More Than Good Enough(2)

My dad marched up to me, wiggling his hands in the air. “Rocking out” on air guitar. Yeah, that’s what he was doing. God, just kill me now.

“Very cool,” he said. “How long you been playing?”

“About an hour,” I said.

He looked confused, then gave me a fake-ass laugh. “No, I mean, when did you start taking lessons?”

Dad had never heard me play, but he’s the one who’d promised to teach me. Obviously, that’s hard to do behind bars. So Mom dragged me to Suniland Music, this place inside a strip mall. A player piano gleamed in the front window, the keys thudding all by themselves. Mom said it was “high class,” but it always scared the shit out of me.

Dad tried again. “So, I hear you’re switching schools. What’s going on with that?” He scratched his goatee, one of his “very cool” props, in addition to the “awesome” cargo shorts and the “bling” around his neck. Yeah, he was living the thug life.

This whole situation was making me sick. Without saying anything, I picked up my skateboard and shoved past him. Dad was yelling at me. There wasn’t much I could do about it. What did he want? I couldn’t go back in time and change my grades.

I slammed the board on the concrete. God, I used to skate, like, the second I woke up on Saturdays. Now the deck was chipped and I needed to glue it back together. The bearings were gunked with dirt. Basically, I’d been abusing that board with neglect, just like the rest of my life.

As I rattled across the driveway, I made up lyrics in my head. Nothing that deserved an award. Just random phrases about the darkness, how it swallows you whole. Guess I was talking to myself. Pretty sad, I know.

The neighbors at the end of the block were really getting into Christmas. They had this massive palm tree in their yard. All the fronds sparkled with plastic snowflakes. It must’ve taken them forever to decorate it. At that moment, I couldn’t decide if I admired their efforts or thought they were balls-to-the-wall crazy. Maybe both.

Somebody had plunked a Dixie cup onto one of the lower branches. This made me so mad, I rolled over there and snatched it up. Then I didn’t know what to do with it. I kept skating until finally I just left it in this lady’s mailbox. She was mean, anyway. One time, she called the cops because I was playing my bass at night. It wasn’t even that late, but old people

have no concept of time. They’re always sleeping.

When I got back, the garage smelled like bacon grease, this morning’s leftovers. Mom hadn’t even started making dinner. A bad sign. I dumped my board near the door and barged inside. Dad was sitting on the couch with Mom. Even worse, he had his arm around her, like she was his personal possession. I watched him blink and knew he was telling some bullshit story.

“ … needs to learn how to restructure his time,” Dad was saying.

I wanted to restructure his face.

Mom got up, real fast. “Where have you been?” she asked. “You can’t just run off like that.”

Before she could hug me, Dad was there, smashing his gut between us. “Go to your room,” he said, which was totally laughable. There was no place I’d rather be.

Everybody was screaming. I could hear them from the kitchen, where I checked below the sink for Dad’s tackle box. His secret stash. Not exactly a secret. I pulled out a bottle and shoved it in my back pocket.

I slammed the bedroom door, making sure they heard. It didn’t matter. They were busy with their own issues. Besides. The High Life was calling. I took out my lighter and hooked it under the bottle cap. Just one twist and it was mine.

The Miller dribbled foam all over the carpet. Great. Now my room stunk like those crackheads on Biscayne Boulevard, the guys with the cardboard signs saying WILL WORK FOR BEER. I mopped up the mess with some dirty boxers I’d tossed under the bed. Then I took a long gulp. Dad was yelling in the other room.

“You think this has been a vacation for me?” he said. “Well, it’s not Disney World.”

Mom was blabbing about “negative emotions” and “talking it out.” I could hear everything through the cheap drywall. Yeah, this was officially the worst day in the history of Trent.

I grabbed my iPod and scrolled through the playlists. For some reason, I hadn’t deleted my ex’s stupid mix. Why? I had no idea. And another mystery I couldn’t explain: Why was I listening to it?

Maybe I should’ve tried harder. Michelle wasn’t the perfect girlfriend, but I had no right to judge. And now I was switching schools. This was insane. Part of me was like okay, good. This gives me a chance to start over. I could totally become a different person.

At the same time, I was kind of freaking out. Reality had sunk in. The blank days of Christmas break. Nothing to look forward to in this house. The same empty rhythms. Waste the whole day playing Gears of War on the Xbox. Just me and

the Delta Squad.

Man, this sucked.

I chugged the beer so fast, I almost gagged. Soon a fog settled inside me. Usually when I drank alcohol, it turned down the volume in my brain. This time, the beer had the opposite effect. All my dark thoughts multiplied. Their weight dragged me into a black hole, the final resting place for a billion dead suns.

My bedroom door swung open. Dad lurched over to the desk and sort of collapsed. No respect for privacy whatsoever. He looked so pathetic sitting in that troll-sized chair, gawking at my Chiefs of America poster. I couldn’t help noticing that he and Sitting Bull had the same pissed-off look.