Chapter 2

Anyway, Robert left me off at the house and nobody thought to give me a key, so I decided to go in the way I so often had, through my bedroom window. I climbed the old tree and started creeping out onto the branch that ran near my window. And yeah, the branch broke and down I fell and I ended up having a temper tantrum, breaking the kitchen window with the fucking branch, and getting in that way.

Grace had already had the power turned off.

What I found though, after climbing through the window, falling halfway into the sink, which was full of dirty dishes, and then falling onto the floor, which was wet and smelled of ammonia, were two very hungry cats. Once I was able to stand up again I found kibble in the closed pantry (by feel), and as I fed them I sat down on the floor again to pet them—God they were happy to see me—and indulged in a fit of crying, for all the times my Dad could have been the Dad every kid deserved, and wasn’t; for the cats, forgotten and afraid, and for both little me and big me, for who I am, and who Dad had been, and who I wished we both had been.

Then when I reached down to the floor to push myself up, a mouse trap snapped closed on my finger. All I could do by then was laugh.

It had been a long, depressing, and stressful day. I enjoyed the two cats purring and rubbing their heads against me. I sucked my finger and tossed the dead mouse trap across the room. I think it landed in the sink. The three of us groped our way, well I did, they can see in the dark, to the stairs, up them and down the hall to my former bedroom. I went inside, barely able to see with just the light coming in from the streetlight down the block. My bed was still there. There weren’t any sheets or blankets on it, but I fell onto it fully dressed anyhow, slipped my shoes off, and grunted as the two cats joined me. They curled up and went to sleep, and I followed their example. My finger fell out of my mouth, and the last thing I remembered was one of the cats licking it, purring happily.

In between sleeping like the dead under my two-piece furry blanket, and waking up wondering where I was, I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by hurt over the final insult from my father. My mother had been fine, loving, and kind. I think she would have been fine with learning I was gay, too, but I had never dared tell her or anyone else, in case Dad found out. I know he suspected, but we never openly discussed it. That would have made it something he had to deal with. Maybe he wanted that, but I didn’t. Since my sister was older than me and her grades were excellent, they’d joyously sent her off to college. She was five years older. By the time I was ready, Dad was already disappointed in me and had suggested I might be happier learning auto mechanics. It was the first class I ever flunked out of, but at least I had six weeks of being around big hunky, sweaty boys. Then they put me in photography, the only elective with an open spot. I hated it—for about a week. Then I fell in love with cameras, darkrooms, and the smell of developer, plus all that groping around in the dark thing with other boys. And a few girls.

I tried out for football to please Dad, but that was a bust. I wasn’t coordinated enough or big enough. Then when I didn’t make any headway there, they stuck me in swimming—which I loved from the first time I was naked with the other swimmers who were nothing like the boys in the football/varsity oriented shower rooms. I was good enough for the swim team, which did not, however, have a varsity or earn you a letter or a name as a jock. The jocks called us swimmers losers, or pufferfish, because the coach laughed so hard when they called us blowfish that he outlawed it.

When I graduated, my grades had slipped and I was no longer on the honor roll. I excelled at two things; swimming, and photography. To spite my father, who was an Army man through and through, I joined the Navy. There I was able to further my photography skills, and became an underwater photographer, which got me into commercial diving after my stint was up. To my father, however, it was just another blue collar job. I didn’t care; I’d made my way, survived both the training and the numerous pranks we played on each other, some of which included those poisonous pufferfish previously mentioned, and I was content on the island of Maui, as far away from dear old Dad as I could get and still live in the U. S. of A.