brother's here, and I don't want to see him."
"The Wild West!" Robert announced. He'd been wanting to go to the cowboy show all morning. Part of his country-western infatuation, I assumed. We'd heard banjo music from behind the wooden fort fence as we'd passed by earlier.
"No way," Edson protested.
But I was the swing vote, and Westernland was far enough away from Spaceland that it sounded good to me. "Let's do it," I said.
"Yee-hah," Edson muttered.
I arrived home that night just after eleven, the three of us having caught the final bus. Tom still wasn't home by midnight, and my parents were fuming about it. Banging his bim in the backseat, I assumed, and I was glad to hear through the walls that my parents were thinking along the same lines. He was going to be in deep shit when he got home.
I was glad.
But that wasn't enough.
I went into Tom's room, found the name and address of the skanky bitch, then went back into my room and took out a sheet of lined notebook paper. Tom Hanford , I wrote, carefully disguising my handwriting, is gay. He is only using you to get back at me because I dumped him. Don't fall for it. I signed the letter Phil and did kind of a flower thing for the dot on the i .
I put the letter in an envelope, sealed and stamped it.
I then wrote to the president of Familyland, enclosing my torn ticket stub, and said that I had had a very bad experience at the park and would not be returning.
A week later, I was sent two more free tickets.
And though nothing was ever said, Tom stopped seeing the girl.
Fuck you, Tom , I thought. And smiled.
Summertime.
And the living wasn't easy.
Life at home was just as bad as ever. During my junior high years, my dad had become, if not a full-fledged alcoholic, at least a more-than-occasional drunk. But after he'd totaled the car and very nearly killed a woman in a horrific accident that was entirely his fault and resulted in a year's suspension of his driver's license, he'd quit drinking and had even become somewhat religious. Not that there was any discernable difference in his personality or the way he treated me and Tom. He was still as mean and angry as he'd always been, and in some ways more dangerous, since the alcohol had kept him a little less focused and now he was able to concentrate fully on one thing at a time.
Like me.
I was, as he never let me forget, a huge disappointment. Despite the fact that he was a complete asshole at home, my father put on a hearty public face and, like a lot of heavy drinkers, was agreeably gregarious in social settingseven now that he was sober. I, however, was socially awkward and to my dad's dismay had yet to go on my first date, though I'd just turned seventeen. He was also a big sports guy. He was fat now and the most exercise he got was yelling at coaches while he watched ball games on television, but in his day he'd been on the high school football, basketball and baseball teams. I was lucky to get a C in PE.
So there were plenty of conflicts to go around.
Luckily, Robert had gotten me a job at Gemco, a discount department store, so at least I had a legitimate reason for getting out of the house at night. Robert had the position I wantedworking in the music department selling records, tapes and stereosbut I was desperate to earn some extra cash, and I was grateful when there was an opening in Toys and he recommended me to the store's assistant manager.
After a pro forma interview, I was hired to work twenty hours a week, eight of them on a weekend day, the other twelve spaced out over weekday evenings. It was an easy job. The hardest thing I had to do was clean up after kids who'd taken toys off the shelves, played with them and left them in the aislesan occurrence that happened numerous times each shift. But my supervisor, Ellis Cain, was a complete prick. The toy department was his domain, and for me to suggest that it was anything less than a demanding job that could be handled by only the
"The Wild West!" Robert announced. He'd been wanting to go to the cowboy show all morning. Part of his country-western infatuation, I assumed. We'd heard banjo music from behind the wooden fort fence as we'd passed by earlier.
"No way," Edson protested.
But I was the swing vote, and Westernland was far enough away from Spaceland that it sounded good to me. "Let's do it," I said.
"Yee-hah," Edson muttered.
I arrived home that night just after eleven, the three of us having caught the final bus. Tom still wasn't home by midnight, and my parents were fuming about it. Banging his bim in the backseat, I assumed, and I was glad to hear through the walls that my parents were thinking along the same lines. He was going to be in deep shit when he got home.
I was glad.
But that wasn't enough.
I went into Tom's room, found the name and address of the skanky bitch, then went back into my room and took out a sheet of lined notebook paper. Tom Hanford , I wrote, carefully disguising my handwriting, is gay. He is only using you to get back at me because I dumped him. Don't fall for it. I signed the letter Phil and did kind of a flower thing for the dot on the i .
I put the letter in an envelope, sealed and stamped it.
I then wrote to the president of Familyland, enclosing my torn ticket stub, and said that I had had a very bad experience at the park and would not be returning.
A week later, I was sent two more free tickets.
And though nothing was ever said, Tom stopped seeing the girl.
Fuck you, Tom , I thought. And smiled.
Summertime.
And the living wasn't easy.
Life at home was just as bad as ever. During my junior high years, my dad had become, if not a full-fledged alcoholic, at least a more-than-occasional drunk. But after he'd totaled the car and very nearly killed a woman in a horrific accident that was entirely his fault and resulted in a year's suspension of his driver's license, he'd quit drinking and had even become somewhat religious. Not that there was any discernable difference in his personality or the way he treated me and Tom. He was still as mean and angry as he'd always been, and in some ways more dangerous, since the alcohol had kept him a little less focused and now he was able to concentrate fully on one thing at a time.
Like me.
I was, as he never let me forget, a huge disappointment. Despite the fact that he was a complete asshole at home, my father put on a hearty public face and, like a lot of heavy drinkers, was agreeably gregarious in social settingseven now that he was sober. I, however, was socially awkward and to my dad's dismay had yet to go on my first date, though I'd just turned seventeen. He was also a big sports guy. He was fat now and the most exercise he got was yelling at coaches while he watched ball games on television, but in his day he'd been on the high school football, basketball and baseball teams. I was lucky to get a C in PE.
So there were plenty of conflicts to go around.
Luckily, Robert had gotten me a job at Gemco, a discount department store, so at least I had a legitimate reason for getting out of the house at night. Robert had the position I wantedworking in the music department selling records, tapes and stereosbut I was desperate to earn some extra cash, and I was grateful when there was an opening in Toys and he recommended me to the store's assistant manager.
After a pro forma interview, I was hired to work twenty hours a week, eight of them on a weekend day, the other twelve spaced out over weekday evenings. It was an easy job. The hardest thing I had to do was clean up after kids who'd taken toys off the shelves, played with them and left them in the aislesan occurrence that happened numerous times each shift. But my supervisor, Ellis Cain, was a complete prick. The toy department was his domain, and for me to suggest that it was anything less than a demanding job that could be handled by only the
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