My Kind of Crazy - Robin Reul Page 0,1

cutting through the back alleys toward home.

By the time my key is in the door, I’m sweating like a whore in church and feel like I’m going to puke. I have two objectives: avoid all human contact and get to my room as quickly as possible.

Naturally, this does not happen. Dad is sitting downstairs, nursing a beer and watching a baseball game on TV. He’s wearing his stained lucky Red Sox shirt that he never washes because that would bring bad luck. His eyes are puffy and his face hasn’t seen a razor in days. It’s sad to see him like this. He’s actually a pretty handsome guy. Even when my mom was alive, I noticed other women checking him out. If I’d been paying a little more attention, I might have noticed he was checking them out too. It wasn’t until Mom was gone that I think he realized how much he loved her.

Normally when I come home, Dad acknowledges me with little more than a wave and a grunt, his eyes glued to his precious Sox, but lucky for me, tonight he decides to strike up a conversation.

“Hey! Hank! Just in time. Sox’re killing ’em. Top of the ninth.” He raises his bottle and tips it toward me as if he’s toasting me.

“Nice,” I tell him, but I can’t think about baseball right now. The only balls I can concentrate on are my own as I wonder how I’m going to grow a pair and deal with this mess.

Dad yells at the umpire on the screen. When he was younger, Dad was a hell of a ballplayer with dreams of playing for the Sox. He was offered a spot in the minor leagues out of high school, met my mom, fell in love, and the future looked bright. Four years went by, and he never got picked up for the majors. Then he tore his ACL and that was that. Game over. Time for Plan B.

“Monica made some kind of enchilada casserole. I think there’s some left. You could warm it up.”

That sounds dangerous. She means well, but Monica might possibly be the worst cook on the entire planet. It’s not that my mom was some great cook, but in comparison she was Betty frickin’ Crocker.

Dad takes a swig of his beer and then places it on the coffee table beside an empty. The condensation will leave a wet ring on the wood. All our furniture is covered with them, like a dog pissing to mark his territory or something. That’s one of the few things I remember my mother hassling Dad about the day she and my older brother, Mickey, died, even though that was nearly six years ago. “Use a coaster, Larry!” It was her mantra.

“I’m not all that hungry.” It isn’t even a lie. I’m pretty sure that if I eat anything, it will come hurtling back up at light speed.

“Not like you to pass up the Sox or a meal.” The role of concerned parent fits him like a cheap suit. He gives me a once-over, clearly judging my pale, skinny frame. I’m no wimp. Just because I’m not bench-pressing with a bunch of jockstraps at the gym doesn’t mean I can’t lift four forty-pound bags of dog food at my job at the Shop ’n Save without breaking a sweat.

I’d much rather be up in my room working on the latest installment of my comic Freeze Frame. Add that to the list of disappointments life has dealt my dad. The only thing worse than losing his wife and superjock son and being left with me would be if I were a girl.

“I’m good. Maybe later. I gotta take a shower and study for a bio test tomorrow. Plus, I have to work tonight. They’re doing inventory so I’ll be back late…” I drift off, hoping he’ll lose interest and I can make an escape.

“Yeah, well, you’ll have to wait a few minutes. Monica’s upstairs using the shower.”

Initially, I wondered what the hell someone like Monica was doing with a guy like my dad. She’s twenty-six, only nine years older than I am, and she’s a dancer. Not ballet or Broadway or some fancy crap, but off the highway at Mo’s Boobie Barn. She says it’s only temporary to help her pay her way through beauty school, but I guess it goes without saying where they met.

According to Monica, he showed up at the club one night and they spent some “private time” in