Nine-year-old Joe Pike, the only child in this house, could feel their building anger, and he knew with terrified certainty what was coming as surely as the coming of the full moon.

Mr. Pike took another slurp of his whiskey, then set about slicing the roast. He cut two pieces, then frowned. "What kind of cheap meat is this you bought? There's a goddamned vein right through the middle."

Here we go.

Joe's mother brought potatoes and string beans to the table without answering.

His father put down the carving knife and fork. "You forget how to speak American? How you expect me to eat something that looks like this? They sold you apiece of bad meat."

She still didn't look at him. "Why don't you just calm down and eat your supper? I didn't know there was a vein. They don't put a label, this meat has a vein."

Joe knew his mother was scared, but she didn't act scared. She looked angry and sullen.

His father said, "I'm just saying is all. Look at this. You're not looking."

"I'll eat the goddamned vein. Put it on my plate."

Mr. Pike's face began its slow, inexorable crawl to red. He stared at his wife. "What kind of comment is that? What's that tone in your voice?"

Joe said, "I'll eat it, Daddy. Hike the veins."

His father s eyes flashed, and they were as small as steel shot. "Nobody's eating the goddamned veins."

Mrs. Pike took the roast. "Oh, for Christ's sake, this is a helluva thing to argue about. I'll cut out the vein and then you don't have to see it."

Mr. Pike grabbed the plate from her and slammed it on the table. "I've already seen it. It's garbage. You wanna see what I do with garbage?"

"Oh, for Christ's sake, stop."

Her husband jumped to his feet, scooped up the roast, kicked open the kitchen door, and threw it into the backyard. "There's what I gotta eat. Garbage. Like a dog in the yard."

Joe seemed to grow smaller in the chair, and wished that he was. That he would shrink smaller and smaller and finally disappear. The freight train was caving in the sides of the house, coming for them now, and no one could stop it.

His mother was on her feet, too, face red, screaming, "I'm not cleaning it up!"

"You'll goddamned clean it up, else there'll be hell to pay."

The magic words. There'll be hell to pay.

Joe whimpered, "I'll clean it up. I'll get it, Daddy."

His father grabbed his arm and jerked him back into his seat. "My ass you will. Your goddamned mother's gonna do it."

Mrs. Pike was shouting now, her own face livid. She was shaking, and Joe didn't know if it was because she was scared or angry or both. "YOU threw the boy's supper out the door! YOU clean it up. I'll let it stay there for everybody to see."

"I'm telling you, there's gonna be hell to pay."

"You hate it here so damned much, maybe you oughta leave. Go live somewhere they don't have veins!"

His father's eyes shrank to wrinkled dots. Arteries bulged in his red face. He charged across the kitchen and punched his wife in the face with his fist even as Joe shrieked, knocking her into the kitchen table. The Old Crow bottle fell, shattering in a splash of glass and cheap whiskey.

His mother spit blood. "You see what kind of man your father is? You see?"

His father punched her again, knocking her to her knees. His father didn't slap. He never slapped. He used his fists.

Joe felt liquid fire in his arms and legs, as if all the strength and control drained from them and he couldn't make himself move. His breath came in deep gasps, tears and snot blowing out of his nose. "Daddy, don't! Please stop!"

His father punched her in the back of the head then, and she went down onto her stomach. When his mother looked up again, her left eye was closing, and blood dripped from her nose. She didn't look at her husband, she looked at her son.

Mr. Pike kicked her then, knocking her onto her side, and Joe saw the fear flash raw and terrible in her eyes. She cried, "Joe, you call the police. Have them arrest this bastard."

Nine-year-old Joe Pike, crying, his pants suddenly warm with urine, ran forward and pushed his father as hard as he could. "Don't hurt Mama!"

Mr. Pike swung hard at the boy, clipping the side of the boy's head and knocking him sideways. Then he kicked, the heavy, steel-toed work boots catching Joe on the thigh and upending him with an explosion of nerve-shot pain.

His father kicked him again, and then the old man was over him, pulling off his belt. The old man didn't say anything, just doubled the thick leather belt and beat the boy as his mother coughed up blood. Joe knew that his father couldn't see him now. His father's tiny red eyes were lifeless and empty, clouded by a rage that Joe did not understand.

The thick belt rose and fell again and again, Joe screaming and begging his father to stop, until finally Joe found his feet and bolted through the door, running hard for the safety of the trees.

Nine-year-old Joe Pike ran as hard as he could, crashing through the low sharp branches, his legs no longer a part of him. He tried to stop running, but his legs were beyond his control, carrying him farther from the house until he tripped over a root and fell to the earth.

He lay there for what seemed like hours, his back and arms burning, his throat and nose clogged with mucus, and then he crept back to the edge of the woods. Shouts and cries still came from the house. His father kicked open the door again and threw a pot of mashed potatoes into the yard before going back into the house to curse some more.

Joe Pike sat hidden in the leaves, watching, his body slowly calming, his tears drying, feeling the slow burn of shame that came every time he ran from the house and left his mother alone with his father. He felt weak before his father's strength, fearful before his rage.

After a time, the shouting stopped and the forest grew quiet. A mockingbird chittered, and tiny flying bugs spiraled through shafts of dimming sunlight.

Joe Pike stared at his house, and seemed to float free of time and place, simply being, existing invisible and unseen here at the edge of the woods, hidden.

Here, he felt safe.

The sky grew red and the forest darkened, and still Joe Pike did not move.

He took the hurt and the fear and the shame and imagined himself folding them into small boxes, and placing those boxes away in a heavy oak trunk at the bottom of a deep stair.

He locked the trunk. He threw away the key. He made three promises:

It won't always be this way.

I will make myself strong.

I will not hurt.

As the sun set, his father emerged from the house, got into the Kingswood, and drove away.

Joe waited until the Kingswood disappeared, and then he went back to his house to see about his mother.

I will make myself strong.

I will not hurt.

It won't always be this way.