Some Peoples’ Kids III

By Kate Freeman

Captain woke up in a puddle of his drool. He sat up and whipped the side of his mouth with his right sleeve. Then he felt the moisture on his left thigh. He looked down to see a wet napkin and then he remembered Tina. Oh damn. . . I owe that girl an apology. . . It ain’t her fault.

 Captain got up to get a drink to moisten his dry mouth. He glanced at the clock on the wall as he made his way to the kitchen. He’d slept nearly two hours. His head ached and he still had a slight buzz.

 The smell of the kitchen nauseated him. He held his breath as he fished around the sink for a cup without mold growing in or on it. As quickly as he could, he rinsed out an old plastic Hardee’s cup and filled it with water. He walked quickly back to the living room before drinking. After he finished his glass, he looked about the room and shook his head in agitation. That kid didn’t do nothin’ again today.

 Captain walked slowly through the kitchen toward the rooms at the back of the flat. He could make out his son’s huge silhouette against the lighted TV screen. There Jeremy set in the filthy tattered pink recliner, wildly pressing buttons on a hand-held controller. A knife-welding hand wildly slashed at flying orange demons on the TV screen.

 “Son. . . I’m home.”

 Jeremy didn’t look toward his father, but made a slight grunt to acknowledge his father’s presence.

 “How was you day?”

 “Same as it ever is. . . What’s for dinner?”

 Captain reeled back from the question and stared at the ceiling. “I don’t know. I ain’t made real plans. . . What’d you do today, Jeremy?”

 Jeremy hit the ‘pause’ button, turned around, and looked his father in the eyes. “What’d you do today. . . dad?”

 “Look, I don’t want to start an argument. I just want to have a conversation.”

 “Bout how lazy I am? Bout how fat I am?”

 “You sat here all day playin’ that game didn’t you?”

 “So what?. . . I ain’t in the mood for you now, dad. Are we doin’ dinner tonight or what?”

 “Look. . . Why don’t we clean the kitchen together and then afterwards, I’ll make us dinner.”

 “I’m not cleanin’ nothin’. . . There ain’t no reason too. Where we gonna to put the trash?” Jeremy asked knowing his father hadn’t paid for trash pick-up for some time. “I would like dinner before midnight,” Jeremy said rolling his eyes and fishing beside his left butt cheek and the chair for his TV remote.

 Captain felt his temper rise and walked back into the living room. God damn lazy. Won’t clean the house. Won’t even help. Fat-ass gonna die livin’ like this. Captain stretched his arms to the ceiling and then bent over to reach his toes as best he could. He repeated this action eight more times before he felt calm enough to talk to his child again. He walked back through the house, stopping in the doorway of the room that contained the 280-plus-pound teenager.

 “We can’t live like this Jeremy! We need to make changes!” Captain exclaimed and then waited for his child to make a response.

 Jeremy turned off the TV and swiveled around in his recliner to face his father. “What do you want to change?”

 Is the kid serious or just being a smart-ass again? Surly the kid knows what I’m talkin’ about. The Captain took a few moments choosing his words carefully. “The doctor says your health is in great jeopardy. He says your heart is very stressed. If you dropped a few pounds. . .”

 Jeremy stopped listening as soon as the Captain got out the first few words. He got up from his chair and grabbed his wallet and backpack. He pushed his father against the wall as he left the room.

 “Don’t go son! Please don’t go! We need to talk about this! We need to do somethin’. . .”

 Jeremy walked out the front door, slamming it hard as he left. Captain stood in the living room silent for a few moments. Then he fell to the floor and began to sob. Oh God help me. What do I do? Oh God help. I just want to help the boy. Why can’t I talk to him? The Captain sobbed for some time before crawling over to the couch. Lord knows where that boy goes. Oh God just let him know I love him. Captain continued to sob as he reached behind an end table beside the couch. He pulled out a near-emptied bottle of Crown Royal and undid the cap. He took swigs off his bottle as he cried for the future of his only child.

- 0 -

 Jeremy walked up the street at a brisk pace. By the time he reached the main road, he had sweat beading-up over his entire body and it pained him to breath. He slowed his pace and caught his breath. However, anger at his father still had the majority of his attention. I hate him. Acts like I’m the problem all the time. Bastard wants change, then he ought just change. Keep his ass out that bar for just one day and maybe clean the damn house . . .

But then in a flash, Jeremy forgot all his rage. He saw Tammy. She walked briskly with her head down and her arms folded before her chest holding her blue flannel coat shut; shielding out the chill in the air. She walked right toward him. Her presence suddenly made Jeremy very aware of the sweat running down his back.

 Tammy looked up to see the large boy in her path. A huge warm smile lit up her face and her arms fell to her sides. “Hi Jeremy. How you doin’?”

 “Oh, I’m good. Good. Headin’ up to the little store to grab a bit to eat.” Jeremy wanted to fall into the ground as this statement dripped out his lips like his father’s warm drool. Just what the fat kid always thinks about. . .Food.

 “Oh. . . I’m tryin’ to avoid all my family members. I’m like way tired of my nuclear-family-nonsense.”

 Jeremy took a deep breath upon hearing Tammy’s reply. Very few people from school talked to Jeremy; let alone female people. Tammy had always treated Jeremy well. The past couple of months, he had noticed a change in Tammy. This sweet, optimistic, pretty, young girl had started to become sad and even angry at times. He didn’t like to think of her having pain. “Believe me, I feel you when it comes to nonsense family.”

“My freakin’ new step-brother hates me. Like all he does is hound me all the damn time ‘bout how awful I am. Well. . . I hate him too. And my dumb-ass dad doesn’t do nothin’ cept spout his Buddhist-bullshit. Meditating on opposite sides of the room doesn’t make me like the freak-boy. I just sit there and concentrate all my energies on makin’ his head pop!” Jeremy laughed at his small friend’s outburst. She smiled and began to kick at pebbles at her feet. “I left him just now. Isn’t that awful? My dad sent us out on a walk so that we would have our own space to work out our frustrations,” said Tammy. “Jerk went in the dairy to pee and asked me to wait. So I left. Maybe he will work out his problems in his own space.” All Tammy’s facial features became wrinkled and tense during her outpour.

 “Girl. . . Anger doesn’t become you.”

 “I know. When does it look good on a person? But my nice-girl didn’t work with freak-boy. So I’m tryin’ on a new face.”

 Jeremy laughed and mock punched his friends shoulder, getting her to smile again. “Come on. I’ll get you a malt from the little store.”

 Tammy smiled again and turned with her friend back the way she had come. “You know. . . I don’t mind my step-mom. She at least tells her freak-son to lay off me once in a while. But she’s kinda like my dad. She thinks if you just love hard enough, everything will become happy and good. They live in La-la land most of the time.”

 “Oh, then they must have met my father then. He stays on Left-field Lane . . . Just beyond Ain’t-got-a-clue-road.”

 Tammy kept smiling and watched her feet as she walked. “Why does everyone around these parts seem insane?”

 “Every person looks insane if you look at him the right way.”

 Tammy giggled and smiled as Jeremy held the door open for her to enter the little store.

 “Hey boy! What’s up?” said Paul from his metal stool perch.

 “Hi sir,” said Jeremy and the two males shook hands. Tammy stood beside her large friend smiling.

 “You need a sandwich, boy?” asked the white haired old man placing his unlit cigar between his lips and moving his achy body from its usual spot.

 “Yes sir. And could we also get two malts. One cherry and one. . .”

 “Chocolate, please,” answered Tammy still smiling.

 “Sure thing, sure thing.” The old timer hobbled on stiff legs to the back of his store to round up ingredients. He prepared Jeremy’s sandwich in the same manner as he had each of the three days prior. He tallied the order, bagged the Italian sub, and thanked his customers.

Jeremy put his sandwich in his backpack and then he and Tammy walked outside to sit on cement barriers meant to keep derelict cars ending up in the lot behind the little store. Tammy had already popped-off the lid from her Styrofoam cup and stirred her frosted drink around with her straw. “So. . . what makes your family weird?” Tammy asked.

“I only got my dad. My mom died.”

 “I’m sorry.”

 Jeremy shook his head. “I was young. I’m OK now.” He too popped the lid off his cup and slowly poked at his pink-speckled treat. “My dad says all the time that I need to change. I never do anything right. I’m too fat. I’m too lazy. I’m too antisocial . . . He don’t realize. . . I ain’t the one that needs the change. . .” Jeremy trailed of realizing that he had never before voiced how he felt about his father to another human being.

Tammy let the straw fall from her mouth and she continued to stare at the ground. She no longer had the brilliant smile decorating her face. “My dad acts like there’s never a problem. When I get upset and start to yell cause he won’t listen,” Tammy said letting the cup rest on her leg, “he says to me,” then in bright fake smile and wide eyes she says mocking her father, “ ‘You need your space. I am going to allow you your space for you to consider the true source of your anger. When you feel ready to engage me in a more appropriate manner, you may do so.’” Tammy quickly tuned her smile into a very serious scowl and rolled her eyes before lifting the straw to her lips.

 Jeremy chuckled a bit at Tammy’s facial expressions. “You know. . . you could kinda seem like a brat there. All mad at your dad for tellin’ you to not yell.”

 Tammy turned and wrinkled her forehead at Jeremy. She looked very stern. But then they both smiled and laughed at each other.

 Then Tammy continued her story. “The personal space my dad allows me does not serve to calm me down. It serves to give him time to,” Tammy put up her left hand and motioned with a quick up and down movements of her two longest fingers that quotes should go around certain words she spoke, “ ‘physco-analyze’ my behavior and decide which medication we should go through to ‘enhance my understanding of my unconscious motives.’ ” Tammy took a sip of her malt before she continued. “I know the motives of my actions. I yell and scream because I don’t want my freak-verbal-abuse-step-brother to come near me.”

 “What’s the step-brother say to you?”

 “Weird things . . .” Tammy bit at her straw and dropped it back in the cup. “One time we went to a restaurant. That new Thai place down on Grand. I was lookin’ up at the art on the wall and I smiled. Then he freaks out like ‘You ain’t cute just cause you smile. That guy don’t think you’re cute just cause you smile at him.’ Freaked me out so bad I didn’t even want to eat. I just sat there. I wanted to leave. . . Then like this other time, I dropped my books in the hall. I started to pick them up and then this kid that was next to me grabbed up a few of my papers that fell by him and he handed them too me.” Tammy used her hand to demonstrate how the young man hand handed over her papers. “Then here comes freak-boy, ‘The only reason that guy picked up your stuff was so he could look down your top.’ I just stood there. I didn’t know what to say.”

 Tammy sat there waiting for Jeremy to respond should he want to do so. After a few moments of silence, Tammy continued, “It’s just escalated to the point that I start to yell at him now. I can’t help it. I feel like I can’t get away from him. So I just scream at him to go away.” Tammy’s eyes began to moisten. She looked to the ground to calm herself and to not get over emotional in front of Jeremy.

 “My dad just drinks. Doesn’t want to deal with all the bad stuff in his life, so he just numbs it all out. . .”

 The two sat in silence for some time drinking from their cups. Then Richard began to approach them fast; his fists balled and his face red.

 “Well go figure! I find you with some guy! A real sucker! Actually got him to spend money on you, I’ll bet!” Then Richard says to Jeremy, “She’ll be your friend for an hour for that. Then you have to buy her something more.”

 “Now hold on man! There ain’t no need to come up on us all mad like that.”

 “Mind your business! This isn’t about you. This is about her.”

 Again Jeremy tries to calm the red-faced kid before him, “Look man, just lower the violent tone. I’ll get you an ice-cream too, if you just calm down a bit.”

 Richard felt his anger growing. It raised the hairs on the back of his neck and his flesh became warmer. “Don’t patronize me! Apparently you don’t even know what violence means! So just go ahead and drink your shake out that Styrofoam cup! Styrofoam made from oil that oil tycoons obtain by raping and killing other people in other lands! Murderers supported my uneducated, unaware idiots like you who just spend their money on things without a care in the world! Then your cup goes into a landfill in some poor neighborhood, killing the environment for hundreds of years in the future! And by the looks of it, you probably filled a landfill all by yourself with all your ice-cream eating fat-boy!”

 Jeremy just stared at boy as he ranted and flailed his arms about wildly.

 “Whatever,” Tammy said rising from the cement wall. “Let’s just go,” she said to Jeremy.

 Jeremy rose and followed Tammy back down the road from which they had come. She had a very quick pace and Jeremy took long steps to keep up with her. Richard however followed them and continued to yell.

 “Yeah, that’s what I would expect, princess. Just run away from your problems. Just run away like you always do . . .”

 Tammy’s pace quickened and Jeremy started to job beside her. Neither of them responded to the young man still assaulting them with verbal abuses.

 “Can we just go back to your place?” Tammy asked Jeremy hoping to find a refuge from her attacker for an hour or two.

 Jeremy’s heart sank. He couldn’t let this girl into his home. She would probably never talk to him again after she realized he lived in a trash bin. “My dad’s gone and I’m not allowed to have people over when he’s not around.” He found it difficult to breath because of both the extraneous effort put on his body and the lie he just the told.

 “Oh.”

 The two hurried down the road at a rapid walk. Jeremy felt a pain in his side from keeping up his jog for a bit too long. The boy behind them had stopped yelling, but still followed. Suddenly Tammy turned down a side street without warning. Jeremy did his best to remain by her side.

 “Where are we going?” Jeremy asked.

 “I don’t know. I’m hoping Ann’s home. We can sit at her place till freak-boy leaves.”

 “I can hear you, you arrogant little witch! I am not leaving! You are going to have to deal with me!”

 Tammy shook her head and just continued to walk. Jeremy running out of breath reminded Tammy that they could take a short cut to Ann’s house through the woods. Tammy seemed to not really hear Jeremy, but a sudden turn down a dead end street let Jeremy know that she did in fact desire to get to her friends faster. Soon tall oaks and hickory surrounded them on all sides. The other boy, wild with anger, still followed his two victims down an animal path toward the creek.

 “Not leaving. . . Not leaving. . . Still going to make you face me. . .” Richard continued to run his mouth.

 Soon the trio made their way to the creek. Muddy walls sloped downward toward a rocky creek bed filled with about a foot of clear cold water. Jeremy held Tammy’s arm as she carefully inched her way down the embankment before he followed. Their slow movements allowed Richard to catch up and he stood at the top of the embankment still running his mouth. As the two began to look for the best way to crawl up the other side of this ditch, Richard slid down the mud slope right beside the girl and her large friend. 

“Oh they’re trapped now! Going to have to face their reality!”

 “Will you just go away? I don’t like you! I don’t want to talk to you! GO AWAY!” Tammy yelled at her step-brother. 

 “I’m not leaving! You got problems girl! Always want to blame things on other people, but you’re the one with the problem! Always deceiving people with that cute-little-girl façade! But you ain’t cute. You’re just sad.”

 Jeremy tapped Tammy on the shoulder and pointed to a thick tree root jetting out from the ground. He cupped his hands and squatted a bit. Tammy scraped mud from her shoe on a rock before placing it in Jeremy’s palm and he lifted her high enough for her to grab the root and pull herself up to the land above the embankment. Jeremy turned and jumped at the root but missed. Tammy put out her hand to help him up, but Jeremy didn’t want to grab on for fear that he would just pull the small girl back into the mud. He jumped again and this time managed to reach the gnarled root.

Richard kept talking. “Maybe if you spent more time trying to learn and grow as an individual, you wouldn’t have to sleep with every fat loser you came across just to get the things you want. How’s it feel fat boy to know that the only girl you can get is the town whore. . .”

 Jeremy’s mind didn’t register the anger before his body began to react. He dropped from the tree root back down into rocky bed and pushed thin weak Richard backwards. Richard stumbled a bit, but stayed on his feet.

 “Stupid fat ass only knows how to react with violence! Too much fat in the head and not enough brains. . .”

 And then Jeremy struck the smaller kid across the face with a closed fist. Richard fell backwards, tripping over a rock and fell into the water on his back. Jeremy heard Tammy scream as the boy fell, but as the boy sat up, she started to laugh.

 “That’s what you get! Keep pushin’ and pushin’ folk till someone knocks the hell out you!” Tammy picked up a large rock and threw it into the water beside her tormentor, splashing muddy water over his person. “You really deserve this and I’m enjoyin’ every second of it. . .every freakin’ second you physco-freak. . .”

 Jeremy stood before the soaked muddy heap-of-a-boy lying before him. He felt a lump forming in his throat and tears forming in his eyes. He still wanted to hit the boy, but also felt ashamed that he let it go this far. As Tammy yelled from the higher ground, Jeremy grabbed his root and made his way out of the pit. He grabbed Tammy by the arm and pulled her from the edge of the ditch.

 “Let’s get to Ann’s. He ain’t gonna follow us no more.” Tammy seemed almost joyful as she walked beside Jeremy with a big smile on her face. Jeremy did his best to stay just in front of her so that she couldn’t see his moistened eyes.