HUBRIS

One verse is but enough
to state my next-ward point:
you should never shrike at thee
who makes your union joint.

* * *

A week later, I was hauling soil, gravel and large river stones from one yard to the other, contesting the hot sun and sheer weight for hours every day. I was to fix their yard for a property sale, so they could fetch a better price than they'd paid from some rich travelers looking for a summer home in the Emerald Isles. My first wheelbarrow broke, and I had to keep using it for a month before the second one arrived. It was like pushing a boulder through turf without rolling it. The stupid wheel was bent, and the axle barely squeaked 'round an inch for all my might. I'd taken to setting it sideways, and dragging the fuckin' thing through the grass; haul on a platform, tied to it. It provided handles, so I could grip something to pull it along. Despite that, I was proud of my work – it was truly satisfying to learn what your own two hands could do, and that with enough time, anyone could shape the land to their vision. Not that it was my vision we referenced – The Rationeer had her own ideas, and they seemed to change every hour.
She'd then shout, "I TOLD you what to do AN HOUR AGO!!"
She meant it, too – she had a clock from Italy she'd purchased on vacation. She watched it very closely, and every step I took that was out of line, she thought for some reason that I was trying to waste its winding. Truthfully, though, whatever she claimed she'd previously stated, she'd never said such a thing in her entire life. Drinks, and lots of forgetting, claimed her mind faster than pipe-weed could fog it up every day. It was like she was permanently lost on a gravel road, staring straight ahead at the distance, swearing it into being, demanding it change itself into her destination. Eventually, however, I'd always manage to negotiate with her, and inform her how long each task actually took – and she seemed to adjust accordingly. She wasn't just accounting the village's production rates... she was monitoring mine, as well. I was able to ask her, once and for all, to simply write things down – which, I believe, disrupted her little game. What she got from playing it is completely beyond me, but she'd refused to compromise for weeks. Maybe she was resentful of my presence, and wanted to emburden me for her own amusement.

Their other workers (whose jobs were only to replace the flooring and deliver solid rock) seemed happy with the business, but complained about the work. One who'd been asked to help with a wheelbarrow full of stones complained that he'd been treated better elsewhere – he'd overheard them trashing his ethic and performance across the yard.
The Chief bowled his guts at him, "Well if you don't fucking like it, you don't have to be here!!"
That put the poor sod off, and made him shut up again. It was the same verbal abuse The Chief used on me, when I questioned his foul behavior, or asked why he kept over-shopping and leaving everything in the pantry to rot. I couldn't eat too much, or I'd get pushed from the kitchen – but if I left anything, it would corrupt the rest. That, most likely, was because none of it was steak or pork – which he was especially partial to, and demanded I partake even if it made my mornings greasy and sick.
"Breakfast is the MOST important meal of the day, and nothing's more nutritious than meat! A big, juicy steak has everything you need – fruit and veg are garnish and sides."
That was easy for him to say – while at work, he was always drinking and dining at the Arabian gambling halls... where exotic liquor flowed into crystal glasses, and gravy flowed over boiled peaches onto cutroasts almost every single week. He'd been making them into steak sandwiches, and packing them messily into bowls with lids to keep for later. Said it was "like oil fuel for people". Judging by his gaseous runoff, both from the oil and his gastric remainders, I guessed he was probably right about that. When I, after several arguments, convinced The Rationeer I couldn't eat steak for breakfast or my work would wane, she finally managed to dissuade him from the subject.
She found him progressive for thinking of 'my health', but I thought he was lower than a neanderthal – someone the other Grugs and Crunks would have smashed to death moons ago for his inability to put others before himself. Or listen to reason. That was why he surrounded himself with other monsters, whom our ancestors would have speared to death on sight, for crossing their lines. It made the brutes look legitimate, just to form up. On weekdays, they'd spend their mornings pumping logs and iron bars with their arms, which seemed noble enough... except it terrified me to know he was getting better, at potentially crushing my skull. Then he chummed about with them in the evenings, pretending to have a spirit – and I don't mean a drink, because he always had a few of those. Then he'd steal the bard's guitar to awfully belt a song that didn't deserve the treatment. He sung it in the faces of maidens who weren't his wife, just to impress them – he always knew how to pick the loneliest one, so she'd practically faint just to have him so close to her. It wasn't for their sake, but for his own, to keep his ego tall. A filthy tactic, if you ask me.
At home, he and his wife would swear loyalty to each other, and lie that neither could possibly cheat on the other... even though I'd seen proof of both sides bringing fool's gold to the scale. Both were making promises just to break them... which made me wonder why they even made them to begin with. She was deeply Catholic, and yet defied her own beliefs – in one breath she was Sunday fundamental; and in the next, she was polishing runes with warmth for a better divination. She believed the world was to end soon, completely, and had little preparation for it but some water in the basement, in sealed jugs. She'd spent a small fortune of her own on prognosis, from blind crones with all-seeing wallets. He, on the other hand, pretended he was Buddhist; he recycled mantras and called them his 'life experience'. The Chief said that the vagrant prince inspired him, and taught him that peace and kindness were the only way. He seemed wise to me at first, which is why I believed him... but then I found his book of proverbs, which he'd left on the couch. It was everything he'd said, and all the stories he'd claimed as his own... a bandage dogma. He was just using it to fake self-improvement. He was a liar through and through, not just as cover, but also to make himself seem more real of a person. Like eating the pages of others made his thin presence grow fat enough to match his imposing body.
When it came to eating, The Rationeer was a vegetarian every other month, until she gave up again. The Chief called himself an 'expert of health', and believed that animal flesh was the source of all blood in the body – eat none, and you'd dry up. Eating far less steak than he did, I still had plenty of blood, and I didn't want it all over the rug – so I dared not speak my mind directly to him, about how wrong he was. I'd my own routine lifting weights with The Knight's friends at the barracks, not to mention all my yardwork, but I knew bragging had its cost. A conflict would result in my demise, or worse. And sure, he provided. But only enough for himself first, and left the scraps for his dependents: me, his pastry-ravenous wife, and the old white dog. Or he'd bombard the table with feast, cakes, and carnival junk, to prevent his worth from falling into question. It made everyone sick, but they were too entranced by its cheap flavors to notice. It kept him on their good side, but not mine. Several times fooled last year, then trapped in the outhouse with my mistakes, I never touched the stuff again.
Regardless, I was free to spoon my berries and yogurt in a bowl, and boil my peas; while he scowled at me with gritted teeth, and bragged about his homemade fried pork-bread. The food was nauseous to the air, but he stunk like a hog in a blanket himself, on a sweltering summer day.

Later, he set to chopping up the fallen trees into firewood, and had me go about the yard with a hacksaw. He took off his shirt, which let his many, sweaty, hairy gut-rolls of fat spill out. It was truly disgusting, and made me more glad I hadn't let him near me before. I didn't know he was hiding so damn much in there, and I felt bad for his wife; except that she had quite enough of her own to match. They were well-paired, I supposed, and wondered what must have drawn them together from the start – if maybe they'd been nicer back then. They must have been, to still be hanging on to each other by dwindling threads. But, I guessed, it was probably the flatter-marks he knew in town that he'd been stowing the mess away for. I did my task, and took back armfuls of lumber to stack against a stone-wall by the deck. He didn't like how I'd stacked them, and demanded I stacked them again. The pile was growing too tall for the wall, and too wide along it, but he insisted I was simply "being lazy" and that if I "tried hard enough", I could manage it. Like with most of his awful instructions, I had to recruit The Rationeer to help make him see sense. She pointed out easily that I was right, and proposed that we set the wood on platforms covered in pine branches, instead. This would protect them from the snow as well as we could manage, with our limited supplies.
He grunted, "Just like my useless mother. Women don't know a damn fucking thing."
The Rationeer was hurt by that, but he raised his voice again, and they began trading insults, until it blew up into another fight. I was done what I'd been asked to do by the time they stopped, but every so often I'd have to hike my shoulders up for the PITCH that would pierce the air. It was like they were trying to scare away the birds together. Well, they were still there, little sparrows and starlings, eating from The Rationeer's bird-feeders. Though she was kind in wanting them fed, she wasn't giving them the ambience they were looking for, nor I. It was a place where anger took precedence over peace, and emotion took first place over reason. When I walked back around the house to go inside, they were crying that they wanted the other's demise. It was like they were soothed by the hatred, and were only satisfied if the other was as miserable as possible. Then they'd tire of each other, and find me to yell the rest of their woes to. Telling me I hadn't done enough, and that my work was flimsy. Ugh. If it wasn't so predictable, I would've called an exorcist – even a demon would've gotten bored of the drama by then.
When The Chief eventually caved, he found me in the dining hall and sat down across from me as if we were dealing cards.
Attempting to play me against his own wife, he grunted, "Women, huh? Bunch of nattering cunts, the lot of them. Should smack them all upside the head, some days. You know what I mean?"
I stared at him, eyebrows raised in the middle, spoon of boiled peas still between my teeth, hanging open.
He shook his head, smiling. Clearly satisfied, he laughed, "Ha- aaaaaayyyup. Mmm-hm." It was a kind of laugh that burst and stopped itself immediately, followed by a disturbing slurp of sound; if only I could've halted the conversation that fast. I shuddered, and frowned when he was looking away. Then he looked back, and asked, "You wanna go for a ride to town?"
I shook my head, finished my peas, and went back to my room for a nap. To be fair, his wife had attempted the same – to talk to me against her so-called 'provider'. And I knew that if I'd fed into it, they'd fight even worse, and the house would never get sold. And I'd have nowhere to stay until I became of age to get back to my own.

The next day, he was chasing me around the yard with a measuring stick. I don't even remember what I'd said, only that he aimed to hurt me for it 'as badly as I could be hurt'. It was easier than I'd thought to evade him, circling around the lumber I'd stacked. So he, in a fit, tore down my work and let fall an entire corner. This was something he actually did often – break something out of rage, and pretend it was an accident.
What he said was, "You think my wife will believe you? She sees only what I tell her to."
But she'd been watching, and she called out from the deck, "Actually, I saw that. You're going to have to pick all that up, hon. And don't you dare hit him with that stick, or I'll tell your friends you've been cooked for stew."
His eyes went wide, and honestly, so did mine. We shared a glance, a single, solitary look, that told us that in that very moment, we were thinking the same thing: she was a scarier sort, when she wanted to be, then he was. It was the only thing we'd ever agreed on. In fact, she'd grown up on a farm where her father had let her love each animal as a pet, and then slaughtered it in front of her. And she'd suffered a rape at the hands of two farmboys from across the fence, to which her mother said simply, "That never happened." So once she'd seen The Oaf for his violence, she was determined not to let him have his way. She knew what it felt like not to have a parent's belief, and his comment had ticked her off somethin' fierce. It made the rest of the day a bright one, to be sure, and he left me alone for the rest of his shoring. Only three days later, he left again, and I was free. For a while.
If only she'd seen his other component, that shadowy slime that hid under his outward ire, that motivated his violence to begin with: he was only trying to beat me because I had not submitted. But that mattered not, because in The Rationeer's mind, she had broken up two school-children having a spat in the pews. That was all she saw of it, simple for her mind when it came to him, blinded by her own investment in his being. She'd spent years trying to groom him into a husband worth having, and he'd squandered every penny, touch, and word. And now he was readying to beat up a disabled child. It was embarrassing, and finally, she decided he needed to be watched a little better. But only for a short time, before she eventually forgot again, and he returned. Faster than his usual trips, as if he'd never really left in the first place – he claimed his job had been 'canceled', and he'd gotten notice in the mail. I figured him for a welcher, seeing his bags had barely ever been packed in the first place – and a liar, pretending to have worked but was probably doing something else all along. But what? His usual oil stink was missing – beer and perfume took its place. Upon his rearrival, he immediately went back... to seeing me as a sandwich that he hadn't yet devoured.