Savage by Nathaniel G. Moore Page A

Dad’s veiled outline stretched large as he came in and out of frame through the curtained window. Mom had joined him now and was gesturing like crazy. I opened the window a bit so I could hear them, just a crack. She stopped with her hands and turned away.
    Dad didn’t look up. Mom pleaded. "Would you stop it!" Mom growled, cawed, standing behind Dad’s dig stance.
    I turned the television off.
    "David! Stop digging! Stop it!"
    My nose was at the window, heart kicking into a rapid-beating frenzy.
    Mom repeated, "Stop it!"
    "It’s my garden!" Dad snapped back, on his knees, his red plaid shirt a big round rectangle of sweat and sun and digging.
    The cicadas were holding their notes; their song came to a halt. Inside I could feel my stomach lubricating in a layer of pre-vomit. I sprinted back into the kitchen, jumping over the open dishwasher door Mom had abandoned, running into my shoes as I blasted to the side door. I burst through high noon’s Saturday heat, seeing Mom’s perm and the sunlight moving through it creating a temporary golden orb. She turned around, nose red, eyes watering.
    "He won’t stop digging!" she cried. "Would you stop it David!"
    These seconds were without sensation; it took forever to reach him, to be beside his dirt shoulder and smell his specific atmosphere.
    "Stop it!" I shouted.
    He was taking off his red shirt, revealing a yellow mountain of cotton T-shirt and a pair of dirty brown cords. "Stop digging up the fucking backyard, you psycho!"
    Dad didn’t budge. "Both of you get inside."
    He wanted to keep digging. Mom kept screaming. "We will if you just stop!"
    "Get inside!"
    I pulled at my father’s shoulder. Dad pushed me away. "Diane, get inside!"
    I returned to the frazzle, now pulling him from his garden crime scene into the driveway near a pile of wood.
    "Stop it, you asshole!" Dad shouted at me.

    "You stop it!" I shouted back. He shoved me. I shoved back, causing him to fall into the woodpile, spilling a few logs.
    Dad regained his composure, and with the weed pick in his hand, swung at me.
    "Asshole!" He shouted.
    I felt sick: hostile triggers and signifiers went off inside me—lighters flicking, the scent of bright-yellow beer and the gross suds filling me up from toe to head, the rage of a lawn gutted, brutally turned over, final.
    The language was barbed as we struggled, clenching hands and fists while Mom screamed like a banshee.
    Upon passing the driveway, one might have assumed a competitive road-hockey game was going on, but no hockey sticks or nets were in play; they lay dormant in the garage. Dad was holding Mom by the arms.
    "Stop it David!"
    Gusting down the hot driveway to the front door, swinging it open and pouring my eyes over the kitchen for something—anything...
    ...I spotted a wooden tea tray. Returning at full speed to the driveway, I saw Dad trying to shove Mom inside. I was about thirty feet away, standing in front of our car.
    "Get inside!" Dad shouted, glaring at me.
    "You’re scaring me, David!" Mom screamed. I ran at Dad, hitting him over the back with the wooden tray.
    TWACK!
    The funk of cigarette smoke alchemizing with his crap cologne hung in the air that separated us. I stared deeply into Dad’s steel-wool eyes.
    "Just get inside!" Dad shouted as I dropped the tray.
    "Nate!" Mom screamed.
    "Diane, inside!" Dad barked. "Call the police!"
    "You’re insane!" I shouted. "When they get here, I’m gonna make sure they lock you up forever!"
    "Diane, call the police!" He was behind the screen door now.
    "You’re such a fucking piece of crap!" I said, staring into his glazed grey eyes.
    I moved towards the screen door to pull it open. Dad slammed the side door shut in my face, and I heard the lock click, digesting my family inside.
    I stood in the driveway alone, the wooden tea tray at my feet, the sun now fully outstretched in the cloudless sky.
    Across the street in a bright deluge, several neighbours