between me and the back door. I was 17 and he was hazy from a couple of tall Budweiser’s. It was black and white, like a dream sequence in a Hitchcock movie. The muffled sound of my mother screaming my name …sounded far away. I saw the strained and bloodshot futility in his eyes. In those seconds he was somewhere else. He was slamming the screen door of his childhood. Hitting the cool packed dirt of a backyard path, the smell of stale beer seemed to follow him even then. I saw his eyes looking. He was watching my clinched fist plunging toward him like a comet. He had showed up to play sheriff. You just can’t do that. You can’t ride in after countless disappointments, broken dreams, and false promises. You can’t just fucking show up and get to be sheriff. He had not been home for several days. He had no idea who I was. He had no idea who he was. Something in his brain had told him it was time to play a role. I still wonder what he was thinking. How he could have possibly believed he had rights. When it hit the side of his face I didn’t feel anything. It made a quiet thud. Not like the smacking sound in the movies. It was a cold and weak thud. My arms felt empty and unattached. During the times that I had allowed myself to imagine that moment, I imagined feeling strong and vindicated. I didn’t. His eyes closed as his head jerked back against the thin dark paneling of a worn out mobile home. He fell to the floor, almost effortlessly like an obstinate child in the middle of a Wal-Mart. His head dropped and I couldn’t say anything. He just sat there staring at the linoleum. I started to cry and pushed open the dented metal door, slamming it behind me; I jumped off the wobbly concrete steps into my backyard. They say that your life flashes before you when you die. Mine flashed before me the day I hit my father.