Chapter 7
the players:
My Father
My dad is a tall man who cobs his greasy hair to the side. He like bands like the Foo fighters and Nirvana. He was the first person to introduce me to the world of altrenative rock. I was young so I didn't understand the lyrics or anything behind the music. My dad is the kind of father who hates the fact that his son does not dress normally. He has been trying to make me get a job since I was ten. My dad enjoys a good laugh every now and again. I can't show him my skate videos because he always falls asleep during them. Thats what happens when you work five bajillion hours a week. My dad is the kind of guy who still combs his hair to the side. We used to have more fun. He understood my logic when I was younger, but now when I try to talk to him about stuff, his eyes glaze over and Ican smell the smoke coming from his frying brain. He nods his head and pretends to understand and then tells me a story completely irrelivant to mine to see if he can relate. I just nod my head and smile to make him feel like a good dad.
Jen
There is not much to say about Jen. She likes bands like the Grateful Dead and Live. She is polish and has blonde hair. For a long time I hated her, now I dont hat..............I tolerate her, I guess. She loves barcardi rum. She is nice to my face, but I can see her telling my dad how she hates me when I'm gone.
Justin
Justin is my half brother. he looks up to his older brother Richie, who does not live with him. He always wants to wear my necklace. He wants me to do his hair like mine. He is definately a hyper kid. I sometimes think my father is hard on him because he blames him for everything. I think My dad thinks if Justin wasn't born, him and my mom would've never got divorced. Maybe my dad is hard on him, because he doesn't want him to become like me. I really don't know.
Ryan
Ryan is my youngest half brother. If he falls asleep on the couch at night, it is guaranteed that he will piss his pants. I don't know why, thats all I can really say about him. he is too young to develop a recognizable character.
Lately I've been thinking a lot. One of the things that has been on my mind the longest is soap. What is up with it? Soap makes your skin clean and smells good. How can something so nice and pleasant burn your eyes so much. I use soap externally to cleanse my anus. If I eat soap, and I'm not saying I know this from experience..., it will give me diharrea. As we all know, diharrea makes your anus not clean. Soap has mystical powers to be what ever it wants to be.
Speaking of mystical powers, I was speaking with Jena on the Internet. We spoke of craziness and tourtises. She said her stomache hurt and she wanted me to make it feel better. It was one of those was to complain about something without sounding too whiny. So I said, "alakazam shibb shibbidy doo stomach feel better." I asked if it worked and she said, "Surprisingly enough...yes." Beforehand she was saying I am a lucky charm, now I am a lucky charm with the power to heal. What's up with that?
Life has not been so great lately. Just the other day I was walking down the street. I was checking out the buildings and counting how many bricks were on the front walls. I was oblivious to the world around me. Suddenly, a group of people dressed in Leiderhosen atacked me. They danced on my face with their wooden shoes. I went home covered in bruises. They didn't hurt as much as my pride did. Just after that had happened, I was speaking with Lauren. She asked if I wanted to go to the beach with her and a bunch of people. I was not in the mood, my face hurt from the clog print in my forehead. I couldn't let people see me like that. So I tolde her, "Screw that, I hate the beach." I think she became angry. If only she knew about the Leiderhosen, she would understand. I decided to skate off my problems. That was the only thing that seemed to work anymore. I strapped on my Roces Khutis, and Zero spun 360'd out of my driveway. In headed for the chunky development. I weaved in and out of the blocks. Then I saw it. The grind wax fairy must have waxed up a curb just for me. I jumped and tried to Pornstar across it. Once I clicke into the curb I yelled aloud, "Damn you, wax fairy, you are the wax demon." The curb was not waxed well enough. I found myself biting pavement as my one boot flew off my foot. That had never happened before. I sat on the crapilly waxed curb to put my skate back on. Lauren passed in her car. I covered the wooden shoe print in my face and waved to her. After she had passed, I realized today was not a good skating day. I guess I would have to go asleep knowing I was a failure and couldn't defend myself against a pack of Leiderhosen wearing thugs.
When I came home I called up my good friend Leah. We spoke of intersting stuff that night. She asked how I was, I told her some crap. It was basically what you just read. Then I asked her how she was, becuase I don't only care about myself. She told me crap. It was basically what I'm not going to write about. Then we spoke about this "book." She said she liked it so much, she was going ot give me a handful of one-hundred dollar bills. She had to go. So I went to my dungeon, threw in Days Of The New (good band), put it on "repeat all songs" and fell asleep.
"...blame me all you want,
theres nothing I will say,
I can only think ,
I will only pray,
tell me how it is,
show me how it goes,
I know how you are..."
I woke up to track number eight on the Days Of The New CD. The lyrics resounded in my head. In the backround indian chanting layed out the back beat, with crazy acoustic guitar playing. I felt they had some sort of sentimental value, but I did not know why. The CD always made me think about my dad. He was the one who introduced me to the amazing voice of Travis Meeks and the different bands he fired for each of his colored CDs. I layed back down and thought about how I could feel so much hate and at the same time, empathy, for one person. I have forgiven him for the lies after lies he has told me. He would li about lies and deny ever telling the lies. I have som amny time wished bad fortune upon him. At the same time, I know I have already been avenged sevenfold. (another good band) I think the only truth he has ever told me straight out, was how he really regrets being such a screw up. He told me he wishes how he could take it all back. I guess I should tell tell the whole story, so you, the reader, will know what the hell I am speaking of.
Mind you this story comes from my memory and the pieces of stoy I have heard from my mom and my dad. I was seven at the time it happened. Age is but a number, I was probably smarter than you are now when I was seven.
My father was the manager of Rite Aid. It was one of the many jobs he could not keep. He made the greatest salesman ever. The customers loved him. He kept his crooked smile on his face until they left. He could sell a radio to a deaf person and make it seem like a bargain. He was great at lying about products, but a terrible liar at everything else. He would often come home at three in the morning claiming he had to stock shelves and take care of other important stuff at the store. My mom once asked him about a perfectly round bruised on his neck. He claimed a box just fell out of the sky and assaulted him. My mom is not a stupid person at all. She knew whenever my father stumbled on words and stuttered his "i's", that he was lying. He would shrug his shoulders and talk in cirlces to try to make his story sound convincing. My mom knew what was happening. She was pregnant with my little sister and I was barely a child. She could have ended the marrige then and there, but she tried to make it work. She only would've done that for us, the kids. So she continued to wait and see what other lies my father would tell. She had already found a note in his car, addressed to "pookie bear." He stumbled on a lot of words before he could conjure up a good story for that one.
My mom was driving his van, she hit the brakes quickly at a red light. A bottle of Bacardi rum rolled up from the back. My dad was too much of a whimp to drink the hard stuff. Along with the rum, a glass ashtray, a bowl, and a spoon made their way to the front. Either my dad was drinking hard liquor, eating putting, and smoking pot, or someone else had made themselves at home in his car. Whoever it was, had been doing some cocaine, and other drugs. My mom found out that person was, Jen. Jen also happened to work at Rite Aid. Her and my father were "friends." While his father was dying in the hospital, my father was out with his "friend." Well, somehow that friendship created a baby.
My mom found out about the baby, I think my father told her the truth or some of it. He promised my mom it was all going to be better. Jen was going to have an abortion. He said things could go back to the way things used to be. My father wsn't exactly bright when it came to things like this. Jen went on vacation with her parents and when she came back, she decided not to have the abortion. My dad decided to break the news to my mom on her birthday, in a restaurant. My mom still tried to make things good for us, the kids. She offered to adopt the baby. Jen refused. After putting up with my father's crap long enough my mom decided to break out the garbage bags. I had asked her waht she was doing packing clothes in garbage bags and crying. She continued to sob and I went in my room and cried. It hurt to see my mom hurt so much. My dad came home that night to find his clothes in garbage bags, on the front porch. He told me he had to go away for a while and I did nothing wrong. He said he'd call as soon as he found a place to stay. A week passed when he finally called. He was staying in a green motel only a few minutes away.
My mom decided to visit him, she was still trying to make things for for us, the kids. When she arrived, my dad answered the door as someone ran into the bathroom. My mom knew who it was. Somehow she managed to find a music box. She smashed it on the ground and left crying once more.
A lot of time between that point as the actual divorce are a blur in my memory. I remember when my mother's father was in the hospital, Jen was also in the hospital pregnant with my half brother Justin. I think I blocked a lot out after that. The next memory I had was living with my newly divorced mother. She had to take me to a psychiatrist. The mental doctor made me draw pictures of what was bothering me and how I felt. At seven years of age, I had become a ball of hate. Every picture in my house of my mom and dad together, had been ripped in half by me. I kept the pictures of my mom and thrown the pictures of my dad in the circular file. (garbage)
Now my dad has four children. (Me and my sister, who are children of my mother; and Justin and Ryan, children of Jen) He finally lives in a house that he owns. A picket fence surrounds their home. The curbs are Belgium block and the streets are freshly paved. They live seconds from the bay. One would think he is back on track with his life. But I, the older, wiser, ball of hate, know differently. Justin definately has somethings wrong with him. He is seven and still has to sleep with pull-ups on. He is definately hyperactive and probably has A.D.D. He is the kind of kid who hits hit head form faling off of a bed andlaughs about it. Ryan, the youngest, is old enough to be talking like a normal person. Althought he is not, he still cannot say many things and cries about everything. I think the main problem with my father newest children is that Jen never put down the rum bottle while she was pregnant.
To this day he has never given me a straight story about anything. All of my source have come from my memory and my mother. One would say, your mothe rhas a biased opinion because she was the one who got hurt. You would pobably think she has tainted my mind to hate my father. Actually she yells at me when I make fun of him and his lies. When she told me "The Story", she left out certain parts and knew I would be smart enough to fill in the blanks and judge my father's character on my own. I can't say I hate my dad for what he has done. If anything, I feel bad for him. he has to live with the consequences of his bad decision for the rest of his life.
I have to give him credit. He does try to understand me and whats going on in my life. He calls every other day. He even has tried to talk to me about girls. I play along with him as he thinks we are having father son bonding time. I think it does more good for him than it does for me. I think it made him feel good, that I "opened up" to him. I can't say all of my anger has gone away, I also can't say this is not one of the experiences that has screwed me up forever. I wll never fully understand he he could forget about his kid at home waiting for his dad to come home, while he was screwing some blonde chick. He gave away a great life for sex. I guess I have learned a lot from this long treacherous journey. I guess I can even thank my dad for screwing up his life to show me what not to do. This is my dad, one of the many branches of my life. Thanks for being a jerk and my father at the same time.
