The Lights In the Sky

Chapter 2

At first, I didn't really say anything. I just looked around at my family. They were holding their breath, waiting for me to say something. So I finally did. And it wasn't pretty. You might not be surprised to hear that sometimes I have anger issues. Especially when people patronized me. I was rarely violent, but I'll admit that I could get overly angry at stupid things. Mostly when they came from my parents.

I think I said something like, "How fucking dumb do you think I am?! If you're gonna spy on me, that's fine, but don't make up some bullshit story to tease me about it! It was a really embarrassing dream and I don't want to talk about it, you don't have to rub it in! I mean,I thought you two hated each other, now you're teaming up against me?"

I think I mentioned that my parents have been sleeping in separate bedrooms for a while? Well, maybe I should go into more detail about that, because then stuff that comes later might make more sense. See,we had a really long spell where we weren't making ends meet. The bank almost took the house away from us at one point, but I didn't know about that until much later. Since we weren't making much money, my mom started spending what we did have on alcohol. She'snot an alcoholic or anything, so don't get that impression. It's just that adults deal with stress in funny ways. I guess kids do,too. Or adolescents, which is what I'd say I am. Like, I've been known to punch a wall when I get angry. That doesn't make sense,it's not like the wall pissed me off. Sorry about the language. Ina way, whiskey was my mom's wall. Or something like that, you know what I mean.

First my mom drank it all at home, which was okay because sometimes she'd let me have a little glass before bed. It tasted like poison, but after I had a glass, I couldn't stop smiling. Maybe I have a predisposition since my mom likes it so much. But then her drinking at home became a problem, because she stopped smiling and started crying at a certain point in the night. Dad would try to help her out. He would put his arms around her and stuff. She would push him away and tell him if it wasn't for him, she wouldn't have anything to cry about anyway, so why should he be the one to help her? Tabitha and I saw her like that a few times before she decided to take her drinking elsewhere. First, it was her friend Barb's house. That was good for her, because Barb was an older lady she used to work with at the bank. Barb's husband died a few years back, so it was nice for them to drink whiskey and talk about husbands and kids and stuff. Barb ended up having a stroke, and she went to the nursing home and couldn't drink anymore, which just made my mom want to drink for both of them. Instead of going to see Barb, she started going to the bar in town. I don't even know what the bar is called; isn't that strange? I've been living in Watersdale my whole life and there's only one bar, but I don't know what it's called, because I never had any intention of going there. I like to be by myself after I've had whiskey, not in a dark room with other people. But that's what Mom did. After dinner, she disappeared most nights. This went on for a while, until one night when my dad went out to look for her. He saw her sitting at the bar talking to some other guy, a mechanic in town. What's his name? Dave something?Anyway, Dave Something had his hand on my mom's leg; other than that, they were just talking. But my dad flipped when he saw that and broke Dave's nose on the pool table. Which would be really scary to see, because my dad is a calm guy normally. He's quiet and he smiles a lot, those sad kinds of smiles that seem to be saying, Don't worry about me. I hate those smiles. It makes me want to talk to the person, but they probably don't want me to or they wouldn't be smiling in the first place. So when my dad gets really angry, it's scary. His face goes blank and it's like there's nothing behind his eyes. His usual voice is slow and has a drawl to it, but when he's actually mad about something, the drawl goes away and he speaks loud and clear. I bet that's how he sounded in the bar.

You're probably wondering how I heard about this, so I'll tell you really quick: Frank's uncle is the bartender at the bar in town. He lives with Frank and Frank's mom because Frank's dad died when we were about twelve. I guess I should've said that when I first told you about Frank, because it's a pretty big deal with him. Not that he talks about it a lot or anything, but basically it makes him nice,which is strange, because I would be really angry if my dad was dead.He probably thinks that it's better to spend life being nice and happy than moody and mean. But Frank's uncle, Ashton, saw all this happen with my dad and Dave Something. He didn't even try to breakup the fight because he said a man has to defend his honor. That makes me think of something they say in samurai movies, which is probably accurate because Frank's Uncle Ashton loves samurai movies. Kurosawa is his favorite director. Do you know Kurosawa? He was this guy who adapted Shakespeare plays into samurai movies. He probably did other kinds of movies, too, but he's only remembered for the Shakespeare samurai stuff. Which is really sad; I hope I'm not only remembered for one thing, you know?