Part 1: Longing and Loss

Pete was born in August, a hot, sweaty, humid, month. During one of the worst heat waves in his area’s history. The summer of 1992 had been brutal, being pregnant during that summer had made his mother Janice, who was already short tempered, and waspish, by nature, nearly unapproachable. Pete’s father Mike, who had been bursting at the seams with joy over becoming a dad, had been forced out of their lives, by Janice’s increasingly hostile behavior. Finally being told to leave, and to never come back, after Janice had laid open a four inch gash on the side of his head with a well thrown glass ash tray.

Mike had been crushed by this. More so because he would never get to watch his son grow up, than because he would no longer be with Janice. In truth, he could no longer even say he loved her. Her behavior, and increasing hostility toward him having cooled his feelings toward her to complete indifference. But after one last phone call, where he had been rebuffed after begging to at least be a part of his child’s life, Mike had at last given Janice exactly what she had wanted. He left.

Pete’s earliest childhood memories were never what you could call happy. He was always walking a precarious line, between striving to earn his mother’s love, and avoiding her ever increasing wrath. Janice, after finally giving birth to “her little bastard” had turned to alcohol as an emotional crutch, to replace the men she could never manage to keep around. Janice would never admit that it was her attitude, and complete lack of respect for anyone other than herself, that drove men away after only brief spurts of initial happiness. Instead, she blamed Pete. She resented the fact that he so closely resembled his father, with his soft, wavy, brown hair, and curious, inquisitive, light brown eyes. Even his light olive complexion was a bitter reminder of the man she had pushed away because she felt he didn’t deserve her.

By the time Pete was four, his mother had become both his brightest hope, and his darkest fears, all rolled into one. She forever withheld her unconditional love for him, telling him he had done one small thing or another, to deserve to be left just outside the warmth, and love of his mother’s heart. But he was always striving to earn that place, thinking if he just became a better little boy, he might finally be good enough for her. The cycle repeated itself endlessly, hope, and desperation, reaching towards his own personal Olympus, only to be dashed away, by some slight, perceived, imperfection, banishing him to the depths and darkness of his own personal Tartarus.

By the time Pete was ready to begin school, he had already developed a more than healthy respect for Janice’s temper. Always ready to duck and cover, if her hand so much as twitched towards a belt, or a wooden spoon, or in some cases of his worst mistakes, the radio antenna kept next to the couch. Of course the beatings, and casual violence his mother was so capable of dishing out to him, only served to adhere him to her even more securely, in the off chance he might be graced with her fleeting affection. A smile, or a kind word from Janice, was to Pete, like oxygen to a drowning man. And sadly for Pete, his mother knew this, and used it to every advantage she could get.

Pete’s teachers could see what kind of toll Janice was putting on him, the small marks, and violent flinching, from so much as a raised voice gave testament to the morbidly unhappy home life the poor boy was being forced to endure. And yet they were never enough to take direct action. That he was phenomenally intelligent, and actually strove to prove he was worthy of any sort of praise, was not lost on them either. Sadly, it seemed, nothing was ever good enough for Janice. If Pete came home with a silver star on an assignment, then he had failed because it was not a gold star. If it was a gold star, then he had failed because there weren’t more of them. His first grade teacher Mrs. Raynerd was heart broken for the small, innocent little boy. So much so that by the end of school year, she had broken down into tears over the kind of life he was being forced to live, as her husband, held, and rocked her gently, trying to soothe her distress.

When he was only six, his Uncle Billy, seeing the emotional wreckage his sister was piling onto the poor boy, gave Pete the first real gift he had ever received. A beautiful, dark fawn, pit bull puppy that he instantly named Goliath, after his favorite Saturday morning cartoon character. Pete was over the moon about his new dog! He honestly couldn’t believe someone thought he was worthy of a gift of this magnitude. Unfortunately, Janice was of much the same mind.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” she had screamed at her brother, her eyes flashing with undisguised fury, as she slammed her fist down onto the table. “That little fucker doesn’t need a dog! He’s already enough trouble as it is!”

Billy was shocked at the venom in his sister’s voice as she railed at him over giving her son a puppy. “Janice” he stated as calmly as he could “Every boy needs a dog. We had one growing up, and I know you loved her as much as I did.” Billy explained, hoping the memory of their beagle Ruby would calm her down “And just look at them out there. They’re having the time of their lives!” he pointed out the window of the small trailer Janice and Pete called home. In the yard Pete, and Goliath were rolling in the grass, the puppy jumping and pawing the small boy as Pete laughed. Sadly, Billy thought, it was one of the few times he could remember hearing Pete laugh.

“Yeah, it’s fine for you to say asshole!” Janice hissed. “You’re not the one who’s gonna be cleaning piles of shit off the carpet for the next six months! That little barking shit machine is going to destroy my house, and make more work for me, than I already have, trying to keep up with that little bastard out there.”

Billy had finally had enough of his sister’s shit. And he stood up quickly in front of her, reaching his full height of nearly six foot four, completely dwarfing Janice’s five foot one and glared down at her. “That is the last time you will ever call your son a bastard in front of me!” he growled. His eyes darkening as he clenched his fists. “Do you hear me you self absorbed little cunt? If I ever so much as think you’ve done it again, I will break you over my knee, like you’re trying to break that little boy out there!” His emotions were plainly written across his face as he slowly backed his sister into the corner of the kitchen. “Do you understand me Janice? You made your life the mess it is now, and Petey had nothing to do with it. If I ever catch you trying to hurt that little boy again, I will make your life a misery the likes of which a horror movie couldn’t compare to!” And with that last warning to Janice, Billy turned and stalked out of her home.