Goldfish

Years 1-5

My father eventually became responsible for me or at least pretended to in an effort to collect his allowance. It was after I was born and news reached my Grandfather of me that he made contact with my father. As much as he may have hated my father, he was a family man... and I was family. He made a deal with my father and bought us a humble home on the prairie; a place for us to call home, and a place for my father to work. My father was tasked with up-keeping the fields in exchange for free boarding and a weekly allowance to buy anything I might need. Of course, I never got any of the money. Father would get the money and drink it away. He wasn't a stupid man though, he'd save a bit of it and go buy me a new change of clothes or a new toy and make it seem as if he was investing in me... when he was really investing in his drinking habits.

At the age of two, I was finding myself having to take care of my father on his drunken nights. I would wait by the door and let him in a bit past two in the morning and throw a blanket over him when he finally crashed on the couch, or the bathroom floor or whatever room he found himself puking his guts out in. This went on until I was about three and a half. At this time, he met another lady with whom he spent most of his day. Father came around less and less, never easy to find. I had to learn how to cook some scrambled eggs at the bare minimum in an effort not to starve.

The relationship with this woman didn't last long, naturally. Things took quite a turn when she decided to end things with my father to get married to a local bartender. This didn't go over very well with my father and it caused him to do something unthinkable. In a desperate attempt to regain control of the situation, he reached for a fire pit poker and swung. I was only three and a half when I watched the rod impel her right eye. She let out a scream as my father ripped it out and swung again, this time puncturing her throat. Her hands clasped her throat as she began to choke on her blood. She stumbled towards the front door, only getting steps in before collapsing at the impact of the rod on the top of her head.

Despite the fact that I had just witnessed my father commit murder, I still loved him. I guess there's a lot that a child can take before a breaking point. It took approximately three and a half hours to get the house spotless from any evidence, my father had me wipe the floors with bleach. Sometimes when I close my eyes I can picture the scene as it was all those years ago, I can smell the house and the strong chemical smell. Father would leave all the windows open so the house could air dry despite it being below thirteen degrees outside. He and I slept by the fireplace that night in an effort not to freeze and not die from the chemicals trapped in the house.

Father held me that night, telling me it would be alright. I lay there staring at his lover's dead body wrapped in a white sheet nearby. 'I'll get rid of her tomorrow,' he'd said. 'Somewhere in the woods, maybe throw her in the big well near the house. Not much water in it anyway, the source is running dry.' He left me around three in the morning to drag her body out into the woods. It was as the door slammed shut behind him that I awoke from my slumber. I recall being hot from laying in front of the open fire, yet being so cold. I made my way to the window and watched as my father made his way towards the woodlands connected to the property. From the window, I could hear him whistling for something. 'Come and get her,' he shouted. 'Give my animals a break for the night,' and he turned back towards the house.

I was confused, at first, as to why my father would just leave her out there, risking being found. 'Back to bed,' he said to me as he closed the front door once more. 'You don't want to be watching when the wolves find her, they're ruthless animals.'

Later that morning my father made his way back down to where he'd left the body. It must have been six or so, but he left me by the fire. He returned with a bag of bones a while later. 'Them creatures are ruthless, ate every bit of meat off the bones. The only thing left were bits of them. Not to worry, I'll find a use for them later.'

As it turns out no one ever came looking for Jane Doe, in fact, no one knew her and my father had a thing going on... so my father was never worried about being
a suspect in her disappearance. If you ask me, it was sad. Not just the fact that my father had it in him to kill a woman, but the fact that no one seemed to care enough about her to send someone searching, not even her soon-to-be husband. I would spend some time staring out the windows, wondering if someone would care enough to find me one day.

'You always have to be careful,' he told me once when I turned five. 'You keep your life private and people don't have anything on you.' He smiled at me saying this as he strangled another woman under him. 'Just like the last one, no one knows about me and her. No one will come looking. They'll suspect the family or the partner, but never the lover no one knew about, I'm a stranger to her life. That is the point of keeping a secret. Two can always keep a secret if one is dead.' Jane's body squirmed

beneath him and then became still. 'Now, go get your knife, it's time to practice your punctures.' Dad rolled out a tarp from under the floorboard and spread it next to the body.

'Is she alive daddy?' I asked innocently.

The thing about being a child and having a psychopathic father is that no matter how fucked up he is in the head, he always seems to want to protect you at a younger age.

'Of course not baby,'

A lie, of course. My father had only blocked her airways long enough for her to go unconscious, but there's no pain. My father wanted to cause pain and he knew exactly how to do so. He knew that conscious or not, the brain would still register pain... and what better way to cause pain than to use your body to teach a young child how to stab others? A puncture in the chest, another in the stomach, a few on the leg, and finally one swift jab in the center of the throat.

I knew it was wrong. I knew it was illegal.
But he was my father, and I wanted to make him proud.