This Broken World

Broken Families

    "Jeremy! Jeremy LeBlanc! Wake up!"
    I snapped awake, "The answer is 41!"
    The sun streamed into my philosophy classroom. Wait, philosophy? Dammit! I thought it was math.
    "Sorry Jeremy, I asked you you for the meaning of life. You were very close to the widely accepted answer but it's actually 42."
    The sun played across my teacher's unsympathetic face as I explained that my coffee machine was shot straight to hell (Like everything else in my life, I thought) and Starbucks is way to damned expensive. The truth was that my sleep was constantly broken by the sound of my father's belt and my mother's tears (if you think I would have told him about that, you're more naive than I would be if I thought he would care). Mr. Descartes was a devout Christian and didn't take kindly to my French nor did he care about why I thought that his class was a good place to sleep. Instead of sympathy, I got an all expenses payed one-way ticket for the hallway where I could consider sleeping at night.
I fervently hoped that, for his sake, Mr. Descartes did not expect me to just think about sleeping. To his credit (and my chagrin), he didn't expect me to stay awake as, ten minutes later, I was roused by a sharp slap to the face and a lecture about listening to authority figures (maybe) that could have cured even the worst case of insomnia. The rest of the day passed in a haze; nothing of note happened (I think) and, mercifully, I was not called upon to answer a question again.

I walked straight home after school (like always) but once I was within eyeshot of my cheap, dirty, dime a dozen rancher, something changed my mind on where I was headed. I heard, "You god-damned whore! Get the hell out of my housch! I don't want to see you or your shitfasched backdoor man schniffing 'round either of my doorsch again! I hope you realische, Mrs. Schlut-Blanc, that your treachery hasch loscht me a dear friend." It was my dad. Whether the treachery in question came from the drink or my mother, I neither knew nor cared. Either way, my dad was piss-drunk and pissed and I didn't want anything to do with that combination of urine. The dingy, yellow house that seemed peaceful and quiet in a seemingly peaceful and quiet neighbourhood was in fact a warzone in which I always fell victim to the crossfire. I was glad that I had the foresight to provide my cat, Jimmy Jr. (gimme a break, I was eight), enough food and water to last several days under the front porch. She (like I said, I was eight) was outside, I knew because Dad would always put her out when he started to drink as if even a four-legged witness was guilt-inducing enough for him. I could see the door that was once white (the paint that was still there was peeling) beckoning with it's faded knocker that may well have once been gold for all the glamour it now held. It, along with my poor excuse for a family, could wait.
I decided to head over to my friend Chester's place. It was cozy and, more importantly, his mother never got caught in her...misadventures, at least not by her husband. Her son could be blackmailed and often was.
I rounded the corner and saw Chester's house. It was a bland, tan-coloured two-storey but at least there was no alcoholic father sending an ungrateful whore out on her well-worn ass.
I went up and rang the doorbell. Chester answered it and upon seeing me asked, "Oh, caught red-handed again was she?"
"Maybe, the old man sure thought she was," I replied.
"Don't worry, you can crash here if you need it," Chester offered.
"Thanks, man," I accepted. "You're a real lifesaver."
When I crossed the threshold, I could immediately tell from the...noises of the house that his father was not yet back from work and his mother was also hard at work. Chester and I went to his room and talked about everything from Krystal, the hot girl from math class, to the merits of a wife's "mysterious" extra income. We also played a little Xbox with the volume cranked up to drown out the creaks and groans of the house.
After about a half hour, the back door was just closing on Chester's mother's client just as her husband's key entered the lock at the front. "Hello, honey. How was your day?" he inquired from the entrance.
"Oh you know, I keep myself busy," she replied casually.
"She's so convincing, that she should have been an actress, " I admired.
     "She's had practice and lots of it," Chester responded. "Now shut up and listen, this is the best part."
     "With what?" asked Chester's father, continuing his own discourse.
     "A more fitting query would have been 'with whom?' As they say around here, 'one man's whore is another man's wife.' "  his wife laughed.
     "As if that could be anything but balderdash," the man chuckled, as if the ridiculous notion had never crossed his mind.
     Chester and I left his room and presented ourselves before his father.
     "Hello, Mr. Cooper. You're early," I greeted him as though he were the guest and I the host.
     "Oh, hi Jeremy," he smiled. "To whom do I owe the unexpected pleasure, Drunk Dad or Messy Mum?"
     "A bit of both," I answered. "I had the presence of mind (and absence of courage) not to step foot inside this time around."
     We ate a wonderful dinner and, afterwards, Chester and I confined ourselves to his room for the night. I crashed on his floor never quite realizing just how tired I was until my head touched the makeshift pillow and the dreams - if you could call them that - came for the first time...