November 2023

The Red Front Door: A Short Story

 photo courtesy of Patch

By Leslie Flores 

       CW: Implications of domestic violence, and content that readers may find disturbing

The screen was colorful. Thomas loved drinking in the colors that filled his eyes. He picked at the dirty rug under him. His mother had told him to sit on the floor. The sofa was to stay untouched. Thomas always thought there was no point in having a sofa if he couldn’t jump on it. 

There was a turkey in the oven. Thomas was hungry. He had watched as his mother chopped off its head and handed it to him. It was terrifying. He had thrown the turkey head across the kitchen. His mother made him pick it up. The circles under her eyes were darker, she was slurring her words and her grip was too tight. She had been drinking, it was only noon.  His father told him the liquor was like his mother’s pacifier. But Thomas was grown, he didn’t need a pacifier anymore, why did his mother need one? 

His cartoons were interrupted when his mother stood in front of the television. Thomas looked up at his mother. The dark circles around her eyes had been covered with smooth makeup and her mouth glossed with red lipstick. She wore an olive sweater, contrasting with Thomas’s bright cartoons. 

“Go outside,” his mother said, muting the television. 

“Outside?” Thomas stared up at his mother with a pout. 

“Yes. I want you to knock on the window when your dad is home… I’ll be busy,” she opened the red front door for Thomas revealing a man standing on the porch. 

The boy stared at the man on the porch. He was plump and his eyes were bloodshot. He clutched a paper bag with a tight fist, more pacifiers for his mother. Thomas squeezed past him to get outside. The red door shut behind him with a loud thud. 

The day outside was dull, a completely different world from his cartoons. Thomas sighed and sat on the porch. This had become a routine, his mother would often let strange men into the house for bottles of liquor while his father went out to work. Thomas never put much thought into it, it just meant a break from the cartoons. 

A red disc landed at the bottom of the steps with a gritty scrape. Thomas stood up to pick it up, scratching his knuckles against the ground as he dug his nails under the disc's edge. When he stood up, Thomas was met with an older boy, a teenager from the apartment down the street. His eyes were giant and Thomas couldn’t help but feel scrutinized under his stare as he snatched the red disc from him. 

“Do ya play disc?” the big-eyed boy asked. Thomas shook his head, pulling at his shirt’s collar. “Come and learn then. When you grow up, you’ll be a loser if ya can’t play,” the big-eyed boy grabbed Thomas’s forearm, his grip was as strong as his mother’s.

The big-eyed boy grinned when he finished dragging Thomas up the street. Another teenage boy was sitting on the porch of a miserable-looking apartment building. The bowl beside him rattled as he laughed at the sight of Thomas. 

“Come here,” the laughing boy beckoned Thomas closer. Thomas made his way up the creaky porch, staring at the bowl beside the older boy. The bowl was full of stuffing. The older boy grabbed a fistful of stuffing from the bowl.  “Do you like turkey?” Thomas nodded, he was hungry. He should’ve seen it coming with the big-eyed boy’s eager grip and the laughing boy’s gleaming eyes. The stuffing was good, there was no denying that, but Thomas wasn’t fond of having food stuffed into his face. The laughing boy's hands were greasy as he forced the food into his mouth. The big-eyed boy laughed hysterically. With tears in his eyes, Thomas ran back down the street to the red door of his house. 

“Turkey, don’t run away! Let’s play disc!” The boys taunted from the porch. 

Hungry and humiliated, Thomas could only turn to his cartoons to keep him happy. But the red door of his house was still locked. He stood on a wooden crate, clinging to the living room windowsill as he peered into the living room. The television was muted but his cartoons were still on.  The colors weren’t as vivid from outside but as long as Thomas could still see them, that was all that mattered to him.  

“Thomas?” It was his father. Thomas almost fell off the crate. “What are you doing out here? It’s about to pour. Where is your mother?” 

“Inside,” Thomas pointed into the living room, struggling to keep his eyes off of the television. 

Thomas had already stepped off the wooden crate when he remembered what his mother had told him. He could only run after his father and hope that he hadn’t made it inside yet. But it was too late, his father was banging the nearly-charred turkey onto the dinner table. He was furious. His mother was rushing out of the bedroom with a liquor bottle in hand. She was terrified. Thomas stood in the doorframe.

“What’s wrong with you Iris?! You can ruin yourself with the drink but leaving your son outside, it’s insane!” his father yelled.  Thomas’s mother shrunk under the man’s rage, she looked at Thomas scornfully. There was a loud thump from inside the bedroom, the plump man groaned. Thomas left for the kitchen before his father stormed into the bedroom. His mother dropped her bottle of liquor, smashing it into shards, as she followed after her husband. 

Thomas climbed onto a wooden chair at the dinner table with a fork in hand. Even in its state, the turkey looked appetizing sitting in the middle of the table. Thomas was hungry. He could still see the cartoons from the kitchen. His mother and father’s arguing could not interfere with his cartoons, it was all that mattered. 

So, Thomas raised his fork and stabbed it into the turkey, savoring every color of the cartoons as he ate. 🐾