You didn't always hate your father. For a long time you were too afraid to hate him, so afraid that it was a matter of life and death, you thought. There was no time to stew, to brood. No reason to be so reckless as to let it slip. But then he went away and got clean, came out a new man, all full of the Lord. Then you viewed him the way one views a Jehovah's witness; panicked by your own inconvenience, annoyance, but only for as long as it took for him to go into another room. Just wait, and he'll go away. He'll stop talking about Jesus if you just wait and keep your mouth shut. Besides, he was so busy with the church, which seemed to absorb him like an amoeba, just taking him right in and making him like them, that those horrible moments were infrequent at the beginning, but it was still horrible, dad with that weak smile, that smile that always trembled like some creature dug up in a pile of earth, that desperate, breathy laugh that made even a twitch of sympathy from your side impossible to give over to him. He was a paler, flabbier version of himself, his face too smooth and soft, all his hard edges gone. There was no trace of him, and you stayed up nights trying to decide wether this was a good or a bad thing.
You can admit, you were pretty messed up as a child.
You weren't sent to school because you wouldn't talk. There was a therapist named Jean that visited three times a week for what seemed forever, beaming down at you (she was beautiful even though she was nearly fifty, had to be) and cooing her sweet words into your ear like she knew you (if that woman could have heard what you were keeping quiet she would have cried so hard she'd crap herself), urging, urging you to speak a word. It took her nearly three months to even get you to smile but they didn't let her go like they let the others go, the ones that didn't 'break through.' She came from nine a.m until three p.m and ate lunch with you in the dining room, usually with your mother or your father, whichever wasn't the supervising owner on that day. You liked Jean. That was why you started talking again. For Jean.
The real problems started at the end of that year, when you were eleven, as soon as your parents decided you could go back to school. Dad was still in treatment, Mom had lost it. It was really just you and Grandpa.
When you were twelve you got in trouble for trying to cut off a classmate's hand with a paper slicer. When asked why you did this, you simply explained that that kid was messing around with it and needed to learn that it wasn't a toy. You thought you would show him. You couldn't believe they thought you were more dangerous than that dumb kid. The incident got you suspended from Harley Elementary but not expelled. It wasn't a great school anyway and most of the kids that went there were black and from the projects. You didn't mind being around them even though you knew somehow that all of your parents' friends didn't approve, thought you would flourish in a "more exclusive environment." Most of your classmates had absent fathers, addicted mothers, imprisoned brothers, impregnated sisters. You fit right in. Everyone got in fights, all the time. It wasn't just you. After the paper slicer incident, some bullies cornered you in the bathroom and told you they were going to break your arm, your jaw, whatever they wanted to. You pulled a knife and told them you would slash all their windpipes at once. You cut a few before they got to you but a teacher heard the noise and broke it up before it got serious. They ambushed you later that week and you couldn't even walk home after. The police had to go out and look for you. That was when Mom transferred you to Connor Middle School instead of letting you get zoned into the "less desirable" place that would have come next. You had to get up at six a.m to make the bus and the ride was over an hour there and back.
You hated Connor Middle School and they knew it. In fact, they were prepared for you. Well prepared. All it took was one threat (to burn down the motherfucking place with everyone inside; hyperbole, right?) and you were out.
After that, you spent a year in a school for the emotionally and behaviorally challenged in Spartanburg. Most of the kids there had done far worse than you had and even they couldn't understand why you would pick fights with them. You told them you didn't understand it, either. You were just angry. But your grades were always good and they didn't cater to you. These were professionals and they knew the difference between emotionally challenged and stupid. Your grades were always high, your performance in class was excellent (albeit, antagonistic) and you always handed in your homework on time. It was when the others started handing in A papers that the teachers realized you were being bribed, forced or threatened to do your classmates' work. One day DSS came in and saw some bruises they weren't supposed to see and the state declared that was no longer necessary or wise to keep you in a specialized school. The school almost lost its funding over your case.
By then, Dad was back in the picture, a new man. Even Mom was smiling again, enduring an entire day without any drugs to help her. The public schools were willing to take you on for ninth grade but Mom and Dad had already enrolled you in White Chapel Christian Academy, housed in the same building as their new mega-church, White Chapel Baptist Assembly. You didn't even know what the hell an assembly was.
You got re-connected with the public school kids, saddened to hear that some of them had been held back, locked up, sent away, but usually not surprised. You saw old friends like Travis, Rodney and Jacob and spent most of your afternoons with them, picking up a bag when you could and smoking, sometimes drinking your brains out all afternoon and evening until you had to go home. It made it easier to sit at dinner with dad because all he wanted to talk about at dinner was Jesus. He would go on for hours, that guy. By Christmas of that year you had come home drunk more times than you could count and sometimes not at all. Dad started nailing your windows shut. He put a bolt lock on your door. The first night he locked you in you destroyed everything and started to set your baptismal bible on fire just to draw him back in. As soon as the door was open you ran out and went to Rodney's house.
This went on for almost two years before your parents ran out of ideas. Your father sat you down and started talking about "drastic measures," giving you warnings as if they meant anything anymore. You were almost sixteen. By then Rodney's dad had become a Christian and he had been transferred to the Christian Academy as well. The school had been prepared, just like the others had been, and measures had been taken to keep the two of you separate. You had to admit that the news of Rodney's conversion had hit you hard. You felt you had no real friends left in the world and that everyone was betraying you. You really felt this way. Some days you almost wanted to believe what you read in the Good Book because at least then you would fit in. You wouldn't have to fight all the time. But fitting in meant giving in. Or at least that's what you thought. So you tried a new tack. You got some weed from the public school kids and went to Rodney with your idea. You could have made a killing off these Christian Academy fucks.
Was it Rodney that ratted you out? You never found out for sure. But it didn't really matter. He had already betrayed you, already abandoned you. The cops showed up at your door with the same baggie you had given Rodney earlier that day. Maybe it wasn't Rodney's fault. Maybe his dad had wailed on him and he just couldn't take the pressure.
The parents, the church, the judge, they all had secret meetings to which you were not invited. Then Dad mentioned Camp Warren and you asked, playfully, if that was where the President vacationed. You got a slap in the face for that. The first one in a long time. He asked you if you would go calmly. If you, he, Mom and Grandpa could all drive up there together, nice and easy. He had to have known the answer already. Your dad may be many things; stupid ain't one of them.
It happened on a Thursday when the house was empty. Dad and some others and an "interventionist" from Camp Warren, they were waiting for you after school. You fought so hard you reduced these christian men to swearing and using the Lord's name in vain. You fought so hard you made your father cry. Not that it mattered in the end. They got you, didn't they? They got what the wanted. But the fight was all you had. They would have to do their worst to tear it out of you.
They think it's gone. They think you've traded it in for something better. But the fight is patient. The fight endures all things. The fight keeps a record of wrongs and the fight does not rest.
The fight is all you need.
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