Bastard Out of Carolina - Dorothy Allison [129]
I tried to wiggle free, and he laughed. He dropped me. I staggered back against the table.
“You’re the one. You’re the reason. She loves me, I know it. But it’s you, you’re the one gets in the way. You make me crazy and you make her ashamed, ashamed of you and ashamed of loving me. It an’t right. It an’t right her leaving me because of you. It an’t right.”
His voice got harder, hoarser but no louder, and it was the quiet that terrified me. It reminded me of Alma with the razor in her hand and madness in her eyes. Daddy Glen’s eyes were just as crazy, more crazy. There was pain in them, deep pain, yes, but hate was the thing that made them burn. Suddenly his fist shot out like it was on a spring. His knuckles raked the side of my chin, and I fell back on the table.
“You can’t destroy me so easy,” he said. “Anney’s gonna come back, she told me. She just needs a little time. I can understand that after everything that’s happened.” He leaned toward me, one hand extended. “But if she wasn’t gonna come back to me, I’d kill you. You know that? I’d break your neck.” His hand touched the side of my face, my ear, my neck, slid down my front, the slight swells of my breasts. His blue eyes trailed down my body.
“Ahhh,” Daddy Glen moaned. He pulled me to his chest, holding me tight, breathing hard. There was blood in my mouth and a roar in my head. I went hard, stiff, metal-hard, as hard as the butter knife I found I had grabbed without thinking. He kissed me wetly, his teeth grinding into my mouth. I jerked that knife up and rammed it into his side hard as I could. It slid along his belt, smearing peanut butter on his shirt, not even tearing the material but hurting him anyway. I could tell.
“Damn you!” He threw me away from him so that my back hit the counter and I slipped down, falling as he came toward me, kicking at me. His boot hit me solidly in the shoulder. His arm came down, caught my right wrist, and jerked hard, pulling me up sharply, then dropped me. Something gave, crunching audibly, while a wave of sickening heat followed, and my arm flopped uselessly under my body.
“You little cunt!” He kicked again, and his boot slipped along the side of my head, cutting my ear so that blood gushed. Then that boot thudded into my belly and I rolled sideways, retching bile down my right arm.
“You!” he cursed, and it echoed in my head. “You goddam little bastard!”
“You!” I told him. “Mama’s never gonna go back to you. I won’t let her. I hate you.”
“I’ve prayed for you to die,” he hissed between set white teeth. His hand caught the front of my blouse and dug into the material. “Just die and leave us alone. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have been all right. Everything would have been all right.” He sobbed and dragged me forward so that I was up on my knees swaying in his grip until my blouse tore, and I fell back under him. He grabbed for me again, and something hit me hard between the legs. I screamed. His boot or his leg? He dropped down on top of me.
“You’re not going anywhere.” He laughed. “You think you’re so grown-up. You think you’re so big and bad, saying no to me. Let’s see how big you are, how grown!” His hands spread what was left of my blouse and ripped at the zipper on my pants, pulling them down my thighs as my left hand groped to hold them. I tried to kick, but I was pinned. Tears were streaming down my face, but I wasn’t crying. I was cursing him.
“Damn you! Damn you! Damn you! God will damn γou!” He reached with one hand to shove my pants down almost to my ankles and with the other to open his britches. “You’ll shut up. I’ll shut you up. I’ll teach you.” He ripped my panties off me like they were paper. Then he jerked me up a little and spread my legs.
“You fucker!” I punched up at him with my almost useless right arm.
“You little cunt. I should have done this a long time ago.
You’ve always wanted it. Don’t tell me you don’t.” His knee pushed my legs further apart, and his big hand leisurely smashed the side of my face. He laughed then, as if he liked the feel