Excerpt from my book in progress, from a story about my step-father:
"I
wanted him out of our lives and I didn’t care what that meant. I knew
that I didn’t want any of us to be victims any more. So, when I
drove my sister home from a church meeting one night and saw him driving slowly
by the house, something snapped and I whipped a u-turn in front of the house
and took off after him. Us in my little white Mustang and him in his beat
up little pickup truck. We flew down
these country roads in the dark in some crazy pursuit. The question was,
what was I pursuing? Was it him or was it something else? I
wondered what I would do if I caught him. What would I say? What
would I do if got my hands on him? But, I didn’t care. I felt this
great sense of elation! I smiled—might have even laughed. The
hunter had become the hunted and I wanted him to feel fear. I knew these
old back roads pretty well, and I knew we were headed for gravel. He went
up this hill and to the left and sped down the white rock road with no signs of
slowing. I knew we were a few hundred yards from a tee in the road, and
with the darkness and the gravel dust, I decided to slow down, hoping I would
still be able to catch him. We pulled up to the tee and I stopped.
I couldn't tell which direction he had gone, and I knew I hadn’t been that far
behind him. And then I saw him. He had obviously not known about
the tee in the road and had plowed straight through a fence out into the
field. I looked and saw his car about a hundred yards ahead with the
driver’s door open and smoke coming up from the engine. It took a minute
to spot him. He had run about a hundred yards past the car and was
crouched beside a tree watching me. It was a really powerful moment for
me. Here was this man that I had grown to fear and despise. This
coward of a man who, for some reason I don’t understand, preyed on those less
powerful than him. There he was crouched down like a cornered
animal. I remember thinking how pathetic he looked. How weak and
gutless and powerless and pathetic he was. I actually felt sorry for
him. My heart was softened. Not in a way that I would ever let him
back in my life, but in a way that would allow me to let go. My sister
and I just sat there for a few moments, watching the lights glare back off of
his glasses, like a possum's eyes at night. She said something about how
that was just sad. I agreed. I flashed my brights at him and honked
my horn a couple of times, and then turned around and drove away. It
wasn’t worth it. He wasn't worth it. What was I going to do
anyway? What did I expect would make him different? He at least
knew that I would pursue and that I wasn’t going to sit idly by without
fighting back, and that was enough for me at that moment, even if nothing else
changed."
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