The Kids on Exspes Street

Chapter 6: Chase

Chase's fist hits the wall for the third time.

"That stupid-"
He hits again.
"Lying-"
Another punch delivered.
"Jerk!"
He finished, for a lack of better words.

He collapsed on his bed, glaring at the cracked ceiling of the cheap apartment he lived in with his mother. His dropout, deadbeat dad had made a random appearance yesterday at his seventeenth birthday party. Or, as close as it could get to a party anyway. His mother tried, but she was a single mother with no child support coming in and two back-to-back jobs that gave her little time to even sleep. So what does his dad do? Make an unwelcome appearance on one of the he only things he had been looking forward to in a long time.

He did that a lot. At his championship game for football, at the daycare when he was 4, at his best friend's funeral. Just random times where he'd show up to offer supposed support, then go and ask for money or some other assistance from his mother or his young son, Chase.

When he was denied help, he threw out a few slurred threats or sardonic grins, promised never to be back again, and drove off. How many times was that promise made?

More times than it was possible to be accounted for.

Well, Chase was done with it.

He lied there in bed, his chest heaving, his tan complexion red from anger, his dirty blonde hair plastered to his forehead with a thin layer of sweat. He didn't know what he was going to do. He never did.