Rapier Witt So it's come to this, Leonard Witt thought. It began thirty years ago, and it ends with this.... a simple baseball game changed my life! He looked at his aged, 34 year old hands, shoved them in his pockets, and looked forlornly out the window. The air outside was light, as it was only 10 o'clock. Children played on the street outside. Len could almost see himself there, playing some pepper with the neighbours.. "Hey Len! Me and the guys might start a scratch team for the summer league. They made it only for ten year olds. Ya interested?" It was Wilson Kelly, the grubby faced kid who always played catcher. "Yeah, sure. Who else is gonna play?" "Joe, Dave, most of the guys. We'll probably have two teams and rotate every inning or something." Wilson tossed his baseball impatiently from hand to hand. "OK, no problem. When's the first game?" "Saturday, Mill's Field. I'll -" He get to didn't finish his sentence. Len's father stumbled out of the house, a bottle of Tin Star whisky in his hand, and yelled something incomprehensible. He motioned towards Len. "Sorry man, gotta go. Old man's on one of his spells again." "No problem. Saturday?" "Saturday!" Len yelled, as he ran to his house. "Get in here you lazy bum! The dishes won't clean themselves, will they???" Garret Witt yelled. The smell of cheap whisky hung about him like a distraught aura, the plain staleness of it sickening to stomachs. Len brushed past his father and went inside. He dropped his hat and glove on the couch. "Don't sweat it Dad. I got it under control. I'll get to them in a second, just let me call the other guys about our scratch team." Len pleaded. His father was in a semi-conscious stupor, barely listening to his son. "Forget it boy.... with your mother falling down on her face and you wasting your goddamn time with your punk friends... just shut your trap.." he took a swig from the bottle, "just shut the hell up and go to your room.. but do the dishes first!" Another swig. The bottle dangled precariously from his lips. How he could drink that junk all day, Len didn't know. "Who do you think you are?" Len roared. What now, he couldn't even use the stinking phone??? "Forget it, I'll do your stupid dishes, just get the hell out of my face!" Spittle flew from his mouth, landing in various places on his father's stained shirt and tie. His breath heaved from his chest in short, pained thrusts. Len could feel the blood pumping through his right temple. "What did you say boy?" What was he doing, messing with his father when he's had a bottle or two in him? This was madness..... "I said go to hell! You're nothing but a drunk bastard!" The last two words reverberated around the room, surrounding Garret like a shroud, bottling in the rage, waiting, letting it build up.. "I'll teach you to go to hell, you little sonofabitch punk!" The whisky bottle flew across the room. It hit the painting of William Lyon Mackenzie King and shattered, dripping amber liquid all over the politician's face and gut. "Just like your mother, trying to overtake me! Me!" Garret grabbed his son by his shirt collar, picked him up, and threw him onto the sofa. He kicked him in the side, getting a dull scream in return. "Dad! No! Stop!" Len could feel his ribs cracking under his father's foot. "Ungrateful punk! I'll teach you..!" He slapped his son across the face, drawing blood on one of his fingernails. Len tried helplessly to defend himself, covering his face with his hands, but his father's fist connected, sending a squirt of blood from his nose. Len could feel something shatter in his cheek - it was like his face was being drilled into. Another punch landed in his stomach, his ribs, his head again. He fell off of the sofa, semi-conscious. "Garret! Stop! What are you doing! Leonard! Police!" His mother, her face bruised, hands in bandages, ran towards her husband. "Stop! You're killing him!" she cried. But her husband was beyond hearing, beyond reason, beyond any comprehension of the real world - his only reality was Tin Star whisky. "Get away bitch!" He reared back, and backhanded her across the face. She fell over the coffee table and hit her head on a lamp, smashing it into innumerable pieces. Blood trickled from her ear and mingled with her son's on the tan coloured carpet. "Stupid wife.." He kicked her in her side, getting a weak groan in reply. "I told you to have that abortion..." He picked her up by her bathrobe and faced her, slapping her across the face. "You'll fry with your idiot son in hell.." He punched her one more time across the face for good measure, and tossed her beside her unconscious son. Both were bleeding from numerous wounds. Garret Witt calmly wiped his mouth with his hands, bloodying his mouth a little. He walked over to the kitchen and got a dishtowel, wiped his face and hands, and got another bottle of Tin Star from the cabinet above the freezer, took a swig, and dialled 911. "Hello? Help... please..help.." his voice, practised many times, was eerily convincing. "A burglar broke into our house... my wife and son are unconscious.. bleeding..." "Calm down sir. Tell me what happened." He could hear the person on the other end breathing. He toasted the institution of marriage, took a swig, and spat on the body of his wife. "Well, needless to say, you won't be playing pepper this summer." Doctor Martin always had a knack for being cynical. This time was no exception. Although he was drugged up to his eyeballs, he could still see that idiot box smile of his - he didn't trust it. "Aw, he'll be okay." His father had traded in his bottle of Tin Star for a Coke. "Just a little broken arm, that's all." He ruffled Len's hair, smiled at him, and looked at the doctor. "Thanks doc." he shook his hand, "Thanks for everything. I wouldn't know what to do without you. Thanks." Sincere as ever, the lying pig, Len thought. Just as smooth as ever.. He'll get his one day, he'll get his. "None required, Mr. Witt. Now, you'll have to give this" he handed him a small bottle of Cyclecane, "to your son every four to six hours, or when he needs it. This should be enough until he's healed, but if it isn't, here's a prescription for some more." Now they think drugs will fix the scars... he'll be sorry.. "Thanks." Garret opened the front door. "I just hope the police find the people that did this.. my family. It's all I've got." Dr. Martin put his hand on his shoulder. "Everything will be fine. Bones heal. I'll see you later." He clapped Len's father on the shoulder and walked to his car. Garret closed the door and looked at the medicine bottle. "Cyclecane.. pretty heavy stuff... in between codeine and some heavy weed.. Ha!" he laughed at his own stupid conclusion. Whatever brain cells he had left were being pickled in Tin Star. He got the bottle he had hidden behind the sofa and took a long drink. It's starting again... no... not again.. A shot of pain rang through Len's chest, paralysing his lungs, starving him for air. The drugs were beginning to wear off. "Dad... please... my pills... my ribs are killing..." Len begged. His face was a jungle of puffy blue tissues. Cuts ran the length of his face from ear to ear, and bruises highlighted every possible square inch of his face. His mother was in the hospital with a concussion, he was stuck with his psychopathic father..... "Shut up.. you got yourself into this, and you had to get me in too.." he tossed the bottle towards Len's direction. It landed just barely out of his reach. DAMN!!! Just one more inch.. please.. one more.. "Dad.. my pills.. please.. closer.." he was almost in tears.. the pain seared through his body and singed the ends of his nerves, sending shock waves of pain all over his body. "Be quiet... you don't demand things from me.. when you're 18, move out, get your own place, then start demanding things from your own messed up abortion.. till then, shut the hell up." He took another drink, longer than the last. The pickling was beginning. Len could see the standard drunken stupor emerging. "Just get outta here, I don't want to see your ugly face. I'm going to the bar." He staggered to get his keys, and walked out the door, slamming it behind him. Len could hear the Chev sputter to life, spewing blue smoke as it hurtled down the street. It's time.. time to plan... The dumb idiot, he won't even know what hit him.. it'll be as simple as draining his brake fluid.... yeah, that's what I'll do... Len thought. Murder.. I didn't think I'd resort to that, but what choice do I have.... He stood up gingerly, careful of his cracked ribs. He took a step, but the pain was unbearable. He fell on the sofa and mercifully fainted. He was crying now. He could feel the tears streaming down his cheeks, hot, salty, forbearing. The kids were playing 6 flies, 3 grounders now. Len could hear their laughter, their cheering, the crack of the bat. He turned away, and saw the faces in the shadows. The entire house was dark, all the shades were drawn. Windows that were broken had been boarded up. He couldn't bear to see their faces... they were stolid, perfect, stoic, revelling in their blithe colour. He turned away, and walked over to the fireplace. The missing brick stuck out at him, and he rubbed it gently. It was like that when Helen and I bought this house... it was like that when we brought George home.. it'll always be missing. Len had bought the house, financed mostly by his years of slaving over a typewriter, waiting for his big break. He had published Unforgotten Regrets eight years ago, written it 10 years before. Critics hailed him as the best budding playwright since Tennesee Williams... but what the hell did they know? He had received $70,000 from The Phantages Educational Society, and more than $15,000 in royalties after that. He had married Helen a year before that, he could remember, because that was the year he had killed that college student in a car accident. It wasn't his fault, he always maintained that. How much Tin Star did you drink that day? "No...." They never knew that, did they? Because the other guy was drunk too, and you had the right of way, right? "Never knew..." Another glass won't do any harm, will it? You won't be driving, will ya? "Stop.." He could hear the voices.. the maddening, crazy voices, tormenting him. "I need a drink." He kicked over some cushions, looking for the bottle of Tin Star he had found in his wife's jewellery safe. He found it under some books, opened the bottle, and took a long drink. Once satisfied with the first, he took another. "Helen, this one's for you." He motioned the bottle towards the front of the room, and took yet another drink. He was almost drunk, but he could still remember... "AUGH!!!! HELEN! HELEN!!!!" he cried. Len was in a blind rage. All he could see was red. He picked up a book and flung it across the room. It almost hit his wife as she walked into the living room. An incredible mess was before her - the cabinets had been emptied, dishes broken, empty bottles everywhere. "WHERE'S THE TIN STAR??????" "Honey, I told you no more, you're screwing yourself up." She said it gently, calmly, enunciating each word like he was a child. He was breathing like an ox, heaving each breath, anticipating the explosion. "Go work on your script. Your deadline is in a couple of weeks, and you've hardly started." "BITCH! SHUT UP! GIVE ME THE GODDAMN TIN STAR NOW!!!!" He grabbed her by both arms, and squeezed them tightly. "Ahh!!!! Len! Stop! You're hurting me!" she screamed, tears forming in her eyes. "Please Len, stop! Stop it!" He shook her, hard. Helen could feel her organs rattling inside her, feel her arm slowly becoming useless due to the stopped circulation. "TELL ME! TELL ME NOW!!!!!!!" Len roared. His wife, almost unconscious before him, moaned helplessly. The front door opened. Len went white. "Mom? Dad?" It was George. Len heard the door close. He dropped Helen on the floor, hitting her head on the coffee table. An eerie sense of deja vu struck Len full force, and he reeled backwards a little. "Hey guess what! I made the baseball team! The junior 8 year old squad! Mom? Dad?" Len picked up his son's baseball bat and hid around the corner of the main hall. George walked down to the living room, happy, unknowing, safe in his mind... "Mom? Dad?" One more step, punk... "Mom... MOM!!!!" He saw her, lying on a crooked angle, mouth open, head cut and bleeding. Len swung with all his force. The bat hit George right across his left cheekbone, shattering it instantly. His head hit the corner of the wall with the impact, and Len hit him again, leaving a bloody stain on the broken wall. George slumped to the floor, eyes scared open, his brain lobotomized with one swift swing of the bat. Stupid idiot... BAM! Len hit him again, broadside, across his chest. Ribs cracked, lungs collapsed. I told you not to talk about baseball... BAM! An arm broke.. Baseball, you want your stupid baseball, here you go.. BAM! He hit him one last him, breaking his legs. He dropped the bloody bat beside him in disgust, looking at the bloody mess before him - not realizing the full extent of his madness.. he had to have a drink.. now. "Helen, you stupid bitch, you knew it would come to this, didn't you?" He grabbed the fireplace poker and slapped it on his hand. "Hiding all the sauce from me, you knew.. you'll get yours.." He kicked her in the side, and she flopped over, a low sound escaping her lips. Len beat her across the face with the poker, occasionally, for some variety, stabbing it into her stomach, her face, her thighs, her breast. Blood squirted everywhere, staining the furniture, his clothes. "Now are you gonna tell me where the Tin Star is? HUH??? ANSWER ME!!!!" He spat on the body, and ransacked the house. I remember... He could see his son's face, cracked, broken, battered into a pulp. He focused his eyes on his wife's body, mutilated beyond comprehension. He thought about the fireplace.. What a perfect way to get rid of them... No... I owe them more than that.... I owe him more than that.. It's all his fault... Garret.... my father... it's all his fault, the stupid idiot.. he killed mom... he guzzled all the Tin Star...beat me and mom.. he couldn't stop the abuse... "I CAN SEE YOU!!!!!!" he yelled. "I CAN SEE YOU!!! DON'T THINK I CAN'T!!! I KNOW YOU DRANK ALL THE TIN STAR!!! YOU ALWAYS DID!!!!!" The phone stared at him. Its black, fluid, effervescent lines beckoned him. Len picked up the receiver, and dialled 911. "Come over quick," he said, in that same eerie tone, "someone just killed my wife and son... hurry." He hung up. I'll have a couple of minutes, I suppose.. I'll hafta hurry. Len got his shotgun, and the only two boxes of shells he had. He loaded up the barrel, and pumped it. In the distance, he could hear the wailing of police and ambulance sirens. I smell bacon, he thought. It was 10 men and many bottles of Tin Star later before they had him in a body bag.