Boys Life

then, into the hallway. I was seeing a monster that had slipped from its skin.
    Mr. Sears struggled to stand. He grabbed hold of the table that held the Scrabble tiles, and it went over in an explosion of vowels and consonants. Then he made it to his feet, and he unscrewed the cap off the flask and licked the bottle neck.
    “Come on to bed, Sim,” she said; it was spoken without strength, as if she knew full well what the outcome of this would be.
    “Come on to bed!” he mocked. “Come on to bed!” His lip curled. “I don’t wanna come to bed, you fat-assed cow!”
    I saw Mrs. Sears tremble as if she’d been stung by a whip. A hand pressed to her mouth. “Oh… Sim,” she moaned, and it was an awful sound to hear.
    I backed away some more. And then Ben walked past me in his yellow pajamas, his face blank of expression but tear tracks glistening on his cheeks.
    There are things much worse than monster movies. There are horrors that burst the bounds of screen and page, and come home all twisted up and grinning behind the face of somebody you love. At that moment I knew Ben would have gladly looked into that glass bowl at the tentacled Martian head rather than into his father’s drunk-red eyes.
    “Hey, Benny boy!” Mr. Sears said. He staggered and caught himself against a chair. “Hey, you know what happened to you? You know what? The best part of you stayed in that busted rubber, that’s what happened.”
    Ben stopped beside his mother. Whatever emotion tortured him inside, it did not show on his face. He must’ve known this was going to happen, I realized. Ben had known when his father went with Donny Blaylock, he would come home changed not by the Martians but by the home brew in that flask.
    “You’re a real sight. The both of you.” Mr. Sears tried to screw the cap back on, but he couldn’t make it fit. “Standin’ there with your smart mouths. You think this is funny, don’t you, boy?”
    “No sir.”
    “Yes you do! You can’t wait to go laugh and tell everybody, can you? Where’s that Mackenson boy? Hey, you!” He spotted me, back in the hall, and I flinched. “You can tell that goddamned milkman daddy of yours to go straight to hell. Hear me?”
    I nodded, and his attention wandered away from me. This was not Mr. Sears talking, not really; this was the voice of what the flask flayed raw and bloody inside his soul, what it stomped and kicked and tortured until the voice had to scream for release.
    “What’d you say?” He stared at Mrs. Sears, his eyelids swollen and heavy. “What’d you say?”
    “I… didn’t say-”
    He was on her like a charging bull. Mrs. Sears cried out and retreated but he grabbed the front of her gown with one hand and reared his other hand back, the flask gripped in it, as if to smash her across the face. “Yes you did!” he shouted. “ Don’t you backtalk me!”
    “Daddy, don’t!” Ben pleaded, and he flung both arms around one of his father’s thighs and hung tight. The moment stretched, Mr. Sears about to strike his wife, me standing in a state of shock in the hallway, Ben holding on to his father’s leg.
    Mrs. Sears’s lips trembled. With the flask poised to strike her face, she spoke: “I… said… that we both love you, and that… we want you to be happy. That’s all.” Tears welled up and trickled. “Just happy.”
    He didn’t speak. His eyes closed, and he opened them again with an effort.
    “Happy,” he whispered. Ben was sobbing now, his face pressed against his father’s thigh, his knuckles white at the twining of his fingers. Mr. Sears lowered his hand, and he let go of his wife’s gown. “Happy. See, I’m happy. Look at me smile.”
    His face didn’t change.
    He stood there, breathing roughly, his hand with the flask in it hanging at his side. He started to step one way and then another, but he couldn’t seem to decide which way to go.
    “Why don’t you sit down, Sim?” Mrs. Sears asked. She sniffled and wiped her dripping nose. “Want me to help you?”
    He nodded. “Yeah. Help.”
    Ben let him go, and Mrs. Sears guided her husband to his chair. He collapsed into it, like a large pile of dirty laundry. He stared at the opposite wall, his mouth hanging open. She drew up another chair close beside him. There was a feeling in the room as if a storm had passed. It might come again, some other night, but for now it was gone.
    “I don’t think-” He stopped, as if he’d lost what he was about to say. He