So when he had a really bad day, when customers sent back their fish, when the boss chomped on him a little too hard, he didn’t have to tell me. I knew. He’d bring home a six-pack of malt liquor, and between that and the look on his face, I knew the story of the day. I could even predict the future. Me getting cursed at, shouted at, told outright I was a worthless little piece of shit. That sort of thing.
But nothing physical. He wasn’t like that.
I always made sure my little brother, Luke, was out of the way though. I called him my little brother because he was a year younger than me, but he was actually quite a bit bigger than me. He was fifteen and walked around most of the time looking like someone had just told him some bad news. That might have been because there had been a lot of bad news in our lives. I kept thinking that someday our luck was going to change.
Luke loved to watch old martial-arts movies with a headset on. And he studied books and instruction videos he’d signed out of the library, closing the door to our bedroom to practice whenever he could. He wanted to be a professional wrestler or mixed martial arts fighter when he grew up, even though I didn’t think he had an aggressive bone in his body. I’d never seen him in a fight. He’d been picked on plenty, but I’d never seen him stand up for himself.
Like I said, we were a family that had had a lot of bad luck.
“Our luck ain’t gonna change, Jake,” my father always said. “Nothing is gonna change. No way, no how.”
That was after malt-liquor bottle number one. I’d just nod and try to keep my mouth shut. I used to try to change the subject. But that hardly ever worked.
“I’m sick and tired of smelling like fried fish,” he would say. “No woman wants to be with a man who smells like old deep-fried seafood all the time.”
I understood he missed the company of a woman. There was my mother once. A long while back. But she left after Luke was born. She claimed that living with us was a dead end. “I’m gonna find myself some opportunity,” she said. And left. At least, that’s what I remember. There was probably more to it than that.
My older brother, Cole, was in jail and had a couple more years to go. Everyone had expected him to get busted for selling drugs. But that isn’t what happened. He was involved in a robbery of a gas station. How stupid is that? I was so angry at my brother for doing that. And I stayed angry at him. I refused to talk to him when my father called him up on the phone each month.
As my dad got a little more drunk, he would remind me of my destiny: “None of you boys are gonna turn out to be any better off than me. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that.”
It was always the same. Sometimes the words came out a little different, but after he said something along those lines, my dad would grit his teeth and then look like he was about to hit me. Funny—he never did though.
I tried not to take it personally. I figured he had to unload on someone. I was usually the one nearby.
Afterward he would shake his head and look like he was going to cry. But he never did that either.
“I’m sorry, Jake,” he said each time. “I truly am. Will you forgive me?”
“Yes,” I said.
I always said yes.
Titles in the Series
orca soundings
Another Miserable Love Song
Brooke Carter
B Negative
Vicki Grant
Back
Norah McClintock
Bang
Norah McClintock
Battle of the Bands
K.L. Denman
Big Guy
Robin Stevenson
Bike Thief
Rita Feutl
Blue Moon
Marilyn Halvorson
Breaking Point
Lesley Choyce
Breathing Fire
Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang
Breathless
Pam Withers
Bull Rider
Marilyn Halvorson
Bull’s Eye
Sarah N. Harvey
Caged
Norah McClintock
Cellular
Ellen Schwartz
Charmed
Carrie Mac
Chill
Colin Frizzell
Comeback
Vicki Grant
Coming Clean
Jeff Ross
Crash
Lesley Choyce
Crush
Carrie Mac
Cuts Like a Knife
Darlene Ryan
Damage
Robin Stevenson
A Dark Truth
Jeff Ross
The Darwin
Diane Tullson
Dead-End Job
Vicki Grant
Deadly
Sarah N. Harvey
Dead Run
Sean Rodman
Death Wind
William Bell
Desert Slam
Steven Barwin
Down
Norah McClintock
Enough
Mary Jennifer Payne
Exit Point
Laura Langston
Exposure
Patricia Murdoch
Fallout
Nikki Tate
Fastback Beach
Shirlee Smith Matheson
Final Crossing
Sean Rodman
Firewall
Sean Rodman
First Time
Meg Tilly
Foolproof
Diane Tullson
Grind
Eric Walters
Hannah’s Touch
Laura Langston
Heavy Freight
Sigmund Brouwer
The Hemingway Tradition
Kristin Butcher
Hit Squad
James Heneghan
Homecoming
Diane Dakers
Home Invasion
Monique Polak
House Party
Eric Walters
I.D.
Vicki Grant
Identify
Lesley Choyce
Impact
James C. Dekker
Impossible
Jocelyn Shipley
Infiltration
Sean Rodman
In Plain Sight
Laura Langston
In the Woods
Robin Stevenson
Jacked
Carrie Mac
Juice
Eric Walters
Kicked Out
Beth Goobie
Alex Van Tol
Kryptonite
Lesley Choyce
Last Ride
Laura Langston
Learning Seventeen
Brooke Carter
Learning to Fly
Paul Yee
Lockdown
Diane Tullson
Masked
Norah McClintock
Middle Row
Sylvia Olsen
My Side
Norah McClintock
My Time as Caz Hazard
Tanya Lloyd Kyi
Night Terrors
Sean Rodman
No More Pranks
Monique Polak
No Problem
Dayle Campbell Gaetz
Off the Grid
Lesley Choyce
One More Step
Sheree Fitch
One Way
Norah McClintock
Outback
Robin Stevenson
Overdrive
Eric Walters
Pain & Wastings
Carrie Mac
Picture This
Norah McClintock
Pinch Me
Gabrielle Prendergast
Plastic
Sarah N. Harvey
Rat
Lesley Choyce
Reaction
Lesley Choyce
Redline
Alex Van Tol
Refuge Cove
Lesley Choyce
Responsible
Darlene Ryan
Riley Park
Diane Tullson
Riot Act
Diane Tullson
River Traffic
Martha Brack Martin
Rock Star
Adrian Chamberlain
Running the Risk
Lesley Choyce
Saving Grace
Darlene Ryan
Scam
Lesley Choyce
Scum
James C. Dekker
Sea Change
Diane Tullson
Shallow Grave
Alex Van Tol
Shark
Jeff Ross
Shattered
Sarah N. Harvey
Skylark
Sara Cassidy
Sleight of Hand
Natasha Deen
Snitch
Norah McClintock
Something Girl
Beth Goobie
Spiral
K.L. Denman
Sticks and Stones
Beth Goobie
Stuffed
Eric Walters
Tagged
Eric Walters
Tap Out
Sean Rodman
Tell
Norah McClintock
The Way Back
Carrie Mac
Thunderbowl
Lesley Choyce
Tough Trails
Irene Morck
Triggered
Vicki Grant
The Trouble with
Liberty
Kristin Butcher
Truth
Tanya Lloyd Kyi
Under Threat
Robin Stevenson
Up North
Jeff Ross
Viral
Alex Van Tol
Wave Warrior
Lesley Choyce
The Way Back
Carrie Mac
Who Owns Kelly
Paddik?
Beth Goobie
Yellow Line
Sylvia Olsen
Zee’s Way
Kristin Butcher
orca soundings
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