This is just an experiment, an excerpt from something I've been writing. It's meant to be sort of all over the place.
Two months. It scares the shit out of me to even think about it. Only two little months. Two months ago, I was the same dumbass kid I've always been. But two months from now, I'm gonna be driving down to Oregon on my own to live there and all. That's scary as hell. It's like five hundred miles away from home.
Five hundred miles. It's like that old Hedy West song. I can remember when I lived with my friend Lauren for a summer back in elementary school on account of my own mama having a baby and saying there wasn't enough room for me in the trailer anymore. I swear Lauren's mom played the same CD all summer long. The sound of it danced out into the back yard, where we played all day long. The only song that I can really remember now in particular is that Hedy West song. I don't really know what it's about, to be honest. I just remember the lady singing it, basically moaning about how she was "five hundred miles, five hundred miles, five hundred miles away from home" all over the place. I can still imagine her face, looking out the window of some broken down, gray, house trying to find her real home in quiet desperation.
That's probably how I'm going to look, though, staring out the window of some farm house down in Oregon. Maybe when I'm eighteen I'll go back to the Valley, where I live now, since it's my real home, I think, and get an apartment with a couple buds. Just kick it there until I graduate.
That was a joke. I sure as hell ain't ready to even move out of my mama's house and down to the good ole family farm. I won't be able to afford it, that's for sure, even though I ain't going to be living on my own, anyway. I'm going to be living with a couple cousins, so it's not like they'll make me pay them rent or anything. I hope they don't think I look goofy or anything.
It's almost worse when your cousin doesn't think you look goofy, though. My grandpa has this big ole picnic every summer. We call it the Pig Roast on account of the fact that he and his brother roast the biggest pig you've ever seen in this big barbecue deal. It's supposed to be a family reunion, but a whole lot of the people who show up are just family friends, people my grandpa met while working for the Tacoma police department back in the day. So when some guy my age starting talking to me sweet, asking me to play horse shoes and all, I didn't think too much of it. That is until my big brother Zack started laughing all over the place, telling us that we's cousins. Turns out we even had the same last name. It was pretty creepy.
I kind of miss those family reunion Pig Roast deals, though. That was the first one I'd been to since I was in kindergarten or something. My mama isn't too keen on letting me go to them. She isn't too keen on that whole side of the family, actually. I don't see my dad or my big brothers, Zack and Justin, at all really. Sometimes I think about trying to move in with the three of them over in Kent, but I know it's not a good idea. My dad ain't really good at raising kids, especially girls. It'd just be trouble.
And I already get in trouble an awful lot as it is. Too much trouble. My mama and Jim - that's her new husband - almost sent me to Sundown Ranch or Ollala a few months ago. No bueno.
It wasn't because they were actually worried about me. They just knew the neighbors'd started talking. Mr. Anderson, the cop who lived next door, parked some random patrol car on the street in front of his house to sketch out all the tweakers who came up to my place. I ain't really supposed to have friends over anymore, not since I got in trouble and all. And I live with another pair of brothers, little ones named Erik and Gunnar, and it's not like I want to expose them to all the bullshit I put myself through.
I feel bad whenever I see little kids, to be honest. Like a couple days ago, my buddy George and I drove up to the Lake, just to kick it outside. I like spending time out in the sticks like that. Reminds me of the periodic hunting trips with my dad. Anyway, George and I weren't doing anything wrong at all. We were just sitting on his tailgate, breathing in the last bits of that beautiful day's sweet air. And then this little girl and her daddy come walking down the old hiking tail. When they saw us, they just sort of stop talking and all. Pretty awkward. The daddy gave us a disparaging look, like he thought a Mexican teenage boy and some skinny little white girl were inherently bad influences on his little kid or something. He didn't need to do that, though, 'cause I already felt bad enough. I feel like the soap scum on the world's bath tub.
Now that I really think about it, maybe I should be mad at that guy, since it wasn't like we were doing anything wrong. If he really knew me or George, he'd know we aren't bad kids at all. Sure, we've probably made a couple mistakes. But that doesn't make either of us a bad person. Everyone does stuff wrong sometimes. I don't think there are really bad people. I mean, someone can't be all good or all bad. Things just don't really work that way.
But that's not the only reason I don't spend much time with my little brothers. They just hate me. I don't know why. Jim says it's 'cause I was mean to them when they were younger. It might be true. I mean, you can't blame me. My own mama made me go live with my friend so there'd be enough room for her and Jim to have their new little family in the trailer. Obviously I'm gonna have a little animosity towards the whole situation.
And those kids... They're just Jim's kids. There ain't a better way to explain it. I ain't Jim's kid. And you can tell. I don't really look like them, for one. All four of them together are this perfect little blond family. I have dark eyes and hair and pretty pale skin. I almost feel like throwing up whenever I see a photo of all of us, since I'm just like this big ole coffee stain in the middle of their fancy lace tablecloth.
Thank you for reading.
I want to know where you're planning on taking this.
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