Wound Tight

--March, 1984-rural northwest New Jersey

“You call this clean, boy? You call this clean?” snarled Joe. His breath, saturated with whiskey, blew into Herman’s trembling red face and hung in the air. Herman wet his pants again from the anticipation of Joe’s retribution for not doing his job like Joe told him to.

Herman was tasked with painting the toolshed and cleaning up the paint, the brushes and himself. He did an admirable job of covering the old battleship gray with the exterior brick red that Joe had selected down at Avery’s Hardware in Carlton, a small village with a population of about 2,100. Joe would drive to Carlton in his dented green ’75 Dodge Ramcharger SE pick-up every Friday afternoon to browse the hardware store for any necessary supplies or tools for the farm. Of course the real reason for the visit to town was three fingers of Canadian Club at Jonah’s Bar and Grill. By the time he left the tavern, there were really nine to twelve fingers awash in Joe’s stomach. He never had a problem driving home, though, since not many other cars took Rte. 38 at that time of evening.

“Just look at them paint brushes, boy. Don’t you see the red paint still on those bristles? You call this clean? And look at your hands? Didn’t you use the turpentine like I told ya? You got to rub that paint off with the turpentine. You ain’t coming to supper like that, with those filthy hands on your mama’s dinner table,” ranted Joe.

Herman just stared at Joe and didn’t dare say a word back to him. But not knowing what Joe was going to do to him was the worst part. He didn’t know how he would be punished. His whole body shook with fear. He hated this man, Joe, who called himself his father. He just wanted to run right off this farm and right off the face of the earth.

“Now, boy. You just stand there and don’t move! I’ll be right back!”

Betty heard Joe’s tirade from the front upstairs window. She rushed over to the window, brushed back the curtain and saw her rail-thin foster brother standing like a trembling greenhorn soldier about to go off to war. Color drained from her round face and two salty drops rolled down her right cheek.

Joe marched into the barn, arms stiff by his side. Herman’s teary eyes darted back and forth. He desperately searched for some movement within the farmhouse. An opened front door. A raised window sash. Nobody came. Nobody helped. Only Betty was watching him and crying from her bedroom window, helpless. He was alone with this bad man. He would take his medicine and hope it would be over soon.

Joe strolled back to the toolshed where Herman was whimpering. He hefted a big wire brush, with a blond wooden handle, in one of his meaty hands and a can of turpentine in the other.