Crash Test Dummy

Chapter 1

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My world imploded on my 14th birthday. The upheaval had nothing to do with raging hormones and everything to do with betrayal.

We celebrated my birth on the weekend, but I decided I deserved an afternoon to celebrate on my own. What Mom didn't know wouldn't hurt her, and I was one of the few who hadn't ditched on occasion. I stayed in school long enough to pass my math test and then bounced at lunch. Mom would be at work until 11, late enough for me to erase the message from the school asking if she knew I wasn't there.

I was given a key to the house at age 8 and pretty much fended for myself while Mom was at work. Today I was going to sprawl out and game on my PlayStation. I wasn't a full-fledged rebel yet and hadn't started inviting friends to hang out when Mom wasn't there.

The letter lying below the mail drop changed everything. I reached down to pick it up and put it on the table in the foyer, but my name in bold black letters was printed on the front: Chauncy Wayne Baisford Jr. No name was written in the upper corner where the return address went. Instead it read: Ditto Sr., 59237 Placerville Rd., Dry Prong, LA.

Weird. I turned the envelope over. On the back stamped in red were the words, "Not censored. Grant Parish Correctional Center."

My heart began to race. My hands shook and my palms were clammy. Could it possibly be a letter from Dad? I shook my head in denial. Don't go getting all emotional over a stupid letter. He left. Let him stay gone. I didn't need him then, and I don't need him now.

I was often home alone because Dad traded home for prison. He basically abandoned me years before the cops caught him dealing. He wasn't in the now, spending all his time looking for a new high and a way to get it. Some Dad he was, a junkie who put his next fix before his son. Good riddance. I was better off without him. Screw the good memories. They dated from my preschool years, before the accident and the prescriptions for back pain and his steady decline.

My Mom, a nurse, said he had an addictive personality even before he took Oxy. She refused to bash him, simply saying we were better off without him in our lives.

I sat down on the bottom step and wiped my hands on my jeans. Turning the envelope over and over in my hands, I tried to hold onto my anger but curiosity won. I examined the writing to see if it looked anything like mine. I sniffed it to see if it had any particular smell. It didn't. I slid my finger under the flap and then pulled it back out, not certain I was ready to find out what was inside. I stuffed the letter in my pocket, raced up the stairs, climbed out my bedroom window and swung onto the platform of the tree house Dad and Uncle Clarence had built for my fifth birthday.

As I stood there, I was five again. Dad was drinking beer and joking with Uncle Clarence, making one of his corny jokes. "What did the flying squirrel say after someone spilled beer in his water? Spray some of that foamy stuff, I'm coming in for a landing." I saw him standing on the platform, head thrown back in laughter, with a bottle of Chafunkta beer in his hand. He was about to bash it on the side of the tree house and christen it Chauncy's Funkie Hideaway, as it was declared on a wood-burned sign hanging below the platform. A squirrel decided to join the party, dashing down a limb just as Dad took a swing. I heard Mom scream as the squirrel dashed between Dad's feet.

I shook my head to clear the memory. I didn't want to see him there, the laughter gone, broken and in pain. As though in mockery, I heard an ambulance siren on the street as I forced myself into the present. But I knew what I refused to remember. He had been on the ground, unable to move when the EMTs came. He was taken to the hospital and eventually prescribed Oxy...