Fiesty Fern #6

A lone silhouette walked down the middle of a winding road into the setting sun. Angry brushstrokes swirled through the orange sky as if collecting their efforts to swallow the traveling figure.

Shane sat and stared at the painting for an hour before his new “mom” called him to wash up. He called her Sheila, if she was lucky. She had asked him to call her “mom” if he was comfortable with that. He was not comfortable with that. He wasn’t going to live with these people forever; it’s not like his mom died. She lived in the next town over with his dad.

The painting in this new house made him want to leave. Not because it was a bad painting, or because he didn’t like it. It made him want freedom again.

Yesterday he had been a free man. No small accomplishment for someone yet to grow hair on his balls.


“Get back here you little bastard,” Shane’s father, Chuck roared. The irony of calling his own son a bastard was lost on him.

Shane had just gotten home from school and hadn’t anticipated this welcoming. The principal said she wouldn’t call his parents. Shane ran down the hall to his room, careful to avoid the pile of unwashed laundry his mom planned to get to later. Chuck used the weapon at his easiest disposal to stop Shane. An open, but full, can of Old Style beer hit Shane between the shoulder blades, and he crumpled like a second pile of clothes.

The dirty, thick smell of cheap beer forced its way into Shane’s nose as the can slowly emptied, soaking though his T-shirt.

As Chuck moved across the living room, he slid off his belt. Stumbling, he placed a hand on the plastic covered, flowery patterned sofa, for balance. After regrouping, he took the last few steps down the hallway toward Shane. Chuck held the buckle in his right hand, using the notched end to hit his son.

“You got suspended from school! For fighting! This will teach you to fucking fight,” Chuck said. He repeated the last sentence with each blow.

Shane was curled up with his hands over his head like his teachers taught him during school fire drills. This position might protect against falling debris, but it left his back wide open to Chuck’s assault. An errant shot cracked against his left hand; the unexpected shock of pain sent him crawling down the hall to his room and under the bed.

There he sat, telling the dust bunnies of his plans to escape, until he heard the signs that Chuck was going to sleep. His mom had come home hours ago and hadn’t asked why Shane was hiding during dinner. Shane heard a can lightly bounce off the top of the trash can and crash loudly to the floor. The door to his parent’s bedroom slammed shut. Chuck’s body collapsed noisily into bed.

Since he was suspended from school, staying home with his unemployed dad was the alternative to running away. Shane opened his window and left.



For almost an hour he had wandered the streets freely, like the figure in the painting. He had splashed in puddles, which he had never been able to do before without punishment. He only looked one way when crossing the street. He was also hungry, since he had missed dinner and there was no easy way for him to find food.

The police had picked him up and had noticed the fresh welt forming on his hand. They found a dozen more, along with a can shaped bruise, on his back. Shane spent a sleepless night in protective custody with his knees tucked under his chin, freckled arms wrapped tightly around his shins. By mid-afternoon social services had somehow found him a temporary foster home.

Since arriving at Sheila and Mike’s (her husband, his new “dad,” he supposed), Shane had done nothing but stare at the painting. He was still six or seven years away from legally having the freedom to wander down the middle of a road toward a sunset. At least, without some form of legal guardian to tell him walking down the middle of a windy road is stupid.

“Shane…Mike, dinner’s ready,” Sheila called from the kitchen. The fact that dinner would be ready soon had been evident for about ten minutes. Some sort of wonderful smell, which made Shane have to tighten his lips together to keep saliva from leaking out, had filled the house. Nothing his mom had made ever smelled like this. Not that it was easy to smell anything in that house over the cigarettes and spilled beers.

Grudgingly, Shane got up and sat in his chair. A plate of steaming hot lasagna stared out at him. He thought about the hungry freedom of the road that he thought he wanted. He thought about the mac and cheese with cut up hot dogs his mom had probably made.

Mike and Sheila asked him questions and didn’t yell when he ignored them. They didn’t force him to eat by raising a threatening fist. They didn’t get obnoxiously excited when he took a bite of the cheesy, meaty meal.

The food tasted better than anything he had ever eaten. He sat for the rest of the meal, savoring that one bite.

Shane returned to the couch, and he sat with the TV off, staring at the painting again. After an hour, he drifted into sleep there in the living room. He hadn’t slept in a room without a closed door for years, but he didn’t wake when Mike carried him to bed.