Daddy!

Papa was a stationary stone. Even when he was out on the road in his big ol' truck, I am inclined to believe that his heart was at home, he was there for us while he could be. When he'd return after days on the road in his big ol' 18 wheeler,he seemed so happy to see my mother and I. They'd get high and make love standing, while I basked in my wonderous three year old world beneath the sheets on their bed. I remember the smell of incense and sex.

He told me that if I ate too much candy, I'd get worms. "Worms, what's that?", I asked him. He told me that actual worms would start to crawl out of my butt. I was terrified, although I am not sure that I eased up on the sweets. One day he came into the house with a paper bag, when he revealed what was in it to me on the floor of our big barren house, I exclaimed "Oh shit". He told me not to say that.

I was walking with him home from the bus stop, I was looking down at the sidewalk as I walked. He said a bit impatiently that I should not walk with my head down, I should look up when I walked.

He took me with him when he went to coach an inner city youth football team. He was Coach Oliver. He'd brag to the guys about how fast his daughter could run. He'd tell them that I could beat the fastest of them in a foot race. I raced one of his players as we were leaving the recreation center for the day, and he beat me. I felt like I'd let my dad down, I felt horrible. Once my father took my brother and I to a football game, with his friend and his friend's son. He didn't have much money, and he gave me what he had to get a soda with his friends' son. He told me to share the soda with my brother, I don't think that he wanted his friend to know that he couldn't or wouldn't buy two sodas, I'm not sure. I and his friend's son walked around for a while after getting the sodas and I'd forgotten all about my thirsty little brother. When we returned to our seats on the bleachers, my brother reached for the empty can I was holding. A look of oops fell over my face and my father looked at me with anger drenching his own. I felt horrible. Once my dad and his friends took us camping. All of us, their offspring, were greatly excited. When we got there we ran around and played like wild animals, to be honest. Someone got hurt, a scraped elbow or knee or something. The men became frustrated with us and needless to say we didn't get to stay the night. They said that it was time to go. We were dissappointed, and I felt horrible. Once when I was out on the road with my father in his big ol' truck. I went back into the cab's bedding area. A canvas shade hid me from my father's view while he drove that big ol' truck. I found some pornographic magazines in a bag back there. I sat looking through the pages of these magazines. Naked black women, breast and bush exposed is what I remember. My father lifted the flap to check on me, and found me looking at his reading material.He got very angry, and told me to stay up front with him. I felt horrible for much of the remainder of the ride. There seems to be a theme forming here. Maybe it was best that my father was busted for drugs when I was ten. Maybe I was spared a youth filled with feeling horrible. Maybe it was best that he returned to jail the same year he was released when I was sixteen, to spare me feeling horrible for the guilt and pity I felt for him when I'd see him around or when he'd come by.

His parents died when he was young. He was the oldest of his brother and sister. He grew up really charming charismatic and popular, he was a football player. He met my mom on the drug scene in D.C. They had me. My grandmother never cared much for him. His youngest biological sibling, his sister was murdered at a gas station someplace. Someone slit her throat. People say that I look just like her. His brother, because of a hospital suite was able to afford college. He went on to make alot of money and travel as some sort of engineer. My dad because of drugs had to depend on his little brother for money alot. Money to pay the bills to keep his family sheltered, fed and clothed. My dad must have felt horrible.

My mom kicked her habit, but my dad would/could not shake his. She had a sister killed too, and demons chasing her of her own, but we, my brother and I, were enough to make her choose not to use a life consuming drug to deal with them. Why weren't we enough for him?