The first time I took a car ride alone with my step dad.
I had my first soccer practice at the same time ren had a doctors or dentist appointment. Mom wanted to go with ren because it was his first appointment and she had to get everything set up, Before we left she seemed stressed out and on edge. We hadnt finished unpacking all our things yet, and there were bits of evidence all around. My mom kept going through boxes, and bags looking for something, I don’t know what. My brother and I sat under the dining room table playing beanie babies, I had my shingaurds on ready to go. My shingaurds were red and white and shiny. I would hit them hard with my fist to show ren how strong they were. He asked if he could kick me in the shin to see if it would hurt. I let him kick my shin, and it hurt but I pretended it didn’t. As we played with our toys, I kept ooking up at mom to make sure she was okay. Tony was leaning against the counter watching her, smiling. He kept saying things he thought were funny and telling her to just calm down. She would look up at him and half smile before returning to her hunt. In my head, I think of her plunging her hand in and out of boxes, as her head rolls around 360 degrees and she mutters bad french words to herself. Its like a repetative loop thats never ending, like a scratched record. i don’t know whay I remember it that way, her head was securly fastened.
I was going to be late for soccer so Tony took me before mom found whatever she was looking for, I still dont know what it was. As we were walking at the door I said
“Tony, regardez!” He looked down as I banged my fist against my shingaurd.
“very good” he said and we went to the car.
Tony had npr on the radio and I didn’t like it. I asked if I could change it and he said no. I didn’t like the lady’s voice on the radio, it sounde like someone who had risen from the dead and then voiced her political opinion on public radio. I saw a building with a gold dome, it was so beautiful. Tony said it was harvard business school. I couldnt believe we lived so close to harvard, I had heard of it before, it was the smartest american school. I looked at the people on the street and I thought about how smart they must be. I asked a lot of questions and I asked them as they came, I was speaking in frenglish becasue that was how I spoke to mom and it was hard not to. Tony would make me re-ask every question in only english. But then he got tired of my questions so he turned up the radio. The dead sounding woman’s voice filled the car and I didnt want to look out the window anymore. I missed my dad alot then. I felt like he would be looking out the window too asking me more questions than I asked him. I felt like Tony didnt want me in his car, he face told me that. I really missed my dad, but at least Tony didn’t smell like cigarettes and malt liquor. I kind of missed that smell though. Tony smelled like new car and cologne, it was gross and made me feel gross. I felt gross like that a lot during that time.
I asked Tony to stay and watch because I wanted him to see how good I was, but he said he couldnt. He just didnt want to, he wanted to drop me off there and forget about me. I felt like saying “I don’t want this either jerk face. Lets just go home.” But we were both playing by the rules, fuck that.
Soccer was fun though. I was the new kid, but I was good at soccer and it felt good to be active. There were a lot of girls there, I felt anonymous which I really liked.
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