I thought he would kill me. He threw me through walls. He broke every bone I had.

But I was more resilient than he was. I was tougher than he was. I was twice the man he was. Even as a ten-year-old.

I refused to give him the respect he so desperately sought. Hunting. Fishing. Mountain climbing. All the usual suspects.

Our house was filled with guns. We were the house of hate.

What everyone in that house hated was me. Because I would not respect him. I could not do it. It wasn’t something I knew how to do.

He was always bringing them home and bringing them home and bringing them home. And he would give the guns to me. He wanted me to have them. To call them my guns.

I called them stupid. I called him stupid. For needing all these guns. Stored in the attic. Stuffed under the beds. Hidden in the broom closets. Hung up on the walls. If he was half the man I was, then why all these guns.

“You’re ten,” he reminded me. It was a lie.

I was at least a hundred and twenty-seven.

I did not attend his funeral. Why would I. He was dead.

I had AIDS and couldn’t travel anyway. I had no fucking respect for him.

He wasn’t half the man I was and never would be.