Old Axie

Jason

I should probably take a moment and talk a little about myself, hi, my name is Jason Carter. I am 25 years old and I work as a corporate salesman for a pharmaceutical company right here in Louisiana. I was born and raised in a small town in the Saline Bayou. I was really a normal kid, or at least I tried to be. I was always good at talking my way out of bad situations or talking myself into good ones. The only person I could never fool was my dad, God I hated the fact that he could see right through me, but what I hard, even more, was how it always led back to me going to that stupid cabin.

In school, I was above average but nothing special. I took some advanced classes, but when you live in a place like mine school is just something you have to do but not take seriously. There were so many kids that wouldn't show up to class for weeks on end due to the hunting and fishing seasons and teachers would never mark them absent, and they were able to graduate with all their credits. It's not like it mattered anyway, most of them just went back home bought a boat and lived off the Bayou.

I was different I wanted out of this place which is why I left for college. All the way to California. I studied marketing at UCLA and got hired almost instantly out of college by this pharmaceutical company called Trident. Just my luck it was only a forty-minute drive from my home town and forty minutes less to get to the cabin. 

I was there though. I know I sound like a rebellious teenager, but I was there for my dad when he died. I watched it happen. Fathers Day was big in our family especially after my mom left. Last I heard she's in New York with some new guy I'll probably never meet. Parents always say it is not the kid's fault when they get divorced, but in my case, it was my fault.

People don't have a to where I'm from. Sometimes we had to boil water from the swamp because we didn't have anymore. It's ok though we always managed, I guess mom didn't sign up for that because she left when I was 13. I felt like I was a little old for the classic parent leaving story but it's whatever now we were just fine without her. 

My dad took it very hard though. I guess that dumb cabin was his last memory of her and I can't blame him for wanting to go there, but I still hated that place. One of the ways we used to cope with her leaving is we would go on these long drives, a lot of the times neither one of us would say anything we'd just roll the windows down and watch as the Bayou came alive. I liked those drives, I really did, but I don't take them anymore. Not since my dad had a heart attack in one of them, thank God I was the one driving that day, otherwise, I'd be gator' bait right now.