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the kitchen and living room on the way to my bedroom, noting the scarcity of presents, and I truly believed my heart would break. So be it. In the wee hours of December twenty-fifth, I lay on my bed reading a Popeye comic book while my parents and sister opened their gifts less than four feet on the other side of the wall, and I felt a cold, stainless steel cage close over that heart. I vowed he would never win.
    Two days after New Year’s, my mother came into thebedroom and asked how long I was willing to let this go on.
    I gritted my teeth, blinked back the tears, and said, “Forever.”
    She begged me. “Please, Bo. Your father won’t budge. You know how he is. I hate this.”
    I said, “He can go to hell,” and she slapped my face.
    I said she could go to hell, too.
    It was Easter Sunday when Dad finally came into my room and said, “You may rejoin the family now.” Nothing more was said at the time, at least not to me.
    It was the nature of my father’s power over us that no one outside the family had an inkling of my interment. Even as we stood locked in our struggle, I knew family business was no one else’s, and never thought to call for help. I waged my war alone. I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven Dad for the time he stole, but though we’ve had plenty of raging conflicts since, he’s never taken me on like that again.
    But now I’m real nervous about where things are headed, Lar. I do not want to join Nak’s Pack, and not just because it’s filled with desperados who’ve stashed body parts in the dark corners of their basements, either. I’m afraid that story’s the kind Mr. Nak will want to hear—there are plenty more where that came from—and even thinking about telling them in a crowd puts a hole in me. Plus, asangry as I get at my father, something in me wants to protect him from the outside world.
    Mr. Nak is one of those guys who knows stuff, Lar. I mean, knows stuff. He’s a little Japanese guy—you probably figured that out from his name—from Texas. He talks like Slim Pickens and dresses like his fashion guru is the Marlboro Man. I’ll bet he doesn’t weigh more than a hundred-thirty-five pounds and he couldn’t be five and a half feet tall, but peculiar as he may be—which is pretty peculiar if you believe half of what you hear—he’s got this confidence . I don’t know about you, Lar, being a guy who has interviewed Dustin Hoffman and Cher and G. Gordon Liddy without breaking a sweat, but guys who can look inside you scare the hell out of me. You never know when they’ll come out and say what they see. I can’t tell you how much I’m afraid of looking bad. The loons I know in Anger Management aren’t afraid of anything. Those guys will divide up my belongings if they see what I’m really like. Being uneasy in front of people makes me feel out of control, and when I feel that way I do things I would never do when I’m okay. More than anything, I hate feeling foolish.
    Like with Redmond. Hell, I knew I had two suspensions. I knew what happens when you get three, and I knew I was mixing it up with the one guy who’d go out of his way togive me the third, but when he started repeating my name like some ridiculous mantra, I felt every kid in the room staring at the humongous wuss inside me, and it was exactly like that day with my dad; I didn’t care what Redmond did to me.
    Not that school itself is a big deal, but I really do like Mr. S’s Journalism class, and I need to graduate. Plus, I’ve been lifting and working out pretty hard and I’m not looking that bad—still on the scrawny side, maybe—and I think there’s an off chance I might be able to snag me a girlfriend if I could stay around long enough to build up a little rep. I don’t want to lose all that.
    Another thing: When I get freaked and go off on a guy