Page 108 of Wild Abandon

She took a seat at the bar, and I watched as her eyes skimmed the taps. There was something sexy about the girl in a demure sundress who wanted to drink a beer. So, I gave it to her even though it’s not what she ordered.

Looking back, I can’t believe I was such an ass. First, I called her a lesbian, which would have been a saving grace, but, no, she liked men, and when she looked at me, I freaked because those eyes showed me she liked what she saw even if my personality was lacking.

I tried to push her away. Hell, it wasn’t hard. I was miserable. Had been for years. She came in here, talking about love like it was a goddamn fairy tale. I wanted to squash her fairy tale like a bug, show her what reality was really like. But I couldn’t. Because, when she spoke, it was as if all the things I used to believe were coming from her mouth.

I used to be a dreamer.

But life made me a realist.

It’d started long before Ellie got sick, long before Ed kicked me out of his life. It’d started when I was just a kid.

I was eight years old when my mom came into my room, eyes red and splotchy, her nose raw from rubbing. She said my dad had left, and he wasn’t coming back.

Instead of getting upset, as most children would, I asked her, “Why?”

She told me he was a selfish bastard who didn’t like the responsibility of being a father. I couldn’t believe that he’d left us just like that.

This was the part where I should have been sad. But I wasn’t.

The next day, I woke up, expecting my dad to be in the kitchen, yelling at my mom, like he usually was, but he wasn’t there. I sat on the front steps and waited until he came home.

You know how that turned out.

The next week, I came home from school. My mom was having a yard sale. Everything my dad had left behind was up for sale. A man asked her how much she wanted for a set of golf clubs. She told him a dollar. So, he gave it to her.

“Give them back! Those are my dad’s!” I leaped as the man put the clubs in the back of his car.

Pulling at the bag, the man kicked me with his foot. “Get the hell off of me! Whose kid is this?” he yelled into the crowd.

My mother came over and pulled me by the ear. “Nathaniel, get your ass inside now.”

“But those are Daddy’s! He’s going to be so mad when he comes home. He’s going to think we gave up on him!”

She looked down at me with stern eyes, her mouth pinched. “He is never coming back. Go to your room, and don’t you ever say his name in this house again.”

I sulked through the front yard. Before I made it to the house, I saw a baseball cap on one of the tables. It was a San Francisco Giants hat. My dad never wore it, but I remembered he grew up there.

Every day after school, I’d sit on the front steps and wait for my dad to come home. And every night before I went to bed, I’d put on his hat and think of all the things we’d do when he returned.

One afternoon, I turned on the TV, and the San Francisco Giants were playing the Arizona Diamondbacks. I looked in the crowd for my dad. I knew he was there. He was back in San Francisco, and when I was old enough, I was going to find him.

I was ten when my mom kicked me out for the first time. I had forgotten to take the trash out. She told me I was worthless and sent me and my bags packing. When the cops brought me home a few hours later, she told the officer I had run away, and she grounded me for a month. I held out hope that she would feel bad for kicking me out.

When I was fifteen, she got a boyfriend, her first in years. He didn’t like having me around. I made myself scarce whenever I could. He was a grade-A douche bag. Always smoking cigarettes in the house and touching my mom in ways men shouldn’t in front of children. She was happy for the first time in years, so I didn’t say anything.

My mom demanded I be home by six o’clock every night, so I was only able to work a few hours after school as a box boy at a local hardware store. It didn’t pay a lot, but the owner was old and needed a strong hand to move supplies around. If my mom or the douche knew I had a job, they’d take my money, so I hid it.

When I was eighteen, I had finally saved enough to get to San Francisco. I was finally going to find my dad. Three thousand dollars was rolled up in a sock in my top drawer. There was only two weeks until graduation, and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

I came home from school one day, itching to pack. When I got to my room, the douche was standing by the dresser, a rolled up wad of cash in his hand.

“Where did you get this, boy?” His upper lip was sweaty, his wifebeater reeking of stale cigarettes and body odor.

“Give that back.” I swiped at the cash, but he pulled his arm away.

A deep scowl on his face, he looked at me like I was the scum you would find at the bottom of your shoe. “You stealing from me? Is that where you got this? I come here and give you my time, treat your mother right, and this is how you repay me? I should have let her throw you out a long time ago. But this”—he held up my money—“this is unforgivable.”

“You know it’s not yours.” I reached for him, pulling on his forearm, but he backhanded me in the face with his free hand. I fell against the wall, the sound of my back hitting the wall, startling my mother.