Day Three

“Look, our families are kind of close right? And you and Samantha have been friends to some extent for a long time. I just don’t want to see you throw that all away. Most relationships are destined to fail. I’m not saying that’s the case with you and Sam, but the odds are against you. Besides, you got enough on your plate as is without trying to add dating into the mix. Just do me a favor and don’t do anything to sudden or too rash, okay?”
“Okay, Dad. Are we eating dinner together tonight?”
“I don’t think so, looks like another exciting night of YOYO, you’re on your own!”
“Okay, I have some work to get done. I’ll be done later for a sandwich or something,” I said.
“Keep your chin up kiddo, life will get better. I promise! Who knows I might even torment you a little less,” he said reaching out and messing up my hair again.
I slid my feet to the floor and unpacked my book bag. The thing was big enough for a small Vietnamese family to live in comfortably. I didn’t understand why they made every book eight inches thick and a minimum of five pounds.
There was a narrow walkway between my bed and my desk, which the bag blocked if I didn’t put it against the far wall where my mirror was hung.
Of course the narrow path was nearly always filled with clothes in varying degrees of cleanliness. Dad had tried to make me keep an inspection ready room, but Grandma Knave ruined that plan. She had pictures of his bedroom when he was my age, and it was far worse than mine ever got.
I flipped through my assignments and stared blankly at a project prompt for history class. I debated just picking the independent option. There were pros and cons to each option, but in the end I caved and decided that at least a partner would make doing the assignment a bit better than working on it myself.
I grabbed my phone and sent Vincent a quick text. Vincent Moretti was as Italian as I was Irish. Perpetual tan and the start of a six-pack that I envied, not enough to follow the workout regimen that he kept, but I envied it just the same. We had been friends forever due to proximity during elementary school. When middle school rolled around, we realized that we did actually like each other. Now that that we had started high school, time would tell, but it did look like we’d be friends until graduation.
To vincent: got a partner 4 his prjct?
From vincent: nah, whcha thinking?
To vincent: do it tgthr?
From vincent: K i'll B ovr…
That was step one. Step two would be deciding what to do. I screamed down the steps, “Mom, Dad, Vincent is on his way over to work on a history project. Can we order a pizza?”
“You call, and I’ll go get it,” Mom yelled back, “and your dad can pay. He owes you that much.”
“Cool, thanks!” I dialed the pizza place down the road and got a extra large meat lovers supreme pizza some cheesy bread sticks and a two litter of soda. I wouldn’t have gone all out, but Dad did owe me.
“Thirty to forty minutes,” I yelled down the stairs.
I heard Vincent bounding up the stairs two or three at a time. He burst into the room and threw himself on the bed.
“So did you really almost get arrested?” he asked staring at the ceiling.
“I don’t think it was that close,” I spun around in my chair and faced him.
“I dunno, looking at the video of it, I’d say you were pretty close to the poky.”
“Video?”
He turned his head and looked straight at me, “The joys of cell phone cameras. YouTube and facebook is popping. You just might get enough hits to make it on some stupid criminals or America’s stupid videos or something like that.”
I grabbed my itouch and pulled up my account. Someone from school had tagged me in the video and it already had twenty plus comments. Talk about embarrassing. I opened my laptop to get the whole story. The YouTube page was even worse. People can be so cruel.
Some of the comments were pretty funny, terribly mean, but funny. I certainly didn’t deserve the base interpretations of my intelligence, but it was pretty funny. The more I watched the video the more I could laugh.
“Your dad is a bit of an ass, but damn dude, his abuse of you does make for good entertainment.”
I threw a dictionary at him, “Yeah, well I can have my dad talk to your dad about helping you become a YouTube sensation.”
He threw his hands up in defense, “No thank you. I’m just growing into my stride. Before long I’m gonna have girls knocking on my door and begging for dates.” He was flexing and posing, still lying on the bed. “Speaking of dates, have you asked Samantha out yet?”
“Nope, I don’t know, man. I’m starting to think my dad might be right. He thinks it’s a bad idea. I just don’t know. I mean, let’s face it. I don’t have any money. I can’t drive. Having my mom, or god forbid my dad, pick her up and drive us somewhere seems pretty lame.”
“You gonna owe me,” Vincent said smiling. I didn’t like the idea of owing Vincent. He had that creepy mobster smirk he got when he was hatching a sinister plot. It said that payment would include an interest compounded quarter hourly.
“Spill, what’s up?” I asked.
“You know the old house at the end of the street?”
“Old man Jablonski’s place?”
“Yeah well, turns out Jablonski’s dead.”
“That’s terrible,” I said.
“No that’s freakin’ awesome,” Vincent said getting excited.
“Dude, it’s terrible. There’s a special place in hell for people like you,” I said.
“Yeah whatever, you’re going to be in the cabana right next to mine, so shut the hell up.”
“Okay, I’ll play along. You piqued my interest. What does a dead old guy have to do with my dating issues?” I asked curious where Vincent was going.
“Well Old man Jablonski was a widower,” Vincent said nodding his head and pushing his bottom lip out. He was so proud of himself, but I still didn’t get it.
“Sad but again, I’m not seeing where you’re going.”
“He didn’t have any kids,” he said raising his eyebrows.
“Okay so Jablonski was a childless widower,” I said.
Just then my mom knocked and brought in the pizza and bread sticks and soda with a couple cups. “Don’t make a mess,” she said. She turned to leave and then spun back arching her eyebrows, “Did I hear you guys talking about Mr. Jablonski?”
“Yeah, Vincent was just telling me how he had passed away and didn’t have any family. It’s really sad,” I said.
“Yeah,” Vincent said, “tragic.”
“It really is,” mom said looking pensive. She didn’t say anything else, just turned and walked out shaking her head.
Vincent turned and buried his face in my pillow screaming into it. Then he sat up half laughing and dove for the pizza box. He poured me a glass of soda.
“Thanks,” I said too soon. He poured me a glass and then started drinking out of the two liter.
“Damn,” Vincent said folding two pieces of pizza together. “Your mom almost busted us.”
“What are you talking about?” I grabbed a cheesy stick and some marinara sauce.
“The party,” Vincent said shoving more pizza in his mouth.
“What party?” I asked.
“The one you’re going to take Samantha to,” he said. Only it sounded more like, “Ha wa yua goin ake Samanato.”
“What?”
Vincent swallowed way too much at one time and smacked my leg, “The one you’re going to take Samantha too.” He smiled like he had just solved all my problems.
“Oh,” I said, “That makes it as clear as mud.”
“Aiden, you make no sense sometimes.”
“Me,” I said getting excited. “What the hell? You’ve been talking about a dead old guy and now a party. I don’t get it.”
“We’re throwing a party. Don’t worry, I’ll front you your part,” Vincent said obviously proud of himself.
“Good god you’re dense. We’re throwing a party at Old Man Jablonski’s house, and you’re going to take Samantha, and best part is…you ready for this?”
“I’m ready,” I said cocking an eyebrow. I didn’t know how much more bizarre this conversation could get.
“My older bother is getting us a bottle of grain to make jungle juice.” He got up and danced at the foot of the bed singing, “Jungle juice, that juice will make them loose, we’ll be drinking jungle juice.”
“Cut it out freak before we get busted,” I said.
“So you’re in?” Vincent asked, looking hopeful.
“Yeah, I’m game. I mean if you’re going to go,” Vincent joined me as I finished my sentence and together we said, “Go big.”
Vincent put his fist out and I bumped it. Typically I hated the new high five, but he had earned the bump. No doubt that the plan involved many variables any one of which could get us into serious trouble, but if we got away with it. Well if we got away with it, we would be gods!
“Wait,” doubt was rearing its ugly head. “What if—“
He cut me off, “No what ifs. Only what will bes. You’ve got to believe!”
“Dude, I have no money,” I said worried that my shot at glory, my shot at Samantha would crash before take off.
“No worries. I got some money. You got skills. We can work out a trade,” Vincent said winking. Admittedly, I was scared.
“What kind of skills?” I asked.
“You’re getting us in the house,” he said, tapping my leg and shoving an entire cheesy stick in his mouth.
I didn’t want to ask, but I didn’t really have a choice. “How?”
“All in good time,” he said and winked at me. “Let’s take a look at this knight project.”
“You scare me,” I said turning back to my desk pulling out the assignment sheet.
“Why?” Vincent asked and then added in his best godfather voice, “is it because I made you an offer you can’t refuse?”
“Yeah and because you’re pretty much pathological.”
“Don’t use big words like I don’t know what they mean,” he said jerking the assignment sheet from my hands. “I want to do something with the Knights Templar. I can dig the secret society stuff. Option three looks pretty easy,” he said handing the paper back to me.
I looked at the sheet. The third option was a powerpoint. It seemed straightforward enough. “Don’t you think one of the other options might be more fun?” I asked.
“Dude, we have a party to get off the ground by Saturday. I don’t think we have time to go all ape shit crazy on a school project. “
“Bt still,” I said, “I was just saying that maybe one of the other projects would be more fun.”
“Aiden, WTF man? This is school. School is not supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be endured. Look we can slap this together pretty quickly. I like the topic. That’s something,” he said emphatically.
“Right, good point.”
We got to work on a powerpoint outlining the history of the Knights Templar and under Vincent’s direction we spent most of our slides on the myths and lore about the knights rather than the boring history or papal authority.
When Vincent left, we had the project done, even though it wasn’t de until the next week. We also had a plan for how to pull off the party. It would involve some prep work on Friday night so we could pull it off on Saturday. It would take a little bit of effort, but in the end, it would be worth it. What had me more worried than how Vincent planned to get me into the house was asking Samantha if she’d go with me. The other issue, which I didn’t want to worry about just yet, was what I was going to tell my parents so I could escape for the night.

.....

I tacked random things on the walls: cut outs from magazines, pieces of models I’d worked on, comics I found funny or truthful, souvenirs of all kinds, even doodles from my notebooks with slogans to live by.
My room had only recently gotten a door. Mom had decided that I was too old to still have a wide-open room. I was thankful to be able to keep little Knaves out and just close out the world! I had fought my neurosis as long as I could. I kept my head under the pillow and reached up to the headboard of the bed slipping my ipod out of the dock. The volume of the music instantly reduced without the help f the speakers. Kimya Dawson was singing playfully.
I rolled to my back holding the ipod over my face, sliding the pillow behind my head. The harsh light of the room seemed unnatural. My fingers instinctively connected to my facebook app. I had to know if I had any notifications. Nothing popped up. I checked my wall to see if there was something there, again nothing. Well, I thought maybe no news is really good news.
Then I heard it. An instant message.

Samantha: you okay?
Aiden: fine, u?
Samantha: you took a pretty bad hit
Aiden: ☹ you saw that?
Samantha: yeah, haha, no worries
Aiden: yeah my dad really thinks he’s funny
Samantha: he is
Aiden: not so much if you’re his kid
Samantha: true i guess
Aiden: I know…so did you follow me out
Samantha: it was kind of funny, when you tried to take out the mannequin, I wanted to see the rest
Aiden: I’m glad my pain is entertaining for you
Samantha: hehehe
Aiden: seriously not cool
Samantha: but you have to admit if it wasn’t you, it would be funny
Aiden: maybe
Samantha: don’t be mad…it was kinda cute ☺
Aiden: so glad you like klutzy guys
Samantha: w/e you totally faceplanted on the door and still managed to get to the car
Aiden: it was pretty cool outside of the faceplant
Samantha: glad you’re okay ;-)
Aiden: thnks
Samantha: will I c-ya tomorrow
Aiden: what’s tomorrow?
Samantha: school
Aiden: right…yeah…c-ya tomorrow

Samantha’s status went to offline, but I couldn’t stop staring at the screen. I did a capture to save it for later. I looked back through our conversation and read it again and again. I completely analyzed the chat, knowing the whole time that it was ridiculous and that the chat was simply friendly and nothing more.
Nevertheless, I analyzed it. I tried to suck any meaning I could from the lines and between the lines. Her first concern was my safety, a good sign. She had giggled/laughed at least twice, another good sign. And she had smiled at me. But best of all, she had winked. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, I knew that these things meant nothing, but that didn’t stop me from reading too much into them.
Let’s be honest im is good and fun, but you can’t get a real feel for what people are thinking. There’s no subtext like there is during a phone conversation or a face-to-face chat. However, I wanted to be persuaded, so I persuaded myself.
I had grown up with Samantha. We had always been kind of close, but things change. We left elementary school and went off to middle school together, the best of friends. Then something happened. I blame chicken.
Sounds crazy, I know, but I blame it all on chicken. We reached the sixth grade and suddenly things change. The scary and freakish rite of passage known as puberty had attacked like a pack of lionesses taking down a gazelle.
Samantha got boobs and I got pimples to go with my freckles. She shot up the social ladder and I couldn’t find the bottom rung. But I was funny and so every rung tolerated me to a point. Samantha and I started talking more before we moved to the high school, but I knew better than to get my hopes too high.
But I still hoped. I hoped for more from the girl next door that I spent my life chasing and never really catching.
Looking back, I can see the danger in my hoping. I had enough on my plate, and Samantha’s sudden interest in me could have simply been her way of practicing her game.
I flipped back to my facebook and changed my status: is floating in a sea of incongruity.
I half laughed and redocked the ipod. I didn’t shuffle this time. I wanted a very specific song: “Palabras más, palabras menos” by El Canto del Loco.
Sure it was in Spanish and all I knew it said was more words, less words…I think, but I liked the sound, and since it was in a foreign language, it was easier to allow it to say what I needed when I needed to hear something.
I let myself sink back into my bed. I pulled my comforter up over my head. My life would have been bad enough what with my tortured soul and love for a girl who probably didn’t notice me like that, but I wasn’t lucky enough to only suffer the slings and arrows of young love, I had to suffer through the bizarre sense of humor that only my old man. Could get away with for so long without child protection services taking his kids away.
I could feel his presence well before he spoke. I just wasn’t going to acknowledge him. He tapped my foot a few times, but I didn’t move. I wasn’t about to make this easy for him.
“Okay, I get it,” he said pushing my feet to the side, “You’re mad.” He sat down on the edge of my bed. “Okay it was a dick move to run out while you were talking to Sam—“
“Samantha,” I corrected pulling the covers down.
“Sorry, Samantha, but believe me she’s been Sam for a long time. My point is this, I’m sorry.”
“For what?” I asked.
“For being a jerk, okay. But hey it builds character, right?”
“Your type of character building, Dad, tends to leave scars…physical and emotional.”
“Stop being melodramatic. I haven’t emotionally scared you for weeks!”
I pulled the covers back over my head. Dad reached over and pulled them back down. My ipod had quit playing when it reached the end of the album. “Look kid, I know how it is. It wasn’t that long ago that I fell in love. I’m just worried about you. I know how you are and I know how Sam—Samantha can be. She’d a lot like her mother in that respect. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“Okay so you’re saying I should just forget the whole Samantha thing. Fine. So what do you suggest?”
“Chase some other skirts. Hang with your boys. Just don’t get all involved with a girl who isn’t likely to return your feelings. You love passionately, kiddo. You throw yourself into everything with a reckless abandon, but when that initial fire begins to smolder, you move on. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“You already said that,” I said.

Knaves and Other Tomfoolery

Knaves and Other Tomfoolery

Brady Knave should have died when he was twelve and fell from the top of his great aunt’s crabapple tree. Brady Knave should have died when he was fourteen and threw himself off the backside of the bridge at Sheldon’s Rock. Brady Knave should have died when he was sixteen and pulled out in front of a transfer truck in his little car. Brady Knave should have died when he was seventeen and got lost on his way home from a concert, returning his then girlfriend to her overprotective father six hours late.
But Brady Knave didn’t die any of those times or any number of other times that he had flirted with death. The truth is that Brady Knave was the kind of kid that people said wouldn’t live to see his eighteenth birthday. Then when he did, they would say that he wouldn’t make it to twenty-one.
Nevertheless, Brady Knave had beaten all the odds. He had lived well beyond his anticipated expiration date. Even Brady was little shocked that he had lived as long as he had. He would often talk with a hint of longing in his voice of the days when he lived wild and recklessly. He had tried to live his life according the words of octogenarian Mavis Leyrer, “Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely, in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting “Holy shit, what a ride!””
Brady had slowed down though and so had his metabolism. He finally looked healthy. He had a good life, but that’s why I hated him. You see Brady Knave is my father.
His wild hair is still as red as it ever was and his heart was still as free as could be. But when your dad lived wild and free, it’s hard for a kid to get away with anything. My dad should have died so many times, but he lived. He lived to make m life hell and embarrass the holy living shit out of me every chance he got.
He thought he was funny, and he would have been a flipping riot if he was someone else’s dad. I would have laughed what little ass I had right off, if I’d seen anyone else’s dad screaming across the mall, “Aiden, I found a girl who will go out with you. She’s deaf and blind. I think you have a shot of losing your scarlet V.”
Keep in mind that I was talking to Samantha McKinney, the cutest, sweetest, best looking girl in the freshman class. Yeah, Brady Knave should have died in his twenties, but instead he lived beyond his expiration date, got a career instead of a job, found a wife to tolerate him, had kids, put on a few extra pounds, and started slowly killing me.
Had he died when he twenty-two and on a dare drove his best friends car off the end of a peer and into the Pacific Ocean, I would never had been born. And that would have been better than watching Samantha McKinney laughing at me. Never being born would no doubt be better than becoming an even bigger social pariah.
As if my father hadn’t done enough to keep me from getting a date simply by passing on his genetics, he felt the need to humiliate me at least weekly. I mean I was lucky if I weighed one hundred pounds soaking wet holding bricks in each pocket. I had wild unmanageable bright red hair that my dad somehow always managed to pull off. I was a skinny little redheaded freak, with a father who thought my purpose in life was to be his entertainment. He often said that the difference between him and Mom and other parents was that most parents think that their purpose is to take care of and provide for their children, but my parents believed that children were there for the entertainment of their parents.
He’d say, “Aiden, when your mom and I decided to have kids, we promised ourselves a few things. One was that it wouldn’t change who we were. That promise we mostly kept. Someday you’ll learn how having children always changes you somewhat. But we weren’t going to let having kids keep us from doing the things we enjoy. Another was that we wouldn’t do for the first what we knew wouldn’t last for the rest. We disciplined you and treated you like you had some sense before you did because we knew that children aren’t born civilized. These people with ungrateful brats for kids are to blame for it. They raised them to be that way.”
He was right though. I’d give him that. I appreciated what I had and what I got because I knew that life wasn’t easy and things didn’t come without working for them. I knew how to work for what I wanted and I knew how to be polite and respectful even when I wasn’t getting what I wanted. But sometimes he was unbearable and in that moment as I felt the redness rise to my cheeks and turn my normally nearly transparent skin to a rosy red, I just wanted him to be gone.
In my family there is an expression that I bet a lot of other families use as well, “If it wasn’t for bad luck, the Knaves wouldn’t have any luck at all.” The family curse held true!
My dad in his tuxedo shirt and bowler cap proceeded to walk up and put his arm around my shoulder. Then he proceeded to check Samantha out. I don’t know which was worse his mentioning my virginity or my old man looking at a girl in my class like he was appraising a house for work.
“So what’s going on Sam?” he asked.
“Dad, she prefers Samantha,” I whined.
Samantha was shaking her head and mouthing, ‘It’s okay,” but my dad wasn’t taking that. He proceeded to give me a noogie and say, “I remember when you and Sam used to play together all the time. Matter of fact, I think I have a picture of you tow in the bathtub together with bubbles all over the place.”
He elbowed me in the ribs like somehow taking a bath with a girl when we were babies was an accomplishment. My face went from red to extra pale as I died a little on the inside.
“Hi Mr. Knave,” Samantha said.
“Whoa,” Dad took his arm from around my neck and put both hands up, “My father wasn’t even Mr. Knave. Brady, Sam, just Brady.”
“Okay,” Samantha said awkwardly, “Brady, how are you?”
“I’m rockin’ and rollin’.” He turned his head back to me. I hoped and prayed he’d just say something like I’ll meet you in the car, but not my dad. “Aiden, I’m heading to Hot Topics before we leave.” Now if my dad was not totally convinced that my pain was his gain, he would have turned and walked away, but this was my dad and my nightmare to live.
He turned and looked back at Samantha, “I need new piercing.” And then he winked.
Sam blushed and stifled a smile. I choked back a mouthful of vomit. I was seriously considering looking for a way out. I harbored the thought of throwing myself over the railing that Samantha had been leaning against. The idea of my bloody corpse landing in the middle of the food court below seemed a far cry better than standing here next to my father who refused to quit killing me with his sad attempts at being cool.
“Anyways, Aiden, be at the car in twenty. Sam, tell you dad he still owes me twenty bucks. What kind of idiot bets against the Steelers? I don’t care if Johnny Unitas was QBing for the other team.” Then in a final act of parental bullying, he reached out and messed up my hair before he started to walk away.
“Bye Mr.—“ She was cut off by my dad spinning on his heals, “I mean Brady.”
“Catch ya later, Sam I am. Aiden, if you’re not at the car when I get there, it’s shoe leather express for you my little friend.” He never looked back, just waved over his shoulder.
I seriously considered turning and running. But I couldn’t run far enough to escape the kind of damage that my father could cause.
“I’m going to need so much therapy,” I said.
“It could be worse, Aiden. At least your dad is funny, besides he’s kind of cute and charming.”
“You wouldn’t think so if he was your dad. Trust me. He’s far from funny when you’re the object of his razzing. Wait you said he was kind of cute?”
“So?” Samantha asked raising her eyebrows. Her eyes were smiling, but her lips stayed pursed.
“You said the other day how much I look like my dad.”
“Got a point,” Samantha asked, all out smirking.
“You think I’m cute,” I said smiling.
“I said kind of cute,” Samantha looked over my shoulder towards the exit. “Well, Aiden, I’d offer you a ride home, but we’re not going straight home.”
I was still lost in the idea that Samantha McKinney, the cutest, nicest girl in the freshman class, maybe even the school, thought I was cute, well kind of cute.”
Samantha giggled a little and kept raising her chin trying to get me to look behind me at the exit. I didn’t get it and started giving her the "what’s up" head nod back. She grabbed my arm and spun me around, “Aiden, you better go.”
To my horror, there was my dad dangling the car keys and laughing. When he saw that I saw him, he turned and darted out the door.
“Damn it!” I screamed, “Dad, you said twenty minutes!” I took off at a full sprint. I heard Samantha say goodbye behind me. I had to react quickly.
Unfortunately, The old saying about hindsight being twenty-twenty tends to be true. When the dust settles and the storm passes, it’s almost too easy to see which way you should have turned. It’s even easier to watch someone in a play or a movie make poor choices and say to yourself, “I would have…” But the truth is that you would have made the same dumb mistakes. And it’s also true that only when we reflect on what we’ve already done, can we truly say what would be the best course of action to take.
When you’re in the thick of it, when you’re eyeball deep in the action, you make the best decision for the angle you are seeing. It’s about perspective really. The difference between hindsight and foresight is perception not reality.
In that moment, I knew I didn’t stand a chance of catching my dad if I went straight at him. He was still too fast even if he was carrying an extra twenty pounds from when he was a record setting sprinter.
Instead of heading straight to the exit, I swung to the right and headed into Sears. I was in a dead sprint and probably looked like a shoplifter on the run. Like I said hindsight. I raced through the wide doors, struck a mannequin, powered through and kept going. I was leaving angry employees and a wave of chaos in my wake as I bobbed and weaved through the store heading to the back corner where the vision center and tire center were. I knew if I could make it out that door I had a fighting chance of cutting my dad off before he got out of the parking lot.
The trick would be getting out. I could see the door and hear the shouts from behind me. I had tunnel vision. I was keeping my eye on the prize.
I kicked it in for the last ten yards, digging deeper than I thought I could. The door was coming fast; I realized a moment too late that the automatic doors weren’t fully automatic.
CRASH! The next thing I saw were lights then worried faces, and then angry faces.
“What were you thinking?” scolded the mall security officer as he jerked me to my feet. I could feel the lump growing on my forehead. I could see my dad’s red Jeep getting ready to pull out of the mall. All was lost, or was it?
“RAPE!” I screamed. It wasn’t much of a distraction, but it was enough. The guard instinctively jerked his arm back, which gave me enough time to rip the door open and fly out. I was nearly hit by a sedan heading into a bay to get new tires or an oil change. Rolling over the hood, I hit the ground running and sprinted up the hill.
For once, the gods had smiled on me. My dad had caught the light. I leaped over a final hedge, fumbled with the door handle, clambered into the Jeep just as the light changed to green.
“Put you seatbelt on, freakshow!”
All of that and all he had to say was put your seatbelt on. I buckled the h=belt and fought to catch my breath.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I can,” Dad said laughing.
“You’re an asshole, Dad.”
He reached over and playfully cuffed me in the back of the head, “I’ve been accused of it a time or two, but it’s never been proven in a court of law.”
“Good lord! I’m calling shenanigans!” I said indignant.
“You can’t call shenanigans on something like this,” Dad said.
“The hell you say,” Dad cuffed me in the back of the head again.
“Language, Freak.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“So according to the code,” my dad loved to invoke the code. As far as I could tell, the code was entirely invented by my dad and revised as needed. “Shenanigans can only be called during game play.”
“Don’t tell me that this isn’t a game to you?”
“It’s funny to me, but I wouldn’t call it a game,” he said shifting gears. My dad loved to argue and felt like it was his duty to make sure I could too.
“Shenanigans, which is the equivalent o calling BS, which would get me cuffed in the head again, is usually used in a game when one party feels they’ve been cheated. It is appropriate in this case because I totally got cheated when I got you as a father.” My mood had lighted some since I could breath again.
“Tread lightly counselor,” Dad laughed.
“I’m just saying, mom is a good looking lady, and I’ve seen pictures of her in her prime. She was smokin’ hot. She could have done so much better than you.”
“If you mom picked someone else, you wouldn’t be here you freak.”
“I might prefer that, but as it has been well established one possible future doesn’t eliminate the other. I would have come to be, just with a human father.”
“You cut me deep…you cut me real deep,” my dad said slumping against the door.
“Road!” I reached for the wheel, but Dad corrected himself fast enough o keep us out of harms way. “Some day, your shenanigans are going to get someone hurt. And it will probably be me. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Come on, exercise is good for you!”
“Dad, I was nearly arrested.”
“What for?” he asked.
“My guess would have been that they thought I was a shoplifter. I rocked through Sears like a man possessed trying to beat you to the light.” I tenderly felt the knot growing on my head. I was hoping to skip that part of the story.
“What happened to your head?” He asked looking over.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” I said looking out the window.
“You hit the door again didn’t you?” Dad banged on the steering wheel and laughed so hard I thought he was going to have to pull off the road to regain his composure enough to drove the remaining few blocks to the house.
Right before we climbed out at the house, Dad held me back and said, “Aiden, I know I like to mess around a lot, but Sam, well if you’re thinking of going there, I’d rethink it.” I tried to object but he stopped me. “I know it’s your life and you can do what you want, but it’s not a good idea. That’s all I’m saying!”

I tried to avoid the thought of Samantha most of the time. I did occasionally talk to her and think it would be nice if we were more than just neighbors and friends. But well before my dad said anything, a voice way in the back of my head was trying to tell me it wasn’t a good idea.
It just wasn’t a good idea. We’d been friends for too long, our families were too close, and to be honest, we ran in completely different circles. I was a free phone with a new two year contract on a basic plan, but Samantha was an android phone with a 4G network and unlimited web and messaging.
Samantha and I had been friends a long time. But the heart wants what the heart wants, even if it is terribly cliché. That’s all I could think about was how incredibly trite the whole situation was. The slightly below average guy falls for the popular girl who only sees him as a friend. In fiction and the movies, that kind of story line happened again and again. Did that mean there was some truth to it?
I threw myself on the bed and docked my ipod. I hit shuffle and let the tunes flow randomly. I fought the urge to check my facebook for updates. It was an obsessive thing with me. Anytime I was within range of a wifi hotspot or open wireless access I wanted to continuously check my e-mail and facebook. It was an addiction. That I knew. However, in the grand scheme of life, it seemed to be a fairly innocuous addiction that really would never leave a victim in its wake.
I buried my head under a pillow and let the melodies of The Shins carry my troubles out the open window. My room was my sanctuary, mind you most sanctuaries tended to be cleaned regularly, my room wasn’t. My room was seldom if ever cleaned.

Here Goes Nothing

I am going to attempt to blog my NANOWRIMO novel. I figure I will either update a single blog entry or put a new entry at the end of each day. Chances are I'll forget to update this from time to time, so we shall see!