Heavy Heavy Hangs Over Your Head

TW: Abuse

“Heavy, heavy hangs over your head,” my father said in the sing-song voice we used for the game.

When I was five, I didn’t know he smelled like alcohol or sex.

His right hand was poised over my head, the left gripped the wheel of the Ford Ranger. I answered in the expected way.

“A feather?” I lisped over “th,” my mouth couldn’t contort to form the words correctly.

His hand fell on the top of my head and he put pressure on it for a few seconds. “Nope, a piano.” He laughed and ruffled my hair as I giggled.

Back then, he could do no wrong. That was before he locked me in the bathroom of a hotel room while he fucked a prostitute. It was before he would look at me with injured hatred shining in his eyes. It was before he blamed me for my mother leaving.

Heavy, heavy hangs over your head. I wonder if I’ll see the ridge of scars from where the doctors exposed his weak heart only days before. My hands are folded in front of me, my knuckles popping from the skin and turning white as unbidden tears threaten to fall down my usually stoic face.

I think of the time I told him the forked bar fight scars made him more handsome than anyone and reminded me of Harrison Ford. I can still see his bemused smile as he ruffled my hair.

“Thanks, Scooter,” he’d said. He stopped using his pet name for me after I started looking more and more like my mother each…