She takes us into the den.  I like the den, it has a big window I can look out and see all the cars on our street.  We live at the end of the street on a circle, and I can see the whole street from here.  My friend lives right there next to us.

My daddy is sitting underneath the window.  I ask mommy why we didn’t get dressed, she doesn’t answer me though.  Daddy calls us over to him.

Why is daddy crying?  What did I do?  I didn’t mean to splash, we were in the bath, it was an accident.

My daddy tells us to sit down with him, but I don’t want to get his clothes wet.  My little brother sits on his lap, I don’t think he knows he’s getting daddy’s clothes wet.

Daddy is talking to us.  Mommy is standing over in the corner, why isn’t mommy sitting with us?

Daddy is still crying, he is telling us he is going away.  I’m scared, I don’t understand, I didn’t mean to splash water on my brother, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry daddy, I won’t do it again.

He says he’s going away, mommy will stay, but he has to go.  I don’t want you to go daddy.  I’m scared.

When are you coming back daddy?  He says he won’t come back, we will live with mommy from now on.

But why daddy?  I want to live with both of you.  Daddy says he can’t stay anymore.  I hug my daddy, I tell him don’t go.  Please don’t go daddy. I don’t want him to go.  He hugs us tight and then he gets up.

Please don’t go daddy, I’m sorry, I’ll be good.  I won’t splash anymore.

But daddy walks away.

I’m so scared, why doesn’t my daddy want to live with us anymore?  What did I do daddy?  I’m sorry.  I won’t ever do it again, I promise.

1987

I’m not cool.  I never seem to fit in. Most of the kids know it.  I think it’s my clothes.  My clothes never look like the cool kids’ clothes.  I looked for cool clothes a couple of times, but I can never find any. I think it’s ‘cause we never shop at the fancy stores. Mom doesn’t have a lot of money. But it’s not her fault.  Dad never pays child support.  He’s got a new family and he doesn’t come around much anymore.

I swear a lot.  But I don’t cuss around mom, she’ll smack me silly.  But I cuss everywhere else.  I don’t really know why, it feels good I suppose.  I try never to do it around grownups.  They scare me.  The way grownups look at me makes me feel embarrassed.  I get embarrassed a lot.  Kids know it too.  Sometimes at school the cool kids will just stare at me.  It makes my face turn red.  I can’t help it.  I wish I could.  I hate turning red.  Every time the teacher calls on me, my face turns red too.   I can feel it.  The kids laugh.  I wish they didn’t.

I think about dying.  It’s usually doing something heroic.  Like, the church is collapsing from an earthquake and I push Julie out of the way from a falling chandelier.  As I lay dying, she kisses me and says thank you.  That would be a great way to die.  She’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.  I asked her to my birthday party last year, but she didn’t come. I invited her best friend too, just so she’d feel more comfortable.  Her best friend came, but she didn’t.  A week later she gave me a little racecar on a wrist band.  I didn’t really like the gift, but she talked to me. That was great.  Most people don’t talk to me.

I’m very shy.  I know I said I cuss a lot, and it’s true, but it’s mostly when I’m by myself.  I don’t think it’s normal to talk to myself.  I asked mom if I was crazy.  She said that a crazy person would never ask if they were crazy.  But I don’t know.  I think normal people have lots of friends.  I think they talk without turning red.  I think they aren’t so scared all the time.

I’m scared to be home sometimes.  Mom’s new husband drinks a lot.  Mom started drinking too.  He hits her when he gets angry.  Mom screams so loud.  She calls for me.  I get so scared.  I wish I were stronger.  I never want to go when she calls, but I always do.  He stops hitting her when he sees me.  But then she starts hitting him.  Sometimes mom makes me call the police.  I don’t like the police.  They scare me.  When the police show up I go back to my bedroom and hold my little brother.  I’m afraid that one day the police will take them both away and my brother and I will be all alone.

My brother is really smart.  I get angry sometimes because he is so much smarter than me.  He always gets As and Bs.  I get Cs and Ds.  I treat him bad sometimes.  I wish I didn’t.  I love him.  He’s just so much better than me.  He doesn’t get embarrassed.  But I’m glad, too.  He never has to see mom getting hit.  He has lots of friends too.  I think in his grade he’s one of the cool kids.  But he’s just my little brother.  I have to protect him from things at home.  Even if I get angry at him sometimes.

I don’t do very good in school.  I try.  But every time the teachers talk I start thinking about lots of other stuff.  Like if Julie will talk to me today, or if I’ll see my dad on the weekend.  Maybe someone will ask me to spend the night at their house.  I really don’t like school.  I don’t understand why it’s so important.  Mom never asks about it, dad never asks about it.  Other kids always do homework, but I never do.  I mean not after school anyway.  After school I get to go play out in the field and I don’t have to be back until dark.  Mom always let’s me go out and play after school.  I think sometimes its cause when I’m at home I talk too much to her.  But I don’t know.

My brother always wants to play with me.  Sometimes we have lots of fun.  When other kids come around I pretend not to like him too much.  I never see cool kids playing with their little bothers and if I play with mine, they make fun of me.  Sometimes I just wish there was a place I could go where no one made me feel bad.

Sometimes when I get to see dad and we’re alone he makes me laugh.  I love those times.  But most times he’s with his new wife.  She’s mean.  She tells dad not to give us money.  I don’t understand. She has so many nice things.  Dad and her have big cars and they even live in my old house.  I used to love living there.  When mom and dad were together we all lived there.  I still remember it.  I wasn’t scared back then.  I had a big backyard and my brother and I had our own rooms.  It was really great.  But then dad left and mom couldn’t pay for it anymore, so we moved into a small place.  But dad had money so he took the house from mom.  At least me and my brother still get to visit it once in a while.  But it’s different.  We share a bedroom.  It’s strange to see dad’s new wife in our old kitchen.  That was mom’s kitchen.  I don’t like seeing her there.  I don’t like her at all.  She doesn’t hit dad, but she says mean things to me when dad isn’t around, and she smokes.  I hate cigarettes.  Mom’s new husband smokes too.

I was so mad at dad’s new wife once I took a puff off her cigarette when she wasn’t looking.  I know it would make her so angry if she caught me.  I like the idea I can make her upset.  Just like sometimes when mom’s new husband isn’t around I’ll drink one of his beers just so he can’t have it later.  I don’t like the taste of beer, but I just tell myself I’m getting back at him for hitting.  He hit me once.  But I deserved it.  I was playing a game with my little brother and his friend.  I got a knife out and pretended to want to hurt him with it.  I was just joking, but when mom’s new husband found out he got really really mad.  He held me by my hair and lifted me off the ground.  Then he hit me in the head really hard.  I don’t remember what happened after that.  I woke up in the corner.  Mom was screaming and my brother looked so scared.  But I was OK, my head just hurt a little bit.  But mom still called the police.  I don’t think other people call the police as much as we do, everyone always stares when they come to our house.

Dad moved away.  I only see him in the summer now.  Whenever I go he asks if I want to stay with him.  I love my dad so much.  He makes me laugh.  But I don’t want to leave mom and my little brother.  And his wife is so mean.  But they have a pool, and nice things and I bet I could get cool kid’s clothes if I lived with him.  I’m scared that one day I’ll go to visit him and never go home.  Part of me says that if I go with him I could be normal.  The other part of me says I would be leaving my brother to face all the bad things by himself and mom would have no one to stop the fights.  I wish he’d just stop asking me, then I could grow up without hurting anyone but me.

1992

The LSD helps.  For eight hours I’m free.  No bitch riding my ass.  No father to disappoint.  The world melts away.  Everything is good.  I wish I had some right now.  Dad and the bitch are yelling about something.  I can’t even pretend to care anymore.

The bitch is telling him I have to go.  I’m no good.  It’s fed up with me.  I remember a year or so ago the bitch and I had it out.  My father came down into the basement and told me if he had to choose between his wife and his son, he’d choose his wife.  What a pussy.  But I should have known.  Who runs away from a wife and two kids to fuck his secretary?  Coward.

I smoke a pack a day.  I think it likes the fact I smoke.  My father never says anything about it.  I wish he’d tell me to quit.  Never liked this fucking habit much anyway.  I think about the first time, years ago.  I was so stupid.  I left my little brother alone.  I told my mom I wasn’t coming back.  For what?  Four years of hell.  I can’t even remember why I thought it was a good idea anymore.

Some days after school I go into my father’s closet and stick the barrel of his shotgun in my mouth.  I sit in the dark for hours trying to think of a reason not to do it.  I think mom would cry.  My brother would probably still be mad at me.  I don’t even know if dad would care.  Then I think of how the bitch would smile.  I put the gun away.  Those are the bad days.

God I want to smoke a joint.  I wonder what they’d think if I just pulled out the Ziploc bag full of weed in my pocket and rolled a fatty right on it’s precious fucking kitchen counter.  Priceless.  Ah, fuck it, I’m going to go get high.

They yell as I walk out the door.  They always yell.  I never fit into their high class lifestyle.  I go to a school where kids drive BMWs to Taco Bell.  I ride the bus.   But the kids at school are fuqsticks.  They have the IQ of road dirt.  My grades suck, but I do OK in English.  I like to write.  I started when I was thirteen.  The same year I ran away.  I never show my stories to anyone.  Sometimes at lunch I write in my notebook.  I think what it would be like to show mom.  I wonder if she’d like it.  God I miss her.  But she probably hates me now.  I know my little brother does.  They don’t talk to me much anymore.  Who can blame them.

Enough of that.  I lite the bong, take a deep, and smile.  I’m not sure if it’s happiness, but damn it feels good.  I can’t remember what it feels like to be happy.  I know there was a time, before dad left.  We were all camping.  My father had me on his shoulders, my mom and brother were in the camper laughing.  I remember smiling a lot.  It was a different smile than being stoned.  I liked that one better.  I’ll smoke a few more bowls before I head back.  They’ll never miss me.

Go figure, the bitch won’t let me back in the house.  It’s screaming at my father.  It tells me I’m never allowed back in.  My father just stares.  I ask if I can pack a bag.  It tells me I have five minutes.  I go into my room, get my notebook and put some clothes in my backpack.  I look over at my father.  He’s crying.  The last time he cried I was five years old.  He was leaving us.  I want to hug him one last time. I want it to feel like it did was I was little.  He held me and everything was OK.  Why can’t it just be OK again?  I guess those days are over.  I leave to the sound of the door slamming behind me.  It’s getting dark, I better find a place to sleep.

I have one good friend.  But I can’t tell him I’ve been kicked out.  His mom doesn’t know I’m a total fuck up.  She smiles to me when I go over.  I can’t let them know.  I could try a few of my drug buddies.  Nah.  I may be a fuck up, but those kids are losers.  They have no dreams.  Just spoiled rich kids with too much time on their hands.  Ah fuck it, the park bench will work for tonight.

1995

I’m two days away from graduating the toughest training school in the Air Force.  For the last sixty-three weeks it’s been nothing but Arabic.  Eight hours a day, five days a week completely immersed in a foreign language.  In one hour I’ll be taking the most difficult exam of my life.  If I pass I’m a certified Arabic linguist, if I fail I’m a bus driver.  It’s at this moment my girlfriend tells me she’s pregnant.

Women.

Mom, Julie and Leah.  Those are the only women I loved.  Mom gave me a second chance.  Julie gave me a racecar.  Leah gave me confidence.  The girl in front of me gives me a headache.  She’s bad news.  I turned her down a half dozen times, but she was relentless.  Finally I said yes.  I just wanted some peace and quiet.  It was the only time in I didn’t use a condom.  Hi ho.

The exam is straightforward.  I sit in a room with two teachers, neither of whom I have met before.  They start talking to me in Arabic and I respond in Arabic.  I try to keep up.  If I make it to the end, I pass.  If I can’t understand them or answer incorrectly, I fail.  It’s not an easy thing to speak in Arabic when the only thought going through my head is, “I have no idea how to be a good father.”

Our class started with forty students.  Fifteen are taking the exam.  Most students spent the past year studying. I bought a motorcycle, slept with beautiful women, and enjoyed life.  I may not graduate, but damn I had fun.  I wrote.  I laughed.  I loved.  It was a nice change.

One of my teachers comes into the classroom.  He pulls me out of my chair and give me a hug.  Turns out I can speak Arabic.  Now I just have to figure out how to be a good dad.

I ask the girl to marry me.  She says yes.  I promise myself this baby will grow up happy.  I call up mom.  She’s shocked.  It’s a lot for her.  I ask her to tell my brother.  He hasn’t forgiven me.  I don’t blame him.

1997

She’s leaving me.  She’s taking my princess with her.  Please, God don’t do this.