@Robertopancake: A Story About a Boy

Chapter Eight

New Year's Eve disappears like a hooker with your cash after she's done her job. I sleep the day away, but end up disappointed that I didn't slumber straight through until midnight. My back is killing me from spending so many hours in this prison-issue twin bed. Through my accordion door, I can hear my dad and Michelle in the living room like I'm sitting right next to them. They've got the television turned to the news and I can picture them out there, my dad in his ratty old recliner and Michelle sprawled on the couch while they have their first drink of the evening. (Well, my dad has undoubtedly had several already throughout the day, but this is their "cocktail hour", if you will.)

The need to pee is excruciating, but I can't bring myself to walk out there. And—I'll admit it—I'm eavesdropping on their conversation between snippets from the newscasters and commercials for used car lots and IHOP.

"You think I should wake him for dinner?" Michelle asks in a loud whisper. The walls are cardboard and covered with cheap brown wallpaper made to look like wood paneling, so a whisper in the next room sounds like she's shouting directly into my ear canal.

"If he sleeps all night and misses dinner, then it's his own damn fault." My dad belches loudly. "'Scuse me."

"Oh, Dave, he's probably just growing. Teenage boys go through spurts like that—sleeping and eating all the time."

"What do you know about teenage boys, Mish? You had one little girl," he says meanly.

"May she rest."

They go silent for a couple of minutes. There is only the sound of the television.

"Sorry for that, cookie," my dad finally says.

(Cookie? Pet names. Ugh.)

"Issall right," she sighs, her words slurring. She sniffles. I was thinking they were on drink number one, but this is New Year's Eve, so it's entirely possible that they've been out there boozing it up since noon.

"Listen, I know it's kind of cramped with my kid here, and I know he's going to be a bit of an inconvenience sometimes, but I think this will be worth it if it works out."

"You think so? I dunno, Dave. I mean, you only pay three hundred bucks a month to his mom anyway, right?"

"Yup. Three hundred that I can't currently afford to throw out the window every month."

I try not to roll over and make the bedsprings squeak. Even my quiet breathing sound too loud to my ears, so I suck in as much air as possible and hold it.

"But if he lives here, then it'll probably cost us at least that much to feed him every month," she says, her voice strained.

"I'd go back to court, Mish. Remember? That's the plan. Go back to court, get him in my custody—if he wants to, that is—and then get his mother and her fancy businessman husband to pay me child support."

"Oh, honey, I don't know..." She sounds concerned.

Hell, I'm concerned. What exactly is going on here? Just what the fuckity-fuck—

I exhale slowly.

"Might be able to get them to fork over five or six hundred bucks a month or something." He pauses, (swigging at his beer, I'm sure). "Plus, I'm not getting any younger, you know? This is my only kid. Might not hurt to take him under my wing, teach him a thing or two about life so he doesn't turn into a freaking pansy out there in California. Got a mother who thought oil went into the gas tank of her car until I told her differently, and a stepdad who works for some computer company, probably never got dirt on his hands a day in his damn life." His voice is scornful and getting louder.