No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

A short story about a boy and his father...Read till the end...

He didn't say anything, but I knew something was off lately; more so than usual. Usually when we took our walks, he'd talk, I'd talk, nonstop. But, now, whenever we walk past that small blue house, he stops, as if in guilt or remorse. 

I never asked about it, never said anything. Figured he'd shrug me off. But one day, he stayed quiet. When we got home, Mom had made dinner, told us to come and eat. He became closed off all through supper, like we weren't even there.

So, after dinner, I had to ask for the sake of our family. I walked over to the youthful man per usual, now aged with stress. I asked him, I said, "What's going on, Dad? Why're you being so quiet?"

And, to my bewilderment, he began telling me a story I've memorized since I was young, a story repeated in our family for as long as I can remember. 

My father was a hero. He was brave and courageous. I knew there'd been a fire at the school building in the small town he'd lived in when he was but a twelve year old child. Supposedly, everyone had gotten out. But, when my father glanced at the window through shattered glass, he noticed a small boy, maybe ten, surrounded by the early onset of a very torturous demise. Flame everywhere. Fire everywhere. Heat everywhere. Smoke everywhere. So, he did what any brave and courageous boy would do: he ran into the burning building and, somehow, with help from adrenaline, avoided the deadly flames and snatched up the boy who was weak from the flame, the fire, the heat, the smoke inhalation. My father carried him out, the paramedics came, the boy was perfectly fine. Well, maybe not perfectly. He'd have to stay in the hospital for a week or two to make sure his lungs weren't completely damaged. And he and my father had a couple horrific burns that became vicious scars, not only physical, emotional as well. But not anything lethal. Not anything fatal. My father had saved someone's life.

"I know, Dad, I know the story," I said, still perplexed as to how this story connected to my father's current internal predicament. 

But he hesitantly continued, "That boy's name was Dave Maddox. That small blue house? You know it?" 

"Yeah," I said, "that's the house that makes you go all quiet."

"Dave lives there with his family, if you can call them that," he told me. The icy hot fury in his voice, not directed at me, still had me a little scared.

"What do you mean?" I slowly inquired.

"Alright, listen up. He's got himself a wife and a little boy, five years old. Wife's always covered in bruises, boy's been to the hospital fifteen times this year, and Dave? Not a scratch on him, goes after the weaker. No proof though. Wife's too scared to press charges. Charlie, that's his son, he put in a coma in June. Sandy, the wife, she's with Charlie everyday, all day, worried sick. Dave don't care, thinks he's untouchable," he finished.

"He hurt 'em?" I asked after a beat.

My father nodded. "God help me, I saved the life of a devil in the making."

"Now, come on, Dad! You couldn't know that!" I defended his actions.

"Don't matter. People die everyday for no reason, good people! And I saved the life of a--! Look, he put his five year old in a coma! And there's no excuse for that, and I kept him on this earth! And that'll be my undoing. Guilt'll eat me alive, if not the devil will," he solemnly spoke the misplaced blame and left the room. I wanted to tell him he'd no reason to feel guilty. Wanted to tell him it wasn't his fault. But, for reasons beyond me, I didn't.

We never spoke of it again. I let it die there in that room. My father would stop talking. He would become withdrawn from reality. He would take a gun to the Maddox house. He would kill Dave Maddox with a shot to the head. He would be taken to prison by reluctant law enforcement officers. He would plead guilty and spend the rest of his life in the state penitentiary. But, it didn't matter, at least not to my father. He knew he'd done what had to be done, no matter how it affected him. He'd saved a mother and her five year old son. And everyone knew Dave was guilty of the assault inflicted on his so-called "family".

My father was a hero. He gave a young boy the gift to live. That same boy misused it. And my father took it away. My father was a hero. He'd not only saved the life of one, but now three people in which no one else would, no one else could. My father, the bravest man I ever knew, couldn't let Dave continue to live. It wouldn't sit well with him. He would've self-destructed. He would've hated himself. For that reason alone, I admire him. No good deed goes unpunished.