Blazed (37 page)

It's so fucking perfect, actually. You couldn't write a more fitting fucking scene than this.

“THIS HAS GOTTEN SO OUT
of control. My god. It has to stop. I've got to stop this shit. I've got to change,” my father says to me.

The two of us, we're still cuffed, still on the sidewalk, both our heads resting against the brick wall behind us.

“How could you do that, man?” I ask him. “How could you speak to that dude after what he did to Kristen?”

My father's eyes close. I see the shame and the guilt smearing themselves across his face.

“Hey,” I bark. “I asked you a question.”

My father's eyes open slowly now, and he goes, “The night your mother left with you, I was passed out drunk in bed.”

“I know. She told me.”

“I was so furious with her when I woke up and figured out what happened. So angry at her and myself for what I'd done. I knew I'd lost you for good. There was no way I was ever going to get you back. I was frantic and desperate. I called every one of our friends and her parents, and nobody had seen her, let alone talked to her. After a day with you two missing, I called the police. I was so scared for you, Jaime. I didn't know what she was going
to do to herself or you. A couple of hours after the police originally made a report at the apartment, they called me and asked me to come into the station. For the next twenty hours, they held me and interrogated me. Your mother still hadn't been heard from, and they began thinking I'd killed both of you.”

“Jesus,” I say.

“I was sick. Morgan was capable of anything, Jaime. There were a few hours where I thought she might've killed you and then killed herself and made it look like I had. That's where our relationship was the night it happened.”

“How did it happen? Like, how could you do that to her? If it was so awful, why couldn't you just leave and end it?”

“Because of you. I tried to gut it out because of you, Jaime.”

“That's bullshit.”

“It's not,” he says. “Ya know, if I'd have found out about her and my father even two months before you were born instead of weeks before, I would've left and figured something out. But you have to understand, she could've gone into labor at any minute at the time my father told me. There was no way I was going to leave her. She had no money. She'd isolated herself from most of her friends. There was no support system for her in New York beyond me at that point. And her parents wanted nothing to do with me or you, which meant her as well. So I bit my tongue and went back and saw it through.”

“Bit your tongue?” I ask.

“I didn't tell her I knew about her and my father until you were six months old, Jaime. It was crushing. Having to pretend that my wife, the love of my life, hadn't been in love with my father, hadn't been sleeping with him for years, and hadn't entertained the thought of leaving me for him so she could inherit everything that I should've. It was humiliating.”

“Why did you finally tell her?”

“Because she had lost all the weight from the pregnancy and was starting to drink heavily again. She was doing lots of cocaine, staying out all night, taking lots of painkillers and antidepressants. Her mood swings were insane. Sometimes I wish I hadn't told her I knew. I wish I'd filed for a divorce and custody of you.”

“Why didn't you?”

The pain on my father's face right now, it looks excruciating. His face is wet with tears and sweat.

He says, “Because I wasn't sure I wanted to have you.”

He starts crying really hard.

“Because I thought you might not have been mine. I thought there was a good chance you were my father's. I used you to get back at Morgan.”

“How?”

“She wanted to dance again, but we needed money badly, and I was starting to make that really good money that was promised with my promotion. So I used that and you. I used both situations to prevent her from being able
to dance. It was the only thing I could think of to get back at her for what she'd done. The way she'd broken my heart, which has still never fully healed or been put back together. And it worked. And it also made her so fucking crazy, Jaime. And I'm so sorry I did that. That I used you like that, like a goddamn piece on a checkerboard, so I could get some sort of revenge on her and my father because he was obsessed with watching her dance. It moved him to the core of his soul, and I always thought it was really cool of him to take that much interest in my girl and what she did. I was blind to his infatuation with her. And I was blind to how much she adored the attention he gave her. I was so busy doing construction jobs during the day and going to business school at night. She loved attention, loved the spotlight more than anyone I've ever known, and I knew that but I never thought . . . ya know . . .”

He bites down on his bottom lip.

“With my own father. Fuck . . . it hurt so bad. And you, god, just a fucking baby and stuck in the middle of cruel, cold brutality. Emotional violence.”

Me, I'm stunned right now. I'm so sick to my stomach. I go, “Am I your kid?”

“Yes,” he goes. “Yes. You're my boy, and I'm so proud of that. I love you.”

“What the fuck,” I go. “What the hell is wrong with you two?”

“It was so long ago, Jaime. We were messes. Plain and
simple. We had been for so long. And after you were born, I began to see that. I saw I was a huge part of that problem. When I told your mother that I knew about her and my father, she fucking laughed. She shrugged. She told me I should be more like him and maybe I'd get the same kind of love and passion from her.”

“Is that the truth?”

“Yeah.”

“How do I know that?”

“There's three letters from your mother to me. I still have them in a safe box at the house. You can read them, but I wouldn't. I'd take my word on this, because I don't think you should read some of those things she wrote because you know her differently than I do. You are going back to her.”

This right here, this is the worst I've ever felt in my life. It's also the happiest I've ever felt. To know my history. To know what I was really born into. To finally see the monster mask I've always painted on my father's face wash off in a shower of his own tears.

“The night I hit Morgan, I came home from work late. She was sitting in the kitchen, wearing her ballet dress. She'd been drinking and doing coke all day. We got into a fight. She kept coming at me. I would walk away and she would follow me and keep going and running her mouth. We were in the living room and she was laughing, and I asked her what was so funny and she told me how much of a
better fuck my father was. She said, ‘The things he would do to me in bed are things you can't imagine, little boy.' And I snapped, Jaime. I admit it. It was shameful what I did, and I wish I hadn't done it. I regret it so bad. She said that shit so I backhanded her. When her face swung back around, she was bleeding. She charged at me and that's when I pushed her to the ground. She lay there sobbing for ten, fifteen minutes, and I went to my office and drank a bottle of whiskey. When I woke up, you guys were gone. I was so torn up inside, Jaime. But I was also relieved. She was gone, out of my life, and that made me happy. When you two finally popped back up on the radar in Joliet, I agreed to give her full custody because I wanted her out of my life for good at that particular time. Over the years, though, I just missed you so much and began slowly talking to Morgan again. It was nice. I got to hear how you were doing. How talented you are and all the cool things you were doing. But every time I asked to talk to you, she said you didn't want to, and I understood. I gave you away to her and I deserved that from you. I did. And now, I'm so happy to have had you here with me and my family. I love you, son. I want you to stay here, with us, I do so badly.”

“I can't, though.”

“I know. But I thought you should hear me say that, because it's true. I know I've been kind of distant this week, but I thought giving you some space to deal with everything was the best thing to do.”

“It was,” I tell him. “Thank you. The kids I've met here, the things I've been able to do and see, that's what I needed after what happened with Mom. I needed to breathe, not keep suffocating. So yeah, thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

NO CHARGES ARE FILED. NO
tickets are written. Thirty minutes after we got handcuffed, they're taken off, but not before a nice little crowd of curious family and friends has gathered around us.

Leslie's pissed.

Kristen's disgusted.

Savannah's laughing.

And James Morgan and Eddie are taking photos of us. In handcuffs. Out of handcuffs.

I go up to Savannah and say, “I'm sorry if we ruined your night.”

“You didn't at all,” she says, giggling. “I mean, now it's a real party. Cops, fights, and handcuffs. That's legit. You two boys are fucking crazy. Especially you. I love you to death, man.”

“Thank you. I love you, too.”

“Awwwww,” she goes, as she gives me a hug. “I'm gonna miss you so much.”

“You leave tomorrow?”

“Yeah. But I'll be back in a couple weeks to see James.”

“Really? The fun guy?”

“Yeah. He got kinda serious last night. It was nice. I've always liked him a lot since I've known him but was scared to death of his life, his history, cos everyone knows it. He makes no secret about his private life or past. But there was something there besides sex last night, so I'm gonna go with it.”

“That's great.”

“Never, ever go against the urge to be happier, man. Never,” she says, hugging me again, and when she lets go, I walk with Kristen, holding her hand, and explain to her what happened and by the end of the story, she's laughing and crying and telling me that she's gonna go out on a date with Eddie next week.

“Sweet,” I say.

“God,” she goes. “It's not gonna be the same here without you, man. It's gonna hurt to see you go.”

“I'll be back.”

“It still ain't the same,” she says. “But I get it. Your mother needs you. You're loyal. I just hope she appreciates how great you are. Like, seriously. I really hope your mother stays the fuck clean and stops making your life harder than it needs to be.”

“So do I.”

“Cos you deserve that, Jaime. You deserve to be happy and to have good friends and to be treated nicely. You deserve people's kindness, not their bullshit. You've dealt with enough bullshit. It's time to be happy, dude. Happiness forevah!”

“HEY.”

“Hey,” Dominique says.

It's one in the morning and I'm still up, working on that “Graveyard” song and a new poem, trying not to acknowledge my weak, sick-feeling body, trying to keep my mind off of Joliet.

“Thanks for calling,” I say.

“My mother told me what happened at the opening. I wanted to make sure you're doing all right.”

“I'm doing okay. But what a shitshow.”

“Sure sounded that way. You and your father in handcuffs.”

“Yup. But it was actually the most perfect thing.”

“Really?” she goes. She sounds shocked by me saying this. “How?”

“It was the first time this week we actually talked man-to-man, heart-to-heart. Like, really talked about things. My past. What really happened between him and my mother. It was pretty incredible. I don't even know if I've fully digested everything he told me.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“I don't know. But it was the truth. I mean, the truth is always hard but it's clean, ya know? It's really fucking clean, and I feel lighter now. Like a ton of weight has been lifted from me.”

“That's good,” she says. “I'm happy for you.”

“I miss you,” I say.

“I miss you, too. But you do understand where I'm coming from, right?”

“I do. And I owe it to you to tell you where my head was all night.”

She sighs. “Okay.”

“Earlier that day, my father came into my room and told me some things about my mother and him. It really shook me. Now that's not an excuse at all for what I did and how I treated you, but I was really hurt by what I'd heard.”

“How so?”

“To find out that you've been lied to your whole life, it sucks. But the even bigger thing was that for the first time, I started seeing my father as something other than this evil, horrible, awful man, and I wasn't ready for that. I wasn't ready to feel that about him, and I lost myself. I got lost in my own fucking skin and it did not go well. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” she says back.

“And I'm sorry. I can't take what happened back. I can't erase the things I said to you, so all's I can do is apologize and hope you can forgive me.”

“Jaime,” she says. “I know you're sorry and I accept your
apology. “For me, though, it's the Oxy and what you tried to do to get more. I think it's terrifying. My father died from a drug overdose. His addiction is the reason why he lost his family. And I was so sick when I saw you lying in that disgusting alley all bloody and beat the fuck up. That's how so many stories about my father started or ended. Fuck that and fuck you for pulling that shit. All I wanted to do was help you, and you pushed me away so easily. You pushed me away like my father did to my mother.”

Dominique's crying now.

And I say, “I was selfish. That was so selfish of me. And I'm done with that shit. I flushed every single last pill I had down the toilet last night.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I've been a mess for a while on those things. But I felt happy on them. I didn't even know what happy was anymore before I swallowed that first one. The night I started doing Oxy, this girl I really liked a lot, she humiliated me on purpose. She fucking asked me to do these things for her and I did them because I thought she really liked me. But it wasn't true. I did what she wanted and she fucking laughed at me and then kicked me out of her house after I'd done them. I hated what happened. It was the worst feeling in the world. When I got back home, it was an easy choice. My mother was always happy after she did those blues no matter how miserable things were in her personal life. And it worked. It was so fucking awesome. Just like that, I'd found
a way to manufacture happiness. And that's what I've been addicted to, Dominique. Happiness. I was sick of being angry all of the time. I just wanted to be happy.”