Page 77 - WTP Vol. VII #6

seen him so happy. I know—” she said, and trailed off. “Look at you. You’re a brooder, aren’t you? I can tell because I’m the same way. I can think things to death. It’s a burden, isn’t it? People like us have to go over and over things in our head. It never stops.
told him to hold on. “Anyway, I’m glad to finally see you boys.” She swallowed hard and came back smiling. “I’d like us to be friends. Do you think that’d be okay?”
“Can I tell you something? When I was a little girl I lost my daddy. He was a State Trooper and he was giving someone a ticket on the freeway and was hit by another car. Back then Troopers had to wear those big, wide-brimmed hats all the time, and sometimes people would fly by them really close trying to knock it off, you know, with the wind. They did it to be funny. As a joke.” She swiped her hands to show that the car had gotten too close. “Pretty stupid, huh, los- ing someone like that?”
Joel watched her shift in the chair. When he didn’t answer she said, “So, what kind of boy are you?”
Her eyes drifted over his head and past him, and when they returned they were heavy and sad.
“I’m a ninja,” he said.
“A ninja? That’s pretty cool.”
“He put the pistol down hard on the counter
“I have throwing stars and Nunchucks. But mostly I use my hands. I kill people in their sleep. They never hear me coming.” He took a huge bite of pizza and chewed with his mouth wide.
and tried to hide the tears welling in his eyes.”
“Sometimes I choke them like this.” He put his hands around his throat and made gagging noises as pieces of crust tumbled from his mouth. “There’s no blood. No one can catch me that way.”
“What I’m saying is I know what it’s like not having a father around. I understand how you felt when your dad was gone, believe me. But you got him back and he isn’t going away again. I promise. He loves you boys. He just has trouble when things get difficult. He goes about it the wrong way. Some men are like that. They hold everything inside and when things become hard and they can’t hold it in anymore they don’t know what to do. They run. It doesn’t mean he’s bad. He doesn’t know any other way. But kids need a father. I told your dad that. I wouldn’t stay otherwise. Remember that it has nothing to do with you. Okay?”
Charlotte straightened. She opened her mouth but nothing came out. “Joel—”
“What do you mean?”
“Like what are you interested in? You like karate?” She pointed at Joel’s tee-shirt. It had a decal of two karate guys facing one another, ready to battle. He had no idea where the shirt had come from.
“Oh.”
His mother had said the same thing—it wasn’t about him—as if it were important for him to know that. Joel thought it was a strange thing to say. His father was choosing some other life over the one he’d had with them. What difference did it make what the reasons were? Even if Joel wasn’t why his dad left, he still wasn’t reason enough to stay.
He glanced over to find Charlotte clearing the plates off the table. “Nothing,” she said. “Everything’s fine.”
Joel kicked out his chair hard and went back to the video game and dropped in another quarter. When the music came up he could see his reflection in the glass. He was smiling in a way the older kids did when they teased someone at school, like they’d done something mean for the fun of it.
“What happened?” he heard his father say from the bar.
Someone at the bar called Charlotte’s name and she
Voccola was the winner of the 2018 Blue Mountain Novel Award for his book, Kings Row, which will be published by Hidden River Press in fall 2019. His stories have appeared in 2 Bridges Review, The Cabinet, Noctua Review, Cottonwood, Beacon Street Review, Folio, and others. He teaches creative writing at Kutztown Uni- versity of Pennsylvania, where he is Director of the Professional Writing Program.
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