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Mom stood just inside the doorway to the living room.
    As soon as Bosten stepped into the house, Dad grabbed him, clawing the soft flannel shirt into a ball right between Bosten’s shoulder blades. Dad pushed him into the living room, past Mom, and threw my brother down across the chair where Dad always smoked and watched television. And when Bosten landed hard and knocked over an ashtray full of twisted butts, I could tell it made Dad even madder.
    Everyone knew what was going to happen next. It was always the same, just sometimes the actor would be different, and I’d be the star of the show; and, usually, the script would be different, too. But if you’ve seen it once, there’s no need to see it again, in my opinion.
    Dad hit Bosten across the center of his back. Hard. It sounded like the belt could cut my brother in two.
    Bosten yelped.
    It sounded pathetic.
    And, like always, I thought I could somehow disappear, not be noticed, so I quietly turned in my socks and began to slip toward the basement stairs.
    Everything smelled like smoke.
    But my mother was right behind me. She grabbed me by my hair (they both liked to drag me around by my hair at times like this—and, usually, it would also remind them that I needed to have it all cut off the next day) and walked me into the living room, holding my head so I couldn’t look away from Dad or my brother.
    â€œRicky                  Dostal’s              father called me,” Dad said.
    He hit Bosten again, not hard to hurt him, it was just a prod—something like you’d do to a horse, maybe—just his way of making sure we both knew the title of the story Dad was about to tell us.
    Bosten tightened his arms on the chair, like he was hugging it, like he loved that chair so much. He wasn’t about to try to move.
    â€œFour     hundred      dollars!” Dad swung the slashing belt across Bosten again.
    This time, he wasn’t just trying to get our attention.
    â€œThat’s what he wants me to pay him for the emergency room. Four hundred goddamned dollars!”
    Then he hit Bosten across the back of his head.
    I heard my brother cry out.
    But it was soft, buried in the cushion of Dad’s smoking chair.
    I                    heard                  it                          anyway.
    Mom’s hand twisted. Like she was telling me I better not think about turning my face away.
    â€œYou think you’re tough? Beating up a goddamned fourteen-year-old? How do you think I can afford to pay four hundred dollars?”
    I didn’t wish he would stop.
    I knew how stupid wishing was.
    Mom’s hand dug tighter into my hair with each angry word from Dad’s mouth. Dad grabbed the bottom of Bosten’s shirt and pulled it up, baring my brother’s pale and bony back. Then Dad slid both hands through Bosten’s belt and jerked his blue jeans all the way down past his knees. I was terrified and embarrassed for my brother.
    These things happened all the time, though.
    It’s just how the McClellan family did things, and me and Bosten never wondered if, maybe, there wasn’t some other way out there for getting family things done.
    Everyone was like this, right?
    Then Dad began beating Bosten, dutifully cutting red slashes into the flesh across my brother’s back and butt.
    I tried shutting it out, but with each whack of the belt I felt electricity cutting across my own spine. I closed my eyes and swore at myself that I wouldn’t cry, but I called myself an ugly bastard because it was all my fault that Bosten was being beaten.
    I opened my eyes when Mom jerked my head.
    My father hit him