I saw Megan at her doorstep across the street, face a pale sheet of snow. She looked at me and I saw her begin to cry, burying her face in her hands.

Shocked into obedience, our neighbors came and stood around our tiny front lawn by the street, all eyes on my father and mother.

“This is your fault,” Tommy said, meeting every one of their terrified faces.

He suddenly snatched the broom from my hands. In one quick motion, he snapped the head off, tossed the duster aside, and advanced on my father gripping the splintered pole. My mother screamed and covered her bleeding husband with her body, but Tommy booted her in the face, wrenching my heart in the process.

“Up you go,” Tommy growled, pulling my father up by the hair onto his knees.

Glass jutting from his face, my father looked up at Tommy, agony burning in his eyes.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of your son,” Tommy whispered.

He raised the broken broom over his head like a spear and slammed it into my father’s mouth, down his throat until it erupted from his stomach and plunged into the earth. Blood shot like a geyser out of my father and splattered Tommy’s perfect features. My mother howled, her bloodshot eyes rattling in their sockets as my father gasped…and then died, his lips wrapping around the broom handle jutting from his mouth.

The neighbors watching were paralyzed, a few of the women crying out at the sudden display of brutal violence. The men’s faces were pale and shocked into silence, Megan’s father leaning over and emptying his stomach onto the road.

Blood dripping from his face, Tommy turned to face them, eyes alight, “I want you to think about this moment the next time you want to have a bonfire. Do I make myself crystal clear?”