Confessions of a Bad Boy(40)
I really do know I’m lucky.
My father was a narcissistic *, and the mansion was nothing but a monument to his ego. He ruled it like a tyrant, compelling people to party there every night as if he thought they were worshipping him somehow. The people who came were on the fringes of Hollywood themselves, not good enough to make it to the proper A-list events. They were desperate, sketchy, opportunistic. Hopeless men with personality deficiencies who came to be fawned over by young, wannabe actresses too talentless to even pretend to like them. The only thing left for all of them to do was to indulge all their inane desires. Drugs, drink, sex. Growing more pathetic as the parties continued while my father, the mansion, and his guests grew older.
My mom got a pass – not because I thought her disappearing act was right, but because I understood it. And she always remembered to call on Sundays and send a card for my birthday, which was more than I could say for my father and the parade of wives, girlfriends, and step-siblings who’d come and go every year as if our front entry was a revolving door.
So that’s how I spent my childhood, right in the middle of it all. A young kid witnessing adults act so stupidly and irresponsibly that even I could tell something was wrong. Raised by nannies that loved me much more than the pithy salaries my father doled out required. When I got home from my private school, I’d beg the help to let me assist with the chores, gardening, cleaning, whatever. And at night I’d lock my bedroom door and put on a pair of headphones, pretend I was somewhere else.
Really lucky.
I should have grown up a mess. A f*ck-up. Seeing all of that before I was even old enough to understand, a permanent sense of unjust anger in my soul, I could have done a million shitty things and forgiven myself. I didn’t, and the only reason I didn’t were my neighbors, who moved into the old, fixer-upper ranch house next door when I was about eleven or twelve. The house was a hand-built bungalow that looked even more humble and smaller than it was for being next to my father’s French Normandy-style mansion. A tiny but meticulously-kept place that became a safe haven for me, that I’d sneak away to at every opportunity to experience a little love and comfort. A home I wished I could live in permanently every second of my childhood.
Kyle and Jessie’s place.
I’m thinking about all this as we drive to the party, but my weighty memories are interrupted by Jessie’s sudden gasp.
“Hey!” she screams from the passenger side. “Stop the car! Pull over.”
“What?”
“Our old house. Look,” Jessie says, nodding towards it and opening the car door, even before I’ve had time to come to a full stop.
“Jessie, wait, we’re already kinda late and I wanna get in and out fa—”
She slams the door shut and I take a deep breath. I’m already struggling to keep it all together, I don’t need Jessie piling on more stress before the birthday party.
I get out of the car and walk around it, stepping towards her with my arms open in a gesture that politely translates as ‘why the f*ck are we stopping?’ Jessie’s too busy leaning in to inspect the signpost hammered into the front lawn to notice.
“Look at this, they’re selling my old house!”
“Oh. Yeah, that sign’s been there for months now.”
She stares at me like I just asked her to solve a math problem.
“What? Months?”
“Yeah.”
Jessie continues to stare at me. I shrug in reply. The truth is that I drive past this place all the time. The house definitely holds some memories, but it’s hard to be sentimental about something when you’ve worked so hard to bury your past.
“Well why is it still for sale? Doesn’t anybody want it?”
Jessie spins around to look at it, as if reminding herself. It’s still a nice place, with a welcoming front porch, but the blue paint is peeling, the windows are boarded up, and the white flower boxes at the windows are overgrown with dead plants. It was one of those homes built for families who eat around the dinner table together and spend most of their time out in the yard, tossing a football or planting things in the mulch. Now, amid this built-up neighborhood of cookie-cutter McMansions, it’s just an eyesore.
“Look at it, Jessie. The place is falling apart. If anything, someone’s going to buy the property and then tear the house down so they can build a new one.”
Once upon a time the house seemed like it would stand forever, as much of a guardian as Jessie’s parents, but to look at it now, it’s hard to believe this is the same place the three of us would go on scavenger hunts or hang out in the treehouse, or just hole up and play board games on rainy days, gazing out the window at passing cars as we waited to make our move.
“How can you say that?!” Jessie shouts indignantly. “This place was my home! I thought you loved it as much as I did!”
“I did. But it’s only me and you – and probably Kyle – who feel that way. About all it’s good enough to play home to now is memories. Even your parents moved out the second they could.”
I shrug and start walking back to the car as Jessie casts one last, longing look at the weather-beaten wood siding.
Once she joins me in the car, I start to feel the tightening in my chest again. I rev the engine and drive down the road, and a few blocks away I reach the driveway of my father’s house, and slowly guide the car between the tall iron gates. As if sensing my increasing anxiety Jessie asks, “How are you feeling?”