by Charles Tyler

Created on: April 22, 2009

November, 1959

"When are you going to take control?"

The woman's voice was sharp, a practiced voice. Her dyed black hair was swept back in a severe French twist and made her skin seem stretched so tight over her face that her nasal or cheek bones would slice through it and the layers of makeup that covered it.

"When are you going to stop spoiling him?"

A coffee cup clicked down into a saucer. He could hear his father's breath come through his nose in a sigh. He tried to visualize the nostrils flaring.

"You know he doesn't give a damn about you."

"I don't know that."

"Well, he doesn't. If you heard the way he talks about you when you're gone, you'd know. You know how he treats me. If he respected you, he wouldn't do that."

"May I have more coffee, please?"

"Don't change the subject. You have a choice to make. You have a future to think about."

The boy pulled himself deeper into the shadows of the darkened living room. His pajamas were warm, but his feet and hands were cold. He could still hear the conversation in the dining room.

"As usual, you want to give me an ultimatum." he heard his father say. "Ultimatums don't work."

There was a pause. The boy pulled his knees in toward his chest and pressed his back against the wall by the door to the dining room. He could feel the coolness of the plaster wall lick slowly through the back of his flannel pajama top and into his shoulder blades.

"I should never have married you. I told you that it wouldn't work. Remember, darling? I told you, but you wouldn't take no for an answer. You told me things would work. I'd never have married you, if I knew my life would be a living hell."

"What's he done now?"

"It has nothing to do with what he's done now. It's what he has done and what he'll keep doing unless you do something."

"He's going through a phase." His father coughed. " His mother died when he was ten. I don't think he's over it even now."

"His mother has been dead for four years. And you know as well as I do what sort of gene pool she came from."

"Thank you, my dear. Your compassion is deeply touching. Jealousy becomes you. Tell me, do you really find it that difficult to compete with the dead?"

"How dare you speak to me that way?" The woman's voice was angry but controlled, directed. "You're just trying to change the subject again. Why don't you face it, you're just too weak to control your own son."

"What's he done?"

"Today? Nothing, at least nothing I know about yet, but do I have to draw you a picture? How about the lies? The lies

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