His father is now striking at Michael's chest with just the tips of his fingers like a goose attacking with its beak. 'You touched me, you fucking little fruit. Your own father!'

And his father pushes him to the floor. Michael hits his head on the edge of the open doorway. His legs lift up and his smooth bottom and smoochy little anus are visible, and this drives his father crazy, as if his son were doing this deliberately to lure him.

'Get out of here, get out of my room, you fucking faggot! You fucking fairy!'

His father starts to kick him, in the butt, on the back of his legs.

Michael can't talk. 'Dad. Stop,' he tries to say, but it comes out as a bubble of something. He rolls over onto all fours and tries to crawl.

That sticks his bare hairless ass in the air, like a porno photo of a dame in a fuck magazine.

'Just get the fuck away from me.' His father doesn't exactly kick him, more like pushes him with his foot. Michael falls forward and friction-burns his elbow on the rug.

'Go on, get out!'

Michael scurries forward on all fours. He manages to run mostly on his feet, except for the odd, steadying fist on the carpet. He scuttles into his room and closes the door. He waits, fearfully.

Michael begins fully to understand what has happened. The dream has collapsed. He won't be studying at UCSD. He will never live in any house in San Diego or Carlsbad, at least with Dad. There won't be a garden. There won't be skiing in Aspen or a walk along the John Muir Trail. He won't become an American citizen. He will never be Michael Louis Oliveira Blasco. He'll go back to England. Will he ever see his father again? Maybe yes, after many years, after all this wears away.

Michael tries to think of something sensible to do. He does realize that his nakedness infuriates his father. He starts to dress. In the condo hallway, there is blood on the white carpet. That will stain, he thinks dully. He pulls on underwear, jeans, T-shirt, gets a towel from the bathroom and drenches it under the tap.

He kneels and starts scrubbing the carpet. At first the stain reminds him of the skids on his own elbows. But as he scrubs, the stain spreads, and the thought comes, it will never come out, never, never. And then it looks just like what has happened, a terrible bloodied wound that will mean the carpet is never the same.

'Never, never, never,' he says and he scrubs and then he breaks down. His hands go too weak to hold the towel. They rise up helplessly and waver like the necks of swans in a mating dance, and he sobs and chokes.

And his father walks out of the bedroom. His father has dressed now, and he looks at Michael with hatred and disgust.

'Don't look at me like that!' Michael wails.

His father has come to do something else. He walks into Michael's room. Michael trails after him.

'What is this?' His father holds up a book of Alice in Wonderland, and throws it down.

'What's this? Batman. A guy in leotards. What have you brought in my house? Huh? You fucking fruit! Were you looking at me? Were you looking at me in the showers? Huh. Huh? Were you looking at my men? Did you come every day into the changing room just to watch the men?'

It's going to start again, his father's hand jabbing into him.

'I did it to be with you.'

His father stops. There is almost sympathy in his face. Now the anger has somewhere to go. His gaze lights on the records.

'What is this? Huh? Fuckin' Cinderella. You're the fucking Cinderella. Fucking Cinderella.' And Dad works the album back and forth, cardboard crinkling until the album snaps.

'Dad, don't,' says Michael, but what he means is don't be this angry, don't break us.

'What's this? And this? All this faggot stuff.' He starts flinging books and records to the ground.

'Dad, stop.' Dad has hold of a book and he is tearing its binding down the middle and he's throwing the pages at Michael. He suddenly wipes all the books off the shelf, and he throws the stereo at the wall and it cracks with the sound of plastic breaking. He shoves the TV to the floor. Miraculously, only some knobs are broken off.

'You get all this stuff out of my house! I don't care where. It just goes!'

His father storms out of the room.

Michael goes quiet. Well, Michael. This is what it is. He didn't love you that way and now he doesn't love you at all.

He knows what you are, that's why. He never would have loved you, the second he found out that you're gay. It never would have been any kind of love as soon as he knew who you were.

How… could… you… be… so… dumb?

Michael starts to slap himself. He slaps himself really hard, to wake himself up.

'You stupid fucking little idiot!' Michael growls at himself, and cuffs his ears and temples, and keeps his fist rolled and punches himself in the face.

There was only a week to go. If he'd left it a week, he would have got onto the aeroplane, gotten over whatever held him. He could have come back at eighteen without Dad ever knowing.

Michael stands in the middle of the room and looks at the bare light bulb, and feels the heaviness again. His fingers feel like fishing weights. They feel like they could pull the line all the way out of his reel. It's late, he has no energy, no tears. He might as well finish clearing up.

Michael picks up the broken record. You can buy another. He puts the books back on the shelf, moving as if in a slow-motion study. The book torn in half is a veterinary textbook, one he was reading for UCSD. He might as well leave it torn, leave it here. He won't have any use for it now – he won't be studying at UCSD. The stereo is fucked, but what does that matter? He only uses it when he's here, and he may never come back again. He turns the TV on and it's a late-night Italian Western, claustrophobic voices in studios mismatching lips. He goes back to scrubbing the hall carpet, listlessly, mechanically, continually and to some effect.

Michael begins to be aware of a shower running. There is a noise coming from it, as if there is something terribly wrong with the plumbing. He thinks he'd better see what's wrong. Then he thinks, If I go to the shower and he's naked he'll think I've come for him again. The towel has turned pink. Michael needs to rinse it. He goes to the kitchen instead, rinses the towel and comes back and recognizes the sound. It's someone crying.

'Dad. Dad, is something wrong? Dad?'

The door creaks when it opens like in a horror movie. The shower is running and something dark is on the floor behind the frosted glass, and there is a shredding sound.

'Dad, Dad are you OK? Dad, just say something.'

Michael opens the door and his father is slumped on the floor of the shower and he's fully dressed with water running and he has been eating towels. Big, plush, California towels. The threads of them lie wound all over his black slacks. They coat his mouth and make him look a bit like the Cookie Monster. His accusing eyes look up at him.

'Dad, get up.'

His father grunts and tries to and can't quite get his legs to unfold, and Michael becomes seriously worried, but he can't think of any way of helping that does not involve touching his father. His father's dark eyes warn him: do not touch me. Michael backs away hands raised as if to shield himself, mime helplessness, display his innocence.

Outside the bathroom door, Michael starts to pace. He paces the hallway, and tries to collect his thoughts and can't. They scatter away from him like pearls from a broken necklace rolling away down an escalator. He can't think of anything to do.

He decides to pack. He will have to leave. In the bedroom he takes his shirts out of the closet. He can't remember how to fold shirts so they stay flat. He remembers how his father and he worked together doing the laundry, just that morning, washing, sorting, ironing. 'Hey Mike, I never did this as well by myself. When you move in, we'll have the cleanest laundry ever.'