Fall in May

~4~ HBD! ...and it still sucks to be me.

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." ~ Albert Einstein

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After finally shaking off the shivers of the fun time I've just had with the strange Grimm sisters, I finish out the rest of my shift on the Annex pool throne watching the lapping water. After my day is done, I take the long skate back to my grandparent's house. Or as I have now come to think of it, The House the Blazing Raisins. It's not my home by any means, just the third worst place to rest my weary bones at night, right after foster care or juvenile hall. 

Because unlike the impression I gave the strange girl Maybe, I am not really "vacationing" with my grandparents, Aces and The Irish Antichrist respectively. Rather I am on summer long forced relocation from my real life, while my mother takes another stab at rehab to fix her detox demons. Or as I like to think of it, stuck in the suck while my mother is killing off the time in between her last drink and her next.  

As the time and tides roll, I have about two more weeks to kill in this hellhole, until I am out of the Valley of Death and back safely to the Kingdom by the Sea. So by my math, I should hit home just in time for the last back to school bonfire parties. Ride the final swells of summer surf and get Set for the first-day fights at Ol' Seaside High. To start another year of just trying to stay alive long enough to survive high school with the rest of the beach bums of Sunset.      

As I skate down the steep streets of San Fall, my wheels sound like thunder rolling as a slide down the asphalt giants towards the to the Old Folks Home. Say what you want about the state of San Fall's buckled old anti skateboard sidewalks, but the hot asphalt streets are surfaced very nicely indeed. I keep my momentum up by slaloming down the middle of the street in wide swaths, using the natural decline and gravity to keep me trucking. 

I only slow my drift down through the quiet little neighborhood of old tract houses known as The Tree Tracks. Probably named as such because all the streets are named after trees. Slip-sliding around the corner at Oak street, I shoot out into the middle of the street to avoid the waffle grate of the metal manhole cover on the corner. This particular old chunk of cast iron has tried to kill me every chance it's gotten over the summer so far. Always trying to bite my wheels out from under me, and send me head first into the cement sidewalk for a quick concrete lobotomy. 

When I finally roll up onto my own little nightmare on Elm street and spot my grandfather's sky blue 64' Impala in the driveway. Which is an oddity for this time of day, seeing that he should down be at the VFW, singing slaying songs with his crew of sky killer comrades from the Old War Days. So I ghost down the drive and back to the tool shed, or as my grandmother, the Irish Antichrist calls it "Triage", and stash my board and guard gear inside.

Silently skipping across the stepping stone path through the drought dead grass, that I will not miss mowing at all when I finally take my leave this sickly boneyard. Just before I hit the back door to the kitchen, I slide out of my skate shoes, just in case it's afternoon nappy time at the Old Folks Home. Then take a deep steeling breath and slip through the back door into hell.

"Happy birthday, Darren." My grandfather Aces grins halfheartedly up from the preseason football game on TV. Then waves vaguely towards the small stack of presents piled up on the kitchen counter, waiting there to kill me.

"Ah...yeah sure. Cool?" I cautiously side-eye the small pile of presents, all festooned in sinister smiling clowns wrapping paper. Personally, I hate clowns, cause they always remind me of serial killers, child molesters, and Death by Foster Care. But I guess it's the bad thought that counts or whatever?