Daddy

The first thing I have to do here, Dear Reader, is start by apologizing. Its been awhile since we last spoke. As soon as I started to feel really happy, the journal seemed to be too painful to write in. Also, I got really busy as well. I started working full time at the video store. I also began to really apply myself at school before the year ended, bringing my average up to a 3.6.

The summer was incredible. Every day I fell in love with Sam more. We've only gotten closer in the last four months. Julian even accuses us of acting like a married couple. He thinks we are too serious for our own good. I often wonder how I would be at this moment if she was no longer in my life and I shudder. She makes me laugh so much sometimes that I actually cry.

It's now the last week of August and the deadline of my suicide has passed, although that doesn't mean that my suicidal thoughts have gone. They're in my psyche somewhere, stabbing me every once in awhile with quick violence. I got it mostly under control, though.

Julian has finally begun to return to normal. For awhile, he barely spoke to any of us. In fact, he pretty much avoided me for a long time. He and Allison have broken up and gotten back together about six times, pretty much turning their relationship into a joke. I doubt they will make it through the year.

I still live with Suzanne, and she has sort of become my foster parent. We are still closer than ever, sometimes staying up until late in the night talking about pretty much anything that crosses our minds. I love the way she thinks. She can talk me into pretty much anything, and I'm probably the most egotistical and stubborn person I know.

Some of you may have wanted me to off myself. Sorry, it's just not going to happen. So any of you bastards reading this wishing for this whiny hero's early demise can kiss my ass.

You're not going to believe where I'm going. It's five in the morning, which is an ungodly hour, especially for a night crawler like myself.

I'm going fishing.

Don't laugh, that's not even the worst part. Are you ready?

I'm going fishing with my father. I can barely believe it myself. My mother claims he has avoided the bottle for four months now. He even goes to the AA meetings religiously. Something tells me we aren't going to have one of those Hallmark moments.

I sort of dug this grave myself. I called him up and told him that I'd like to talk to him. Both Sam and Suzanne feel I would be a lot better psychologically if I really talked to my father when he's sober. He has a lot of questions to answer. I'm nervous as hell. He agreed to have this little talk, but insisted we go fishing. Sigh.

Suzanne is already awake when I get downstairs. "Good morning, Harlan," she says, putting a mug of coffee in my hand. "It's got loads of sugar and creamer, just how you like it."
"Thanks, but you didn't have to get up."

"I just wanted you to know that no matter what happens, or what he says, you have me."

I took a sip of the coffee, it was just right. "I know I do. What's he going to do, kill me?"

"Actually, I was more worried about what you might do to him. No matter what he says, don't get physical. It's not worth it."

"I won't. He's bigger and he can beat my ass." I said the last sentence with a smile.

We talked until the sun began to rise. Looking outside the window, I could see my father loading stuff into his little boat. He had his thinning hair tied into a ponytail, and despite the fact it was still a little cold outside, he was wearing only a white tank top. That was my dad, ever the macho man.

I threw on a light jacket; Suzanne kissed me on the cheek and wished me luck. I opened the door and breathed in deeply.

My father was loading a box of tackle in the boat as I came up behind him. I could see the pink scar above his ear where I had hit him with the iron. His ponytail had touches of gray in it, shocking me. I wondered how old he was. Surprisingly, I didn't even know. I do know my mother was only seventeen when she gave birth to me. I guess I had always assumed he was around the same age as she was.

"Hey," I said, wishing I had never agreed to do this.

My father turned around slowly and actually smiled. "Harlan, just in time. Go in the garage there and grab the poles. They're right next to the lawn mower."

I stepped into the garage and grabbed the fishing poles. I remembered the last time I had gone fishing with my dad. I was only about six, and I had tangled up my pole. He got extremely angry and shook me violently, scaring me so bad I never went again. Touching the pole seemed to trigger the memory. He was always like that, it seemed. He never had any patience for any mistakes I may have made, which always left me even more paranoid and nervous around him. Being more jittery made me prone to even more accidents, like some vicious cycle.

After awhile, I learned to avoid my father altogether.

He took the pole from my hand and I felt myself feeling like little Harly again. My heart was roaring in my chest. I wiped my sweaty palms against my khakis and did my best to appear calm.

"Still refuse to wear jeans I see," he said, staring down at my tan pants. "What kind of man can't wear jeans to fish?" He then abruptly stopped talking, and seemed to try to think of something else to say. "That's okay, though. No big deal."

I couldn't help but laugh to myself, knowing full well my mother had coached him not to be critical. Well, at least he was trying. We both stood there in an uncomfortable silence.

"At least it's not supposed to rain," he said desperately.

"Yeah," I said, kicking at the grass with my boots. "It's supposed to be sunny."

The funny thing about this was I don't think I had ever even discussed the weather with him. This was a new thing to me. A civilized conversation with my father was something for fantasy books.

He checked to make sure the boat was hooked up securely and we got into the car. As we pulled out of the driveway, he turned on the radio, which was a relief. We had nothing to talk about. This day was going to be maddening. He turned the dial over to a local country station and turned it up slightly. Some cowboy was singing about silver and gold. It was kind of cool actually—a bit on the death obsessed side.

On his right arm was a tattoo I had never noticed before. It was simply the word Crowley. Underneath the word was a red demon carrying a pitchfork. A long forked tongue protruded from his leering mouth. Aliester Crowley was a satanic religious figure. I had read one of his books once and found it rather tame.

"Does that tattoo stand for Aliester Crowley?" I asked, wondering if there was more to my father then I had realized.

"Who?" he asked, pulling a Kool cigarette out and lighting it. "Allison Crowley? Who the hell is that?"

"He was a Satanist in the earlier part of this century."

My father smirked. "There you go again, always trying to make me feel stupid. No, that tattoo is from the song Mr. Crowley, by Ozzy."

I tried not to laugh. I was afraid to tell him that the song by Ozzy Osbourne was actually about Aliester Crowley. He would only accuse me of trying to make him feel stupid again, which was something he did a lot. Anytime in my life I had ever informed him of something he didn't know, he would fly off the handle and punish me. He was a very insecure man.

As soon as I had learned to read at the age of five I read everything in sight. Nothing could stop me. I devoured one book after another, spending every spare minute in the library. I suppose it was an escape from a reality I didn't like. When you're just a child, you don't think about why you do something. After awhile, my father began to feel threatened by my reading. "No son of mine is going to be a loser," he had said, as he put all of my books in a garbage bag and left the house. He then forbade me from ever entering the library again, instead encouraging me to play sports. "A big boy like you ought to play football."

I then had to smuggle books into the house by putting them into my pants, or my backpack. Once in awhile, he would catch me reading and I would get out of it by saying I had to do a report on it for school. I would spend hours in the bathtub reading books, hiding a book underneath the bathroom sink. I suppose the fact that he forbade me from reading them only made me want to read them more. So in some sick way, I read because of my father. I have read books ravenously ever since.

"Why the hell would I put a Satanist on my arm?" my dad asked, dragging me from my thoughts with a sudden jolt. For a brief moment, I had no clue in the world what he was talking about.

I felt bold. "Well what is a demon? Isn't that satanic?"

My father looked at his arm dumbly as if seeing the tattoo for the first time. I guess he had never thought about the religious connotation of having a demon on his arm. "I got this one night when I was plastered. It was taken from a black light poster that was on my friend's wall. I thought it looked pretty neat so we took it to the tattoo parlor and asked the guy to put it on my arm. Hurt like a bastard too, all that color."

For the rest of the trip we said very little of importance. After about ten minutes, the country station began to grate on my nerves. Sometimes I can listen to it, but if I hear too much of it I began to feel slightly psychotic.

We pulled onto the shore of Lake Angel and my father began to back the boat into the water. The waters swayed peacefully in the sunlight. The deaths of Alisa and Ross had no effect on the tranquility of the lake, surprisingly. I expected the lake to be tainted somehow, but I felt at home here more than ever.

My father parked the car, and in a few minutes we found ourselves floating gently on its surface. He grabbed the earthworms from a white Styrofoam container and threw one at me. Putting the worm on the hook was sort of disgusting.

"Well, Harlan, I guess you're wondering why I asked you to come out here with me," he said, staring at his line and tugging it ever so gently. I didn't say anything and he continued. "I was wondering how you would feel about moving back in. I want us to be a family—"

"No," I said, firmly. "I'm happy where I am."

His face flashed red with anger, but he held it in check. "I know I've treated you bad in the past, Harlan. I haven't had a drink in four months."

"Dad, I am sorry to tell you this but I will never live with you again. And you didn't just treat me bad, you made my life hell for sixteen years. I don't care if you become the next Pope, I'm staying where I am."

"You wouldn't be the man you are today if it wasn't for me, you ungrateful little fuck. I toughened your ass up."

"Are you kidding me? I am so psychologically messed up because of you. I suffer from depression; I'm always contemplating suicide. I may be the most abnormal kid in school. And besides, you didn't make me, books did. Books raised me. You think you banned them from me? I read them all the time. I read them with a flashlight underneath my bedcovers. I read them in the bathroom. I read them every chance I got. I used them to escape from you."

He clenched his fists angrily. "You think I'm going to let you live up there with that slut? I can take you back anytime I want. You are only sixteen years old."

I smiled and I could see that for some reason it made him afraid. "I will get myself legally emancipated. Even if the court doesn't let me live with Suzanne, I won't live with you. I will live in a foster home if I have to. I'm seventeen now and, though you are my own father, you didn't even know that. In less than a year I will be eighteen."

He slammed his pole down and the rod broke off. "You think you are so goddamn clever. You little know-it-all-little bastard. I will destroy you."

The smile stayed on my face. "Well, I can see you've changed so much. We are not even out here for thirty minutes and already you are threatening to hit me again. Let me tell you something, Dad. I'm only a teenager and I know more about what makes this world tick than you ever will. I don't have any love for you. In fact, I hate your guts."

He leaned forward, the veins popping out on his forehead in anger. "Harlan, if you say one more fucking word I will break your neck."

I moved towards him and brought my face to his. My smile widened.  "Fuck off, you low life scum."

His scream sounded primal and he grabbed my throat, pushing me backwards. For some reason, I had no fear whatsoever. I met his stare head on.

Just when I thought he was going to hit me, he started crying. "I'm sorry," he chanted over and over again, hugging me.

It was the most sickening feeling I ever had, because at that moment, I realized that I didn't have one iota of feeling for him. It nauseated me.

My father is a little man and a poor excuse for a human being. I didn't even get any perverse pleasure out of seeing him suffer. I wanted him away from me and out of my life.

I pushed him off, fighting his embrace. I moved away from him, actually having to pry his hand off my jacket. I rowed the boat back and stepped onto the shore. I looked back at him once as I walked away. He was staring into the sun.

I felt nothing.