Dirt

18

Knox

 When the cold air hits I absentmindedly shiver while sucking in a deep breath. It's cold, maybe too cold for the suit jacket, but I don't focus on that. I focus on walking in the opposite direction of the parking lot. My phone beeps of another call on my line. I pull my phone away to see Grace's caller ID flashes. I immediately decline.

"I'm sorry if I'm bothering you," In the past she would sound sarcastic, fighting back. Now she's clean and smooth. Nothing but apologetic bullshit, "I just wanted to wish my baby a happy birthday!"

The leaves crunch under my shoes, street lights barely covering the sidewalk. My hand is already getting cold holding the phone to my ear. My stomach is turning and my head is empty. The line is beeping again. Grace. Decline. My phone dings with text messages.

"My birthday isn't until tomorrow."

She laughs lightly, "I know, I know. But I won't be there in the morning when you wake up like we do-"

"Like we used to? Like we used to. You haven't been awake, or present, for my birthday in years." The anger was starting to infiltrate the conversation. My chest is tight that she can sit there in a prison and still act like she's innocent. She may not remember the past few years, but she still needs to acknowledge what we say.

Now she sighs softly. Beeping on my line. Kelly. Immediately followed by Roger. Only one or two cars are blinding with their headlights. It's nine o'clock on a Thursday night so there isn't much life outside. A business here or there open, restaurants. More and more text messages.

"Perhaps we didn't have the best relationship the past few years-"

My laugh is crisp and bitter in the cold, night air, "Mom, stop it. Either admit that you haven't been there for our birthdays or please go do a prison bible group or something."

"Knox, I know you are frustrated. I was not active enough the past few years but we can't focus on the wrongdoing and build our relationship again."

"Mom," I try to drop the anger, all the emotion actually, from my voice. I have to flex my fingers to make sure I haven't froze them, "I can't focus on the future and rebuilding our relationship because I'm too traumatized by the wrongdoings of the past. You haven't been to my birthday in years. The past few years I have drunk myself into oblivion, fucked some random ass at a party, and crashed the whole day at someone's house. I haven't had a birthday in years. You ruined it. You and my father ruined it."

The line is quiet for a moment. I can hear a dog bark in the distance, another car rushing past. I'm on restaurant road by now. Some are occupied, almost empty. There's a bench with some real estate ad and bird poop on it. I try to sit where there isn't white, leaning against the back and staring up at the dark sky. Grace calls again.

"I would really appreciate if you could use an appropriate, respectful word choice." 

The wind picked up my laugh, my fingers clenching my phone. The irony is the 'appropriate, respectful word choice' she used two months ago. The sick, sick irony is mom would have said something like this years ago to be ironic. It leaves me in a tearing toss-up of what mother to focus on.

"Listen, Knox. I know you are stuck in the past, for which I am sorry you associate with me," So much of my instincts want to hang up on her. She's even trying to sound all snooty, "But you can't be mad at a mother for wanting to wish her firstborn baby a happy birthday. You're growing into a young man and I don't even get to see it."

Mom was an expert at guilt-tripping. No matter what Mom she was it was her intuition to get you to see or join her side. Whether it was watching the movie she wanted, letting her take some money for 'food', or making you feel the shit in this mother-son relationship. Here she is both telling me it's my fault I'm stuck in the past and making me feel shit for growing up while she's in jail. It's all my fault.