Story code: ST-001452
Part 2: A Spotless Record
The slap of flesh against paper sounded like a gunshot in the cramped kitchen. Daniel flinched, instinctively taking a step backward as his father’s massive, calloused hand pinned the Manila envelope to the formica table.
The weeping had stopped instantly. In its place was a heavy, suffocating silence, broken only by the ragged, wet sound of his father drawing breath through his teeth.
“Do not touch it,” his father rasped. His voice was unrecognizable-a gravelly, hollow sound that seemed to scrape against the back of his throat. He didn’t look at Daniel. His bloodshot eyes remained fixed on his own hand, his knuckles white with the sheer force he was exerting against the table.
Daniel’s heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs. The sharp, metallic scent of perchloroethylene wafted up from his father’s grease-stained apron, stinging Daniel’s nostrils. “Dad, I’m sorry,” Daniel blurted out, the words tumbling over each other in a desperate rush. “I can fix it. I’ll talk to Mr. Harrison about the calculus grade. I’ll do extra credit. I’ll scrub the press machines at the shop every night for a year. Just-please, whatever they sent you about the history exam, I didn’t participate. I just saw the chat.”
His father’s head tilted slowly. The wild, bloodshot eyes finally locked onto Daniel’s face. There was no anger in them, which was somehow infinitely more terrifying. There was only a cold, bottomless desperation.
“Calculus?” his father whispered, the word sounding foreign on his tongue. “You think this is about a test?”
He slowly lifted his hand, keeping his palm flat, and dragged the envelope toward his chest. With a sudden, jerky movement, he shoved the jagged paper and its contents deep into the front pocket of his heavy canvas apron.
Daniel’s mind spun. If it wasn’t the failing grade, and it wasn’t the cheating scandal, what could possibly warrant this reaction? He thought back to the split second before his father’s hand had come down. He had seen a fragment of the topmost glossy photograph. A dark, twisted shape lying on what looked like white hexagonal bathroom tiles. A sprawling, irregular stain of deep crimson reflecting the harsh glare of a camera flash.
And the stamp on the envelope. The smudged red ink in the top left corner. Daniel’s stomach plummeted as his brain finally processed the shape and texture of the mark. It hadn’t been a stamp at all. It was a thumbprint. Stamped in blood.
“Dad,” Daniel choked out, his voice trembling. “What was that? Whose blood is that?”
His father stood up. The wooden kitchen chair scraped violently against the linoleum, tipping backward and crashing to the floor. At six-foot-three, the man towered over Daniel, casting a long, imposing shadow across the room. He wiped his face with the back of his chemically burned forearm, smearing a streak of soot across his cheek.
“Eighteen years,” his father said, his voice gaining a terrifying steadiness. He began to pace, his heavy work boots thudding against the floorboards. “Eighteen years I stand in the chemical vapor. I boil the grease out of their collars. I scrub the vomit and the filth out of their expensive suits. I let the solvents burn my skin so that your hands can stay soft. So that you can hold a Harvard pen. So that you never have to serve people like them.”
“Dad, you’re scaring me. Who is *them*?”
His father stopped pacing and turned toward the kitchen counter. He opened the heavy wooden drawer where they kept the utility tools. The metallic clatter of wrenches and screwdrivers filled the quiet room. “Someone left it on the front seat of the van,” his father murmured, almost to himself. “They watched me. They know our schedule. They want to ruin the path, Danny. They think they can use this to take everything we’ve built. They think they can stain you.”
His father turned back around. In his right hand, he held a heavy, twelve-inch steel pipe wrench.
Daniel backed up until his shoulder blades hit the hallway doorframe. “Dad, put that down. Please. If someone is blackmailing us, we can go to the police. We can call-”
“No police!” his father roared, the sudden volume shaking the dusty blinds. “The police will look at the photos. The admissions board will find out. The Ivy League does not accept boys connected to this kind of filth. They demand purity, Daniel. A spotless record.”
He marched toward the mudroom, the wrench gripped so tightly his forearm muscles strained against his skin. He grabbed his heavy set of van keys from the hook by the door.
“Lock the deadbolt,” his father commanded, pausing with his hand on the doorknob. His eyes were entirely devoid of the man who had cooked Daniel pancakes on Sunday mornings. They were the eyes of a zealot cornered by wolves. “Do not answer the phone. Do not look out the window. I am going to clean this. I am going to purify the mess, and when I am done, there will be no stain left on your future.”
“Dad, wait!” Daniel lunged forward, but the heavy front door slammed shut in his face. The metallic slide of the exterior deadbolt locking into place echoed through the hallway. His father had locked him in.
Daniel slammed his fists against the thick wood, shouting his father’s name, but the only response was the aggressive roar of the rusted white van’s engine violently springing to life in the driveway. Tires screeched against the asphalt as the van tore away, leaving Daniel trapped in the suffocating silence of the house.
Trembling violently, Daniel leaned back against the door and slid down to the floor. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to banish the horrific fragment of the photograph from his mind. But as he opened them, his gaze drifted back into the kitchen.
There, lying on the linoleum floor near the overturned chair, was a small, glossy square. When his father had dragged the envelope off the table, the jagged edge of the Manila paper must have clipped the edge of the photograph, tearing a piece loose.
Daniel crawled across the floor, his breath coming in shallow, terrified gasps. He reached out and turned the torn glossy square over.