A Kruel Opportunity: Chapter 1 #lifechanger

A Kruel Opportunity

By Jason Platt

Chapter 1: #lifechanger

Dad was gone.

Well, maybe not gone gone. Not dead gone. Although, I’m sure if you asked my mom, she would tell you that she wished he was. I could hear her say, “Oh, Tommy, if only murder was justifiably legal” and then she’d chuckle, and then laugh-- waving it off --as in a ‘I was only kidding” sort of way. But I knew her better. The laugh would be added to dilute the true feelings.

Since my dad had left with some skank (Mom’s term, not mine), my mom hasn’t been--well… mom. I don’t know how to talk to her. It’s hard to talk to someone who’s constantly in ‘angry/sad mode’. And whenever I walk into a room and find her mumbling things to herself, I just step back, out of the room, slowly. Hoping she doesn’t notice me. To get out of the way before she takes any of that anger out on me. The “mom mumble”, much like the foaming mouth of a rabid dog, is nature's way of telling you back off.

People keep telling me that I shouldn’t take sides. That I need to stay out of Mom and Dad’s crossfire, and just keep out of it all. Stay neutral. Sweden. But it’s hard not to be involved. I mean, how can you not? Especially when you pass by your mom’s room and hear her crying night after night?

One day when Dad came home to pick up a couple things from the house--a box of his fishing gear, the gear he and I would use would use on weekends--I saw his girlfriend sitting in the passenger seat-- mom’s seat---checking her make-up in the mirror.

I think Dad said her name was Candi.

Candi.

God, I hope I heard him wrong.

As if my own world wasn’t already falling apart; a few days later my mom sat me down in the kitchen and told me point blank that we were moving from our home in Davenport, Iowa, to some place in Rhode Island. She gave her notice at the school, and we were moving as soon as the school year was over..

I just about flipped out.

Okay, okay. Truth be told, maybe I did flip out. I don't know if it's a technical term for what I did, but flipping out is what my therapist wrote down in his journal. Okay, so maybe I looked at it when he stepped out to talk to his receptionist for a second. It was all there, double underlined in red. “Thomas, Flipped Out”. Like somehow tossing your mattress out on the lawn, and lighting it on fire has suddenly turned into an "emotional disturbance". Dr. Tomlin, my therapist, arranged for a colleague of his, who lives in the town we’ll be moving to, to take me on as a new client. Apparently I’m also “very unbalanced”. Oh, and also, as punishment for burning my mattress, my mom said she wasn’t going to get a new bed for me until we got to our new place. #CouchTime. One less thing to pack I guess.

I’m fine.

I’m fine.

Really.

My therapist said… or wrote, he wrote it; I may have looked at the book more than once, that I will be fine. I will eventually become a solid citizen. When I’m thirty.

#confidence

Now with the exception of Jenny (The only person I would consider to be a close friend of mine) no one else knew about the move. Sure the teachers knew, they worked with my mom, but I wasn’t going to have all this negative attention thrusted at me. Having people I barely knew tell me that they were going to miss me and stuff. I couldn’t put myself through that.

I was, however, able to finish out my 8th grade year at school (thanks mom). But (again, thanks mom) by the time school was over, our house was completely packed up ready to be loaded onto the Mayflower van. So there wasn’t any "time wasted". None. Zero. She wanted to get out. The ink on my yearbook was barely dry when we packed up the car. I didn’t even have time to say goodbye to Dad or Jenny. When I complained about not seeing Jenny my mom simply said:

“Why do you want to say goodbye to your little friend? Trust me, twenty years from now you won’t even remember her name.” She unlocked the car with her keychain. The doors pa-popped. “Don’t you guys text everything anyway? Don’t you Instagram and things and stuff? We gotta go, come on.”

She got in the car.

I bolted.

I ran.

I heard her screaming for me as I ran through the neighbor’s yards. Cut through the Jamison’s front yard and through the back. Mr. Jamison was mowing. And as I went by he yelled something at me. But I didn’t care. I kept moving. I went down through the ravine, caught a couple spider webs in my mouth, jumped the creek, and ran up the hill--feeling the tree branches scratch and poke my body, and muscled my way up to Jenny’s back yard.

I grabbed a hold of the chain link and pulled my body up over the fence, heading to her back porch. Her little terrier, Snowball, saw me and followed me up to the sliding back door yipping at me the whole way. I ran up to the porch and knocked. Even as I was knocking, the door was sliding open. Her dad--Mr. Cue Ball, Jenny called him-- must have seen me coming. He was holding a piece of jellied toast in his hand, his tie draped over his shoulder.

“Tommy--? This is a little early--”

“Is Jenny here?”

He was about to say something else. About to say ‘no’, that I might ‘try coming back at a decent time’, I could see it in his face. The ‘Dad Look’. Old Cue Ball. But Jenny’s mom came up behind him. Placed a hand on his shoulder. He looked over at her and shrugged, mumbling as he went back to read the news on his iPad.

“Tommy--What’s going on?” At least she had some sympathy. I forgot what it looked like on a grown-up’s face.

I swallowed, spitting the words out between heaves, “Is--Jenny here? I need to see her. I’m--”

“Tom?”

Looking over her mom’s shoulder I could see Jenny. She was tying her robe closed as she squeezed past her mom up to me. The look of worry on her face.

"Tom, what is it? What's going on?"

Before I could say anything, her face drooped as she answered her own question, "you're moving today." It wasn't a question. I nodded. She knew me better than--well--anyone really. From behind her, beyond the kitchen, I heard the doorbell ring in three quick bursts. Then hard knocking followed it. Jenny's mom looked at me with sorry eyes and reached up and squeezed my shoulder before heading to the door. Jenny took my hand and led me out on the porch, sitting on one of the benches.

“You’re leaving now aren’t you?”

I nodded.

"What? Now?"

I nodded.

"Now, now?? But I thought it was going to be--"

“On Friday, I know, right?” I was starting to control my breathing, but the sweat was starting to bead up. “Got up this morning, and she had most of the car already loaded--”, I took a breath, “Had me help and then--” I gestured to the ravine and then to her porch.

From inside, we could hear Jenny’s mom at the front door. Voices. My mom. I knew I only had a few seconds left, "she wasn't even gonna let me say good-bye. And I couldn’t leave without--"

Jenny, with her sad eyes, gripped the shoulders of my shirt, and pulled me into a hug. I felt her arms wrap around me tight. I could feel her cheek against my neck and her warm tears against my skin.

She had never hugged me before.

I leaned in to it, resting my hands on her shoulders.

"I couldn’t leave without telling you good--”

Before I could finish I could hear the all too familiar snapping coming from my mom's fingers. Behind the smile I could tell that she was super pissed. "Thomas. We have to go."

Jenny pulled away, but kept her eyes on mine.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

"Thomas. Now."

I could feel the red rising up and could feel the heat on my cheeks. I would not cry. I would not.

Jenny squeezed my hands, and whispered in my ear.

“This isn’t good-bye.”

And then she kissed my cheek.

At first I didn’t know what it was she even did. I didn’t know it was a kiss. With all the TV and movies I’ve would have expected it to be something a little bit more dramatic. The swelling score behind us or something. The moment was gone before I even realized what it was. Before I could even react, or say anything else the Snap. Snap. Snap. cut through it all.

“I gotta go.” I said.

“Yeah,”

I got in the idling car, slamming the door behind me. I looked back at the house of my best friend, Jenny standing at the doorway. She started to cry when her mom came up behind her, holding her shoulders. Like a caged animal I put my hand on the glass. Hot tears, silently rolling down my cheeks as I could see my breath on the glass.

As the car started to back up, I could feel the knot in my stomach twist. This was it. This was the end. And as my mom put the car in drive it was though my seat belt, that I hadn’t even realized I put on, felt more and more like a restraining harness. I rolled down my window, and twisted my body out of it as far as it could go. My mom’s voice yelling. I could feel her tug at the waist of my jeans, trying to pull me back in. But I wasn’t budging. I wouldn’t let her. Jenny saw me and she ran out in the street waving. I waved back as we shouted out promises of staying in touch.

When Jenny disappeared behind the summer leaves, I sunk back into my seat furious. As soon as my body was clear I could hear the electric whir of the window going up and then heard the door ka-klunk locked. My mom looking at me as if I had grown horns out of my head and asking my why I would do something so stupid.

I’ll be honest, I can’t remember what else she said. It was all a blur. White noise. I just let the verbal beating continue. It didn’t matter. Let her get it out of her system. She couldn’t hurt me anymore than she already had. Because all I could see was my friend Jenny standing at her door crying as we pulled away. And, almost like a voice-over in a movie, all I could hear was my mom's voice saying, ‘Trust me, twenty years from now you won’t even remember her name.’

I was sitting in the passenger seat, a shell of who I was six months ago, and watching the only home I’ve ever known go by for the last time going 70 miles an hour. It was going to be a long ride to the east coast.

Remember when I said I wasn’t taking sides?

#iwishiweredead