Chapter 2

Dad is the king of cutting remarks. Hah, cutting, I’ve only quit doing that. I’d just play with a razor blade when I was bored, well, when I was so angry and hurt I couldn’t do anything at all—I mean, anything useful. I’d just cut the inside of my left arm where nobody could see unless I rolled up my sleeve. I think some people knew, but nobody ever asked about it. The last time I did it, it looked like a tattoo, like a kanji for ‘pain’ or something, and it almost made me laugh at myself. After that I just didn’t do it anymore. I finally figured out it wasn’t helping me at all. I just hope Chris isn’t hurting herself. I’ve told her to tell me if she is, but I don’t know if she will.

Then there are the obvious things Dad does, like, I wanted to go to college but he said I’m not smart enough. And Chris wanted to go to modeling school and he drove her up there but he cursed the whole way and drove like a maniac. I went with her and she was in tears by the time we got there. He made a scene in the waiting room and while she did get to have her tryout and interview, they turned her down. I felt so bad for her that when we got home I went to go into her room and give her a little present I’d gotten her, just a string of pearls from a used stuff store, but her door was locked and I could hear her crying. She was in her closet and didn’t come out until the next day, when we had to get to school on our own, cos we missed the bus and Dad wouldn’t drive us. I dunno why, I even remember that part, but I think it was just Dad’s way of getting revenge or making a point or something, you know?

I gave her the gift anyway, but she didn’t seem to care and later I found out she’d given it to one of the special ed kids at school and said it was from me. That seemed kind of mean, but I could see where it came from, how much pain she had inside that she just had to vent some of it. I had to eat lunch with the girl for the next two weeks so as not to hurt her feelings. Everyone made fun of me but that just made me more determined to treat the girl nicely. I’m glad I did, which you’ll understand when I get to it. Her name is Julie. The kids call her ‘Jewelry’ or sometimes worse things. I told her they called her that because she is a gem. So I guess when I saw the pearls on her, it really made her day. It’s really neat when something good comes out of something that was intended to be mean, isn’t it? It’s like the cavalry coming in the nick of time, or seeing the jerk that just cut you off get a ticket. Of course, sometimes you have to make the good happen yourself. I wasn’t sure what to think, but I’ll always feel good about doing the right thing with her.

This is probably getting boring or else you’re waiting for the axe to fall, but I dunno, it’s not all black and white. A lot of our home life was just dull, sometimes gray and stormy. If we said anything back to him, or called him on some of his shit, Dad would just back up and say, ‘What? It’s true isn’t it?’ or ‘The truth hurts, doesn’t it?’ or something blistering, or sometimes he’d just raise his eyebrows and half-smile. You just never knew what was coming.

Then one day he caught me in his bedroom. I’d been missing Mom so much, I was looking through her drawers, just trying to be close to her, you know? I mean if I found some clue to where she’d gone that would be terrific, but I really wasn’t expecting to. I found her scent—she loved lilacs and roses—in her lingerie drawer, and was holding a nightie up to my face, just thinking of her and how she had smelled to me, when she was hugging me or came to soothe me after a nightmare, and the door opened and Dad came in.

When I looked up over the nightie at him, my eyes were full of tears. My heart started to jerk and then pound and I wondered if he’d kill me or just laugh, or maybe tell me how shitty I’d look wearing that. Instead he just grew still, and cold emanated off him like waves. I could feel the temperature in the room drop. ‘Get-out of here,’ he said, so low and growly my blood turned to ice. I rose, let the nightie drop, and left abruptly. I felt anger rising beneath my fear, or behind it, I dunno, whatever those new age people say when they say you’re masking your true feelings. I was angry. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I hadn’t found anything wrong. Why did he have to make me feel as though I was wrong, as though I was a mistake through and through? For the first time in a long time I went to the basement and hid behind the old couch down there, like I used to do when I was little and didn’t want Dad to find me. He never had, and so I felt like it was my safe place. (You’d think he’d have figured it out, with the amount of dust I’d get in my hair, which is dark like Chris’s and Mom’s. Maybe the curls I hated so much hid the dust.)

I have to admit I cried a little, but at least I didn’t suck my thumb. Okay, I stuck it in my mouth to see why I used to like it so much. This, since I’m gay, not that anyone knows yet, made me laugh. I laughed until I fell over. Then I calmed down. As I did, noticing the dust particles above me and the rips on the back of the couch from our old cat Purrl, whom Dad had nick-named She Devil, I began to notice something else. First there was a tiny scratching noise, and then a smell. Something was off. Maybe I’d left a bit of a cookie or sandwich under the couch? I wasn’t about to reach under and see. I just lay there listening. Did we have mice? It seemed to be coming from behind the wall, but there wasn’t anything back there but crawl space, was there?

Too spooky! I was scaring myself now. I knew it had been a bad idea to write my English essay on Edgar Allen Poe. Then I wondered why Dad still had Mom’s things—did he know something we didn’t? That made me feel even more spooked. Maybe he just really, really missed her, like Chris and I did. Enough. I was getting hungry, so I crawled out, dusted myself off, and went back upstairs to hide in my room until dinner.