Daddy’s Little Boy, Part 1
So much for prom. I don’t know why these things happen to me. I didn’t ask for a limo flambéed, yet here I sit in the back seat. The driver dances as he tries to put his skin out. Human fat sizzling smells worse than the fake, vinyl upholstery burning. Still, I should do something to save my date from frying to death, I suppose.
“Dad?”
Yes, son?
“I need a little help.”
* * *
I used to have such a normal life. No Norman Rockwell, white picket fences, riding the Radio Flyer down the street type of normal; more like watching Saturday Morning cartoons on a fourth-hand couch while eating my sixth bowl of Fruit Loops with extra sugar because Mom had to work a double shift type of normal. My friends and I had worn-out skateboards from the local pawn shops because our parents couldn’t afford the bike prices. Well, when I say “parents,” I mean my Mom. She was going to school and working at a diner when I was growing up. Then, she put on a white dress shirt, navy slacks and went to work as a paralegal so we could afford a better, less-shitty place to live.
But what did I know? All my friends in the barely above the projects apartment complex had the same life. We all went to the same school. We all wore the same crappy clothes from Goodwill or second-hand shops. During the summer, one of the parents would act as day care, usually someone’s Dad who was laid-off from the factory, and we would run the streets looking for stuff to do. When it got too hot, we’d hit Josh’s place. He had an old PS we found in the trash. He hid it from his folks in case they’d try to hock it when one of them fell off the wagon.
It was good, right? We didn’t get hurt beyond the scraped knees or occasional bruises. We were never bullied, probably because the type of guy that would was too afraid to come into our neighborhood. The crackheads never bothered us, nor the homeless. We didn’t bother them. There are worse ways to grow-up.
Hell, I didn’t even think about my dad. Plenty of my friends never saw their dead-beat fathers. I figured mine was the same. Mom must have been waiting on pins and needles for me to ask, but I didn’t. I learned at an early age that parents aren’t gods. They’re just human.
What did I know?
* * *
“Dad, the car’s on fire.”
Verily, childe, how did this come to pass?
“Dad! I’m in a rented tux and my date’s corsage is about to go up in flames. Would you please do something?”
* * *
On my thirteenth birthday, my mom took me to the local ice cream shop. A single scoop of Superman ice cream didn’t make up for all the years without cake or presents, but it was good enough for that day. Mom laughed as I raced to keep the ice cream from running onto my hand. The sun was out. The summer was hot. I remember hearing someone mention “Friday the 13th” by the screened, ordering window.
“Nathaniel? You know, I love you, right?” Mom said. She smiled. It wasn’t something that Mom did often. I think that’s why I remember it. She smiled. “No matter what, I love you.”
“Okay, Mom, geez.”
Later, I hung out in the vacant lot waiting for Joey to get out of summer school. We planned to build a fort, but we were still in the planning stages. It wasn’t like I could gather supplies or something while I was waiting. I kicked around a few rocks before I heard his voice.
My childe. Oh, my childe, the day has come. I bid you a hail and hearty day of your birth.
I ran all the way home. Don’t ask me why, but I wanted home and Mom and to hide under my bed. I covered my ears. It didn’t help.
I am your father. Fear not! I shall not harm ye.
Mom tried to coax me out. She promised cookies and TV dinners and whatever I wanted to watch, but the voice wouldn’t stop. It was deep. It rattled my skull like a gong. I started crying and didn’t stop until the voice noticed.
‘Tis far too much for ye wee mind, childe. Rest. Your mother will explain. Interrogate the woman that bore ye.
* * *
“I don’t know, Dad. I have no idea who set the car on fire.”
Were you not in the motorized vehicle?
“Yes, I was, but I was talking to Maggie.”
The wench was the distraction. We should smite the conspirator!
“She was nearly burned to death. I don’t think so.”
The automobile’s operator?
“According to the EMT, fried right up.”
Many a soul wishes to keep me in Hell. You have many enemies, my son.
“What else is new?”
* * *
Six weeks. Six weeks of my Dad yapping on like he does, about our destiny and how we would do great things together. We would conquer the world and set it right, blah, blah, blah. My mom thought I had hit my emo phase because I did nothing but blare her Smiths’ albums as loud as I could. Don’t ask me why The Smiths drowned him out, but Metallica, Manilow, and Mozart didn’t work. Weird, but whatever.
After six weeks, I asked Mom about my Dad. She made this face that I will never forget. It was like she smelled dog shit on top of baby puke wrapped in moldy newspaper. I don’t know if it was the memory of him or something else. Whether she knew about me or not was impossible to tell. She turned off the TV. She sat next to me on the couch and told me about my father.
He picked her up when she was in Reno, dealing black jack. She was eighteen, but lied about her age across the board to get work. She said he looked normal: nice eyes, regular hair, not too skinny, and not too stout. She remembered he was funny. While he kept losing, he made the funniest comments. She said she just laughed and laughed – until the pit boss told her to go on break.
He asked her out for a drink. The next night was dinner. She said, “One thing led to another, and he spent the night. I don’t know why he didn’t try anything before that night, because he was so nice that I would’ve done him after drinks.”
These are things a son should never know about his mother. Anyway, after that night, she never saw him again. About a month later, she started to worry. Sure enough, pregnant with no way to reach him. So, she had me and moved back with her Mom and Dad for a while. That didn’t last long. Grandpa the alcoholic never let her live it down – his slut of a daughter. She figured it would be better on the streets with me than in that environment. It didn’t happen. She worked whatever she could get to keep a roof over our heads.
I asked her if Dad was weird, if he showed signs of hearing voices or anything. She said, “No. He was funny and nice, not the sort of thing she ran across every day.”
“So, there was nothing wrong with him. Did he ask you anything weird or wear anything weird?”
“No,” she scowled until a thought crossed her mind. Her face lit up. “Yeah. On the second round of betting, he asked what denomination I was – what my faith was.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I’m an atheist.”
All Short Stories by Mary Lewys is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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