Don’t Pick on My Words

By David Obuchowski

CW: alcohol/drug abuse, toxic/abusive family

He picks on my words, this kid. It’s like trying to talk to a lawyer instead of my own son. I say, “Stephen, don’t pick on my words,” but he does it anyway. I have a heart condition, diabetes, and my kidneys are failing. These things are no joke. Especially in our family. We’ve got bad genes as far as our bodies go. They go strong about forty or so years, but they give out like an old refrigerator or a car once you make that last payment.

My brother died at forty-three. Coronary. Sister died at forty-seven. Breast cancer. My old man, he died of a double-whammy: liver and kidney failure. He was only forty-four years old, which means I’m thirty years older than my father. It’s strange to think I’ve outlived everyone by so damn long.

Don’t pick on my words, because it’s not like I’m about to stick my head in the goddamn oven, but it almost feels like someone upstairs—if there is someone upstairs—made a mistake, you know? Only person in our family who didn’t die prematurely of failing organs or cancer was my grandfather. But the way I see it, he just never had the chance—died at sea, thirty years old. It was the tail-end of the First World War. He was a Merchant Marine.

You think a man like that, a Merchant Marine, would get his feelings hurt because his father told him to stop acting like a fairy?

My kid, it’s like he wants to get his feelings hurt. It used to be we didn’t fight as much. At least, that’s how I remember it. When he wasn’t too busy sitting around on his fat ass, drawing pictures, he was a pretty good football player. Slow as a hippo, but damn near solid as one. You put a kid like that on the offensive line, and the only way the other team is getting to your quarterback is by going around, not through. Doesn’t sound like much of a difference, but an extra second can make all the difference for the QB to get set and complete a pass.

I coached that kid five goddamn years. Gave him everything he needed to make varsity. Instead, you know what he did? Skipped the tryouts. Came home, and I asked him how it went, and he did that thing where he looked down at his feet like a frightened little rabbit and he whispered something.

I told him, “Speak up for Chrissakes. How’d it go?”

“I didn’t do tryouts. I went to Picasso’s and got a job instead.”

Picasso’s. That was the art supply store.

“You didn’t go?” I stood up and I got right up in his face like I was Tommy Lasorda. “You tell me right now you’re joking, or so help me God.”

“I thought you’d be proud, considering how much you work,” he said, really emphasizing the you.

Oh that fucking did it. He was trying to be clever. Trying to be a wiseass.

“You getting smart with me? I work my ass off to feed you and keep a roof over your heads, and all I ask is that you play a great goddamned sport—the best goddamned sport. Maybe even get a goddamned scholarship. And this is how you repay me? You get a job,” and here I screamed, I mean I full-on roared, “to fucking spite me?“

He murmured something; I don’t know what. It was too quiet. Christ, the sound of his lispy little voice was too much. That’s what did it. It was that high little fairy voice. I reached back and I—

I tell you what: Growing up, my old man didn’t need to have a reason to give me a smack across the face. He came home from the smelting plant one day, and he said hello, and I was going through my baseball cards, organizing them. I’d always be re-organizing them according to the stats—I never missed a game on the radio. Anyway, I guess I was too busy trying to organize my cards, so I didn’t look up. Next thing I know, I’m getting hauled into the air by my collar.

He slammed me up against the wall, backhanded me right across the face, and he said, “You look at me when I’m talking to you.” But he didn’t just say it; he sort of growled it. And he didn’t open his mouth. He clenched his jaw, and he said it through those crooked yellow teeth of his. I could smell the beer on his breath. He was always drinking beer. Piels. Warm.

You think I told him he was toxic? You think I told him he was being emotionally abusive? You think I told him I needed to draw boundaries? I said I was sorry, sir, and you better believe I looked at him dead in the eye every single time I spoke to him from then on.

Don’t pick on my words, but when that son-of-a-bitch motherfucker died, it was one of the best days of my life. He was a real bastard. Still, I respected him. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do to your fathers. Respect them.

Anyway, that day when Stephen came home and told me he quit football to go work at some art store, that was the only time I—

Well, I don’t even remember what it was that I did. I know what he says I did. That I punched him twice in the face. But I don’t remember that. I don’t remember not doing it either. You know how it is when you get worked up. It’s all a blur. And, boy, was I worked up. I was livid. So he says I punched him. Who knows? It’s ancient history by now. And the point is this, and don’t pick on my words, but there’s a difference between beating your kids and losing your temper every once in a while and giving them a smack or two. My old man, he beat me. I maybe lost my temper here and there and used my hands, but I never beat my kids. I guarantee you: I never punched my kids for not looking at me. Hollered at them, maybe. But never hit them for it. I am one thousand times the father my old man was.

And that’s the important thing. It’s the bigger picture. A lifetime. Not just one day. Not just some random Tuesday twenty-five years ago. I treated my kids better than my old man treated me, gave them a better childhood than I ever had. My kids never had to skip a meal because we were too poor to afford food. They never got backhanded because they didn’t eat their “steak,” when it wasn’t even steak. It was the fucking gristle that the butcher would sometimes give him for a buck. My old man, that rat bastard, he’d have my mother cook it up with about a tablespoon of salt, thinking it would make it taste better, but I swear to Christ, all it did was make it even more disgusting. My kids never had to eat that.

And what do I get for it? My kid, picking on every little word I say.

My other kid, my firstborn, Blake, he wasn’t much better, but we had a lot more in common. He’d talk back and act like a jerk, but at least he was a man about it. He didn’t say things like maintaining space or emotional trauma. He’d just hit the bottle and say something like, Fuck you, Dad. Fuck you. Week later, he’d give me a call and act like it never happened. And, hell, maybe he never remembered it happening for how drunk he got. He took after my old man like that. But it wasn’t his kidneys or liver that stopped him. It was the column of an overpass. He’d been driving back from a bar.

Cops said there were no skid marks on the road or in the median grass, so they were pretty sure he never even hit the brake. Cops said his BAC was four times the legal limit. Cops said he was passed out.

Well, I think he was tired. Blake worked hard. And when a man works hard, he’s gotta blow off some steam. Don’t pick on my words, because I’m not trying to make it out like he was perfectly innocent. But what I am saying is that some guys I worked with did that by cheating on their wives. Others gambled. Some drank. That’s what my son did, and that doesn’t make him a bad person. That’s why I never talked to him about it in a serious kind of way. It was his business what he did with his free time. I wasn’t about to go insisting he get into some treatment center and start doing fucking yoga.

Far as I’m concerned, it was just as much his work that killed him as it was the booze. That’s one of the few things my wife and I can agree on.

It’s been five years since he died, and my wife hasn’t been the same since. She fought with those kids just as much as I did, but now it’s like she’s got amnesia. She acts like her and Blake were best friends. But, really, when he hit the bottle, he fought with everyone and that for damned sure included her.

But don’t tell her that. She’ll tell you Blake was the perfect son, a perfect angel. No fights. No calling her a bitch. You ask her, and she’ll say he never, ever, drank too much. According to her, he fell asleep at the wheel because he was such a hard worker. Successful, too. Why, just look at the car he slammed into the overpass: a brand new Mustang. How could a lazy alcoholic drive a car like that? she’d ask you.

Stephen would call me sexist or a misogynist or whatever for saying something like this, and maybe it isn’t politically correct, so don’t try to play gotcha with me, but that’s one of the differences between men and women. Men see things as they are, and women live in a fantasy world. Seeing my wife rewrite history with Blake, it’s like I’m watching her as a little girl playing with dolls in a dollhouse.

And it’s not just Blake. I come to find out she’s been sending thousands of dollars to TV holy-rollers who preach some utter horseshit called the Prosperity Bible, which is supposed to make you believe that Jesus Christ wanted everyone to be rich and have a yacht, and that all you’ve gotta do to make your money is send a little cash to some slick bastard with teeth so white, they make you want to adjust the television set. Gets worse: She’s also obsessed with some nonsense tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories about how the whole damn world is run by some kind of shadowy “cabal” that pulls all the strings, and it’s run by the Jews, and they’re all pedophiles, and how vaccines and vapor trails are all just ways the “new world order” drugs the population and keeps us in check.

Listen, don’t get me wrong, I’ve met some greedy Jews before, and, sure, I’d buy that they run the media. But some kind of shadow government that controls the whole world? Sorry, but you lost me there.

Not my wife, though. She’s all in. Conspiracy theories, prosperity bible, and now one of her so-called friends has her wrapped up in some kind of pyramid scheme where she’s supposed to be selling lotion. Fucking lotion. Can you believe that shit? And who’s she going to sell this lotion to anyway? The woman never leaves the house anymore. She hardly even gets dressed. It’s those fucking OxyContin pills, I tell you. Not the vaccines. Not the chemtrails. It’s the fucking Oxy. Other day, I told her maybe she should kill two birds with one stone and instead of sending preachers our money, she should send them a case of moisturizer. After all, those phony bastards look like they use plenty of the stuff, and God knows we got enough of the shit in our garage.

She just looked at me, all confused and told me to leave her alone. So that’s what I did. What am I gonna do, anyway? Tell her to stop sending money to preachers? Tell her to stop buying a bunch of worthless shit she’ll never be able to sell? Tell her to stop believing in conspiracy theories, like how that daytime talk show host everyone loves supposedly runs a child sex ring?

The woman lost her son. No parent should ever have to go through that. Hell, no one knows that better than me. I mean, if I died the same time everyone else in my family did, I wouldn’t have had to go through it myself. Point is this, and don’t pick on my words, because it’s not like I’m condoning anything, but if buying and believing in all that garbage makes her happy, who am I to argue? It’s like Blake and him having a couple beers with his buddies.

Hey, look, I know he had more than a couple. You know what I mean.

Stephen, though, he doesn’t let it go. Any of it.

Tells my wife—his own mother for crying out loud—that she has an addiction. If I’d told my mother she was a drug addict, my father, that son of a bitch, he would have thrown me off the fucking roof and then he would have beaten her for putting the idea in my head.

Well now Stephen won’t talk to me. Won’t talk to his mother. I’ve got health problems and so does she. You’d think he’d give us a little understanding. You’d think he’d take it easy on us. Instead, it’s the opposite.

Eighteen months. That’s how long it’s been since we’ve seen him and his wife and our grandkids. Last time we saw them, my wife fell asleep at the dinner table because it turned out she’d taken an extra Oxy before dinner. Then she had a couple glasses of wine and a cocktail.

She just put her head down right next to her dinner plate and started snoring in the middle of a sentence.

Stephen’s wife—her name is Lizabeth, by the way; not Elizabeth, but fucking Lizabeth if you can believe that shit.

Anyways, Lizabeth said, “I’d rather the kids didn’t see their grandmother like this,” and tried to take her up to the guest room.

As Lizabeth was trying to pull my wife up from the chair, my wife woke up all startled and confused.

“Fuck you, you fucking bitch!” she screamed. “Get your demon claws off me!”

It was a big mess. The kids started crying like crazy.

I didn’t even think about it. It was all the commotion. I just reacted. I said, “Leave her alone, would you? Let her sleep, for crying out loud!”

Stephen stood up and he pointed at me and said something like, “Dad, maybe you could actually help for once?”

That set me off. After all I’ve done. After all his mother and I have both done for him. I stood right up and pointed at him, and I said, “Don’t you dare to talk to me like that.”

He started asking, “Or what? Or what? Or what, tough guy?”

Well, it didn’t take a genius to know what the implication was. I picked up my tumbler of scotch and threw it down on his hardwood floor. Lousy thing didn’t even break because the glass was so thick and the wood floor was so soft. Plus, I’m not as strong as I used to be on account of my heart and my kidneys and my diabetes. I went over to my wife and took her by the arm and told my daughter-in-law to get the fuck out of my way, and we went upstairs. The grandkids must have cried for twenty minutes after that.

The next morning, I figured the entire thing would have blown over, but they were glaring at us all throughout breakfast. Even the kids were looking at us like they were afraid of us. My wife was complaining because she didn’t sleep well at all on account of the wine.

“You shouldn’t give me wine like that,” she told Lizabeth. “After all these years, you know that wine and chocolate always keep me up at night. And when I don’t get a good night’s sleep, my entire day is ruined. Completely ruined. Well, my day’s ruined. I know that much already.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Janet,” Stephen’s wife said, “I’m sorry I ruined your entire day.”

I held my hand up. “Don’t pick on her words. You know what she means.”

“Your words,” Stephen said, “are how we understand what you mean. And based on her words, she’s saying that Lizabeth ruined her entire day. Now if she means something different, perhaps she can use different words.”

I told you, he’s just like a fucking lawyer.

“I’m sorry, is this a court of law? ‘Cause I don’t remember being sworn in,” I said. Christ, I had a headache.

“Don’t do that,” Stephen said.

“Don’t you mean ‘Objection, Your Honor’?” I shot back.

“Don’t insult me like that just because I’m trying to—”

“No,” I interrupted, “you listen to me. I don’t have time for you and your fragile fucking little-boy ego and how insulted you—”

He stood up and pointed at the door. “Get out.”

“Get out, where?” my wife asked. “Our flight doesn’t even leave for three more days.”

“That’s not our problem.” Lizabeth stood up beside him and put her arms around him like he was the one who needed to be comforted, like he was the one who was being thrown out of his son’s house.

“You always were a fucking fairy. When are you gonna grow a pair of balls?” I said.

Then I marched upstairs to get our shit while my wife sat there, stunned.

That was a year and a half ago. I figured that was it. Figured he’d disowned us. I even contacted our attorney, and I had him change our will so our estate goes directly to the grandkids and bypasses Stephen entirely. Far as I’m concerned, a kid who turns his back on his parents like that, he doesn’t deserve a dime. Not one penny.

Then about four days ago, he called me. He asked me how his mother and I were doing. I said, “The fuck do you care?”

He said, “I care a lot. You’re my parents.”

I said, “Bullshit. If you cared, you wouldn’t have waited a year and a half to call.”

Because he’s like a fucking lawyer, he said, “Well, at least I called at all. You haven’t done anything.”

“Unbelievable,” I said.

You better believe I hung right the hell up.

I was so pissed, I damn-near punted the dog through the window. It started wagging its tail and yapping as soon as I got up like I was going to give it a Milk-Bone or take it for a walk. It was spinning around in circles, barking these sharp little barks, and I called up to my wife to come get her stupid mutt, but she was either asleep or maybe she was on the computer reading one of those conspiracy theories about how that Kennedy kid who died thirty years ago has not only been alive this whole time, but he’s going to be elected president and lock up three former presidents and their staff in Guantanamo Bay. For whatever reason, she didn’t hear me and the dog kept yapping at me, and I just reared back to boot that little bastard. I’m not even gonna say, don’t pick on my words, because I tried kicking that thing like a field goal, but the loud little mutt dodged it, and I lost my balance because like I said, my body sure as hell isn’t what it used to be what with the bad heart and the kidneys and diabetes, and I don’t think I even mentioned, but I’ve got arthritis setting in, too.

Anyways, I went down on my ass like a goddamn idiot and did a number on my back. When I was down there, moaning, calling up to my wife to come help—which she didn’t because I’m guessing she didn’t hear me, but then who the hell knows, maybe she knew damned well I was on the floor, writhing around in agony but was fine with it because some hot-shot TV preacher was telling her how rich and happy God would make her if only she prayed hard and sent money—the dog bit my calf. Sunk its teeth right the fuck in and even drew blood. That leg, below the knee, swelled up like a fucking balloon. So now I look like some sort of freakshow, my back is tweaked, my leg’s all stiff, and the dog walks around growling at me, like I’m the one it should be afraid of. Goddamned thing oughta be put down for being a danger to society if you ask me.

The whole damn thing, it was a real mess, and I blame my kid. I really do. I blame Stephen. Instead of saying, Okay, Dad, you’re right, I’m sorry, I should have called sooner, he picks on my words and uses them against me. 

Well, I tried calling him back the next day to let him know exactly what I thought about that, but he didn’t pick up. Tried the day after that and today. No luck. He won’t take my calls. Go fucking figure.

Maybe it’s a blessing. Really. Maybe it is. Truth of the matter is, the kid is impossible to fucking talk to. He’s got an answer for everything. He takes your words, and he twists them. Picks them apart, flings them right back at you like weapons.

You know what it is? It’s abuse. It really is. It’s like he’s abusing us. It’s honest-to-fucking-god elder abuse, and you can quote me on that.

It makes me miss the old days, back when we were a family. Back when Blake was alive. Back before my wife wasn’t in a walking coma from all the Oxy she eats. Makes me want to go back to when I was working a thankless job as a mid-level manager in the accounts receivable department at GM. Sure, I got passed up for promotions and came home with an insult of a paycheck every two weeks and a migraine every night. But at least I had a good pension plan, thanks to the union. We live pretty good ‘cause of that, and if my wife doesn’t give it all away to Preacher Big Bucks and Pastor Wide Wallet, we’ll have a little something to pass on to the grandkids. Stephen won’t be happy he doesn’t get anything, but what the hell, at least their kids’ll appreciate it, and Stephen and Lizabeth have to at least be happy about that.

Shit, that’s all I’ve ever really wanted, to try to make it better than how I had it. I mean, I’m not perfect. But I’m better than my old man, that’s for sure.

And yet, it still got all fucked up, someway, somehow. Maybe if Blake was still alive, he could talk some sense into Stephen, not that they were ever real close. Funny, the truth of the matter is, Stephen just never really got along with any of us. But at least there was a time we tolerated each other.

Not anymore. Now he won’t even answer the phone. Well, see how he likes it. See how he likes the taste of them fucking apples. Hope he’s happy I’ve lost two kids now because as far as Stephen goes, that little lawyer of a kid, he’s dead to me. Pick on my words all you want because I mean it: Dead.

A parent shouldn’t have to live long enough to see their kids die.

And I never was meant to anyway. I tell you what, it’s these fucking stents and pills and the dialysis. It’s these fucking doctors. They’ll keep you alive until you’re out of money. I mean, don’t pick on my words, but Jesus fucking Christ, at some point I gotta wonder why me, you know? Why the fuck am I the one who had to live to be an old man? When’s it gonna be my turn? When?

Really, fucking when?

David Obuchowski is a prolific writer of fiction and long-form essays. His short stories have appeared (or are scheduled to appear) in The Baltimore Review, Border Crossing, West Trade Review, Miracle Monocle, Garfield Lake Review, Willows Wept Review, Rind, Adelaide Literary Magazine, and many others. His non-fiction can be found in Salon, Longreads, Jalopnik, Fangoria, Aquarium Drunkard, The Awl, and more. David and artist Sarah Pedry will have their first children’s book published in 2023 by Minedition (Astra Publishing House). His in-depth documentary podcast, TEMPEST, is a critical and popular success and serves as the inspiration for an upcoming television series. David and his family live in Colorado.

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Why we chose this piece: What an excellent use of an unreliable narrator. The main character is genuinely awful, but you sympathize with him at certain points. However, even if the reader sympathizes sometimes, it’s never used to wash away his awfulness, which is an important distinction. This piece resonated with us because so many people have a person like this narrator in their family, even if they’re not a parent. There’s this great tension where we kept hoping he would realize that he’s the real asshole, even though we knew he wouldn’t.