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

A Thanksgiving Mystery

"Hey Buddy, what'cha doin' for Thanksgiving?"

As a divorced person (I say that like we have our own special section at the zoo or something), you become keen with your instincts when a friend asks you that question.

It could be that they are just asking to ask. You know, much like how that co-worker who you bump into in the kitchen of the office. It's easier ask them about the upcoming holiday opposed to having the co-worker-to-co-worker awkward silence. You know, the easy topics to pass the time and to fill in the gaps. But every now and then the question isn't asked to fill in any gaps but actually asked with a purpose. Where a good friend, or family member will invite the reclusive divorced person over to their house to spend [add particular holiday here] with them and their family.

And when they do it's almost like they are asking you out on a date or something. You see the approach, and you feel the awkwardness in their delivery. You can actually see the timidness from them because they don't know what luggage, if any, you might associate with that particular holiday. They don't want to be the reason for any of that regressed luggage to suddenly some spilling all over the floor.

Gut instinct, from the rare/near-extinct divorcee is that the friends are probably feeling sorry for them and the friends don't like the thought of them being alone and watching a marathon of Firefly eating a bag of Double Stuff'd Oreos.

(Not that I did that. Not without a glass of milk that is.)

But the holiday's are rough. I admit that. While I have my son throughout the school year, he spends the majority of the holidays with his mom. So during those stretches of celebration, I don't see him too often. And the home becomes eerily quiet.

So when my good friend, James asked, "Hey Buddy, what'cha doin' for Thanksgiving?" I was happy to tell him that I didn't have plans after  my son and mom had our Thanksgiving together.

"Wanna come over to our house after? Kristen's family is coming over for dinner. We'd love to have yah over."

I said yes.

This was early November when my friend James asked me over to celebrate Thanksgiving with him and his family. Little did I know, at that time, that my life was just on the verge of turning completely head-over-heels.

I had met a girl.

In fact we had a date set up for the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Now, I usually hold my cards pretty close when it comes to stuff like this. And while I have no problems when close friends tease me, I just don't like to be teased when I talk about how I might feel towards someone. It's a vulnerability that seems to cut easier than other things.

While I spent the morning cooking our Thanksgiving lunch for my family, I was texting said girl. When we were all done eating, my son and I took a walk to his school's playground and then afterwards I took him over to celebrate Thanksgiving with his mom.

After I arrived at James and Kristin's house, with 3/4's of a pumpkin pie in tow, James and I caught up at the dinning room table as things were finishing up.

"So what's going on man?"

"Well," The involuntary smile coming through sneaked through, "I kinda have a date this weekend."

"Oh yeah?" He smiled that way only a friend can when hearing something like that. You know that kind, the 'isn't that cute/tell me more' smile.

Now you have to understand that most of my friends have only known me as divorced/single/dad Jason. The funny guy and his little side-kick. And throughout the years my friends have seen me go on dates with Miss Wrong, and Miss Wronger and even Miss Whyintheworld. But they all wanted to see me with Miss Right.

So when James had leaned in, hoping to hear more, I froze for a split second unsure if I should indulge his curiosity or not. When his wife, Kristin came through the kitchen and said that she needed help finishing things up.

So I got out of it.

For the time being.

There is an art to having two Thanksgiving meals so close to one another. You have to pace yourself, try not to be tempted by any 'seconds' and limit what you intake during that first meal. So by the time I was half way through on that second meal I was starting to feel the pull. The tightening of the stomach that is filled with such yummie food and going through the internal struggle of knowing you should stop. But its so good that you find yourself getting that other helping. And then maybe one more.

It was sometime after the meal when the inevitable food coma came and we played a round of Apples to Apples (which is where I amazed everyone with my uncanny ability to perform as both Casey Kasem and John F. Kennedy. Who, despite the feelings of that night, are 'not' the same person). And then we all retired to the living room and stretched out.

It was then that said girl and I exchanged a few texts back and forth. The, what was normally an inconspicuous action, became noticed by my good friend.

"Is that her?" He had that same smile spread across his face.

I paused, shot a side ways glance, "Maybe."

"Who's who?" asked Kristin.

"Somebody," said James, throwing a thumb in my direction, "has a big date this weekend."

Kristin's eyes widened and immediately became curious. "What? You do? With who?"

"Is it anyone we know?"

"When are you guys going out?"

"Where are you taking her?"

"How'd you guys meet?"

"Is it so-and-so?"

"it's not so-and-so, is it?"

I couldn't help but smile at the scene that was laying out in front of me. Eventually, not only was James and Kristin eager to find out who I was going to go out with, but her family was too.

Now you have to understand that the Quad Cities, where I live, has a pretty big theatrical arts circuit. Everyone either knows one another, seen them in shows or has at least heard of them. So when someone finally asked the break out question of, "Does she do theatre?" it started the unraveling of who this mystery girl was.

She did do theatre.

Names were thrown out of women we all new and who were available. But, with each guess... they were wrong. James hunkered down in thought for a second and asked if she was ever in a show with him.

"No."

Which resulted in a 'we're getting closer' looks between them all.

"Has she ever been in a District Theatre production?"

"Yes."

"This year?"

They were getting closer.

"Yes."

From there it became like the end of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and all of them were shouting out the names of the past shows within the District Theatre's repertoire.

Parade? No
Xanadu? No
8? No
Next to Normal? No
Rocky Horror? No
Avenue Q? No

They were weeding it down... and even Kristin's mom, who I hadn't met before that night, had whipped out her ipad and went to the theatre's facebook page.

And then they hit it.

Company?

A smile.

"It is isnt' it?"

They then started to name off the company members in the Sondheim musical. Which then became a race between James and Kristin, who trying to remember the cast from memory, and Kristin's mom who finally brought up the theatre's poster that conveniently listed the names of all the actors and actresses on it.

And then James said,

"Erin Lounsberry?"

Again... I smiled and nodded.

They cheered in the success of solving the Thanksgiving mystery, but it was followed immediately by wide smiles and the "you GO boi's" or the "Way to go's!" from them.

I was already excited about the date. Erin and I were already having marathon talks on the phone every night. But it was in that moment that I realized that something was different about this girl while I was sitting there with my good friends. That my normal vulnerability, that  I normally have in those type of situations, was substituted with pride.

That Thanksgiving, the one that I've dubbed the Thanksgiving Mystery, will come up in conversation from time to time. And it always brings a smile to my face. It was the best. It is also known, but only to me, as the last divorce invite that would be offered, and the last one I would accept.

That next year, in the following December, not only would I be standing on a church alter with that beautiful Mystery Girl, but the wienermobile would be waiting for us outside to whisk us away.

But that's another story for another day.

Late Beginnings

Hi, my name is Jason Platt. It's great to finally meet you. 

Here's a little tid-bit about me.

And I'm usually late to the party.

No, not the literal party. I'm rarely invited to those. When I am, I'm usually the guy standing in the corner with the "non-toothed" smile on my face, nodding and probably looking like the weird guy that was accidentally invited.

Side note: This probably gave you a pretty weird first impression of what I look like, or what strange social interactions I have. Rest assured dear readers I do, in fact, have teeth. In fact, my teeth are so big that they have been known to be seen from space without the aid of any type of telescope*.

Side note to the side note: I am and have been successfully invited to parties before (I probably gave you the wrong impression when I said that I was "accidentally invited to parties"). Truth of the matter is that I am that friend who just plain loves to laugh. And--if it's in good taste--you might find me laughing at the relentless teasing that my friends, and even loved ones, have endured me with over the years. As I've grown older I've realized that being able to laugh at yourself is a good quality to have.

But I digress:

On more than one occasion I have felt and even thought to myself, "Wow, look at me, I just used a quotation mark for an internal monologue... wait, I'm talking out loud!" and after that literary mishap I would actually think, 'Wow... I should have been at this point in my life a long time ago. Why didn't I get here sooner?' 

I know, I know. It doesn't matter when you get there, as long as you do.

Blah blah blah blah.

I've heard it before. I've even told it to myself from time-to-time, I have even said it to other people. Had I known about the T-shirt, I probably would have purchased a few. On the up-side: Had I known about the T-shirt, my dresser drawers would probably be overstuffed with them by now.

I remember when I was a senior high school I was amazed how classmates not only knew where they were going to college, but knew what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives. FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES. I could barely make a solid decision on what movie I wanted to go see that weekend, let alone beginning the steps on a foreseeable future.

At the time I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I had no plan and had no particular drive. Even though I went to the local community college right after graduation, it wasn't until three years later, and a lot of self searching, before I had a clue of what it was I wanted to do. And when I got to that point I thought, 'why did it take me so long to get here?'

It can be hard to figure out where life takes you. It can be hard to learn from mistakes you've made in the past, and, sometimes, even harder to push out the left over energy you have at the end of the day to pursue what you really want to do.

I have thought about doing a blog like this for sometime now. But it was one of those "I'll get to one day's" type of thing. I had tried to so something like this a few years ago with not much success (I was trying to do something more linear at the time.) I'm not saying I'll be great at this whole thing. I'm not saying that I will have anything in particular interest to share. Or even claim that I will write something profound or anything with meaning.

That being said I will share with you some if my favorite stories I've experienced; some of my successes and some of my failures. Stories of both fatherhood and being a husband. And--of course--the stories that are embarrassingly awesome about myself. For some of you who know me personally, you might have heard some of these before. But you know... there are some stories that are worth hearing again.

I can't say I know exactly where I'll end up with all of this, but I can say with certainty:  It's better to have a late beginning than no beginning at all.

*this may or may not be an exaggeration on my part.