First Pages for Olney '09: Edgy YA contemporary

[Geraldine Donaher]

Opening Scene: status quo before inciting incident, establishes tone, introduces antagonist, foreshadows conflict

I sit back, grab some toilet paper and prepare myself mentally for the clean-up. That’s when I hear him coming into the house. 

I call him Tony.

He doesn’t deserve a title. Doesn’t even care I stopped calling him ‘dad’.

It’s always the door announcing his arrival, signaling me to become less. I shrink to be less annoying and have less opinions as he becomes more. He is more in control, more intimidating, more angry. 

It seems wrong. At seventeen, I haven’t figured out how to fix it. Maybe to become so less I become invisible. That might work. I could haunt him, freak him out by moving stuff around the room, smack him upside the head.

So that’s how I know he’s here. The door hits the wall in the cramped hallway. That flimsy wall created a duplex out of our side of the twin home. It was years ago when Tony first banged through the wall - the doorknob whacking the unpainted plywood. The hole has since grown, pretty much every time he walks in. The landlord cares less about it than Tony. Maybe if you ignore something long enough you just don’t see it anymore. 

One of these days, the door will probably bash through the wall and Mrs. Estes, who lives upstairs, will be able to see into our living room as she walks up to her apartment. She’ll have a full view of this wonderful life.

He yells, slurring his words, “Barb, where the ‘ell are ya?” He sounds messed up. I do what I need to do then pull up my pants. I know better than to flush. He’ll know I’m in here.

Jesus Christ, my whole life is crap.

I creep over to the window and lift it just enough so I can shimmy out and down into the alley. Sometimes he passes out on the couch and all I have to do is wait in the bathroom until I hear him snore. 

No such luck tonight, my stomach knots as he bangs on the bathroom door. 

Usually I have time when I hear him come into the house to unlock the bathroom door before I leave through the window. That’s how I kept his coming-in and my going-out a secret. But no time for that now. He’ll know how I get away and take the lock off the door…like he did to my bedroom. The bathroom won’t be an easy escape anymore.

God, I hate him.

“Girl, you in there? Where’s yo’mudder?” He bangs on the door again, “Unlock d’f-ckin’ door.” It comes out in a whispered threat. 

He lowers his voice before a rampage. 

I need to leave.

Now.

I twist as I slide through the window, hanging onto the sill just long enough to smile as I think about everything left in the toilet. It’s worth the years of merciless name calling he’ll spew at me. He’s not clever: Shithead, Asswipe, or Stinkshit is the worst he’ll come up with. I drop into the weeds and run to a parked car two houses down the alley. I crouch between the front wheel and concrete wall just as I hear the bathroom door smash open. 

Tony bellows from the window, “Allee, get yo’ sorry ass back ‘ere! Y‘ear me girl?”

I hug my knees and roll my head forward into a tight ball, becoming one with the car. I am a shadow. I have become so less, I don’t exist. He can’t hurt me if I don’t exist.        

“Stay o’there al’nigh!” He screams louder, “’ear me? Don’t come back!” He walks away from the window but he’s still yelling, “Christ! Look at t’shit! Only you Allee can make such a god-awful mess.”

I used to hide behind the couch and suck my index finger whenever he shouted or started throwing things. But when I was 10 years old, furiously sucking, he dragged me out by my hair and shouted up in my face, “Stop being such a baby or I’ll give you something bigger to suck!” 

I didn’t know what he meant by that but I knew it was bad because my mom rushed over and pushed him away. 

It was the first time I ever saw her push back. He's big and hairy, towers over her. She told me to always run. But that day, she attacked. He forgot about me and went for her.

I ran.

I had asked my best friend, Tanaya, what he meant about sucking something bigger. She shrugged, “Guys like it when you do things with their, you know, stuff.” 

She’s so smart about the things I never think about. I just stared at her. My ten-year-old-self didn’t believe her. 

“God, Allee, you’re going to grow up sooner or later. Don’t you worry, I’ll help you keep it all straight. Girl, you better run if he goes for his zipper. Hear me? Run, fast!” 

She laughed at that. Probably because she didn’t think a dad would ever want his daughter to do anything with his - junk. 

She doesn’t have a dad.

I never sucked my finger after that, behind the couch or anywhere else. Instead, I hide behind parked cars in dark alleys and think about cutting my cheek, below my eye, and dragging it diagonally toward my jaw, like the markings of a warrior princess. 

Why? 

I have no idea. But cutting my cheek seems a better alternative than sucking Tony’s … Well, you get the picture. 

Cutting does seem messed up, though. So I don’t tell Tanaya. 

Or anyone else.