Chapter One
We pulled into my dad's neighbourhood around six p.m. It was winter time, so it was miserably dark, cold, and particularly unwise to drive on the roads. It was my dad's birthday, however – December 17th – and I promised I would come to his house, snow or shine.
I must have been wearing a sour expression, for my mom said: "Come on, honey. How bad can this be?"
"You divorced him," I said. "How bad could the marriage have been?"
"Touché," she replied with a chuckle. "But you only have to see him once ever so often. And it's his birthday. I'd certainly be crushed if you didn't come to my birthday."
"But you shower once a day and believe beer isn't a staple drink," I said sarcastically. Part of me felt bad for being snarky to my mother, but I would have preferred going to the salt mines than going over to my dad's.
My dad was your typical lower-middle class slob. He worked as a pipe fitter for some local construction company, and when he wasn't working he was drinking beer and watching sports on television. I honestly wouldn't be so opposed to him if it weren't for his stupid attitude. He usually pretends not to know things or feigns forgetfulness sometimes, but I know he knows. Like, generally, when I go over to his duplex once a month for my obligatory visits, he would ask me how school was goin', to which I'd respond it was going well, to which, unfailingly, he would add: "What was it you were takin' again?" He pretends not to know so we have something to talk about.
I do love him. It's just harder to do so sometimes when he acts so much like a narrow-minded dumbass that I want to throttle his neck or swap the beer out of his hand. But the last time I talked to him he sounded so tragically crestfallen that I didn't plan on coming over to his house for his birthday, so I promised his lost puppy-dog voice that I would.
