Free Spirit

Hajimeni: New House

3 days ago:

"You know son, it's uhhh...it's not a bad place right? I mean...look at that old lady's front porch...lots of flowers and her cats are everywhere. She even looks nice."

I look at where Dad described the 'nice' scene was and yeah, he's not lying, she does look nice and not like some old white racist that'll call the cops on me when I come home from school thinking I'm bringing bags of weed in my backpack. And for once when it came to moving, that made me feel relief.

'Wonder how her grand kids will react to see me?'

"Hmm" was all my response every time Dad showed me things that caught his attention.

The afternoon drive was a good one: nice blue sky with large white lumps overshadowing some parts of town and the cool afternoon breeze that came through the windows of the car made you want to dream of dreams that are untouchable for the human hand. My train of thought abruptly stopped when Dad was in front of a red light.

I slumped more into my seat when I saw a bunch of high school kids about my age walking together. They must've finished classes by now if they're out with their skateboards and cigarettes and busy talking about god knows what teenagers would talk about.

"Hey, look at them, I think you'll see them more in school."

"What makes you-"

"One of them is wearing the school's football team jacket, it has the logo of the school on it."

True. Dad pointed exactly at the one that had the team jacket on - and he stared directly at us.

I eyed my kicks immediately and made sure not to make any eye contact with them; I got enough on my plate to handle already when it came to people and their odd expressions when they see me.

Of course, their confusion just adds more when they see me with my dad: a white man in his late 40s, skin freckled with gold dust all over his face but ends at his collarbone. A scar over his right cheek after 'the accident' 6 years ago topped with worn out green eyes that too many times were blood shot red whenever they pull all nighters to hand in worksheets and meet deadlines at the crack of dawn. Although, his hair now has streaks of silver embedded in amber brown seems to suit my dad a lot more, it just too early for him to look like he's hitting the 55 age benchmark all too soon; especially for my liking.

The group's meddling voices soon quite down after they skated away with their burnt smell of toxins and when only I was sure they were gone, I sat back up properly and unintentionally took in a deep breath of relieved. Dad gave me a worry glance just before the light turned green.

"It's green Dad, wouldn't want to get honked at like the last time." I smirked because we both know too well what happened the last time we got honked at for not moving when the the light turned green. Dad chuckled when he put the gear in. "Yup, don't want that to happen again."

We took the third left turn on Wisteria Street then headed straight until the second turn on the right and kept going from there. "What was the house lot number again?" Dad asked as he slowed the car down and looking at each house on both sides while I fidgeted with my phone and looked for the note I saved of our new house address.

"264", and just next to the bright orange Jeep and green Kawasaki as our neighbours, 264 was a dead house desolate of any life. Even the grass on the lawn was dead, deprived of water and nutrients.

"Yikes." as both our faces turned sour when Dad parked in front of our new gates. "You can say that again, kid." Dad stopped the engine and took a good look see at the gloomy house. He sighed and I looked at him with a questioning brow; Dad just gave me one of his 'here we go again, kiddo' smiles.