Daddy's girl by Matt Borczon

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Daddy’s girl

Rachel had made a sap out of a bunch of double D batteries stuffed in sock and wrapped with electrical tape. She was waiting until after the dance before she used it, Rachel was 16 and had never been to a dance and she wasn’t about to start going to them now. She didn’t really even like Kevin that much but there was a principle at stake here. He had asked another girl to go with him and she had accepted; now they would both have to pay.
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 Rachel sat under a tree outside of school thinking about everything and nothing all at once, she remembered a day last year when she and her father were driving across 26th street. She remembered because she was practicing for her permit test online. So when the guy in the car behind her dad’s starts honking and gesturing for him to get out of the left lane Rachel was curious why he thought her father had to do that. Her father explained that on the highway you pass in the left lane, but this was in town and he was already going over the speed limit so he did not have to move. Just then the guy in the car crosses into the right lane and speeds around him then cuts him off yelling out the window at both of them, Rachel heard him say fucking assholes but not much more. Rachel then felt the temperature inside the car drop quickly like when a thunderstorm comes off the lake. She saw her father’s eyes narrow. He said nothing but Rachel already knew this would not end well.

Her father moved into the right lane and matched the others drivers speed until they were both coming up on a red light. He turned to Rachel and pulled a big buck knife out of a sheath he kept in in. It was always tucked between the driver’s seat and the gear box. “Here, take this and when I say now open the door and shove this knife into his tire” Rachel knew better than to argue, even though she was afraid, afraid she would not be able to reach the other guys tire, afraid the other guy would shoot at her or her dad, afraid of a hundred things. Mostly she was afraid of what her dad would do if she did not get this right. Her father pulled up real close almost cutting the guy off; he rolled down the window and said, casually, “Hey man my 15 year old daughter is in here with me. You really should watch your language.” The guy flipped her dad off and was about to tell him to move his car back when Rachel heard her father yell NOW!! 

Rachel opened the door and stabbed into the whitewall of the guys tire. The knife got stuck there as her father sped away laughing as Rachel almost fell out through the open door. He reached across the seat and grabbed her as she pulled the door closed, kind of like in a movie. The last thing she remembered hearing was the hiss of the guy’s tire, her father’s cackling laughter and the rush of air in her lungs as the door closed. “Damn, that was beautiful baby girl!! I sure wish your mom was half as much fun!” Rachel remembers this being the first time her father seemed genuinely proud of her, Rachel liked that feeling, never forgot it. So yesterday when she told her father about Kevin and the girl and the dance it was his idea about the batteries and the sock. It was his idea about payback and revenge, ideas he had preached to her all her life’ the same way he preached God and country. Rachel smacked the sap into the palm of her hand. Hit low, aim for the knees, first Kevin and then the girl. This should be enough to get the job done, this should be enough  to make her father happy.

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Matt Borczon is a writer from Erie PA. He has published 18 books of poetry over the last decade. His first collection of flash fiction Twelve Gauge will come out through Rust Belt Press. He is a nurse and a retired Navy Sailor. When not writing he is a husband and father of four children.