Damn Near Perfect
"Yes sir. '' Kellen's whole body was sore, they'd been out since before the sun had peeked over the trees. He was young, probably under 8 years old, toting around his father's hunting equipment with his brothers.
"You're goin to grow up soft." His dad continued, swirling the last lukewarm sip of beer around in the can. He took one last drink, and crushed the entire thing with his fingers before hurling it at the ground. "Get me a beer."
Without a word of protest, Kellen gladly stood up, letting his aching legs take a stretch from their crouching position on the ground. His two brothers looked at him from below, their eyes narrowed...even Kellen himself felt a little bad that he was leaving them behind.
"ARE YOU FUCKING DEAF?" Kellen braced himself against a nearby tree as his vision went starkly bright and a pain erupted from his temple. His father replaced the butt of his hunting rifle back on his lap and motioned beyond the pasture to the house, where he was supposed to be going. Without another word, the young boy stumbled past the treeline and broke into an uneasy jog. If he weren't back in time, it's is brothers that would begin getting the brunt of his drunken anger...and he couldn't let that happen. Not to the twins.
They were good kids.
After what felt like the longest jog of his life, Kellen finally made it to the back door, gasping for breath. He swung the screen door open and ran to the fridge, separating a new beer can from the other six.
"Oh my lands!" Swiftly, age-worn hands scooped Kellen up and he felt himself being sat on the kitchen table. The caring brown eyes of his mother were beginning to well with tears as she pulled her apron up and dabbed at his temple. A blood stain marked itself down the clean white cotton when she pulled it away....Kellen was shocked at first but then pushed her away. Her meddling finally brought his attention to the pounding in the side of his head.
"Get away from me, woman." He spat, his mother not reacting at all. She never did. In a way, her indifference made it worse.
"Let me get you a bandaid."
"I don't need no sissy tape. Are you done with your chores?"
"Did your father ask you to say that?"
"Doesn't matter, woman. I'm a boy so's you gotta do what I say!" Kellen said defiantly, standing up from the table too quickly. He did the best he could to stabilize himself against the dizziness, wanting to further demonstrate his manliness. Anger began boiling in his stomach at his own weakness as he stumbled.
"Where's my fucking beer boy? You want a whoopin?" A voice rang through Kellen's mind, this one was so real that he had to spin around to the door to see if he were standing right there. To his relief, it was just him and the dumb woman.
"It'll stop the bleeding..." a bruised hand moved forward to stick a bandaid on his head, but Kellen batted it away and swiftly slapped at his mother's face. This time, she looked hurt...and for some reason, Kellen was happy about that. Smiling smugly, Kellen whirled behind him to grab his father's beer before the all-mythical time allotted ran out.
"Atta boy."
His voice was always there, really. Kellen could hear it all hours of the day, no matter how far away his dad was. This time, however, the voice was all too real and only a few feet away...a fact that wiped the smirk right off the young boy's face. In the kitchen doorway, his father held against the door frame, his shotgun in hand. The twins were behind him, carrying his other deer hunting gear, both with red cheeks and puffy eyes. That time must have ran out a long time ago, and the twins had suffered because of it.
His mother instantly stiffened, stood up straight and looked at the ground.
"Kellen, what's a man gotta do when his woman ain't done with supper on time?" His father began unbuckling the belt from his jeans, and the twins finally came from under him in the doorway before stopping in the corner, frozen by too-familiar the scene.
"Please, Charles, the meat had to thaw!" His mother pleaded. Somewhere inside of Kellen, a part that had died a long time ago, a feeling stirred...he felt sad. Somehow, that fueled his own anger. Why feel sad for her? What did she do to deserve his pity?
"You gotta whoop 'em." Kellen said simply, watching as his father removed his belt from his jeans completely and folded the worn leather in his hands.
Before anyone could react, the man thrashed his belt at the woman. She stood completely still, the belt buckle never connecting with her body in his drunken, aim-less state. The scene would be comical had it not been played out the scariest monster he knew.
"STOP MOVIN'!" Kellen's dad insisted as he swept his arms across the table, dishes clattering to the ground and shattering. Taking that as their cue, the twins ducked out of the house to find the broom. If the glass wasn't swept up as soon as possible, someone would get cut.
The man tried again, getting closer this time, but when he raised his belt over his head, it threw off his balance, forcing him to stabilize himself on the nearest thing: the stovetop, which hissed and produced wisps of smoke almost instantly. He howled in pain, his anger now at a maximum. Blood poured from his hand to the floor, and tender tendrils of steam from his hand and the stovetop curled around his arm. Kellen noted the fear finally presenting itself in his mother's eyes...his father was unstoppable when he got this way.
Spinning around on the heel of his boot, the man grabbed his shotgun and cocked back the hammer. His eyes were wild, like a coyote's, and his lips were drawn over his teeth as spittle ran down his chin. The 'click' rang out loud enough to deafen him...and before Kellen could talk himself out of it, he ran out in front of his mother, his arms outstretched.
"Kellen! Get back!" his mother instantly reacted, his father now drawing the gun up with sloppy aim. The not-so-old man struggled to keep the gun still to no avail.
"You heard the dumb bitch." he spat, he blood on his fingers causing him to lose grip on his gun. "Move."
Kellen puffed out his chest as big as he could, just like his father would do. "No."
"What did you say to me, boy?" His voice dropped in volume, never a good sign.
"I said no." Kellen shot back again, trying his best to be brave. He could feel his ankles trembling in his own boots, a mixture of confusion, anger, and fear causing him to try and escape his own body. A whirlwind of emotion kept him planted to this spot even though his mother's hands frantically tried to push him behind her.
Kellen's father cursed, lowering his rifle before grabbing it by the barrel and swinging it as hard as he could. Kellen braced himself against the kitchen floor and tried to bring his arms up in time to protect his head...but it was too late.
All went dark.
---Kellen sat on the edge of the kitchen chair, the air conditioner running steadily in the background. The hum was all that comforted him as he continued to grip his cell phone.
Nothing. Not a vibration, not a tone, nothing.
Frustrated, he took another swig of the whisky he had sitting on the table within arm's reach, and grimaced when he realized his gulp was too large and it burned on the way down.
"Don't hold yer alcohol well, do ya nancy boy?" The familiar voice growled from somewhere deep in the back of his mind.
"Shhhhut up." Kellen slurred out loud, unlocking his iphone and sending another scathing message.
'If u dnt git hom rite now ur gona regrt it.'
It was simple enough, it got the message by. Kellen finally stood up, sending the chair clattering to the floor. His bottle in tow, he finally made the trek to his living room, pacing the all-familiar path he'd nearly worn in the carpet of the high-rise Californian apartment.
"She's runnin' around on you." His father reminded him, laying on the couch just feet away.
"No he's not, he knows better. And you're not really here." he reminded the ghost, turning the bottle up for another drink. Kellen knew damn good and well his father was 20 years older than he imagined him, and well over a thousand miles away. A drop of amber liquid rolled from between his lips and down his chin, tickling his neck before he wiped it away.
"I am too, you're just retarded." His father shot back. "She's runnin' around on you boy and you're actin' like you're gonna let her."
Kellen thumbed through a stack of magazines on the kitchen counter as he checked his phone again. Headlines of "Kellen Thompson: Paparazzi Attack Goes Viral" and "Has Kellen Gone too Far?" flickered by, causing a knot to raise in his throat. "I already showed him once that he weren't gonna run around on me!" Kellen sounded frustrated at this point, his mind beginning to churn with uncertainty. "He learned then!"
"Ain't no woman gonna learn from one beatin', son! Look at your whore mother! She never did learn, had to keep her in line all day!"
Kellen frowned, his whisky gone. Now he was stuck with his father and nothing to drown him out with.
"Go get her. Bring her here now and let her know you ain't gonna stand for that shit."
Kellen nodded slowly, dropping his bottle to the carpet and fishing in his pocket for his cell phone. Conviction began setting in his chest like concrete, it started to weigh him down.
"Throw her in this livin' room, break a couple bones." His father egged him on, now sitting on the edge of the couch and staring Kellen down.
His fingers were sloppy at first, but his anger fueled some dexterity as he searched through his call logs for his most common call...the taxi.
"Give it to her son." His old man nodded in approval, unmoving.
"Shut up you old f...fuck." Kellen mouthed off as he grabbed his wallet and keys before stumbling out the door.
As he walked up to the nightclub, he could recognize it instantly. The bouncer standing at the front gate recognized Kellen as one of the B-list celebrities who frequented the place, and without a word opened the door for him. The line growing outside let out a collective groan as he cut, a woman even stuck her fingers out to run it over is arm as he walked by. A brief touch of a fantastical life she could only dream about, the fleeting moment of shared longing was gone in an angry flash. He was a celebrity, she was not, and in her eyes his life was perfect.
What bullshit.
Kellen's blood boiled as he made his way through the crowd, his eyes trained on the purple haired man in the center of attention at one of the tables in the back. He was laughing, and one of the boys sitting next to him slowly snaked his arm over his shoulder, resting it around his neck possessively.
That was all it took to set him off, the all-familiar feelings gnawing at his gut. Anger blinded him, his vision brightened as if someone had just struck him again, and in the core of his body something red-hot grew up his throat. He barreled through the crowd, causing a scene as he arrived at his boyfriend's table as people were shoved aside, drinks spilling.
"JAXSON." his teeth were gritted, he could see the much younger, smaller man in front of him sink down into his chair, looking at his friends from behind smoky purple eyeshadow.
"WHYYY D-DIDN'T YOU ANSWER MY T...TEXTS?"
"Kellen, you're drunk." he said simply, looking up at him through his eyelashes.
"Boy if you wanna keep your arm -" Kellen trained his dark eyes threateningly on the blonde next to his boyfriend "I'd suggest you pull it back."
Jaxson shifted uncomfortably in his seat, trying to help his friend's arm off his shoulder. Kellen's rage boiled over when his friend instead shrugged.
"Make me." He taunted.
"DAMN STRAIT I'LL MAKE YOU!" Kellen roared, reaching over the table, throwing blows. Luckily for the guy, his fists never made their mark in his drunken madness. Memories of a man much like himself thrashing at his old woman made him hesitate for a moment before lunging more wholeheartedly across the table, even more exasperated now. Shades of his father burst through his shell, making a new emotion appear: fear.
"Kellen! Stop! Stop it right now!" Jaxson insisted, reaching up and grabbing his boyfriend's arms.
An old anger filled Kellen's heart, and the same old mixture of painful emotions made him stumble back, pulling his arms away from Jaxson. He felt as if he were fighting tears, but his eyes reflected only madness. From behind him, he could hear the nagging voice again. It wrapped around his head, consuming him.
"What'd I tell you boy? Get her home. Show her what a real man does to a cheating whore."
"Stop it!" it was a small voice, a little kid. He didn't come out to play often, he was usually drowned out in his mind by his father, but somewhere deep inside he still survived. It was the boy again. "Stop it! What are you doing? Why? You don't have to be like him!"
"We're going home." Kellen finally stated, his voice calm. With great effort, he beat the voices in his head down to a small whisper.
"I'm not ready yet." He stated simply, crossing his arms over his chest.
"We're. Going. Home." Kellen forced the words through his clenched jaw, his perfectly straight teeth grating against each other. His father began laughing at him somewhere in his mind, joined by the sound of the child crying.
"I said I'm not ready yet." Jaxson insisted, looking curtly down at his phone.
Kellen snapped, grabbing Jaxson's collar and pulling him up from his seat, holding him over the ground. Jaxson desperately reached for the floor with his toes, but he was completely suspended. Fear filled his eyes to Kellen's delight: he had his attention now.
"I said." Kellen pulled him closer, their noses pressing against each other. "We. are. going. home. NOW."
"Y....y....yes Kellen." Jaxson spoke quietly, and landed with a thud on the floor as Kellen dropped him. In a rush, he gathered his things from the table, avoiding eye contact with his friends.
"And you." Kellen peeked over Jaxson to his friend. "If you sleep with him again, I swear to god I'll ki-"
A flash of light interrupted his sentence, completely de-railing his thought. A bouncer was making his way from across the hall toward the scene Kellen had caused, but that wasn't the source of the flash....a young man stood in front of him, camera strap wound tightly around his neck, as he snuck another picture. He was dressed from head to toe in the most modern fashions...he was probably just lucky to be here.
Kellen turned his rage from Jaxson to the poor paparazzi member, grabbing his camera roughly and almost strangling the man by pulling it up into the air.
"S...stop!" the man gurgled as he frantically reached for Kellen's arm. In his head the child pleaded for mercy.
"KELLEN STOP IT!" Jaxson pleaded, also pulling down on his arm, trying to bring the cameraman back to a standing position. "STOP IT NOW!"
Kellen's mind twisted and seethed with the anger that boiled over in his heart. He had finally reached the point where sounds and smells around him stopped penetrating his consciousness, the world a dulled and listless thing caught in the whirlwind of his frustration. Time was slowed as he watched the cameraman finally wriggle his way out of the strap, plopping to the ground and coughing. The weight from the camera fell, but Kellen wasn't satisfied with his show just yet. Taking the fragile camera in his hands, he worked one hand around the long cylindrical lens and his other hand around the square body. The cameraman was already watching in horror, reaching up to re-claim what could have been his most prized possession when Kellen flexed his muscles, snapping the lens in two and cracking the camera body almost in half. Almost smug, Kellen dropped the worthless hunk of plastic to the ground, stooping for a moment to retrieve the SD card inside and to look eye-to-eye with the cameraman on the floor.
"Take another picture, see what happens." His voice dripped darkness, every word carrying through the room. Reality began to set in quickly after the moment passed, the silence around him physical silence from the club. His senses hadn't been dulled...the people around him were straining to hear what he was saying. You could hear a pin drop until the bouncer began moving toward him again, having also been frozen by the show.
"Git the hell outta dodge, nancy-boy!" The first words to hit his ears were familiar and threatening, so without another word, Kellen wrapped his fingers around Jaxson's delicate wrist before making a barreling run for the front door. Shocked clubbers worked hard to step away from him, creating a path as he ran. The bouncer was caught in a sea of people as Kellen and Jaxson made their escape from a side door, now sprinting for Kellen's taxi.
Roughly, Kellen threw Jaxson in the back seat before barking an order at the driver who begrudgingly began the journey back home.
Silence filled the cab as Jaxson rubbed at his now bruising wrist. A moment or two passed between the two of them as Kellen struggled to catch his breath. He was breathing heavily from the physical exertion and almost painful level of anger he had just felt, and his mind swirled with a confusing orchestra of voices, sobbing, and yelling. Always yelling. The alcohol in his stomach worked to numb him as his head began to spin.
"Why didn't you jussss-"
"I don't want to hear it, Kellen." Jaxson responded shortly, looking nervously at the cab driver. Kellen took that as is cue that he were being watched.
"When we get home, w...we are gonna have a talk" Kellen picked at his fingernails, his anger already beginning to build again after moments of peace.
Looking over at his lover, he could see his eyes beginning to reflect the streetlights as he started to cry. "Yeah..." Jaxson wiped at a stray tear that had made it's way out, revealing a dark purple bruise on his cheek from yesterday. "Yeah, I know."
Kellen swung again, his arms absorbing the shock from his blow. His knuckles delighted in the connection they made when the punch was thrown, the way his bones shook inside his body.
---
"This hurts you more than it hurts me." Kellen threatened, leaning in on one leg to put his body momentum into the swing. And the truth is...it did, kind of. The feeling of pain from his wrists, his muscles aching, sweat pouring from his body...all of the pain was strong. But it felt glorious. All of his anger, his pent up frustration, his agony flew from his body in each jab. A whisper in the back of his mind was telling him "harder", but it was easier to control these days.
"Are you done?" Jaxson was leaning against the wall now, watching with a bemused as Kellen finished his boxing workout. "That punching bag isn't going to last much longer with the chains falling off like that."
Kellen leaned away from his punch, his knuckles wrapped in thick leather and bandages for practice. His punching bag swayed heavily from side to side, the hundreds of pounds of sand weighing it down and keeping it in place as he practiced. Jaxson looked different these days...his eyes seemed brighter.
Probably because he wasn't beating the shit out of him anymore.
"Dinner done?" Kellen inquired, inspecting the unraveling wrap job he had done on his wrists.
"I burned it." Jaxson admitted, pulling out a compact and a tube of lipstick. "So I guess that's that..."
Kellen groaned. "What? I can't believe you burned salmon! How can you burn salmon?" He was unwrapping his fists now, feeling the cool air around his fingers once outside of the glove. With a start, a voice caught him off guard.
"Kellen, what's a man gotta do when his woman ain't done with supper on time?"
His voice sat differently with him now. He used to sound like a hero inside of his head, like a model he wanted to be like. No, not even a hero...more like a villain that he had to prove himself to but never could. Now, he sounded old and frail. Maybe it's because he died earlier that year...or maybe it was because he finally sought help. His stomach dropped at the sudden realization, a sadness to replace his anger at the thought of his old man.
"Well," Kellen stood up, stripping his shirt off and tossing it carelessly to the floor. "What do you do when your man ain't done with supper on time?"
Jaxson stared ahead at the fit actor standing in front of him, and Kellen smirked at the blush crawling across his cheeks. Catching himself, Jaxson looked away. "I don't know, what do you do?"
In one swift movement, Kellen gathered Jaxson in his arms and started jogging his way up the stairs from his basement. "Well, you take him out to dinner. I'll shower up so be done in 10."
Jaxson frowned. "Fifteen, my makeup's a mess!" He proclaimed, kicking his feet back and forth in a feeble attempt to escape the strong arms that once caused him such turmoil.
Kellen released his captive who instantly ran into the couple's walk-in closet, which had been lovingly remodeled into "the makeup room". The actor sat on the edge of their bed, listening to the sounds of the shower warming up and watching Jaxson artfully paint his face up with deep, sultry colors for their date.
"Put yer high heels on boy, you've gone soft." the familiar nag scoffed in his mind.
"I ain't perfect." Kellen admitted, finally standing under the blasting hot water. "But I'm closer than you were.
I'm almost free.
And I'm sorry that you never were."
