Crave by Laurie Jean Cannady

past the point of function.
    Despite his less than pristine condition, he was the man she’d married, which meant he was Champ’s daddy since he’d graciously given his name. Now, he was not so gracious. He had not lived in the titles of daddy nor husband since Champ was born.
    Momma heard the door pull open. The incoming cold sucked the warm out of the room. My father’s frazzled frame chilled the space even more. He wore a Kangol hat, unfashionably tilted to the back. His skin, the color of cigarette ashes, was dry. The whites of his eyes were a rusted red. His lips held a cigarette pressed between them. His pants, once a sandy beige, were decorated with dark, camouflage-like splotches. He wore a striped shirt, one that used to be too small, which now draped over him like a poncho. He saw Momma sitting in front of the door, straightened, and then pressed one shoulder into the space behind him. He fingered his Kangol, slipped the lip to the front, turned his head to the side, and smiled.
    â€œHey Lois,” he cooed, as he slunk to her and placed his hands on both arms of the chair, becoming a living cage around Momma. He leaned in, went for a kiss on the lips, even as Momma’s hands were raised and her head pressed into the fabric of the chair. He kissed her anyway, tongued her neck, stuck his hand down her shirt and asked, “Did you miss me?”
    When his kisses weren’t returned, he clamped his hands around her wrists, raised her body to his, fixed one hand on the small of her back, and held her other arm in place. They danced. He swung her around the room, as her feet slid in objection across the hardwood floor. She arched her back outward, attempted to bend away at the waist, but his grip was stronger than her opposition. Finally, her body went limp. That, he found less entertaining, so he hustled her back to the chair. Then he found a new partner, Champ, whom he raised over his head and swung around the room. A squelch exited Champ’s mouth. Not finished with the crying that had occupied him minutes before, his body stiffened and tears covered his face. Momma grabbed at my father and jumped to reach her son. Carl laughed, amused by what he deemed her aspirations to rejoin.
    He welcomed her back to the dance. The higher she jumped, the higher he held Champ. Eventually, he was holding him with one hand, arm fully extended, over his and Momma’s head. She continued jumping, reaching, afraid Carl would decide to play keep-away even though there was no one on the other side to catch.
    The jumping dance continued until his arm cramped. Annoyed with his own amusement, he went to Momma and slapped her across her face. Accustomed to his beatings, she did not cry, so he slapped Champ in the face and pulled tears from her that way. Momma screamed until he lobbed Champ into her arms, rubbed his belly, and asked, “What’s to eat?”
    Momma, watching him through the slits of her eyes, saw a shadow of the man she’d loved so briefly, the one who’d courted her at Cradock High despite the fact that she was pregnant, the one who’d spoken to Champ in her belly with a tenderness that made her envious. During the earlier days, when they shared lunch in the school library, where they read poems he’d written, he begged softly for a kiss and promised he’d take care of her.
    Less than two years later, he’d grown into a lanky, drunken man who broke everything he touched.
    â€œWhat’s to eat?” Momma responded. “Where is the money I gave you?”
    He did not look at her as he opened and closed the refrigerator door.
    â€œWhat money?” he said as he checked the cabinets and donned that smile again.
    â€œThe last of the money we had.”
    â€œOh, that money,” he said, this time with a laugh and no smile. “I lost it on the way to the store.”
    Momma thought of the fives, tens, and twenties that should have been littering the