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chili, and all of a sudden fear and anger were burning through me and I looked for something to grab, but the knives were across the kitchen, too far away, and his gun was under his bed with him right in the way.
    Mom sat up and started crying.
    “Cut the bullshit,” he said. “Shut the fuck up.” He raised his hand again. This time I did stand up, and he saw me and his eyes got really small. He turned red as ketchup, started breathing hard, made a move toward me. Maybe Mom was trying to help me or maybe she was just helping herself, but all of a sudden she was in his lap, wrapping her arms around him, saying, “Yeah, you’re right, baby, it is bullshit, total bullshit. I don’t know jack. Sorry. I’ll never lay that bullshit on you again, cowboy.”
    He started to shake her off, but changed his mind, said, “You gotta cool it with that bullshit.”
    Mom said, “I ain’t arguin’. C’mon, baby, let’s scoot into town and party.”
    He didn’t answer. Finally he said, “Fucking A.” Looking over at me, he licked her cheek and slipped his hand under her tank top.
    Moving his hand in slow, slow circles.
    “Let’s party right
here,
baby,” he said, starting to pull the tank top off of her.
    I ran out of the trailer, hearing him laughing, saying, “Looks like the rich guy’s kid got all
hot.
”
     
    He started off with more hand squeezes, tripping me, pinching my arm. When he saw he could get away with that, he started slapping me for stupid reasons, like when I didn’t get him a pickled egg fast enough. It made my head buzz and I couldn’t hear right for hours.
    The worst time of the day was when I came home from school. He’d be outside the trailer working on his bike. “Hey you, rich guy’s jizz! Get the fuck over here.”
    There was only one door to the trailer and he was in front of it, so I had to do it.
    Sometimes he bugged me, sometimes he didn’t, and that was almost worse, ’cause I kept waiting for it to happen.
    Rich man’s kid, fuckin’ rug rat snotty-little-asshole think-you’re-smartern everyone.
    Then he started with the tools. Putting a chisel under my chin, sticking my thumb in a lug wrench and tightening it on the bone, watching my eyes to see what I would do.
    I worked hard at not moving my eyes or any other part of me. The wrench felt like when you catch your hand in a drawer, but at least that’s over fast—this kept throbbing and throbbing. I could imagine my bones cracking and breaking and never healing again.
    Going through life with broken hands and being called Claw Boy.
    Next time was a screwdriver. He tickled my ear with it, pretended to jam it in with the heel of his hand, laughing and saying, “Shit, I missed.”
    A few days later, his hacksaw blade went up against my neck and I could feel its teeth, like an animal biting me.
    After that, I couldn’t sleep well, would wake up a bunch of times a night, and in the morning I’d have a sore face from clenching my teeth.
    Why didn’t I just sneak over to their bed and get his gun and shoot him?
    Part of it was being scared he’d wake up, get to the gun first. And even if I did shoot him, who’d believe I had a good reason? I’d end up in jail, ruined forever; even when I got out I’d be an ex-con, with no right to vote.
    I started thinking about running away. The thing that decided it for me happened on a Sunday. Sundays were the worst because he sat around all day drinking and smoking weed and popping pills and watching Rambo videos and soon he’d feel like being Rambo.
    Mom was in town getting groceries and I was trying to read.
    He said, “Get the fuck over here,” and when I did, he laughed and pulled out a pair of wire cutters, then yanked down my jeans and my shorts and put my dick between the blades. The sac, too.
    Billy No-Balls.
    I almost peed, but forced myself to hold it in because if I wet him I was sure he’d cut it off.
    “Rich guy’s kid got a
little
one, don’t he?”
    I stood there trying