Pendington, Jude
JOURNAL ENTRY 02
Antisocial Personality
Disorder

Belial read my first journal entry and, peering down his snout at me like he was wearing a pair of invisible glasses he asked, "what's this last part about?" So I told him that I've often risen up against my circumstances. I told him that I settle for nothing less than what I deserve. Belial encouraged me to steer my next journal entry into that kind of territory. Not sure what he meant, I asked "How so?" and Belial said, "Tell me a story." I considered this right away and was flooded with recollections of my triumphs, but I kept coming back to Bathsheba, my dad's German Shepherd.

My dad was fond of the drink and also enjoyed the occasional battery of anyone smaller than him. This usually ended up being my mother and myself. Mom—she deserved it. She was weak. She showed no desire to flee or to fight back, to save herself or me for that matter, so I vowed not to save her either. I was just a child; it took me a while to wise up and make a run for it. But Mom? She was a grown woman and did nothing for herself or for me. She deserved every beating. On occasion I fantasize about the times I saw my dad beating my mom to the brink of death, and I imagine that it's me giving the blows. If I knew where she was now, I'd kick her teeth right down her throat and I'd laugh.

And I hated Bathsheba. She was around since before I could remember, always by my dad's side, and I suppose it was her loyalty to my father that kindled my hatred. Animals do not experience love or hatred, and they know nothing if not blind loyalty. She was the only pet we ever had except for a brown tabby kitten my mom brought home one night. She said she had found the cat outside of the restaurant where she was a waitress. Maybe she thought the kitten would save her. She'd lock herself up in a room, and we'd hear her in there talking to that little cat. I hated her for that, too. One day, the cat, more intelligent than my mother, made an attempt at an escape, and mom organized a search party out of Dad and me. We were combing the yard for hours. Too bad for Mom I found the cat first, and I stomped it to death. It was so small, it didn't take long, and by the time I finally stopped some kind of white stuff like toothpaste was coming from where its eyes used to be before they exploded. I kept it in my room for a day before the smell thickened and then returned it to the yard. My mom found it after that.

Bathsheba would lay on her belly with her front legs stretched out in front of her and watch me walk across the room. Always seemed like she was watching and waiting. When my dad would get too many beers in him and need to knock me around a bit, Bathsheba would just stand there and watch or perhaps bark, and it sounded to me like she was cheering him on. Sometimes I was angrier with that dog than I was with my dad.

In the afternoons, before his eyes were all red and rolled back, my dad would pretend to be a real father and tell me pointless stories that he'd made up or maybe act like he was teaching me something. He would make me sit with him in his workshop while he explained the way different socket wrenches worked, like it wasn't completely obvious to any idiot with half a brain. One day he showed me this great big leg-hold trap for catching bears that was nestled away with his hunting supplies. It looked like an enormous set of iron teeth. I loved that bear trap instantly because it said one thing to me: Power.

Every now and again, Bathsheba would sit staring out of the sliding glass doors in our living room and catch a glimpse of a squirrel or blue-jay scuttling across the backyard. She'd start howling so loudly that Dad would say: "Alright, Sheba! Calm down, girl!" and he'd let her outside. I'd watch her prancing around in the grass and rolling on her back, and it made me sick that some mutt had it better than I did.

One night my dad took to beating me earlier than usual and I got so fed up that I wound up my arm good and tight and let loose a punch right in his mouth. Busted it all up, blood and everything. Bathsheba was standing there watching, not doing a thing until I hit my dad, then she leapt into action and seized my wrist in her jaws. I was screaming and crying like a little girl, and my dad watched for a while before he finally said: "Alright, Sheba, that's enough, let go of him, girl!" and she did. Just like that. Afterward, my dad explained how both he and the dog had my best interest in mind. Stench of fetid alcohol like a dense fog from his lips, he promised that one day I would thank him.

Dragging that bear trap out into the backyard was an ordeal. Opening and setting it was almost impossible. I kept thinking I'd lose one of my arms trying to set that stupid trap and wondering if it was worthwhile. But having nothing to lose made me feel as free and fearless as ever. That's how I live: free and fearless, nothing to lose.

Half of me wanted my dad to see what was happening, and the other half of me would have liked to avoid the inevitable beating, maybe the one that would kill me, if possible. For a moment I imagined my father caught in the trap, screaming and writhing, gnawing his own leg off. But that afternoon, like God wanted it to happen, my Dad took off to the store for some beer, and he left Bathsheba. She went to the glass door and started barking at something, like predestination. "Alright, Sheba," I grinned. "Calm down, girl." And I slid the door open and watched her take off into the yard. At first, I thought she might not weigh enough to activate the trap. She ran right over it once or twice with no result. Then the most beautiful thing happened: She was rolling on her back in the grass and tumbled right into those great iron jaws. You could hear the cruel teeth slam shut around her waist from a mile away. Bathsheba started wailing in pain, and I walked out into the yard and looked down at her. Her eyes swelled like wet, bulging globes, and she was writhing is such a way that the skin and tissue around the injury were being worked away.

"Now no one is coming to help you," I purred.

I lifted my foot over her head but felt the urge to pause for a moment. In that instant, she didn't look like the dog I hated anymore. She looked scared and confused. The monster had been replaced with the victim, and I imagined myself in the bear trap. When I started to stomp on her, she looked the same—lost and afraid.