Affliction

Tea, spaghetti sauce and noodles formed a heaping pile on the kitchen floor as Tony lost his grip on his plate and drink. As glass broke in a thunderous collision with tile, he gasped - but not at the glass, or even the mess. He had dropped his food because his father, Robert, had bumped into him. He would have preferred anything to that.

"Father, I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"You didn't what?" Robert's voice was especially loud tonight, soaked with alcohol. "Where the hell did you think I was going, huh? Think I was gonna just take my plate to bed with me, is that it retard?"

"N-no, Father," Tony mumbled, his voice cracking.

Robert groaned and smacked Tony on the back of the head, making him step onto a piece of glass. Tony struggled back a cry of pain. "Such a damn baby. Maybe if you would walk a bit faster instead of waddling fatass. You know, we got that basketball hoop for a reason, why don't you try it out sometime? Or are you *trying* to have a heart attack at your sixteenth birthday, genius?"

Tony swallowed and shook his head, bending down to pick up the jagged pieces of glass. Blood from his foot wound was gradually mixing with the tea and sauce on the floor, but he didn't say anything.

"Great, now you're bleeding," Robert bellowed and pushed Tony aside, throwing him against a wall. "Guess I'll have to clean up *you* mess again. We can't keep affording bandaids just for you to continue acting like an idiot, Tony. Now go patch that up before I give you something else to whine about."

Tony just nodded and slid past his father, leaving blood on the carpet as he raced to the bathroom.

"Damn it Tony! Now look what you did. We'll have to get a steam cleaner in here now, that shit never comes out!" Robert yelled down the hall, quickly throwing away the pieces of glass and mopping up the liquids.

As Tony closed the door, Robert threw away the bloody paper towels and gazed furiously at the trail of blood on the carpet. "Damn kid," he mumbled, shaking his head as he plopped down in his favorite chair, crossing his arms over his muscular chest.

The TV wasn't on. Outside it was silent, no cars or pedestrians passing by, no wind. The kitchen overhead light provided the only illumination. A gentle breeze washed against the back of his neck as he gazed at the black, blank TV screen. He wondered why Tony continued to act so stupidly, always getting in his way, never walking fast enough, never doing anything right. He was always in the way, always doing something wrong. It made Robert sick. Hadn't he raised his own son better than that?

"Be a man," Robert mumbled.

He blinked. Why had he said that? Tony couldn't hear it; the bathroom door was closed. It... almost didn't even feel or sound like his own voice. "Be a man..."

Suddenly, a memory faded into Robert's mind. "Get out of the damn way, you moron, can't you see I'm trying to get by?"

His step-father, Carl. It was his voice... his tone, which Robert had echoed. "Be a man!" Carl screamed at Robert in his reverie.

The vision passed. "Be a man..."

He looked at his trembling hands. Scarred, callused, beaten - only twenty years ago they had been fresh, with only the marks of play and schoolwork on them. "Maybe if you worked once in awhile," Carl growled, "you'd have a few calluses and know how to be a man, wouldn't you?!"

Robert swallowed, his throat dry, stiff. Sweat curled around his eyes and blended with tears as they streaked down his dirt-caked cheeks. "I-I did this... t-to myself," he whispered. "I-I deserved it... punished. B-beaten. Matured... W-why didn't I just live right?" he shouted as he jumped to his feet, tears lining a blood-red face, brow furrowed and eyes enraged.

He picked up a stool and threw it through a window, glass shattering and wood breaking. "Why the hell didn't I just move, walk faster, clean better, work harder?"

His throat was hollow as he yelled, the image of his child self enveloped by red in his mind. "Just damn move! Get out of his way and he won't say anything!"

Breath escaped him as his mind drained. He sobbed at held his face as tears dripped off his cheeks, mixing with Tony's blood on the carpet. "N-no... n-no... h-how could I..."

Turning, he blinked, Tony staring back at him blankly, tears lining his cheeks, encircling his reddened eyes. "F-father..."

Robert couldn't breathe, his body tingling, his heart empty. He closed his eyes and sagged, almost jumping as Tony embraced him.

"I-I understand, Father..." Tony whispered. "I-I forgive you."

A stray gust of dusk chill blew in from the shattered window, meshing with the sound of their mortified spirits.