Zac had just finished a double shift at the airport and had taken his bike, all the way from the airport to Karen's apartment and he was exhausted. He heard some muffled sounds on the other side of the door and figured Karen had the sister circle over to discuss the fight he and her had been in that morning. He rolled his eyes thinking about all the things the girls had to say about him and the hell he was going to catch as a result of whatever they said. He opened the door and couldn't believe his eyes. Karen was on the sofa with some bald-headed guy between her legs. Shocked, enraged and without thinking, he lunged at the man and started attacking him. In the scuffle he knocked over a lamp, breaking it into pieces and her bonsai tree.
As he was throwing blow after blow at ole boy, who still hadn't had a chance to defend himself. Karen had managed to get over the initial shock and had started screaming at him to stop but at first, neither man responded to her plea. She then started speaking to Zac specifically "Zac get the fuck out with your broke ass. I can't believe you would embarrass me like this, you ain't shit and you ain't never gon be shit." she shouted knowing this would get his attention and she continued "I finally found a man that can give me everything you never could so I need you to get your broke ass out of my house before I call the police."
"Karen please just give me a little more time, I'm working extra shifts at the airport so I can help you out and be the kind of man you need me to be." He pleaded with her. "No Zac, I am tired of carrying your broke ass, you're no good because you don't want to be any good. So go before I call the police." "Don't say shit you don't mean Karen, if I get out that door I'm not coming back" he replied. "From your lips to God's ears." came her retort with a humourless laugh.
Zac was floored, she had this superpower of making him feel like shit. He could never understand why the way Karen spoke to him, reminded him so much of the way his mother had always spoken to him, discouraging him, putting him down at every turn. He also couldn't understand how he could love someone that made him feel like shit.
*flashback*
Annette was a single, middle-aged woman with deep-rooted anger issues. She was constantly lashing out at her son, Zac, for the smallest infractions. She had always blamed Zac for his father's absence in their lives and made his life hell. Zac had grown up in this oppressive environment and knew no other way of life. He had grown to live with the fear of his mother's wrath despite his best efforts to be a good son, Annette's abuse only worsened over time.
He could still remember the first time she had laid her hands on him. Zac was about 6 and was watching tv when he heard his mom come into the room already in a rage screaming obscenities at him, calling him lazy and ungrateful and how he was just like his no good father that had abandoned them before he was born. He just stood there thinking he should be used to this by now considering how often all the women in his family reminded him he was worthless. But no matter how many times he had heard it all before it still hurt like hell to hear his mother say he was worthless.
He'd finally found enough courage to speak up and defend himself. Annette stopped mid sentence and looked at her son with shock and she exploded with rage and slapped him across the face. Just who do you think you are talking back to me like you pay the bills in this house? She went on listing off all the things she does for him. He learned in that moment to just be quiet and not say anything so he didn't make things worse.
When he was 12 he mustered the courage to run away from his mother to his grandmother's house. This act of defiance angered Annette even more and she became determined to make him pay for leaving her one way or the other. Things had not gotten any better for Zac at his grandmother's house either, at first he had been welcome but over the years he had started to feel as though he had overstayed his welcome. While his grandmother and his aunts had never beat him or shouted at him the way his mother had they had told him the same things his mother had. That he was no good and would never amount to anything and that he would probably not live to see his own children.
