Looking up in eleven year old Tucker Creed’s eyes in his cute boy’s face, I could believe his Daddy was a hero. He was so tall. So handsome. His eyes so pretty. He looked like a hero too. Now I knew what all the older girls at church were talking about all the times, and there were lots, when they talked about him. He was everything they said.
And more.
“I cannot believe you are SUCH a DICK!”
I heard the words and my body jerked hard, my eyes flying to the side.
Oh no, the words.
The words were here too.
Suddenly, I felt hands over my ears, my eyes flew back and when they did, all I could see was Tucker Creed.
“Fuck you, you f**kin’ cunt! Fuck YOU!”
That was a man. A man and a woman saying the words and gosh, I didn’t know one of them but it sounded a lot worse than Daddy and my stepmom’s.
My eyes slid to the side and I saw them outside the little, rickety house with its gutters falling down. The outside light was on. I could see the paint on the sides of the house and around the windows nicked and chipped. The screen hadn’t been switched out of the side door since summer which was crazy and the screen had come loose on one end, hanging down. I could see the house was a whole lot smaller than Daddy’s and mine. Then again, everyone in town, even me, knew the Creeds didn’t have a lot of money and my Daddy and Granddaddy and all the ones before made certain that everyone knew we did.
I could also see a man and a woman outside in the snow. She was barefoot. He had his jacket on. She was pushing him. He shoved back and she fell on her bottom in the snow.
I gasped.
I just heard the words.
I never saw. Never, never, ever.
Tucker Creed jerked me around so his back was to the house and I couldn’t see anymore. Then he started walking, fast, making me walk backwards, his hands still covering my ears.
Silently, Bootsie followed us.
He came out like I did. He came out to get away from the words. He came out so he wouldn’t see.
“You don’t like the words,” I whispered and watched his head move funny, hard, fast, like a twitch.
“The words?”
“Mean words,” I told him as he kept pushing us back.
“Fuck you, motherfucker!” the woman shouted. “You leave, don’t come back!”
“I time it right, you got a bottle of Jack in you, you’ll lie back and spread so fast, my head will spin then you’ll spin that tired, used cunt of yours ON my f**kin’ head!” the man shouted back.
Tucker kept pushing me into the woods, his hands over my ears, clenching kind of tight but not hurting, his body blocking the view.
Then his mouth came to my ear.
“I don’t like the words.”
He didn’t like the words. Like me.
“I don’t either,” I whispered in his ear.
“Time it for TWO bottles, ass**le. That’s what it’ll take for you to get me to spread!” she screamed.
Tucker kept pushing us back, asking, “You got the words?”
I nodded, his hands moving with my head. “Daddy and his new wife.”