To continue? Or not to continue?
P.S The time you lose reading this is refundable but only if you have your receipt....well then I can't refund your time....not even just this once....I'm sorry ma'am the answer is no....it's not my fault you've wasted another two minutes arguing with me....SECURITY!
It took two and a half days to drive from Texas to California. I
didn't mind. I've always loved driving. When I was younger, maybe five
or six, my Dad would pick me up from school and we would drive around
for hours, just the two of us. He died when I ten. The cat isn't all
curiosity killed.. He heard a noise coming from the stables so
naturally, he decided to go see what it was. I hate him for that. He
was shot twice in chest. The doctor told us that he didn't suffer, but
I know he was lying. The words didn't mean anything, it was the look in
his eyes that told me the truth. He suffered. He lay there amongst the
horses, bleeding, dying and alone.
Me and my Mom were never
as close as my Dad and I were. Him dying didn't change that. For the
first few of months after he died, I never saw her. She locked herself
in their room and cried. I would try and talk to her but she would just
stare at the ceiling and mutter to herself. After a while I stopped
going up to their...her....room. I did all of the chores, both around
the house and on the farm. Every morning, I would wake up, feed the
horses and cattle, do whatever handy work a ten year old could manage,
then I would go make breakfast and get ready for school. When school
was over, I'd come home, take care of the animals, bail the hay and do
a few odd and end jobs. Then came dinner, tidying up the house,
homework, shower and bed. I did what I had to because I figured, Dad is
gone, and that makes me sad, Mom must be sad too, so I have to take
care of her now that he is gone.
One day, I
came home and she was in the kitchen. Cooking. That was the first time
in what seemed like forever I had seen her out of her room, let alone
in the kitchen actually cooking. That night I slept in her room. As the
months passed things started to go back to normal or, as normal as they
could possibly get. Mom got a part time job working at the local
childcare center. That helped her afford a farmhand. His name was Mark
Cooper. He was a douche. Mom let him stay in the guest room. It wasn't
long before she let him stay in her room. They thought that because I
was young I didn't understand what was going on, but I knew. She was
trying to replace my Dad.
I vomited in my mouth the night they told
me they were engaged. I was twelve. My only regret was that I kept the
vomit in my mouth instead of spitting it in douches face. My mom told
me that them getting married didn't mean that she has forgotten about
my Dad, or how much she loves him but just like I could with the
doctor, I could tell with her. She was lying. It had only been a couple
of years since my Dad died, sixteen months of that two years she'd
spent fucking the farmhand.
I never really new what
feeling invisible was like until the day my Mom and Mark got married.
We lived in a small town and it seemed as though three quarters of it
was at their wedding. There was music and dancing. Drinking and eating.
People where laughing and cheering. It was nauseating. While they were
enjoying their honeymoon I stayed with the neighbors. I would have
preferred to sleep in a rat infested ditch, it would have been cleaner.
The Kingston's were....well to be honest I'm surprised they weren't all
dead. The pigs out back lived in less dirt than these people.
I
would sometimes wake up and expect to see them rolling around on the
floor, which by the way, was covered in what I hope was only dirt and
dust, oinking and snorting. Fearful of catching some sort of disease
from them, I would deliberately take my time walking home from school,
even then I would sometimes walk to my house and sit with the horses
until it got dark. Anything just to keep my distance from them.
Two weeks after the wedding my mom was back from her honeymoon. She
waited a couple of extra days before picking my up then lied to me
about it . "Our plane was delayed sweetheart. We had to wait until the
sky's stopped crying and cleared up" she said. "You're a lying whore"
is what I wanted to say. I didn't. I really, really wanted to though.
June 1st was the day I turned eighteen. It was the day I packed up my things. It was the day I told my Mom and Mark to go fuck themselves. It was the day I left home. It was the day I truly knew what freedom was. That was two and a half days ago.
I should have known better. Driving down a dirt road with my windows open wasn't one of my brightest moments but I needed the fresh air, dust and all. It reminded me of home. Of my Dad. The motel I've stopped at looks....disgusting actually, but right now I need a hot shower, food and sleep. The fat bald guy behind the reception desk looks like a serial killer. He's wearing, what I assume used to be a white wife beater, judging by sweat and what I prey are chocolate stains, he hasn't changed or showered for that matter in twenty years. When he turns around to get my room key, his oil stained jeans drop an inch or two. He scratches his ass before pulling them back up. Classy. I'm surprised he didn't sniff his fingers then pick his nose and eat it. I'm going to spend the next ten years trying to bleach the image of his hairy crack out of my brain, I don't know how long I would have had to bleach if he had done the rest of it.
The fat man finally hands over the key to my room. He asks me if I "Need help finding my room." He doesn't look like the kind of guy that knows what 'NO' means. So I just stare at him blankly. Wondering whether or not to throw in a facial tick for good measure. Thankfully the door behind me rattles open and a young scruffy looking guy walks in. He's cute. Athletic. Stylishly shaggy brown hair. Mid twenties Dressed in jeans and a blue shirt. Both clean might I add and clearly gay. At least to me anyway. It's in the way he walks. Most people wouldn't notice but I do. He has the slightest sway in his hips. Once a week my dad would pick me up from school early and take me out for ice cream. We would just sit there, melting ice cream in hand and watch the people walking by. He would always say that "The way a person walks, their facial expressions, tell you more about who they are than the words coming out of their mouth" After he died, I stopped eating ice cream. I never stopped watching though.
The room isn't big enough to fit me, let alone the bed that's pressed up against the corner wall and the table and two chairs crowding the middle of this shoebox. I'm not sure what to do first. Eat or sleep. My watch reads 2:15pm. The watch used to be my dads, before that it was my grandpa's. I found it one day when Mom was throwing out his things to make room for Marks shit. My dad told me that Grandma bought it for him before he left to fight in WW2. Grandpa said it was his lucky charm. Guess he must have used up all it's luck while fighting the Germans because it didn't help my dad. Both my grandparents died before I was born. Instead of reading my story books Dad would tell me stories about them. I think I would have liked them.
I see a cockroach scramble across the vomit color carpeted floor...Food it is then. There is a little diner not far from here. Hopefully the cockroach now hiding under something in my room didn't come from its kitchen. I'm not optimistic. There is no point driving there, it's only about a ten minute walk. My legs could use the exercise anyway. It's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. It's a little run down but I think that gives it character. At least it's clean and air conditioned. It's a good 90 °F outside and the shoebox I'm staying in is hot enough to steam a chicken. The menu is pretty generic. It takes a couple of minutes for someone to notice me. I don't complain, never have. It never helped.
He name is EMILY. I didn't ask, I didn't have to. It's written on the name tag pinned to her chest in big black letters. Emily wants to know if I need a couple more minutes to decided on what to order. I don't. I know what I want. Burger. Fries. Coke. That doesn't stop me from asking her opinion though. She's standing a little straighter now, her voice loses its bored tone and her gaze shifts from the pen and pad in her hand to me. There's the slightest smile tugging the corner of her lips. It's because of my accent. She wants to know what part of Alabama I'm from. Now she wants to know why I'm smiling. I used to people mistaking my accent. They think all Southerners sound like Forrest Gump.
I end up ordering something called 'The California Calzone'. I'm either going to end up satistifed or hungry and agitated. It could go either way. I've always had a thing for pretty eyed girls. It started in the 3ed grade. Casey Porter. She had these amazing blue eyes. I always thought that If I looked into them long enough, I would be able to see the ocean. She is the first girl I ever loved. It was Valintines Day and she was sitting in the corner of the class, trying to cut a love heart out of a piece of red carboard with a pair of scissors that wouldn't be able to cut though warm butter. I watched as her brow knitten and her tongue peeked its way out of the corner of her mouth. Those baby blues shimmering with undevided concentration. I fell inlove with her that day.
