I was supposed to be making a decision. You could almost say life-changing. But here I was playing video games on the foot of my bed, muttering obscenities at the TV. I was losing big-time.
It seemed like everything in my life was going to the dump—even to the point where my video game slickness was failing on me. Or I on it. It was all crap. Crap, crap, crap.
“Crap!”
“Donny! What did you say?”
Turning around, I saw my mother leaning on the door frame of my room, a stern look on her face. Geez, didn’t she know about knocking? It was common courtesy after all.
What rhymes with crap, I wondered. “I said lap. Laaaap…dance.”
She rubbed her shoulder and muttered, “For christsakes.” I know what she was thinking it was all over her face. She had a very expressive face that seemed to be stuck in an, ‘Oh my god, sigh, what am I gonna do with this boy…” I could practically hear her heave a sigh. Damn, this was getting way out of hand, the overwhelming thing of feeling sorry for my mom.
Funny thing was that I thought she was feeling sorry for me too.
“Aren’t you getting ready?”
The sound of me losing could be heard on the TV as I wondered about her question. “Mom. I never agreed, y’know.”
“Oh Donny…”
“And you can’t force me,” I quickly said, before she began that boring speech about being in someone else’s shoes…empathy or sympathy…one of those.
At this point she did sigh, the air whooshing out of her, sagging her figure. “I know honey…” Her dark eyes gave me a pointed stare. “Just think about it, alright?”
I barely managed a nod. I gave my back towards her and resumed my losing streak.
)))
Mom told me that they were leaving in thirty minutes. Thirty minutes was not enough to figure it all out. If they gave me twenty years, it would still not be proper time for me to orderly get my shit together.
Dread started to fill my stomach and the game no longer calmed my buzzing brain. I had succeeded in turning it off for a few months after my dad got arrested but now it seemed to be stirring, I didn’t want that happen. No fucking way.
I didn’t know the details of my dad’s arrest; my mother had kept that under wraps, although everyone around the neighborhood did. Whispers followed me and I got little things from them. It had to do with drugs, apparently he had sold them.
I couldn’t make sense about it. I knew him for this hardworking man that loved his wife and his kids, so how in the world did he turn to that? And how did he get caught? Did my mom know about it? And why did lie to us—especially me? We were so chill to each other, almost like he was my best friend and then to hear it from someone else’s mouth…and not just a close person to the family but a fucking homeless on that same corner that always talked about almighty God, like if he was his world. I had to find out from an asshole of guy. Not even my mother.
After those months, we barely spoke. I couldn’t give her my word, when she couldn’t do the same for me. And she wasn’t really around that much to begin with—taking up two jobs to make ends meet.
She said if I went with them to go visit him, she’d give me alone time to speak with him. Ask him stuff.
What if I didn’t want alone time? Did she think about that? What if I hated his cowardly guts? Did I? How would I know…my brain barely had the capacity to function on normal things like pissing and shoveling food in my mouth without it exploding on crap like dealing with my dad.
This was all crap.
“Donny? You thought about it?” My mother’s voice was filed with apprehension, a tremble filled in my name. Shit, I read her too well. Too well! (Did she do the same for me?)
“Yeah…” I knew alright.
