(pure fiction)
I must have been ten years old. I sat in front of the TV, watching some stupid cartoons. You know, the kind with talking animals dropping heavy stuff on caricatures of real people. The kind of nerve-calming replacement of parenthood we all grew up with.
Before my mom went to her room, before she took his new boy-toy to her chamber of light and love, as she called it, before she fucked a new excuse for her life, I told her, that Bobby from school was teasing me, because I didn't have a dad.
She looked into my eyes and after a sincere sigh she said, "Johnathan," she sighed, "Bobby is an idiot."
Her boy-toy looked foreign. Not that my little brain flooded with cartoons and such could really have known any difference. Though, he looked not american, I thought. The bedroom door closed right in front of my face and the sound of a snapping lock followed. For the next few hours I had to keep turning up the volume of my cartoons to make the noises, the banging and moaning and screaming disappear.
Never did I see any of her boy-toys twice.
It was then that I realized it. Not having a dad was not normal. I guess, when you grow up with it, you just grow right into it, too. Some kids have two parents, some simply have one parent plus one interchangeable extra. I never saw enough of the extras to remember any details. All that's stuck with me were the shaking walls, the high-pitched squeaks from springs and bed frames rubbing on each other. My mother praying to God, screaming for his attention.
You know how you always associate one thing with something completely different, because they first happened at the same time?
The melody of this famous Beatles song paints a picture of that summer you fell down the stairs and broke your wrist. Every time you hear this song, your wrist starts to tickle.
The taste of blood, the iron, the sharp pain when you bite your tongue brings you back to the school yard, when the idiot Bobby beat you up for calling him, well, an idiot.
The rabbit saying, "What's up, Doc?" It's like the stranger makes your mother cry in the room next door, all over again. You are a little boy with a parent plus one and that's your life.
As a little boy I believed her every word. It wasn't until years later that I clued in. She was out of her freaking mind. Her entire life was orbiting around her own version of miracles, wonders and bullshit. She was all hyped up on this holistic stuff, like meditations, inner balance, scented candles and energie-transformation-delusions. That was, before all this cosmic-consciousness stuff became popular. You know, before lonely wives made a hobby out of upping there inner-selves, or before self-aware guys, that want to get in touch with their other side. You know, the tarot-lady at three in the morning on TV. You know, the meditation for a better life. Spiritual cleansing one-o-one for the everyday life. Yoga. Feng shui. Holistic healing and channeled angels to find your next step in life. Karma, afterlife, past life and so on. You get the idea.
Her personal self-cleansing was the real thing. Marijuana, a bedroom full of chinese symbols and crystals. The chamber of light and love. Men, to reveal her inner goddess as she gets fucked out of her mind by a stranger. Letting go. Letting loose. Her ritual for finding whatever her version of Jesus was, inside somebody else's naked skin rubbing her sore. On sundays, other kids went to church with their moms and their dads. This little child, however, listened to his mother finding God in the agony of sex. He learned that love is just another drug, another distraction to loosen your bounds and find your inner-self. It had nothing to do with anybody else. It was just for yourself.
This stuff transforms your perception for anything.
What is Dad, I wanted to know.
Not the strangers in her chamber. Not the cartoons. Not God. Imagine to be a ten year old child. You learn that all the other boys in school do things with their dads; want to become just like them. Salesman, Storeowner, Policeman. Realize that the thing, that was supposed to shape you in his own image, your father, doesn't exist. Only strangers.
What would you become?
Might they just be the closest thing to a dad-like figure, to love, to God?
After long enough, when we have nothing to believe in, we are longing to accept anything.
I must have been ten years old. I sat in front of the TV, watching some stupid cartoons. You know, the kind with talking animals dropping heavy stuff on caricatures of real people. The kind of nerve-calming replacement of parenthood we all grew up with.
Before my mom went to her room, before she took his new boy-toy to her chamber of light and love, as she called it, before she fucked a new excuse for her life, I told her, that Bobby from school was teasing me, because I didn't have a dad.
She looked into my eyes and after a sincere sigh she said, "Johnathan," she sighed, "Bobby is an idiot."
Her boy-toy looked foreign. Not that my little brain flooded with cartoons and such could really have known any difference. Though, he looked not american, I thought. The bedroom door closed right in front of my face and the sound of a snapping lock followed. For the next few hours I had to keep turning up the volume of my cartoons to make the noises, the banging and moaning and screaming disappear.
Never did I see any of her boy-toys twice.
It was then that I realized it. Not having a dad was not normal. I guess, when you grow up with it, you just grow right into it, too. Some kids have two parents, some simply have one parent plus one interchangeable extra. I never saw enough of the extras to remember any details. All that's stuck with me were the shaking walls, the high-pitched squeaks from springs and bed frames rubbing on each other. My mother praying to God, screaming for his attention.
You know how you always associate one thing with something completely different, because they first happened at the same time?
The melody of this famous Beatles song paints a picture of that summer you fell down the stairs and broke your wrist. Every time you hear this song, your wrist starts to tickle.
The taste of blood, the iron, the sharp pain when you bite your tongue brings you back to the school yard, when the idiot Bobby beat you up for calling him, well, an idiot.
The rabbit saying, "What's up, Doc?" It's like the stranger makes your mother cry in the room next door, all over again. You are a little boy with a parent plus one and that's your life.
As a little boy I believed her every word. It wasn't until years later that I clued in. She was out of her freaking mind. Her entire life was orbiting around her own version of miracles, wonders and bullshit. She was all hyped up on this holistic stuff, like meditations, inner balance, scented candles and energie-transformation-delusions. That was, before all this cosmic-consciousness stuff became popular. You know, before lonely wives made a hobby out of upping there inner-selves, or before self-aware guys, that want to get in touch with their other side. You know, the tarot-lady at three in the morning on TV. You know, the meditation for a better life. Spiritual cleansing one-o-one for the everyday life. Yoga. Feng shui. Holistic healing and channeled angels to find your next step in life. Karma, afterlife, past life and so on. You get the idea.
Her personal self-cleansing was the real thing. Marijuana, a bedroom full of chinese symbols and crystals. The chamber of light and love. Men, to reveal her inner goddess as she gets fucked out of her mind by a stranger. Letting go. Letting loose. Her ritual for finding whatever her version of Jesus was, inside somebody else's naked skin rubbing her sore. On sundays, other kids went to church with their moms and their dads. This little child, however, listened to his mother finding God in the agony of sex. He learned that love is just another drug, another distraction to loosen your bounds and find your inner-self. It had nothing to do with anybody else. It was just for yourself.
This stuff transforms your perception for anything.
What is Dad, I wanted to know.
Not the strangers in her chamber. Not the cartoons. Not God. Imagine to be a ten year old child. You learn that all the other boys in school do things with their dads; want to become just like them. Salesman, Storeowner, Policeman. Realize that the thing, that was supposed to shape you in his own image, your father, doesn't exist. Only strangers.
What would you become?
Might they just be the closest thing to a dad-like figure, to love, to God?
After long enough, when we have nothing to believe in, we are longing to accept anything.
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