His face is pretty battered by now, his eyes just two purple rings and his mouth crumbed with dried blood. The top row of his teeth is missing from when I was forcing his face into a boulder out in the backyard.

He says it hurts him to cry.

And I say to him, "Good, now you know how it was for me every Christmas."

It's a dark room in my basement, and I have the little fucker tied to a chair. His sweat is drenching the rope, which only makes it stronger. Now he's asking me why I'm doing this, why all the suffering and pain to get my point across?

And I tell him, "Would you really listen otherwise?"

When I bring out the crate with the padlock on it, he really starts to tremble. The crate is only for disasters, in case some stupid intruder thinks he can break into our house and get all our stuff in the attic.

But I tell him, "No, the crate is down here with you and me. And with what's inside, you'd better pray to God that I don't feel like lighting up a cigarette right now."

Now he's starting to call me a sadistic motherfucker, a sick and twisted little shit.

I tell him that we all are in our own ways.

I reach into my jeans pocket and take out the set of keys and kneel down to the padlock on the crate.

His cry is getting even more intense now, his body going into violent convulsions, the chair legs squeaking like an family of arguing mice. And now he's telling me that he'd do anything for me, anything, just please, don't use what's inside the crate. Please. No, God no, please. Anything. Please, God.

I tell him that he'd better please God before I kill him, because that's the only person's good side he'll ever be on. Since God is so forgiving and all.

I guess that's the only difference between me and God right now.

I turn the key in the padlock, and it clicks open. I slide out the lock, and I open the lid of the crate. What's inside look like tiny olive green pineapples. They're grenades.

What's inside our attic, if any dumb intruder were to break in, we'd let them get up there. Then the plan was to throw a couple of grenades up there to flush out the little bugger.

I tell him, "But you're down here with me and these grenades. Jesus isn't your savior. Only I can be your savior now. God won't do anything but watch, the sadistic little fuck."

I begin to work up a sick laugh, convulsions all too similar to his crying.

And now he's telling me, "No, God, no, don't use the grenades on me. I loved you so much. I missed you. I couldn't bear it. I'm so sorry. I can make it up to you now that I'm here."

And I tell him, "Don't worry, I'm gonna make it up to me for you."

And he says, "No, no, God no. I don't believe this is happening. Don't do this to me. I didn't know I had a son."

And I tell him, "No shit?"

Now his crying is uncontrollable. Whether they're tears of regret or dread, who gives a shit anymore.

And I tell him, "Remember that time -- Oh yeah, I forgot, you were never there."

He tells me, "What?"

I answer, "You weren't there, it doesn't matter."

Between confusion and tears, he manages to say, "Oh."

I pick a grenade out of the crate, and somehow the little wimp's crying gets worse. By now I'm sure he forgot about the pain I caused him half an hour ago. But I'll never, ever forget the pain he caused me 20 years ago. Maybe I'm just holding a grudge, I don't know.

He's telling me, "No,no, please, just don't pull the pin!!"

"Don't worry, I'm not going to."

I walk behind the chair he's tied to, and snap his ring finger.

A cliched scream comes from his stupid head.

I take out my pocket knife and proceed to cut his ring finger off. It takes a couple of motions, but after about five minutes and endless screams, I manage to cut through the bone.

When I poke him in the eye with his own finger, he starts to pass out, but I smack the shit out of him before he takes the easy way out.

His cry is down to a dog's whimper with heavy and rapid Darth Vader breathing in between from the dried blood clogging his throat and nose.

I'm holding his finger in my hand, bending it the wrong way and seeing how many times I can break the bones. The snapping reminds me of bubble wrap.

I stand closer to the pathetic little shit, my face right up in his and begin my speech.

"You were never there. You left her shivering alongside the highway with your cum dripping out of her. That was the last time she saw you. And now I'm here, with you and this grenade. Was it worth it? Tell me, was it worth it? Are you a God-fearing man? Good, you shouldn't be, not when I'm standing here dying to pull the pin out of this fucking grenade and kill you. God couldn't save you. He doesn't give a shit about you. It's just you and me now...and this grenade. You only have me to fear. Right now, I'm the only god you have to worry about. Fear not what you did to me or my mother, but what I'm going to do to you."

By now his eyes are in a peaceful serenity, not the serenity of happiness, but the serenity of acceptance. The realization that he can't change anything now.

And I continue my speech.

"And you never expected that your own semen would be here, standing in front of you, controlling your life or death, did you? You had no idea that it would come to this. That I would be standing here in front of you. The pussy, the cowardly litle prick that you are, you never thought you'd face me. But we're here. And let me tell you the one thing we have in common: just like you had no idea it would come to this, neither did I. I never thought I'd be here, controlling a man's life. But not just any man. My father. My own flesh and blood. My genes. My DNA. They say that blood is thicker than water...but when you're bleeding half to death, like my mother was on the side of that highway, hatred tends to get the best of you.

"You're my father and I'm going to kill you for what you've done.

"You're going to do what I say. Does that phrase sound familiar? When you were tearing apart my mother from the insides?

"If you don't do as I say, I will burn your feet off, then your legs, then your balls, then your dick, then your arms. Then I'll coat the remainder of your body in sugar and honey and let the red ants in the backyard eat your torso, and all you can do is fidget and scream like my mother did."

And with a twinkle of fear and remorse in his eyes, he nods.

I shove the grenade into his mouth and his bottom teeth wedge onto the gaps of the waffle design of the grenade. Scabs on his lip open up and bleed onto the surface of the grenade. His nose starts to bleed as well, and his tears and sweat dilute with the blood. The grenade is coated in a shiny red, leaking down onto his chin, now just a crimson goatee of blood.

I stick his seperated ring finger into the ring of the grenade.

And I'm telling him, "Here's your chance to save yourself. Here's your one shot at redemption. This is the only way to be your own savior. Because sometimes, the only way to save yourself is to destroy yourself in the process. You're going to do with this grenade ring what you should've done with my mother when you were raping her.

"You're going to pull it out."