Son of a Tempest

by David Lamm

Virginia Commonwealth University

David Lamm attends VCU and is expected to graduate in 2022. He’s always loved reading and writing, as they were his escapes when he was younger. He was always reading a book or daydreaming about some fantasy he made up in his head. He has lived a troubled life, but finds that channeling that trauma helps him and others cope with what they have experienced. David currently lives with his two cats Clementine and Cheese Toast who mean the world to him and have helped him through some of the hardest times of his life, and his girlfriend Emily who he loves very dearly.

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I’ve hated storms all of my life, because they’ve always reminded me of my father. To this day, I still cover my ears in hopes that it will protect me from the memories. So that I won’t end up back in that nostalgic corner of my youth where I would, for mere moments, feel safe.

You see, my father’s anger was a storm.

His fists were the lightning.

My pained yelps were the thunder.

I wish I could say that there were signs that a storm was brewing at home. That I could find the gray clouds in my father that would foretell the approaching storm so that I might have braced myself. Instead, it was sudden. His happy smiles would suddenly disappear, and his hollering would reverberate around me, and I would cower in hopes that my meekness would somehow make me less desirable of a target.

It only angered him more.

He hated the way that I would make myself small.

“A man should stand big and strong,” he’d say as his fists pummeled into me, making me shrink even more. “How you ever gonna be a man if you run and hide?”

His hands wouldn’t stop.

On and on they’d go, and to this day I don’t truly know why.

“Huh? Answer me,” he’d command when I was too busy sobbing or crying or pleading for him to stop.

“I don’t know,” I’d always choke out.

I don’t know why that’s how I would answer. It always made things worse. Silence would have been better. But there is something about a giant figure towering over you, expecting an answer that makes you want to say something. Say anything. Even if you know it won’t make things better.

“You don’t know,” he’d always angrily spit back and for a moment his hands would pause as if searching for an answer themselves. But that would never last long. “Then who does, huh? If you don’t know, who does?”

Me. Was the only answer I ever thought to that question, but I never said it. He’d probably have gotten madder and complained that I lied to him. So, I’d just let him berate and beat me while I apologized in pain. 

My eyes would always look down, never up. I’d find something, in that corner, to concentrate on. The knots in the wooden floor, the shapes and patterns on the sofa, the laces of my shoes. Anything that I could see through my eyes blurred by tears.

Eventually, the storm would pass. But I’d be the one to clean up the mess.

There was something dehumanizing about cleaning your own blood from the ground. It always felt like it was my fault. Like I should apologize for having blood, that I should say sorry for being a person. That I was sorry for being born.

But I never said a word.

Because the storm had passed.

He was happy again.

He’d never say sorry or apologize or take any responsibility for what he did.

But he’d make sure I wasn’t too messed up. And on those days when I was, when he had given me a heavier beating than he felt he should have, he’d be nice and let me stay home. Let me skip school.

Which is funny now that I think back on it, because I know that the teachers knew. The whole damn town knew. My mom made sure of that when she left us. But no one said a word. No one tried to help. And they definitely didn’t try to stop it.

Instead, they’d whisper Sorry in my ears when we were in town and he was far enough away that he wouldn’t hear. As if they feared his wrath as well.

But how can I blame them.

Everyone fears storms.

And my father was fiercer than any hurricane I’ve ever seen.

I can’t say he was always bad. As much as I wish I could, there were moments where he seemed to care. To love me.

Like the time I got hit by a car while riding my bike.

I don’t know who the guy was, but I watched as my dad pulled him from his car and began to treat him the way he treated me. By the end I was better off than he was.

I felt pity that he knew what it felt like to be me.

“I’m sorry,” he spat out as my father held him in the air by his collar. Blood flew from his mouth alongside the words and sprinkled onto me.

“It’s okay,” I remember saying while I clutched my broken leg while peering up at my father. He was staring at me as if I had the final say on this man’s fate. As if I could, with but a word, drag him down to the same type of being as me.

But I could never do that.

I could never reduce someone to my level.

That was when I realized then that violence was how my father showed he cared. That he didn’t know anything else. 

It was the discipline that ensured I did my homework.

It was the pain that taught me right from wrong. 

It was the encouragement that made me do my best.

It was his way of saying I love you.

He did it for me. Or at least he thought he did. That it would make me better. That it would mold me into a man that, like him, was a force of nature.

I wonder how he felt, seeing that it did the opposite.

As I grew, I became more and more distant from what he wanted. The beatings became more frequent, but they had lost their edge.

It was as if he had grown, not tired of them, but less passionate. As if even he could see that they had lost their purpose.

As a teen, I had grown into the habit of never looking up. Instead, I’d always look down like when I was in that corner. Constantly trying to find some stimulant to make me forget where I was, to get lost in.

Whenever I was spoken to, my head would tilt up, but my eyes would never meet another person’s. They’d never make it past their neck. It was a terrifying thing to look into the eyes of another, to see myself reflected in their eyes, to see their attention solely on me. 

In those years, he always asked questions as he beat me.

“Why are you so scared?”

“Why are you so weak?”

“Why don’t you do something?”

He’d ask me questions as his hands half-heartedly beat into me. Yet, I was long past the point of answering him. Or tearing up. I’d even only let out the occasional yelp. I had grown accustomed to the pain, and it had years ago started to feel familiar, almost comforting.

Almost in the way that a normal kid would hug their father. I would be beaten by mine.

But there was still a loudness to it. A swirling that would make my vision blur even when there were hardly any tears. A suffocating presence that filled me with dread, so I made sure I was always present enough so that he didn’t get rougher. That he knew I was still there, with him in that moment, feeling it.

Of course, I really wished I wasn’t. I wanted to be off in some land hidden between the floorboards. Some fantasy that happened in the knots of my shoelaces. Or watching some strange creatures living inside the pattern on the sofa.

When I was seventeen the beatings finally came to an end. 

All things considered, it was pretty anti-climactic. There was no final straw that made me fight back. I didn’t take a stand and put an end to it. No one came and saved me and took me to some home where I would, for the first time, feel a comforting gentle touch.

Instead, he met his end.

A heart attack on the side of the road, next to our fields.

Discovered by some motorist passing by.

That’s how I gained what I imagined would be my freedom. I got the farm, the house, the truck and I sold it all nearly as soon as I got it. Keeping only the truck long enough to drive out of that town to anywhere that seemed like it would be a nice and quiet place to start over.

I found a cheap motel to stay at and began to plan what I would do. That’s when I discovered I truly had nothing other than the cash from selling off my inheritance. I hadn’t graduated and my father had long since beaten my desire to study out of me. There’s something about being beat, no matter how well you do, that really leaves you with no desire to try.

Talking to people was, still is, so damn hard. Words don’t want to leave my mouth whole, instead they come out broken and sporadic. I can’t look into a person’s eyes without feeling myself start to tremble. Like I’m performing some cardinal sin by making them look at me. But worst of all are the loud noises. A slap, backfiring car, a falling can, someone yelling. Anything even remotely loud would echo inside of my ears and I would reflexively cover them as I became filled with dread. 

In my mind I’d be back in that corner and he’d still be there.

He haunted me in the sounds. 

An ever-present threat that would spark in my mind a fear that I was unable to hide. The memory of him, of that house, of that corner was never too far away. Waiting for the right opportunity to assail me. To remind me of who I was and that I was nothing.

This of course left me as an undesirable. Unable to work even the simplest of jobs where any communication was required. Instead, I was relegated to menial tasks where I lurked away from others. And so, I found myself a job as a janitor, working mostly late shifts at the elementary school.

It may sound strange, but that job made me happy. It made me feel as if my life was becoming some semblance of normal. I didn’t have friends. A social life. Aspirations. But I had a home, where I was comfortable, where from time to time I could sleep without fear. And a job. A place that made me feel as if I had purpose. For the first time, I felt like I mattered in some meager way. I was helping the kids.

So, I took pride in the work. I made sure that the school was spotless. Day in and day out, I made a difference.

But then came the storm.

It was so loud.

The thunder was unending, and I ran away and hid.

Cowering away in some corner holding tightly to myself, as if trying to cling to the fact that my father was already gone.

That’s when I saw her, trembling alone in the dimly lit room.

Bruises that I knew far too well covered her face, and her neck, and her arms.

As I looked at her, she noticed me. She glanced up, but not all the way, she never met my eyes.

Then she shifted away from me, as if trying to be as small as she could.

“I’m sorry,” she timidly sputtered. “I’ll leave when it stops. So please.” Seeing this, I could feel the tears begin to roll down my face.

“Hey,” I said as I crouched down and leaned back against the wall behind me. “You can stay here. Whenever your scared you can come here. It’ll be safe. I won’t tell anyone.”

She cut a sideward glance at me.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because I know,” I said shifting on my feet trying not to let the sound of the thunder take me away. “I’ve been where you are. I still am. I’m hiding too.”

“But you’re big,” she said. “When you’re big you can get away. Right? You can find a happy place.”

“Yeah, yeah you can,” I said trying to reassure her. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t get scared from time to time. Sometimes I hear things. It makes me feel like I’m small like you.”

And then there was thunder. 

My hands clutched my ears. 

She let out a yell and did the same.

For a second, I swore he was there. Glancing between the two of us.

His mouth opened as if to release a torrent of curses. His hands raised, ready to release an onslaught onto one of us. 

But the sound of thunder exploded in my ears instead.

The dim lights flickered off for a moment and he was gone.

I took a deep breath and walked over to her. She was tucked into a corner rocking herself back and forth. Muttering some words I couldn’t hear. I reached out to touch her back. To reassure her.

But I hesitated.

So, I slid down beside her and just said, “It’s okay.” Over and over again, as much to myself as to her.

The sound of the thunder eventually faded, but the rain continued to beat down onto the roof. The girl looked at me with a crusty nose and red puffy eyes.

“This storm will end. They all do,” I said as I realized that she wasn’t glancing away. That she was looking me straight in the eyes.

“What if it doesn’t?”

“My father was a storm,” I said as I rolled up my sleeve and show her scars and burn marks that covered my arm. “It ended. Yours will too.”

“But it’s so scary,” she choked out before beginning to sob.

My hand patted her back unsure of what to do, of how to help. So, I sat there and let her cry.

I let her not be alone.

And feel sheltered from the storm.