Sunday, May 8, 2011

readeeming me

"SON!" he yelled intolerantly, angry.  The fifteen year old was drunk and trying to make himself a milkshake at 2:30 in the morning. "Son" his father said to him, the blender was off, the bananas were everywhere. "Where's the yogurt dad?" the boy asked, his eyes bloodshot and the corner of his mouth full of some thick goo. "You smell bad son!" the father said, scolding his juvenile son with a stern honesty that was known to settled the boy down since he was in elementary. Settle him enough to cause him to softly place the gallon carton of milk on the counter and start crying. "Why does it hurt so much dad?"  asked the adolescent, inebriated, a heap at almost sixteen years of age sinking into the kitchen counter. "You're mothers not gone Josh" said the middle aged, single father of one. "Dad! shut up fuck!" the boy shouted picking his head up. "She slept with someone else dad!" the voice, adolescent, pained. "It's all her fault! Who'd she think we were?" The trauma was settling in, his father could see the boy's heart beginning to be worn on his sleeve, sensitive to his usual dispositions but not used to it; accustomed to having his mother be inflicted by it. It was his first time drinking, he had crept into the liquor pantry. His father sat there watching his son suffer, tears running down his young face. "Do you know what love is son?" the man asked the boy directly, Josh just laughed. Knowing the boy as well as he did he was envisioning his son's ingestion of the quarter liter of vodka. "He must have drank it fast... and he's gonna be sick he won't remember a thing" the father though to himself. "Hey boy?" he asked, Josh was reeling in self defeat, he was reprehensible. "Josh!" the father yelled, the boy just looked up sulking, "Dad?...Why do I have to hate her so much." His expression spelled chaos and his father knew it. "That pain, Josh, the way you feel, that's love." The man stood over his son, "that's the way it taste's" he said then fell silent, looming, the boy bowed his head and cradled his face in between his arms. He could smell the laundry detergent, then the thought of his adulterous mother doing his laundry fell into his mind. Then he though about seeing her kiss him, just him. "They were in love dad" he screamed, "Ha" he proclaimed "do you know how I know?" He waited but his father just stood and stared, the boy looked up and said "love?..I know what that is then dad, she did this to make us feel this way. We feel this way because she loved him because she always will" The boy was exhausted, he was sad, his father sat next to him and said "Love son, has a stinger, and makes us get up and drive the kitchen haywire, but you know in your heart that with your soul you love her right?" he asked the question directly, watching, waiting for the answer. Josh turned up to his father sitting next to him and said "I miss her dad!" lowering his head letting it fall onto his fathers shoulder he wept. The two sat there  in  silence until Josh picked his head up with a small smile and with a vivid sign of relief, he most have truly seemed  happy to have his father there for him through all this hardship. Looking down toward his child's blameless eyes, he knew that his soul was going to be sunk but he also knew that his son could not doubt the heart of his mother, her intentions, "Son" he said gripping the boy by the shoulder, his hand full, strong and the grip tight, Josh looked up at his father, their eyes met as Josh's father showed him true love and said "I had already cheated on your mother son, a long time ago! Non of this ever mattered son, I was, I am worse!"

1 comment:

Bum Atom said...

When you don't know what love is, you grow dependent on the pain of life! Then you eat almonds!