How To Proceed

'Tell them what you mean, little miss.' Her Daddy trails a feral shape out from his pipesmoke mouth and doesn't cough. 'Look at them square in eyeballs and you tell them what you mean. You will be rude for twenty years; stupid for longer; but you'll be that which we need, little miss.'
She tucks her precious hands beneath her hem and gazes on him with gravity. 'But,' she pipes, 'but Daddy, you say be polite.'
'Humph,' her Daddy humphs, 'that's it, though. Treat a soul politely, offer them what's yours, and blast them out the water when their falsehoods gather. Prudence will come to you, little miss. Sycophants ain't polite; they're sycophants.'
'Sick of pants!' she squeals.
'Sick in pants,' he counters grandly, and he coughs. Some stringy tar like bark flings hotly down his wrist.
'Daddy?'
'Little miss?'
'You gots to not smoke, Daddy. I heard of it.' She stands and puts her precious hands on his knees, and looks him square in the eyeballs. 'Stop smoking, Daddy.'
He hits her, hard, and laughs as she gets up off the floor.
'That a girl, little miss!' Her eyes well up, betrayed. 'Now, now, pup, don't bawl for that. That was your reward. Your Daddy gots to quit smoking? You tell the dumb son of a bitch. And when he smacks you for it, smile, little miss.' He stands and picks her gently up in arms, and hands his warmish pipe down to her precious hands.
A tear pops loose, and curls down to her nostril well. She throws the pipe against the wall- all spark and soot and ugly little burst of wood on wood. He howls with laughter; she is silent still. 'Remember that I struck you, little miss. That's gonna happen most every time.' He sighs and buries his face in her hair. She clutches at his ears. 'And every time they's gonna keep getting smaller, little miss. They shrink, and with each blow, you grow.'
The dawn breaks, thin and dusty through the cellar windows, thinned through bushes. She can see the Mason jars screwed into the beams, their lids nailed up. She can see the mess of his pipe, the mess cats leave, mice leave.
She can hear the birds heartening, maybe a creak in the floorboards overhead. She can feel her Daddy's monstrous mitt still shock against her cheek; she sees his scruffy beard.
She can feel a warmth for him that hurts her teeth, somewhere married to her heart- against her ribs. She hates him, too. She wonders at her ratty dress and he just puts her down, and goes and stands against the wall, his arms at angles to the brick.
'One day, little miss,' her Daddy says, so soft it sifts out from his lips, 'someone will want something from you that you can't give. And you will rod that little spine of yours and tell them what you think of them. And they will hurt you, pup. They's gonna hurt you like you never known. Happened to me. Happened to your mother, to your teachers, to the Lord himself. And when you've taken all they care to give, you'll have that for yourself. You'll have the power of their secrets, little miss. They'll leave your broken spirit or your broken bones a cowardly mess, and you'll just rise up, darling. Big like mountains cause you looked them square in they eyeballs, and you told them what you think.'
'Daddy?'
'Little miss?'
'I don't want em to hurt my mother.'
'No, pup; I know.'
'Or you, or me.'
'Or the Lord?' She shrugged; he barks a laugh, and turns off from the wall. 'Little miss, people hurt each other. It's what they do. It may just be an embarrassment. It may be hell itself. But you're gonna take them, pup, even if you wake up in a pile of blood.' He scoops her up again. 'You know what I believe, little miss?'
She shakes her head, eyes wide. 'I believe it's no sin to lose. To fall, to smother; to have to take another man's garbage in your mouth. You just have to keep your spirit in your eyes, and your will in your hands, cause behind every boarding house door they's poets dying, pup. On every wooded hill a congressman is crying out his eyes. Each overpass has the messiah howling, mad on truth and mouthwash to his lungs, and dying slow and sure beneath our notice. I believe those things we build to make us feel like what we've done is something doing- all those things are tablecloths. The wood beneath is warped and split and that is how we are, people- twisted as a corkscrew, shining just as bright. And all we've lost is truth, little miss.
'It's a tiny thing. It'll kill us all before it heals us.' Her Daddy takes a breath and looks at her intently. 'Do you understand, darling?'
'No, Daddy,' and she begins to cry.
'Good,' he whispers. 'Good.'
And when the floorboards sift from footfalls over head, and they go out amidst the weeds, the low sun ain't as bright as she had thought, the dying stars just tinfoil. The trees are shrubs with grand intentions, and the birds the egos of the insects 'neath the leaves and loam. But there's her Daddy, big as mountains in the cold and damp, his broad back holding up the world from off her precious eyes, his wide hand pointing out the way to start-
To hold up just a little bit, each day, and take that extra step alive-
Your spirit in your eyes, and your will in your hands, and your own Truth fresh blood upon the lips of anyone who calls you false, little miss, I promise. You can rule them all, if that is what you want. There are gods with less in them than you.
I tell you what is true.