Free Terminated by Simon Wood Page A

Saturday with his father. Something had obviously pissed him off this week. Probably a doctor. Every time a doctor examined him, it resulted in having another of life’s pleasures excised. First it was the smokes, followed by the booze, then his favorite foods. And his invalid status prevented him from ignoring medical advice. He was at the mercy of others. Good. Some would call that karma. Tarbell called it payback.
    He ignored the slurs. Gwen’s betrayal kept recurring to him like a hot spike through his thoughts. His threats should have put her in her place, but she’d gone running to her corporate mommy. He needed to up the ante and let her know what the price of disobedience was going to be.
    His father’s laugh jerked him from his thoughts. “You’re broody today. Broody, broody, broody like a hen looking for its cock. Something’s happened to you, hasn’t it?”
    His dad wanted a fight. Confrontations made the old man feel alive. He wouldn’t be drawn in. Not today.
    “Someone screwed you over, didn’t they? I recognize that look of yours. You’ve had it since you were a kid. Some asshole knocks you down and you don’t get up and fight back. Instead, you skulk away with your tail between your legs and put that face on while inside that pea brain of yours you’re rewriting history where you do something about it.” He shook his head in disgust. “My son, the fucking pussy.”
    Tarbell had the coffee mug in his hand. A faint tremor buzzed through his body as he fought to keep his temper. A bead of scalding coffee spilled over the edge and onto his hand. He ignored the pain.
    But his father didn’t. His eyes lit up at the sight of the tremor and the spill.
    “Christ, some son of mine you are. You embarrassme. Do you know that? I have a reputation, and you don’t live up to it.”
    Tarbell returned the coffee mug to the table.
    “Look, even now, you don’t even say anything to me, a fucking invalid. You’re just like your mother. She wouldn’t say boo to a goose.”
    “And whose fault is that?”
    “Christ, it speaks.” Dennis Tarbell raised a hand to his ear. “Do I hear the sound of balls growing? Will wonders never cease? Got a news flash for you. You left it a little fucking late to act like a man.”
    Rage was boiling up inside Tarbell, and he hated himself for it. His dad wanted this fight, and he was about to get it.
    “So what happened? Someone call you a nasty name? Tell Papa all about it,” he said in a coochie-coo voice.
    It would be so easy to tell him about Gwen. He’d even earn some points with his old man for knocking a broad about. Dennis would like knowing that the apple hadn’t fallen too far from the Tarbell tree. But, no, his father couldn’t have Gwen. She was his plaything. If he told his dad about what he’d done and what he planned to do, he’d claim it as his own. His sleep would be thick with dreams of Gwen and what he would do to her. His father had denied him so much over the years, and now Tarbell could deny him this pleasure. A smile twisted his mouth.
    “You’d be proud of me, but you don’t deserve to hear the story. You haven’t behaved yourself,” he replied in the same babying voice.
    Dennis’s face contorted into a snarl, and he hurled his coffee mug at Tarbell. Twenty years ago, there would have been some real heat behind the throw, but it fell well short in distance and accuracy. It struck the ground first before bouncing against the edge of the couch. Coffee slopped against Tarbell’s pant leg.
    Whether the throw had been intentionally botched or not didn’t matter to Tarbell. The coffee soaking into his pants severed his last ounce of restraint. He leaped off the couchand lunged for his father.
    Something bordering on glee shone bright in Dennis’s eyes. He’d provoked a reaction he thought he controlled. He believed Tarbell would be upset and that would be the end of it, but it wasn’t like that anymore. He was different now. He grabbed