Tietam Brown Read Online Free PDF

Auntie M sag down from the force of the blow, and something happened inside of me.
    I heard Johnny scream, I heard Rachel cry. I heard Vinnie laugh. I said not a word, but that something inside me happened all the same. And for the first time in my life, I felt that rage take over.
    I stood up in that seat, and as Vinnie admired his wife-beating hand, I reached both my five-year-old arms over his head, felt them graze over the flesh of both his chins, clenched both hands together, and pulled back on that fat bastard’s larynx with everything I had.
    Johnny still screamed, Rachel still cried, and the radio still played, but now Auntie M joined in the cacophonous roar, but her pleading fell on ears that were deaf to all but Vinnie DelGratto’s fading gasps.
    I leaned over, intent on seeing life fade from his face, and when I did he grabbed hold of my head and, in a last desperate move, pulled my fifty-two-pound body over his shoulder and onto his lap.
    Then I felt a huge fist smash down on my jaw, and I saw Maria grab hold of her husband’s arm and make a plea for some sense.
    â€œPlease stop the car! Just please stop the car. You’re going to kill us! Just please stop the car!”
    For a moment, just a moment, I thought Vinnie might just grant her wish, but that crucial moment only seemed to help him make a conscious decision. He could stop the car and save his family, or he could continue to pummel. He chose the latter.
    â€œDie, you little bastard!” he screamed, and brought down that big fist with enough force to jolt me off his lap and down his knees, so that my legs waved awkwardly in the air and the right side of my face became wedged on the accelerator.
    I heard little Rachel’s voice cry out, “We’re all going to die!” and though that thought turned out to be not entirely true, it seemed a good bet, and with consciousness fading quickly, I reached up with my right hand and closed it real tight on Vinnie DelGratto’s balls.
    The green Caddy finally stopped, courtesy of a huge oak tree that was nearly ripped out, roots and all, from the impact of an automobile decelerating from ninety to zero in a fraction of a second. Just enough time to see Johnny’s body fly through the windshield like a sixty-pound missile, and I knew he was gone.
    Time seemed to stand still as I lay in that car, until Rachel’s small screams filled the Caddy’s steaming carcass with hope. “Mommy, Mommy,” she yelled over and over, her first word on this earth now the only one worth knowing. “Mommy,” she cried again, but Mommy was gone. Not gone in the way that Johnny was gone, but gone in the sense that she was no longer in the Caddy’s right front seat.
    I struggled to get out of the would-be green coffin, and found the going tough. Big Vinnie’s fists had done a number on my face, leaving my eyes swollen grotesquely, my mouth barely able to move. I eased my hand out of the area of Vinnie’s crotch and felt like the hand was going to explode. Literally. Then all feeling was gone, my nerves having shut down like a faulty fuse box.
    I kicked with both legs against Vinnie’s big gut, planning to exit the floorboard as I had entered it, through his lap. Not a chance. The steering wheel was embedded in his chest, and his lifeless head hung over the wheel, dripping blood onto my shoulder. I pushed off the left door and wriggled my way into Auntie M’s passenger side, hoping to exit the same way she had. I noticed that blood was cascading down the right side of my face, beating down on the rubber floor mat in a rhythm that blended with the falling rain. I felt the right side of my face with my functioning left hand, and felt only a stub where my right ear should have been. For a moment I panicked, not out of pain, but from the illogical fear that I might get in trouble for losing my ear. So my left hand darted out and searched the floorboard where my body had