Read Online Breaking Brooklyn by Scott Leopold - Free Book Online Page A

Grandma Daisy filed
for divorce and Grandpa Bob disappeared for several years. I think
when he returned and came back into my mother’s life he tried to
make up for not being there after she got married.
    There was uncomfortable undertone to the way
they interacted with each other. Nevertheless, they were
inseparable, always there to support each other’s addiction. When
Grandpa Bob got really drunk he would start pimping my mother out
to his friends like she was a prostitute. When this happened I'd
sneak out to my treehouse and draw. I don't even want to know what
went down when I was gone. Like Grandma Daisy once told me, "Some
things are better unknown; revealed they can leave a permanent
scar." Grandma was right, I didn't have much room for another scar
and scars on top of scars start to disfigure one’s soul.
    Grandpa Bob would go on drinking binges,
disappearing for weeks at a time. When this happened, my mother
would be stuck with me. This was never a good situation. She would
try to behave because she knew Grandma Daisy would find out, which
would give her grounds to get custody of me. My mother wasn’t about
to give up her shiny chess piece. So when she couldn’t cruise the
bars, the party was brought to the house. It was pretty horrible.
There was an endless parade of men in and out of the house. Having
a ten year old kid around was definitely a buzzkill. During these
times my mother would break down and send me to Grandma
Daisy’s.
    At one point it got so bad Grandma Daisy
forced my mom to enroll me in the elementary school in her
district. This way she didn’t have to keep driving me back and
forth. School 45 was just a few blocks from her house, so I could
walk to school in the morning and back in the afternoon. Each
public school in Indianapolis had an individual number. There were
about forty-eight in the city. I swear I had already attended about
half of them.
    That year, I was starting fourth grade for the
second time. My mother’s instability was affecting my grades. Even
though I was held back I was still way behind the other kids in my
class. I felt stupid, but school hopping made keeping up more than
difficult. Especially for a kid who lived with a mother who didn’t
give a shit about him. Like many things in life if it hadn’t
happened this way I would have missed out on something
great.
    I will never forget the day I met my soul
mate. Although she wasn't my soul mate at the time, I knew the
minute we met I could love her forever. I think people often
misunderstand the meaning of soul mate. It's so much more than love
itself. It's what love eventually evolves into. It's what we feel
when we are old, when vanity and lust have withered away, when the
only thing that matters is true friendship.
    Like the beginning to all good love stories, I
noticed her from across the room. She was the most beautiful girl I
had ever laid eyes on. My body was consumed by a feeling I had
never felt before. It was a mixture of fear with a jolt of pure
adrenaline.
    I was the new kid in the class getting the
“who’s that" stare. Brooke’s earthy green eyes focused on me, only
me. Her glance made my heart pound. It felt like a thousand
butterflies had invaded my stomach.
    She was so beautiful. She had thick, black,
curly hair, and emerald green eyes. Her skin was smooth, with round
cheekbones that accentuated her soft, warm, smile. She was
absolutely breathtaking. All these years later the image of her at
ten is seared into my brain. I even remember what she was wearing.
Brooke made her simple dress with pink flowers look stunning. As
she walked up to the teacher in her white, open-toed flats, she
glided like a figure skater on ice. I was so fixated on her that I
saw no one else in the room.
    I was abruptly brought back to Earth when the
teacher introduced me to the class. Color rushed up my neck and
into my face like a thermometer. I suddenly noticed all the kids in
the room staring at me from their wood topped