Watching it happen in front of me today, I knew I didn't. Mom was just a crazy drunk. I don't know why I didn't see that as a kid. Maybe I was too young to understand what that meant. Maybe I was just stupid. Regardless, when my mother knelt down and started beating Herbie while blood trickled from the wound beneath her dirty blond curls, he didn't try to get away. Instinct brought his hands up to protect his face, but the little squirming he did came as a natural reaction to the pain of his mother's strikes. Otherwise, he accepted his punishment. It made me sick.
After a particularly stiff punch to his face caused his head to bounce against the hard floor, I began to inch forward. I couldn't let it go on. I had to stop it. If I didn't stop it, I was just as bad as my mother. I took another step forward. It couldn't change my history, could it? If I stopped her, would anything I knew about myself and my youth change? Would I even realize it if it did? Did it even matter in the face of what I was witnessing?
Again, I was saved from having to make the decision. My mother, breathing heavily, shifted from a squatting position to all fours, allowing Herbie to scramble to his feet. Her eyes were distant and unfocused beneath beads of sweat, and she wobbled back and forth like a tree in the wind. I thought she was going to vomit from the amount of alcohol she'd consumed.
Herbie wiped blood from his lips and stepped away. "Mom?" It seemed he had the same concern.
She finally slumped to the floor. The breaths stopped coming, and her eyes rolled back into her head. For Herbie, of course, it was a terrifying sight. "MOM!!" he screamed, dropping down and grabbing her by the shoulders. A couple of shakes later, he was up and running for the bedroom phone.
"We should go," I said while he was in the other room. "It's going to get quite busy around here when the paramedics arrive, and we'll have a tough time staying concealed."
Doc's voice startled me to my left. I thought he'd been on my right the whole time. "Are you sure?"
I stared at my mother with a mixture of anger, resentment, and frustration. Although the sight of her drunken body did bring forth a flood of those emotions, both pity and compassion were floating around in there, too. Somewhere. "She'll live," I said, heading for the door. "That's all I need to know."
We had the front door closed behind us before Herbie got back into the kitchen. Once we were on the sidewalk, Doc deactivated his invisibility belt. I looked around to be sure no one was watching, then followed suit.
"That must have been difficult to watch." Sometimes Doc had a knack for stating the obvious. "Did she attack you like that often?"
"Only when she was drunk," I replied. "So yeah, pretty often."
He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his glasses as we walked. "It struck me how Herbie handled the beating; once it was over he wiped off the blood and moved on like it was a normal part of everyday life."
"Back then, it was. And I accepted that for some reason. I just told myself I deserved it. I assumed that all children were disciplined the same way."
"Might I pose another theory?"
I let out a long breath, gazing at the autumn leaves as we walked. "By all means."
"Perhaps it was because you just didn't want to consider the possibility that your mother might not have loved you. If she had a reason for the abuse, if she was doing it in order to teach you something rather than to hurt you, then you might have seen it as an act of motherly love rather than an attack. It is not uncommon among children in abusive families to simply accept their circumstances because they want so badly to believe that their parents love them regardless of the living conditions."
"I guess it's a possibility."
Now he stopped and looked me in the eyes. "You know now, however, that her behavior was not acceptable by any stretch of the imagination. Correct?"
My eyes unconsciously shifted to the pavement. I was afraid he was going to ask why I didn't intervene. Why I didn't stop her from beating on Herbie. "Of course."
The question never came, though. There was a brief silence before Doc spoke again, shifting topics. "We've talked about your fear of your father in the past. Was this one of those times that he frightened you?"
"Yeah," I said. "In high school, I started getting more defiant with him. With Mom too, for that matter. But before that, I was pretty submissive to both of them. During middle school, I was trying to love them with God's love, and the Bible tells children to honor their parents. So I'd submit myself to Dad's verbal abuse and Mom's physical abuse in hopes that God would bring some good out of it all. He never did."
"I wouldn't say that," Doc told me.
"Really? What good came from today's incident?"
Doc grinned for some reason. "Let's just say it was another building block."
Was I supposed to understand that? Usually, when Doc says something cryptic like that, I'm supposed to decipher the clues in front of me to arrive at whatever point he was trying to make. This time, I had no idea. "I don't understand."
In the distance, ambulance and police sirens echoed. Doc took a look back toward my house before smiling at me again. "We're still building. Come, let's move on."
"Where are we going now?"
Around the corner, the Chronopod waited for us disguised as a parked aeromobile. "I want you to take me to another memory involving your relationship with your parents. Any one you'd like."
For some reason, I thought of one particular night when Mom and Dad took me to the county carnival that was set up on the high school football field every spring. A lot of things happened that night. Some good. Some bad. Some . . . strange. "All right," I said, "I think I know where we can go."
The carnival was held about a month or so before graduation each year, so most high school seniors spent their nights celebrating early. However, many parents from town brought their younger children to enjoy the attractions as well. Mom and Dad, on one of the nights when they seemed to be getting along, decided it would be fun to go. And, since I was their son, they figured they may as well take me along. Nice, right?
When Doc and I showed up, the night was already well underway. The fairgrounds were loaded with people, litter dotted the ground everywhere, colored lights from the various rides illuminated the night sky, and the scent of cheap hot dogs and fattening cakes wafted through the air. I wasn't exactly sure how we were going to find Herbie and my parents. The carnival's layout was poorly designed, and there were people everywhere.
Given the public atmosphere, Doc and I were able to wander about without needing to use the invisibility belts. We walked toward the main entrance where most of the food and games were located. I thought I remembered Mom and Dad buying a couple of beers around there, but I didn't see them anywhere. "This is going to be difficult," I said. "I don't remember the exact sequence of stops we made on this particular night."
"Well, then let's start with what you do remember," Doc suggested. "What made you think of this night?"
"A few things," I told him. "But I guess the most important is what will happen at the Twister." That was a ride that rotated at high speeds with people inside, supposedly simulating the effects of a tornado. I never got to ride it, so I wouldn't know. Then again, I've never been inside a tornado, either.
"Then let's head in that direction," Doc said.
We chose a spot just across the path from the Twister's ticket collector. The poor guy had no idea what was about to happen. Within about twenty minutes, I saw them; Dad, Mom, and Herbie were headed in our direction. Dad had his arm around Mom, and she had her head on his shoulder. My dear, sweet, and decent Mother, was dressed in one of her slutty looking short skirts that showed far more than any son should ever be forced to see. Along with it, she wore a low-cut top that probably could've earned her criminal charges in a number of states. Dad was in his usual biker gear. Both had plastic cups full of beer in their hands. Herbie trailed along a good six or seven paces behind.
"They lo
ok like they're in good spirits," Doc noted. "But you look downright miserable."
"That's because they were just drunk," I told him. "And they wouldn't do anything I suggested. No rides. No games. No candy. Nothing. Granted, we had very little money to spare, but as a ten year old child, you don't come to a carnival expecting to just walk around and look at all the rides you can't ride and games you can't play. Besides, they weren't keeping me off the rides because of money, they were doing it because they didn't want to spare the time for me. Watch."
When they came upon the Twister, my mother's eyes lit up. She pointed at it excitedly and yammered on in my Dad's ear, presumably begging him to go on it. Doc and I casually moved a bit closer, all the while pretending to just be spectators watching the ride. Or maybe waiting for a friend. Either way, we were soon close enough to listen to the conversation.
"Come on, it'll be fun!" Mom was urging him.
My Dad actually had a smile on his face. "Maybe this one time." His voice sounded like pebbles rubbing together.
Behind them, Herbie started jumping up and down with a giant smile on his face. "Are we going to ride it, Dad? Are we?"
"Just your mother and I," he said, patting the boy on the head. "We only have enough cash for two riders."
The look of disappointment on Herbie's face would've made Grandpa cry. If he had been there, he