‘Featherweight’ by Chad V Broughman

In his powerful short story ‘Featherweight’,  Chad V Broughman explores the tormented legacy stemming from a single moment in childhood. Appearing in Issue 25, Winter 2020, this 2019 Hummingbird Flash Fiction Prize runner-up punches straight to the heart of the matter for a son and his father.

And with just under a month to go, the 2020 Hummingbird Flash Fiction Prize is your chance to lace up your literary gloves and get those fiction fists flying! So jump in the writers’ ring before the contest closes on June 15, and hook and jab your way with words to the $300 purse!

Featherweight

By Chad V Broughman

In fifth grade, I had to write an essay on a topic I felt strongly about. I wrote mine about hunting and called it ‘Murderers Amongst Us’. In it, I declared the act of shooting an animal to be homicide, declared hunters to be barbarians. My teacher gave me an ‘A’ and drew two red stars by my name. For a few days, Ma taped it to the front of the refrigerator but always took it down when she heard Pa pulling in. I asked her why, and she told me there was no use upsetting him.

“Why would it?” 

“It’s about man things,” she said, folding the essay in her hands. “Trust me, I don’t understand them either.” I must have looked at her funny because she quickly revised her statement. “I mean, all that macho stuff. Kind of silly, don’t you think?” 

That week, someone’s fingers were caught in the belt feeder where Pa worked, and the mill closed early. Ma was in the garden. By the time she heard Pa’s truck, it was too late to get to the refrigerator. It was quiet at the dinner table except for intermittent food talk like “Pass the mashed potatoes” or “More corn?” And the bare space where my essay had been was awkward and blaring, may as well have been a naked stranger standing there. The next day was Saturday, and Pa left without a word. A few hours later, he returned, sloppy drunk. He stepped from the truck and ambled to the porch where Ma and I stood. In one hand was my essay, rolled into a cylinder; in the other, dangling from his index finger, was a new pair of boxing gloves.

They were Everlast brand, light brown and vinyl. “Already shaped, don’t gotta make a fist,” he said, turning them back and forth like a game show host. “Just slide your fingers in, and they curl up on their own.” When he pushed the gloves toward me, Ma stepped to my side, pulled me close, and stroked my hair, hard. She told me to thank him for the thoughtful gift. But my tongue wouldn’t move. Now I understood what she was trying not to say just days before. Pa thought me a milksop.

“Take ’em boy, they ain’t gonna bite.” I held out my hands, and Pa put them on me — the foam padding soft, rubbery — and drew the strings tight. Though the gloves felt clumsy, like winter boots strapped to my hands, in that moment, I was the reason for the atta-boy gleam in his eye. Then Pa returned to the truck, stuck his upper body through the open passenger window, and reappeared with another pair of gloves, bigger ones. 

My heart flopped. My face flushed red, hot. 

To find out what happens next, pick up your copy of Issue 25, Winter 2020 here!

Chad V  Broughman won the 2016 Scythe Prize and published a chapbook — the forsaken — with Etchings Press. Recently, he was anthologized in On Loss and won the First Chapter contest sponsored by Arch Street Press. His fiction is in journals nationwide — Carrier Pigeon, River Poets Journal, Burningword, Sky Island Journal, to name a few. In 2019, he was nominated for both Best of the Net and The Pushcart Prize. Chad served as co-editor for the blog Café Aphra and holds an MFA from Spalding University. Visit his website for more.