Fortunate Son

They’d laugh and run through the garden until way after Thomas’s bedtime. And when he’d go to bed finally, he’d get the giggles so bad that he couldn’t go to sleep for laughing.

Lying across that hard and lumpy mattress, on Elton and May’s back porch, Thomas thought about the flower garden and his mother, and he believed that somewhere she was thinking the same things. This made him very happy, and he fell asleep feeling that he wasn’t alone in that screened-in room.

In his dreams he was drowsing in the big chair in the backyard near the pool. As usual he was tired after only a little while, but Eric was still leaping from the diving board and telling everybody to look. Dr. Nolan and Branwyn were lying side by side on two lounge chairs, and Ahn was sitting near to where Eric was, just in case he got into trouble from playing too hard.

6 4

F o r t u n a t e S o n

Thomas was perfectly happy and dozy in his chair.

Then a woman’s loud scream brought him wide awake.

“What the fuck you mean ‘out’!” Elton yelled.

Then another scream.

“Get your hands off ’a me,” May shouted.

“I’ma see if he been up in there,” Elton said. They were in the kitchen, Thomas realized. “An’ if he have been, then I’ma bust yo’ head.”

There was a scuffle and more screams.

Something crashed to the floor, and May let out a yell that picked Thomas up out of the bed and dragged him to the door to the kitchen. He didn’t want to go into the room, but he couldn’t help himself. He was drawn by the sounds of violence.

When he pushed the door open, he saw that Elton had thrown May up on the kitchen table. Her dress was hiked up to her waist, and Elton had his hand up under her red panties.

“If I feel him up there I’ma make it that you ain’t nevah gonna have no babies,” Elton shouted.

“I ain’t done nuthin’, baby,” May moaned. “I just had dinnah.”

“Till two in the mo’nin’?”

Elton moved his hand with a violent twist, and May screamed again.

Without thinking, Thomas rushed at Elton’s leg and wrapped his arms around it.

“Stop, Daddy!” the little boy screamed. “Stop!”

“What?” Elton cried, surprised by the appearance of his son.

He looked down at Thomas as if he had never seen him before. The man’s eyes were very bloodshot, and there was a crazy curl on his lips.

Just then there was a loud sound at the front of the house.

6 5

Wa l t e r M o s l e y

“Help!” May cried. “Help! He’s tryin’ to kill me!”

Four uniformed policemen rushed into the room.

“What the fuck?” Elton shouted.

“Stand down,” a tall black policeman said, and then, before Elton could move, the policeman hit him across the forehead with a short black stick.

Elton fell to the floor. His arms were flailing and his eyes were wild.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Thomas’s father said. “This my house.”

He got halfway up, but another cop hit him with a night-stick and he went down again. But he wasn’t unconscious. He tried once more to get up while May was gibbering and shouting behind an Asian officer near the door.

Thomas had backed up against the wall. He was more frightened of Elton now than he had ever been. He couldn’t understand how someone could be hit so hard, so many times, in the head and not stay down. He now saw his father like a monster on one of those scary shows that Eric liked to watch — a monster that couldn’t be killed and who came back through bombs and gunfire and killed everyone except the women and children he took to his cave, where later he would eat them.

Two of the officers had jumped on top of Elton. They were pulling his hands behind his back. Thomas was expecting to see the policemen thrown off like on TV, but instead they bound Elton’s hands and dragged him to his feet. He struggled but didn’t get away. He yelled, but the threats didn’t hurt anyone.

“You don’t have to hit him like that,” May cried.

Suddenly the big woman jumped at the Asian officer, knocking him into the men trying to subdue Elton.

“Leave him the fuck alone!” May cried. “Leave him!”

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F o r t u n a t e S o n

“I will kill you when I get outta here,” Elton warned May even though she was trying to help him. “I will kill you when I get out.” And then he turned his head toward Thomas. “An’

you too, you little bastid. You think you cute tellin’ her about that lunch. Lyin’ like I was after her. Lyin’ ’bout what I said.

I’ma get you too.”

Then the policemen dragged Elton off. They handcuffed May and took her along too. Finally there was just Thomas and the Asian policeman left in the house.

His name was Robert Leung, and his grandparents had come from China.

“And so Mr. Trueblood is your father?” Officer Leung was asking Thomas. They were sitting on the black couch in the TV room.

“Uh-huh,” Thomas replied.

“And Miss Fine is your mother?”

“No. May’s Daddy’s girlfriend.”

“Does she live here with you?”

“I think so.”

Officer Leung frowned. “Don’t you know?”

Thomas explained that his mother had died and that he had just come to live with his father.