"Winner Takes All"

(1)

When my mother told me she'd finally decided to marry Jimbo, I wasn't as mad about it as you might've thought I'd be.  Disgusted, yeah.  Irritated, sure.  But mad?  Nah – I'd got way past mad by then.

She claimed she'd decided to marry the guy because he could provide us with a home and security.  That was a lie, so far as I could tell.  Me and her was doing just fine on our own, we just wasn't doing as fine as she wanted, that's all.  What she wanted wasn't a "home" so much as a house – which was something we didn't have at that time.  In other words, what she wanted was things.  Me, I never cared much for shit like that.  And I sure as hell never cared much for Jimbo neither, nor my mother for that matter, once I'd seen what she was willing to settle for in order to get that houseful of things.

Jimbo was fat and hairy and greasy looking – an Italian kind of greasy, or maybe Greek, I never did find out which.  He was a used-car salesman.  Successful enough, so far as that goes – he owned the business himself, then had a car wash built next door to it and that did pretty good.  Later he bought a laundromat, also a couple of houses he turned into apartments and rented out.  So he had money enough, if that's what you were looking for.  He was kind of a chickenshit though.  Behind that big, fat-lipped grin and that friendly come-on it was like you could smell this odor of nervous sweat.  He was afraid of being found out, I always figured.  I don't know if guys like him become used-car salesmen because they are what they are or if they become what they are from being used-car salesmen, but either way the result's the same.  Only one thing I couldn't ever understand was, if everybody already knows what you are, why get into a sweat about it?

Anyhow, the reason I could tolerate my mom marrying Jimbo is because he had a son just two years older than me, so in a way it was like I was getting a big brother mixed in with the deal.  And Brad wasn't nothing like Jimbo – he was confident, tough even, full of swagger like his old man, only his was backed up by the real thing.  Or so it seemed to me at the time.  Hell, I was only eight – what did I know?  But since I was the one who'd had to leave his home and his old neighborhood and his friends and the school he'd been going to, I was looking forward to having someone who'd kind of be in my corner – you know what I mean?  And sure, Brad was at first.  He showed me round the neighborhood, showed me off to his friends – though in retrospect I think maybe he just liked showing off the way I looked up to him, admired how he was so popular with the local gang of kids.  Sure, there was a little hero worship going on.  But at least he did one nice thing for me.  He introduced me to everyone we met as his "new little bro."  That I liked.  It gave me status in the strange new world I was having to cope with.

He never did stop calling me that, but his patience with way I kept wanting to hang around him all the time ran out quick enough.  After awhile, whenever I'd try to tag after him, he'd chase me off.  He had this whole group of guys he hung out with, all of them older than me of course, and they didn't much like having me around.  They wasn't afraid to show it either – they'd call me names and then make fun of me when they saw my feelings was hurt, tell me they didn't want no baby trying to hang out with them.  I could tell Brad didn't quite know what to do – stick up for me or stay in good with his friends.  Then one day when I'm following after them he turns around and hollers, "Get out of here!  Beat it!  Go play with yourself, why doncha?"  And one of his friends snickers and says, "Yeah, why don't you go play with yourself."  After that it was their standard line:  "Go play with yourself, kid.  Go play with yourself."  They'd laugh every time.  Then they'd walk off together, not even bothering to look back.  And if I still tried to follow after them Brad would shove me away, hard.  And if he happened to shove me hard enough to make me fall on my ass, his friends would all laugh.  Brad would too.

That's the sort of thing he did in public.  In private, he started beating me up.  He beat me up the first time because I wouldn't stop trying to follow after him and his friends.  Well, I learned that lesson soon enough.  I stopped.  But then he kept on beating me up, for no reason at all that I could ever figure except for the fact that I happened to be there.  It was like he just did it for fun.  He'd trip me, pull me down, wrench my arm behind my back, sit on me, rub his knuckles against my scalp until it burned, pound his fists against my head.  Not too hard of course – but hard enough.  When I was still just a little kid, I'd cry sometimes.  That seemed to scare him bad enough to let me go.  So then I started crying on purpose.  When he finally caught on to that he shook his head at me and said, "Jeez, I hardly touched ya!  What are ya, a girl?  You act just like a little girl!"  He said, "I gotta toughen you up, little bro."  So that became his excuse.  After that it was like he felt could beat up on me even more.

But one day, he starts to reach for me and I shove my elbow back as hard as I could into his gut.  I was a little older by then and I guess I just figured I'd taken it from him long enough.  He wasn't expecting it.  He grabbed his belly and bent over double, gasping for air.  After he'd caught his breath again he flopped down on the couch and gave me this look like he couldn't believe what I just done.  "Jeez," he said.  "Jeez-us!"  Then he gave me this huge grin.

I hated him for grinning at me like that.  I think I hated him for grinning at me like that more than for anything else he'd ever done.

The next time he reaches for me I was like a wild man.  I kicked, I hit, I slapped, I used my elbows and my knees and my feet and my fists and I would've used my teeth too if he'd let me get close enough.  Finally he pushed me away from him and said, "Whoa!  Whoa, little bro!"  It was the first time I'd ever made him back down.  I still remember the pumped up feeling that gave me.  I looked at him from under my brows, letting him know I was ready for more.  Then he jumped forward and clubbed me up side of the head hard enough to make my ears ring.  I gulped some, but I didn't cry.  "I said enough," he told me.  Then he turned around and stomped out of the room.  Like I'd made him mad or something.

But after that I noticed he didn't beat me up no more.  And I ain't never once cried since.