“I’m sure you don’t want your old man hangin’ around the skate park, kid.”
He mumbles, turning away from me.
“Sorry?”
“I said, maybe I do because then I’d know you give a shit.”
“Watch your language,” I scold. The best and lamest response I can give him.
Alice’s gaze meets mine, and the pain behind his brown eyes is damn near tangible. The regret and disappointment slice though me like a hot knife through butter. I’m exposed, revealed for all to see, and I don’t know how to cope with the pressure.
“I wish things had been different.” My gaze drops to the floor, unable to bear a second longer of the harsh truth before me.
“Is that it?” he asks. “You wish things had been better? Why not make them better?”
“Nobody will hire me for work, Alice,” I snap. “I can’t get paid work. Do you have any idea in that child’s head of yours what it’s like to not know if you can feed your family for the rest of the week?”
His frustration ebbs, replaced by a tide of crushing rage. “You can’t get work, Dad, because you’re fucking drunk half the time.”
Heat peppers my cheeks. He may be stating the obvious, but it doesn’t mean I like to hear it spoken out loud.
Especially from my child.
“I may be a kid,” he continues, “but I’m more fucking mature than you’ll ever be.”
“Language!” I holler.
“Fuck. You,” he bites out. “Who the heck are you to tell me what to do?”
“Your father,” I bellow. “I’m your God damn father.”
“Then fucking act like it!”
He turns on his heel and marches down the hall of our small apartment. With the little money I manage to bring in from cash jobs here and there, it was never going to be enough to keep our house. The bank foreclosed, took all the profit to recover debt, and kicked us out. By the sheer grace of God, I stumbled across a ‘For Let’ sign out the front of our apartment on my way to a job interview the week we were due to move. The place is dingy; it’s small, and mice frequent the rooms more often than we do, but it’s a roof over our heads. And it’s a dry place for me to drink every day.
Because I do drink . . . a lot.
Crashes and thuds echo as Alice hurls things around inside his room. The symphony of my life. My common sense tells me to go sort it out, tell him to pull his head in, but my heart rules the roost when it comes to my boy.
After all, I’ve let him down in the worst way possible and in return, I believe it vetoed my right to tell him how to behave. Who am I to say what he should and shouldn’t do? When his father is an alcoholic and a lousy role model then I’m pretty sure that gives the kid license to look to others for guidance.
What cuts me most is that I have no idea who they are, or where that is. Every day after school he skates until dark with his friend, Toby. Other than that, I have no idea what he does. He could be hanging out with drug users, petty thieves, or crime gangs. Fuck, he might even be the drug user—what would I know?
Not a fucking thing.
He’s right to feel disappointment when he looks at me—embarrassment even. Three years ago, he saved my life; he cut the rope I put my final hope into and brought me back, with a broken rib and a severe case of shame. I prayed every day, begging for forgiveness for what I’d become, but I learnt the hard way that Jesus doesn’t save men like me. Even the devil runs the figures before he decides if he wants the bother. As a consequence, I’ve lost my faith—lost my hope that all this shit happens because a higher being has a purpose for me.
What good could I honestly bring to this world?
Nope, at the end of the day it was my kid that saved me—my flesh and blood. And what have I done since then to repay the favor? Nothing. I slipped further into my self-pitying state, and left him to his own devices while I searched the bottom of a bourbon bottle for answers to my problems.
He has no need for me.
Alice emerges from his room carrying a duffle that couldn't contain more than a handful of items. He strides past