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                           Finger in a wound

                                  Madeline

As I crunch down to see threw the crack in the wall. As I lean forward, the basement floorboard cracks. I rapidly slap my back against the wall, so that my father won’t see me. I try so hard to listen closely to every word. My heart beats faster with every movement my father makes. It’s astonishing how my father brings fear to his alleys. It’s also amazing that at the golden age of fifty five his enemies are apprehensive about what he has planned next for them.

Maddy…Madeline I want to show you something. My father yells. I should have known he new I was there. The man has a sixth sense. I walk in right foot first then left just the way he taught me. That way I walk lightly on my feet. So I walk like a lady and a spy at the same time. It sounds easy but it took me two whole days to get it perfect. Also I had three bruises to prove it. My fathers old fashion. He prefers punches over lectures. He speaks a sentence at a time. And never answers a question because he is the one who says the questions.

            There in his hand was a little silver key. I stood straight beside him and smiled sweetly. Maddy I told you. Your hair is your best quality so that’s why it covers your face. So don’t smile, it disgusts me he says. I look down in self pity. My father puts his had beneath my chin and tilts my face upward. I can still smell the stench of arrogance coming off him. He looks me deep in the eyes and says you’ll always be my little rat.

Once when I was 13 my father made me hold the gun that he had just shot a man with. It was still warm. I could hardly fit my hand around it. Then my father grabbed my hand and pulled me toward a man on the floor. He knelled down next to the man and made me do the same thing. I remember that the man was still breathing. He grabbed my hand and folded my hand so that only my index finger was pointing out ward. I pulled away but he just did it again. I started crying. He looked at me as if he was getting pleasure out of my pain. Then he pushed my finger into the built wound. The man started to moan in agony. I looked away and I was crying hysterically. He kept asking me if I could feel the built. I got my figures around it and pulled it out. Then my father took the built and put it in his pocket. He was starting to get anxious. He started breathing heavy. He pulled me to the table and put a dagger in my hand. He let go of me and while I stared at the dagger. He whispered “he looks familiar, doesn’t he?”

Previously my father had me hide up in a vent in our house and listen and watch threw the cracks. I was to watch 3 different men and tell my father witch one was the one that would make a phone call. The man on the floor was the young blond that had made a phone call. My father looked at me then smiled and patted me on the back. He smugly said “it’s your fault he’s dieing” “you got to end his suffering”. My father left the room and locked the door behind him. I dropped the knife and ran to the door. I kept trying to open it.  I was struggling with the door knob. It wouldn’t budge.

I threw my back against the door and slid down the door to the floor. Wear I sat there panting and crying. I was staring at the young mans body twitch while he was trying to stay alive. I couldn’t stop thinking that it was my fault. I could here my father ordering me to kill him. I crawled to the dagger and ran to the door and started stabbing at the door. I did that over and over again. It didn’t even make a dent in the door. My father kept edging me on. He was telling me to use that anger to finish the job. So I walked right foot the left to the body knelled down next to the man. At this point my long red hair was dangling in the young mans blood, while he cuffed up more.

Father always taught me that when cutting off a chicken head do not close your eyes; or you’ll miss. Why do it twice when you only have to do it once. So I guess that this was just like that chicken. I cried the first time I killed the chicken for supper. Father called me chickenhearted. He thought that it would make me laugh but like always I cried and he laughed.

I grasped my hand around the young mans blond hair and tilted his head back. Then the man was looking me straight in the eyes. He muttered locket. I took off the locket. It was beautiful. In his last word he said keep it closes. Then I placed the edge of the blade on his neck and with one clear stroke. I cut clear threw the juggler. Blood started to sprit on my black shirt. I lay next to the body. My father unlocked the door. He marched in and took my blood drenched finger tips and drew to lines on each cheek. He put his hand underneath my chin and tilted my face upward. Then he gave that same devilish smile and said “that’s my rat”

Well that was just one part of my childhood. It wasn’t always like that. I had wonderful times alone in my bedroom. I was never aloud out in public so he would home school me. If I didn’t get an answer right he would convert to olden day methods; such as slapping my hands with a ruler. If I cried he would just slap me harder. So I learnt at a young age that tears show fear. Fear is for the weak. So when I did well my father would by me any doll I wanted. I would play with all the different dolls that my father would buy me.

When I turned sixteen my father threw me a beautiful sweet sixteen party. He introduced me to his partner Alan Barbell. He was a dark hearted sort of man. The type my father socialized with. They were always tall brood and dressed very gallant. I remember that there was floating balloons every wear and I could smell the stench of bear. The atmosphere was a party but it wasn’t a party for a teenager. It was a party for an adult. There weren’t any children. Probably cause I wasn’t aloud to socialize with anyone younger then 23. So my father invited all his coworker. That’s if you can call them that. Every one of them was hiding a gun some ware. Harold, my father’s hit man was hiding a pistol in his belt. And a knife in is left boot. Harold was twenty three and had wavy dark bold hair to his chin. He had one of those hair cuts that looked like he got into a fight with the barber. It was shorter in the front and longer in the back. He was never anything then nice to me. He told me once that my father was nicer to some of his victims then he was to me. Death was a better punishment then having to live with him.

One time Harold snuck me out of my bedroom to take me to the mall for ice cream. I still don’t know how he got passed my father. Harold would always listen to everything I had to say. He would bring the latest movies home to watch with me. We would write different ways to runaway. One day I had a shower and when I came back into my room, everything was turn up side down. There in the middle of the room was my father holding up one of my journals. Then I looked again and it was Harold’s journal that he had left here. My father looked at me and shook his head. He took the journal and slapped me across the face and called me a tramp. He kept calling me trader. He told me to get dressed so I did.

I waited for him to come in again but he never did. I still don’t know exactly what he thought but I know it mustn’t have been good. I opened the door and started to walk toward the stared and that’s when he pushed me down them. He ran down after me and grabbed me by my hair and pulled me to his office. There in a chair was Harold all tied up with duck tape around his mouth. Harold was squirming in his chair like a little beetle when you hold it in between your fingers. Father had that look in his eyes again. Just the way he looked when I was 13 and I killed that man. I turned to him and he pointed a gun in my face. He started laughing. He said “when are you going to learn that when you dig a whole you have to refill the hole.

He handed me a Mag Semi-automatic 3.5 hand gun that I bought him for his forty sixth birthday. I wouldn’t take it. I started backing away from him saying “No...No I won’t do it”. Then he lifted his arm and then swung it across. The gun smacked my jaw. The force was so powerful I fell. I couldn’t breath. My jaw was throbbing. I knew it wasn’t as bad as it was going to be for Harold. My father will leave him in excruciating pain. So I new I had to end this for him. I grabbed the gun and stud up in front of Harold. My father placed the gun on my skull. He clicked the trigger.  I pointed the gun in front of me. My eyes started to water. All the good times that I shared with Harold kept flashing threw my head. I couldn’t do it. I started to shake. My red hair was flowing behind me. It was almost as if there was wind blowing directly at me. I thought maybe there was a lord and he sent an angel to pause time and take me away. Of course that never happened.  

My father places his hand on mine and steadies my arm out. He whispers in my ear “look into his eyes”. “You’re beautiful like fire but just like fire you’re dangerous and sometime deadly”. “You’ve burned him so why not finish him”. I was still looking into his eyes. His light blue eyes like water. If I was fire and he was water then we would even each other out.

I couldn’t figure a way out. Everything I thought of was even more idiotic then the original plan. Within his eyes he was telling me to do it. At the same time he was swimming in fear. My father started counting down from ten and when he got to five he said “it’s not like your murdering an innocent person.” “He kills for a living.” “He’s a hit man” “do it…Maddy! I was still looking him in the eyes when I pulled the trigger. Harold was still and lifeless; as you should be if you had been shot in the head.

I dropped the gun on the floor. I wiped my tears away. Father separated my long red hair into to pony tails. He rapped both ponytails around my neck. His voice got raspy. He said “if you try to leave me again I’ll kill you and the other person”. Then he pulled so tight on both ponies that he started to choke me. I broke loose and ran up stares.

I’ve lived day by day by that rule. Now let’s go back to the present. Why is he holding a little silver key and car keys? Father…you called. He turned around and he was scared. He has never been frightened in his life. He is the bravest man I know. He is also the cruelest man I know but that’s beside the point. What could he be frightened of? I have to know but if I ask he might strike me so for my sake I won’t ask. If he needs my help, he will tell me.

He started to ramble frantically. Maddy take these. Take them! Don’t loose them. I need you to get something back for me. Go to Mendel hotel. Stay there for two months. Dress elegantly and act mysterious. Look for a man named Luis Rockwell. Do anything to get the black suit case with a red bear claw print on it. This man has files on me. Proof of everything I did. He wants a billion dollars. I don’t have that kind of money to give away. My little rat if you don’t do this I’ll lose my chain of Moranis casinos. I’ll lose everything I’ve ever built.

Everything is packed and ready. Just get in the car and drive away from here. Oh and don’t for get this. He handed me a file that was twenty one pages long. I did what he said, because I always do what he says.

Was this the end or was this the beginning. Was I finally going to be free? I’m so confused. I contemplate the truth when is goes threw my head. Do I believe him or do I just pay attention to the details. Should I run or should I help him. He was so desperate. I feel in command. What does this possibly mean? I at least know this. If my mother was still alive, I would walk away from all of this. She was the one who brought life into the world, but the world took her out.