She paces at the unwelcome intrusion into an otherwise tolerable breakfast that came sailing into their toast and bacon without warning, and knows the divide between her husband and her just increased tenfold.
He is pretending to read the paper, carefully arranging it to avoid direct eye contact, pausing now and again to take a sip of coffee - yes, coffee, every morning for twenty years she has to make him coffee when everyone else is fine with their tea, not some overpriced bullshit that has to be cold by now. He fumbles with his crucifix necklace. Conscious or not, that's the final straw.
'Robert, stop playing with the goddam thing and talk to me. We have to deal with this.'
A grunt and she's almost tempted to drop the plate she's rinsing on the floor, to get a reaction, any reaction is better than this. Whatever happened to the Robby she married, she wonders, the carefree and somewhat crazy hippy kid with the silly laugh? It seemed the older he got, the more he crawled into his religion.
'This is not about you, for fuck's sake,' she says, tearing the paper out of the way to force him to pay attention. Little bits of newsprint flutter to the floor. 'It's about our goddam son.'
'Will you stop using that language? You know I can't stand when you-'
He wisely decides to shut his mouth before finishing the sentence. She's so angry she's turning purple.
'What do you want me to say?' he asks. 'I'll have him talk to the Father, that will straighten him out.'
'Straighten him out? For all I know Father made him this way-'
'How can you say that?? We've been going to the same church for near twenty years and it was only when you and Jackson decided you were better than all of that things went south.'
'Oh, that's rich, you know, screw you. If someone made him this way, you're just as much at fault as me.'
'How do you see that?? I did everything I could to get him into sports, I tried near everything-'
'Yes, that's just great, you know, you hammered into his head every minute of every day of his goddam life that real boys always played sports. No wonder he hates you.'
'How- what? How can you say he hates me?'
'Why do you think it is anytime Jacks has a problem I'm the one he talks to, not you?'
'He's a...'
There's a long silence before she pounds her fist down.
'Fuck's sake you can't even say it can you? He's a queer, a faggot, a bent-'
'I can't say it because it's not true. We can fix this, make him normal-'
'Listen to yourself, jesus Robert I swear sometimes I regret marrying you in the first place.'
'It's not my fucking fault he can't just go play football or rugby like a normal boy, no, he has to fuck around with that skateboard or sit in his room with his paints or hang out with those miserable wastes of life he calls friends. And you fucking encourage all of it-'
'I encourage him to do things he likes doing, things he gets enjoyment out of-'
'Oh, yes, that's just bloody wonderful, you love sensitive boys and it's perfectly fine for-'
'You used to be a fucking sensitive boy, Robert. You used to actually give a flying fuck about life but now you just invite your soddy buddies over to watch Man U and yell and beat your chest like a fucking ape!'
'It's bloody football, that's what men are supposed to do, not flit about in the school WC and get dragged in front of entire year ten because they were-'
'You daft cunt, you think you're such a man but the fucking fact is that a six year old bully could kick your ass up and down without getting a mark on him.'
'How dare you-'
'Oh wait, I forgot, Robert Benson, the absolute shortest man in the firm who makes sure he only hires pretty secretaries that are shorter than him. I imagine that's a pretty goddamned small pool considering what a midget you are.'
'Why are you being such a miserable bitch?'
'It's our son, for fuck's sake, our goddamned son, and you disgrace him right in front of the whole damned class, because god forbid a little man like you actually pick on someone his own size. I have news for you, you keep bitching at the boy to man up when he's already more of a man than you, for fuck's sake his cock is twice the size of yours.'
'And you would sure as bloody hell know, always at him like you are-'
He's cut short by a slap across his face so hard it nearly knocks him off his chair.
'After him? After him? You bloody bastard, Jacks cares how he looks so I surely help him sort out his hair, give him advice when he asks about colors-'
'And you wonder why you've raised such a bent little cunt.'
'Oh, sure, Robert, it's clearly not acceptable for him to care about his looks. I mean god knows you're the shining star example of a real man if not giving a bloody shit about your clothes or your hair is that gold standard. You honestly think, for fucks sake, that you fool anyone with that bad comb-over?'
'I'm not a bloody fruitcake, I'm a man and every bloody step along the way when I tried to make our son a man you sabotaged me like the goddamned Bismarck.'
Progress, she thinks, this smug creature actually stepped out and used His name in vain.
'You are totally fucking useless. Hell, I ask you to iron your own clothes and you burn them. I ask you to do the wash and Jackson has to do it because you're too dense to have the first clue. I ask you to take care of tea and you get takeaway.'
'Oh, love, like your cooking is just so special.'
'Oh? Fine.'
She takes away his half-eaten breakfast and throws it against the wall, a slow smear of eggs sliding down it.
'Your eggs stick to the walls better than glue!' he yells, trying to get control of the situation. 'I am the man of the house and I will deal with-'
He's cut short right then and quite by surprise because Jackson comes from out of nowhere and yells something unintelligible right before a vicious kidney shot that puts the little man on his knees and now she's got to control the boy because he's screaming and crying and kicking his old man, just screaming, 'you fuck, you fuck, i fucking love him and now you've fucked it all up'. It takes everything she has to pull Jackson off and then they're all just quiet, Jackson shaking in rage like a caged panther, Robert all crunched up trying to catch his breath, surrounded by broken china and bacon.
She notices now Jackson has a backpack so overstuffed it barely zips shut and he's holding his laptop and his skateboard, the two things he cares most about.
'Fuck both of you,' he breathes, his words slipping out like nerve gas. 'Fuck both of you. Me and Tommy are leaving, and I hope I never see either of you again.'
She's scared now, tries to pet his face to change his mind but he slaps her hands away, all the things going through her head about all the bad waiting for Jackson, her own anger against Robert building because all the little man is doing is gasping whilst trying to get his breath back.
Tears in Jackson's eyes and then there's someone at the door and it's the kid that he's talking about, Tommy, nursing his own black eye and not looking at anyone but Jackson.
'Are you ready?' he asks Jackson and she catches a wad of cash peeking out of his jeans pocket, bloodstains up and down the whole left side where there isn't a single cut on the boy she can see.
'Yeah, hun,' whispers Jackson, and she tries to plead but is stopped cold when Jackson spins and slaps her. He kicks Robert in the bollocks so hard the man falls over, clutching them.
'Fifteen years, fifteen goddamned years, I've wanted to say this,' says Jackson. 'Just go ahead and kill each other. Leave me the fuck out of your little war and just die, the world will be a better place without either of you in it.'
