the kind that results from a bomb dropped by a shaking hand, attached to a fear-and-anger-infused consciousness that was only barely aware of the size of the inevitable explosion, and of the wreckage that it would leave behind.

It had begun, in fact, amidst the gentle sloshing of waves on against the rocks of the Maine house where he and his family had spent every summer since 1971, since Chris’ parents were young, considerably younger even than he was now.  Amidst the rhythmic sound of water on rocks, the creaking of the floating dock, the occasional screech of a hungry seagull, and the background-audible chatter of his cousins inside the house, Chris had chosen to unleash The Threat.  He had spoken, aloud, words that he had turned over and over in his mind, looking at them from various angles, reshaping them, as if they were one of his models or other craft projects, for months.  Words that he had known — or at least, had hoped, would be the detonation that would at first damage or destroy, but then — as in his private world of buildings and cars and planes that he perpetually built, took apart, re-made in an image of his choosing — allow for re-creation.  Words that he knew were his only means of autonomy.

“I want to go live with my father.”