Finally, Dad gets hold of her arms and pins her against the trunk of her car. She’s breathing hard and muttering, “You’re a worfless sonvabish. You know that? Worfless.”
I suggest that maybe we should pack her into the Mitsubishi and drive her home, but Dad’s like, “Thanks, Sutter, but I think I better drive her over there myself. I think I’d better talk to her alone.”
“You want us to follow you?”
“No, that’s all right. You go on back to my place. I’ll meet you there in thirty minutes.”
“Are you just going to leave her car here?”
“It’ll be all right.” He smiles like everything’s going great.
“You’ll be at your place in thirty minutes?”
“Thirty minutes on the dot.”
Chapter 61
Thirty minutes. An hour. An hour and a half. No Dad. The sprinkling turns into a hard rain clattering on the roof of the car. Fat streams cascade down the windshield.
“I don’t think he’s coming,” I say and take a long pull on my whisky and Seven.
“Too bad you don’t have his cell phone number.”
“Wouldn’t help anyway. I don’t have a cell phone.”
“I thought you got a new one.”
“I lost it.”
Lightning flashes and thunder cracks so close you’d think the sky’s splitting open right above the car.
“It’s getting pretty bad out,” I say. “We probably better head back home.”
“We don’t have to. We can wait as long as you want.”
“What’s the use? Same old Dad. Long gone and no goodbyes.” I crank the ignition and pull away without bothering to take a last glance at the duplex.
For a while, we’re both quiet. I don’t even put on any music. It’s just the thunder and the windshield wipers sloshing. By now, I’ve had plenty of time to let the grand, long-awaited meeting with Dad sink in. What a bust. I can take it that he really did cheat on Mom. She could be pretty mean. But the guy doesn’t seem to care about anything or anyone but himself. Jesus, he didn’t even remember I was coming down to visit. And then there was that lame business about how he wanted to be there so much for me and Holly. But what? He lost track of time? You don’t lose track of time if you really love your kids.
Now he’s scamming crazy Mrs. Gates. Does he care if he breaks up her marriage and makes her kids hate her? No. He doesn’t understand the first thing about family. If he did, he couldn’t have left me sitting in my car in the rain outside his crummy duplex after I drove all the way down here to see him. But I guess my forty-five minutes’ worth of love was up a long time ago.
All these years, I cut him slack. I made up excuses about how Mom chased him away and it was her fault he never called or visited. He was really a good guy, I told myself. At least there was one parent out there that still cared about me—my great, majestic dad.
Yeah, right.
Nobody had to chase him away. He was all too glad to ditch us. He probably ran up a bunch of debt before he skipped off too, left it for Mom to pay off, or to round up Geech to pay it off for her. No wonder she can’t stand having me around. I remind her too much of the old man.
And that’s what’s really scary. Maybe I am like him. Maybe I’m headed nowhere but to the same Loserville he ended up in.
From behind, a car horn blares. I guess the Mitsubishi must’ve meandered about six inches into the other lane, and some dude back there thinks he’s traffic control. I’m like, “Fuck you, dude.” There are a lot more hazardous types on the road than me—cell phone talkers, chicks putting on makeup, guys searching their floorboard for some crappy CD they dropped.
Truth is—if I have any skill at all—it’s that I’m a magnificent driver under the influence. My record’s completely clean, not counting a couple of parking lot scrapes and a light pole. That thing with the dump truck was in my mom’s car and I didn’t have a license then. The cops didn’t even get involved. I mean, it’s not like I’m driving around with a four-year-old lodged in my grill. So that dude can just f**k off with his horn blowing. He has a lot worse things to worry about than me.
Finally, when we’re back on the interstate north of the city, Aimee starts trying to make me feel better, going on about how she actually likes the old man and how it’s too bad that Mrs. Gates turned out like she did. “I don’t understand how she could get so mad about your dad having affairs when she’s obviously cheating on her own husband.”
I’m just like, “I guess it’s because people suck.”
I’m not in the mood for feel-good bullshit. This is an abnormally dark stage in the life of the buzz. Darker than dark, like God has forsaken his very own drunken boy.
“Not all people suck,” Aimee says. “You don’t.”
“Are you sure? You saw what kind of guy my dad is—a big fat liar and cheater. The kind of dude that sheds his family like a snake sheds its skin. Are you sure I won’t slither down that same rut? They say the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Do you really want to move off to St. Louis with a snake-apple bastard like that?”
“You’re not a snake or an apple. And you’re not your dad. I think it’s a good thing you found out the truth. You can learn from what he did wrong. If you don’t want to be like that you don’t have to. We all have free choice.”
“Free to choose what? Some kind of spectacular new future for myself? You heard my dad. Mom wanted a future and he didn’t have one to give her. Well, I don’t have one to give you either. It’s like a birth defect, you know? The boy born without a future.”