Mom and I were able to eke out a living of sorts. There always seemed to be just enough money to get by on, but it seemed like every time mom was able to put a little aside for a rainy day, that old fart would show up and we’d be back right where we started. He’d take the money and head off on some new get-rich quick scheme he’d come up with.
Now mom weren’t no Marilyn Monroe, but she was pretty. Maybe she was a little wide across the stern, and had a bit of a paunch, but it didn’t take away from her other good looks. At thirty-eight, if there was any flaw in mom’s personality maybe it was her vanity for her big breasts. I don’t even know that you could even call it a flaw, but she did seem to go out of her way to show them off. Not that I’m complaining now. She’d wear low cut blouses, tight sweaters, even go braless on occasion which just wasn’t heard of in our neck of the woods.
Her obvious vanity wasn’t lost on my pop either. Hell, maybe that’s why he’d married her as he was always eyeing them and grabbing a groping when he didn’t think I was looking. On one of his infrequent visits, Pa had had a couple of glasses of moonshine and we were just finishing up supper. Mom was wearing one of her lowest-cut blouses and the majority of her big; creamy-pink tits were on display as usual. I found myself sneaking a peak at them every time I thought no one was watching me. Now I don’t think of myself as a pervert or anything, but hell, they were tits! And they were hanging out right in front of me. What was I supposed to do?
“Look at all that baby fat,” I heard my Pa tipsily snicker as he stared at mom’s boobs.
“Clarence Hatfield, you watch your tongue. Not in front of Chet,” she huffed, shuffling over to the sink with her hands full of dishes.
“Baby Fat, get it, Boy,” Pa guffawed. ” Baby . . . fat.”
No, I didn’t get it, but I guess that he was insinuating some kind of connection between babies, tits, and fat.
Mom sure didn’t think it was funny and was back across the room almost before the words were out of his mouth. Her arm flew back and she slapped him on the cheek so hard his head went flying back. I was stunned. I’d never seen my mother retaliate to any of Dad’s crude, coarse language or jokes and Lord knows there was plenty of opportunities for that.
Angrily shoving his chair back, Dad flew out of it with his hand fisted and arm drawn back threateningly.
“You didn’t have no cause to go and do that—” he snarled and I could see the muscles in his arm tightening in preparation to swing.
Reaching over, I grasped hold of his wrist to stop the swing. Now maybe I didn’t have any gym to work out in, but I’d made me a set of weights out of cement and pipes and I worked out next to the shed out back where we kept all the motel cleaning supplies and stuff. I worked out every day if I could and even though if I had to say so myself, I was pretty bulked out.
The moonshine had apparently loosened Pa’s tongue and he didn’t seem to care what he said as he turned and glared at me.