JoJo's stomach fluttered as the school bus slowed down and turned towards his home. The bus dropped his classmates off earlier and he regretted that he hadn't left with them. The bus driver, a pot-bellied middle-aged man with a speckled gray beard, trembled whenever he came close to JoJo's house. He stopped at a corner and allowed JoJo to exit. JoJo's skin crawled as he trudged across a large grassy abandoned field to his home.

He edged his way to his home, a two-story weathered and rotten wooden house that appeared to have been derelict and empty for many years. Weeds overgrew the four wobbly steps that led to the porch. One of the front windows on the second floor was broken and another on the first floor was boarded up. JoJo pressed the jammed door to enter the house. He continued through the living room where beer bottles cluttered the floor. He stepped on multiple parched newspapers with the headline – Woman missing, husband is the suspect.

Clinton, who JoJo referred to as Dad, a malnourished man with jaundiced skin, rested on the musty beige reclining chair. Cigarette smoke puffed through his tobacco-stained teeth and circled his head like halos around an angel. He gripped a bottle of beer tightly in his hand. He never guzzled any alcohol besides beer, and he consumed lots of it. Sometimes he chugged a case in a day.

"I got a call from the school," Dad said fiercely.

"It wasn't my fault," JoJo moaned, tears soaked his round eyes. "Billy started it."

"You can't keep getting into fights."

"He keeps talking about you and mom," JoJo plead. "He says you killed her."

Dad abruptly stood up. He hurled a bottle at JoJo. "You keep acting like this and those children and youth people will be knocking at the door. Do you want to go to a foster home?"

"No, I want to live here" JoJo cried.

"Do you want to be an orphan?"

"No."

Dad dug his long fingernails into JoJo's arm. "I'll leave you just like your mom left you." He scratched JoJo but released him before he caused any more harm.

"I hate you," JoJo screamed and then sprinted to the top of the stairs. He stopped, "Did you do it? Did you kill mom?"

Dad never answered.

JoJo's bedroom looked dramatically different than downstairs. Numerous Marvel and DC superhero figurines were strategically placed throughout the room. A family picture of him, his dad, and his mom rested on his bed bureau. He drifted into thinking about how he often came home from school as dad and his mom argued.

"I don't have to stay in this house," he remembered as his mom threw a beer bottle at dad. It ricocheted off the chin of his face and smashed the glass table.

"You don't have to," Dad yelled. "Get your ass out." He grabbed her with two hands in a choke position then rammed her into the floor.

JoJo would run upstairs to talk to his friend Manny.

JoJo returned to the present. He sprung on the bed and closed his eyes for a brief period. Something poked him through the mattress. He peeked under the bed and saw his favorite toy, Manny, a small robot. The robot was white with blue eyes and a blue streak on the top of its head. Its arms were orange. He climbed out from under the bed.

"Manny, I'm trying to get some sleep," JoJo said to the robot.

"Is he bothering you again?" Manny asked.

"No more than usual."

"Tonight, we shall get revenge," Manny said.

The door suddenly opened. "Are you in there talking to that robot again?" Dad yelled. "Give me that damn robot."

Manny relaxed on the mantle as dad rocked in his chair. "What are you staring at?" dad yelled at Manny between gulps of beer. "You don't scare me."

Dad went to the kitchen, retrieved another beer, then returned to the room to find that Manny had moved its arms. They both moved from a military position to a reverse T position. He smashed Manny off the mantle to the floor. Manny bounced up. He marched across the floor, stopped, then threw an empty can of beer. Dad ducked.

"You're trying to hurt me," Manny said. "Just like you did before."

"Miriam is that you?" dad asked.

Manny didn't answer.

Dad picked Manny up and placed him back on the mantle. "Just my imagination," he said. "I've been drinking too much."

There was a long silence between the two. Manny grinned at Dad.

"I'm going to kill you tonight," Manny mumbled.

"No, you're not," Dad grabbed the robot by the throat. Like a predator about to attack for food, he smashed the robot to the ground. He stomped on the robot with his foot. With each violent blow the robot slowly had its parts separated.

JoJo heard the noise. He rushed down the hall and entered dad's bedroom. Dad sat disillusioned on the bed. JoJo picked up the robot. He carried the parts back to his bedroom. He tediously tried to put the arms of the robot on the body. He found a screwdriver and tried to get the left arm on the body. The legs were still intact. Tears from his eyes dripped down his cheek and fell on the robot when he realized that his efforts would be unsuccessful. When he wanted to abandon his mission, the robots bulging brown eyes opened wide.

"Mom you're still alive."

"I'm going to take care of him," the robot responded.

The darkness gave way to the morning light that filtered through the window shades.

"Bye Dad," Jojo said as he stomped across the trash littered floor to catch the bus to school.

"No more fights today," dad asked.

"No more. I promise."

Shortly after JoJo exited, the robot appeared on the mantle. Its menacing eyes beamed like a laser on dad. It was disfigured from the pummeling dad had given it. One arm was missing. It smiled.

"I thought I broke you," Dad said.

"You killed me," the robot said.

Dad recognized the voice. It was that of his dead wife's. "Helen what are you doing in that robot?"

"I'm going to do what you did to me. Kill you."

Dad grabbed the robot off the mantle. He darted into the backyard with the robot in his hands. He began digging in a hole in the backyard. He'd stop for a brief period of time, then resume. The dirt piled up on the side of the hole. He grabbed the robot that sat on the side. "You're going to be with her," he yelled.

The robot lifted it's one good hand and poked dad in the eye. Dad stumbled then fell into the open grave hole with the robot in his hand. He cracked his ribs and couldn't move. He lay there breathing deeply.

"We will be husband and wife forever," the robot said before dad took his last breath.

After school, JoJo exited the bus and entered his house. He anxiously wandered through the living room.

"Dad where are you?" he pleaded.

He searched the room then went upstairs to his bedroom. He peeked under the bed. "Manny where are you?" he cried.

He waited patiently in his bedroom. Daylight began giving way to darkness. He picked up his phone and called 911.

"My dad has left me," he said. "I'm an orphan."

JoJo watched as the police found Dad and Manny in the large hole and they removed the body. The next morning an excavator lifted the remaining dirt from the hole. They found the skeleton of a woman, Jojo's mother in the ground.

"We got our murderer," one of the police officers said to the other.

-