The Wrong Side of Twenty-Five

by Dionne Abouelela

  The Wrong Side of

  Twenty-Five

  Dionne Abouelela

  Your text here

  Copyright © 2018 by Dionne Abouelela

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2018

  ISBN:

  MOBI 978-1-941541-11-1

  Epub 978-1-941541-33-3

  Paperback 978-1-941541-45-6

  Cover Design:

  Dionne Abouelela https://www.dionneabouelela.com

  Pen Name Publishing

  PO Box 173

  Bargersville, IN 46106

  www.pennamepublishing.com

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/pennamepublishing

  Twitter: @pennamepublish

  For the dreamers,

  the doers,

  and those who’ve had enough of their own shit.

  Chapter One

  I once heard if you’re lost you could easily find yourself in the bottom of a crystal highball glass after downing some sort of alcohol with a quick throw back of your head. I never expected to find myself in the bottom of a glass of whiskey — especially when it wasn’t my whiskey. But, there I sat at a red light, the smell of Jim Beam still dancing in my nostrils, my expectations for normalcy shattered, with a car full of vintage suitcases and trash bags tightly stuffed with whatever I could grab in one furious hour of yelling, screaming, and deciding it was finally time to move on with my life. Not the life they wanted for me. Not the life they thought I should be giving to them. Not the life I worked hard to build only to pass over out of obligation.

  I was also grossly aware of the reality my suitcases were vintage because we didn’t have a pot to piss in and have scraped them out of dumpsters over the years. Nothing I owned was vintage because I could afford to buy half ruined things labeled ‘shabby chic’ to increase the price on little red tags.

  This wasn’t how life was supposed to be, but you can’t always anticipate the curveballs, or for that matter, the times you strike out when the bases are loaded, your team is down one run, and the whole fandom needs you to just hit the ball. Lately, I’ve felt like I have been in that precarious position one too many times; the fate of the ‘Saving the Family World Series’ heavily placed upon my slight shoulders.

  I’m still trying to figure out what the hell I’ve done so wrong with my life, and to date, the only thing I can come up with is I stayed every time I knew I should leave. I stayed every single time I said I had to start a life for myself, or I had a right to build a world for myself, and even the more private thoughts of, “I deserved more than our small town could offer.”

  I wanted to live on my own but I stayed in that derelict trailer, helping my mother pay her bills, buying her groceries, and never being able to hold a steady relationship while I essentially parented Mom and…him. He was the “uncle” who never leaves and eventually starts to act like he’s your dad, and then your mom slowly begins to tell you to respect him because he’s your elder. That guy.

  In a way, Uncle Raymond fell in to a father figure role way better than any of the myriad of hopeless men who had showed up on our porch steps in previous years. He arrived a little over 17 years ago on a family game night. I can remember that night like you should when a sudden shift blows in and causes a huge life-changing event. My little sister, Mom, and I were engrossed in a furious game of Win, Lose, or Draw on sheets of scrap paper from one of Mom’s tossed out manuscripts. The chilly November Midwest night brought the added challenge of sleet; not pretty enough to be snow but cold enough to chill you to the bone. The electricity flickered wildly, and for once, the reason our light bulbs were failing wasn’t because mom didn’t pay the bill. We were laughing like a pack of hyenas, huddled closely together because the dilapidated fiberglass trailer we rented didn’t have insulation in the paper-thin walls and we didn’t have the money to buy extra wood for the corner stove.

  The doorbell rang. We ignored the heavy chime and quieted down as we had been trained to do while practicing our bill collector or bounty hunter avoidance. I never knew what all Mom was tied in to, nor did I want to know, but what I did know was I never wanted to be an author. They didn’t seem to make any money, and apparently, they got into a lot of trouble.

  After four rhythmic rings in quick succession, almost overloading our poor door chime, leaving it gasping and exhausted, Mom’s expression changed. Her face went ashen; even grayer than the times I swore she had alcohol poisoning after a rejection came in. Quickly she stood, her knees visibly shaking and her weak ankles struggling with the sudden movement. She straightened her hair, smoothed her worn flannel nightgown with the large rip along the shoulder seam, and teetered towards the door. To this day, I’m not sure if the audible gasp was the old door giving way when it swung open or my mother’s recognition of the stranger on the other side.

  There he was: soaking wet, shivering, and smiling an awkward fake smile we would come to know all too well after he decided to never leave. Mom cursed; my sister and I gasped and watched as she slammed the door in his face. She cursed some more and reopened the flimsy aluminum divider. He hadn’t moved a muscle. Mom moved slowly to the side, one eyebrow arched, and allowed him to enter.

  “Take off your shoes,” she said. “Don’t you dare get mud on my carpet.”

  She didn’t care about the carpet. Truth be told, she was probably thinking about how much money it would cost to clean the shaggy threadbare rug once he left us and she no longer wanted those muddy footprints sitting by the front door, reminding us of another “uncle” who wouldn’t be in our family anymore.

  He asked for a towel. She said no. He asked to change in to something dry. She handed him a floral nightgown with raggedy lace cap sleeves from the laundry pile on the back of the blue plaid recliner barely holding itself together with smartly placed duct tape.

  To this day, I don’t know why he stayed. I wish he hadn’t. I wish I never had the stench of his stale whiskey fall out in my nostrils and I wish this red light would hurry up and change. I don’t have places to be, I don’t have things to do, but today would be the day I freed myself from this town and start finding a place to be and things to do. Today would be the day I erased my past and created my future. Today would be the day I forgot him, forgot her (and her). In case you can’t read my mind, that’s my mom and my sister. From this miserable day forward, I will only worry about myself.

  I didn’t know where I’d go. I had no plan. I didn’t even have GPS because my cell phone was straight out of the 1990’s via a pawnshop. I decided the best path was the simplest path: hit the highway and take whatever exit or connection I found interesting until somewhere called out to me in a loving embrace and said, “Hey, Honey, welcome home.”

  Or until my $273.49 ran out.

  Whichever came first is where I’d stay. Maybe I didn’t want to be toting this judgmental trailer park hippy parent name of Blossom Springtime Weatherby Franklin, either. Mom said it sounded elegant and classic, but for someone who never minded about money, I never understood why she tried to name me like I should be standing court in a British palace, eating crumpets, and drinking tea. She said I needed a name matching our roots sprung from the tree started by Franklin, Indiana’s founders. We didn’t even belong to a blade of grass near that tree, but sh
e wanted people to believe we were prized fruit from a treasured orchard.

  I was always amazed at how my mother could feverishly whip up a dramatic lie laced with enough excitement and craziness where a listener might be tempted to believe her words over recorded history. Ironically, my mother could never write a single story down on paper capable of selling or find anyone willing to even print her words for free. Even our at home printer would chew up and spit out the pages with crinkled edges and splattered ink. Mom always said the printer ate the pages because the damn piece of shit was broken. Deep down in my heart of hearts I knew even electronics hated her stories.

  I hated her stories. I hated everything. I hated Franklin. I hated my boring autumnal sweaters made of cheap polyester blend fibers from the thrift store on three for one coupon day. I hated the way my old heap of half rusted, three toned, pieced together hunk of scrap metal I call a car shuddered and groaned. I hated my box color tiger stripe highlights put in through a cheap plastic cap over my neighbor’s 1970’s dusty rose bathroom sink. And, I hated her stories

  Most of all, I truly hated my Uncle Raymond and his red plastic cups of whiskey on ice he left littered around the house like cheap atomizers. I hated those cups and the lies snaking out of their mouths with the ease of a fine trail of cigarette smoke. Those silver laced deceptions carried on for years, whispering to me he was my uncle. But he wasn’t my uncle at all. He wasn’t even just another boyfriend. He was my father. My blood father I thought I never had and who had convinced my mom our lives would be better if I never found out half of me was made of half of him. He wanted to try and have a true father-daughter relationship with me, one without judgment or questions for why he left in the first place.

  He was a coward.

  That night, though, the night I packed my car, I found out the truth. Mom drowned her pity, sorrows, and worthless stories in a handle of fruity flavored vodka until her head wobbled on her neck like a broken slinky making its way down cement steps. She must have felt the pain from high levels of fermented potato, knowing her throat had allowed too much poison to make its way through her body, and she asked me to bring her will. She was absolutely stone drunk positive she would die before the sun came back around the moon to say hello, the pain of a broken heart and a broken life and disappointing her children had broken her heart to painful pieces, she explained with heavy words dripping down her mouth and collecting in a wet puddle on her tea rose covered chest.

  I slumped to her bedroom, crawled halfway under the bed until I found the turquoise plastic binder sized tote with the cracked corners. I wriggled back out with form capable of making an earthworm jealous, popped the lid open and began to dig for the yellowed notebook paper that contained Mom’s Living Will — unrecognized and maybe not even legal Living Will. I hoped this meant she was finally giving me the mismatched plates of chipped thrift store China she reserved for the good guests — sarcasm was a known talent of mine.

  I quickly dug through the random papers and my hands slipped over my Birth Certificate. I had seen the paperwork before but for some reason, today, my brain said to me, “Read it!” My subconscious exclaimed in support and yelled in my ear, and I obeyed, my heart racing from an unknown sense of dread and danger. When my eyes fell on the signature line for Father, I gasped.

  Sitting there in indelible black ink was the once sober signature of Raymond Jennings.

  “What. The. FUCK,” I screamed. Then I screamed bloody murder and ran out of the room waving the birth certificate wildly in a sense that would make anyone think I was the drunk one, not my mother.

  They laughed.

  They. Laughed.

  “Blossom, it’s not a big deal. Uncle Ra…your father…has been raising you anyway and you’ve acted like he was your father. Don’t cause a scene over nothing,” she gurgled.

  “Cause a scene? Over nothing? You lied. My entire life is a lie. My entire life I said I wanted to meet my real father and you both acted like that would never happen.”

  “But you met him. He raised you,” she slobbered.

  I cried and gasped, choking on the thick layer of mucous collecting on the back of my tongue. “It’s. Not. The. Same. You. Lied. Ihateyouboth.”

  I quickly packed what I could. I didn’t necessarily want anything from my shitty life full of lies. I didn’t want them to sell what once belonged to me or give my threadbare polyester secondhand sweaters to my undeserving sister, who may or may not be my full sister, and may or may not be my half sister, but was absolutely not a bright spot in my life.

  “Don’t do this, Blossom.” They laughed in unison. “You’re being ridiculous. Just sleep it off and tomorrow nothing will change.”

  I turned to look at my mom. She was right. Tomorrow nothing would change. In her entire existence, she had never uttered more powerful words. “You’re a drunken excuse for a mother,” I slithered before turning towards my now father who I thought was missing my entire life. “And you…you don’t deserve my words.”

  I walked through the front door — three times in order to take all of my suitcases — and they just laughed and loudly talked even though they thought they were whispering, saying I would be back tomorrow.

  I wouldn’t be back tomorrow.

  $273.49.

  By my accounts, I should get 19 miles to the gallon in this old rusted hunk of junk. Gas was currently $2.83 a gallon, and I calculated I should get around 94 and ½ gallons. By the time my rusted stallion sputtered and died, I would be around 1800 miles away from my jail cell of Franklin, Indiana. I hoped this would put me somewhere nice, or at least put me near an ocean, wide river, or lake — somewhere I could drown myself if the town was anywhere like here.

  Green light.

  Go.

  Chapter Two

  Red light, stop. Green light, go. This was my childhood all over again: the lessons learned in kindergarten games, feverishly played on the playground when we didn’t have a care and were setting ourselves up for failure. One day we would eventually learn life was just a little harder than stop, go, stop, go, you suck — you’re out!

  From this red light, randomly placed at an intersection surrounded by rows of corn, the interstate leading to my new freedom was five miles away. I figured the distance was roughly ¼ of ¼ of ¼ of ¼ of 1 tank of gas. I had only five miles to decide if I wanted to go east or west. Luckily, I wouldn’t have to decide on north or south until another major interstate junction. I thought I already knew my answer — I wanted to go south. I wanted sunshine, tanned boys who might be drunk enough to not laugh at my name or who come from money where my name seems normal, and I wanted fruity drinks with the tiny floral print umbrellas stuck through the pineapple.

  I wanted a house with tile floors instead of our nasty blue half rotten indoor/outdoor carpet. A house with tile floors meant I lived near a beach and would most likely be sweeping up copious amounts of sand. A tile floor meant I didn’t live in some cheap modular piece of shit with peeling linoleum in the kitchen capable of being picked up and moved. For these small reasons other people believed were just mundane daily details, I believed a nice tile floor was one way of saying, “I’ve made it.”

  I wanted to find a house with one of those large oval bathtubs that could fit me and two other friends being silly on a drunken bender having girl time over extra margaritas we would regret in the morning or a hot tanned boy with a glass of champagne on a romantic escapade like the movies. I wanted a closet I could lie down in if I needed a tight place to sleep or one where I could hide from intruders who were jealous I made it. Most of all, I wanted a room where I could fit a king size bed and still have room to walk around the sides. I wanted space and I wanted to be selfish with my space.

  I daydreamed those five miles away with a flurry of excitement about what my life could turn into when I should have been processing the needs of the road. T
hankfully, the light leading to the on ramp was red, which afforded me approximately two minutes and thirty-seven seconds to decide if I would turn right to go east or continue under the underpass and go left, setting my course towards the west.

  Right. Left. East. West. What did I know about the east coast? What did I know about the west coast? Do I want The OC or do I want Gossip Girl? Both have their shares of bad boys, awkward names, family drama, and the struggling hopeless case who surprises everyone and turns out to be the winner in the end. Left. Right. West. East.

  A fierce and angry horn blasted me from my contemplation, and I looked up only to notice the light was no longer red. The signal was actually no longer green, either, and was instead a bright yellow, which thoroughly pissed off the Mercedes behind me. I threw up my right hand in an apologetic wave and turned on my flashers, faking car trouble. I was thankful for the three extra minutes to decide my fate, and at the same time, suddenyl aware the need to apologize for every action I made was so ingrained in my personality; especially when I was unsure of myself in the face of someone holding a perceived higher social standing than myself.

  This all ends now. This side of me has to die.

  I threw my hazards off and as the light turned green again, I gunned the engine. I flew off under the overpass just in time to stop the Mercedes from pulling around and probably flipping me off. My small moment of self-awareness was my middle finger to the status quo, one Mercedes at a time.

  I merged onto the highway with a huge smile on my face before the terror really sunk in. I’m going left; I’m heading west. I quickly found myself at peace with this decision the traffic light gods bestowed upon me. Heading west seems to harness the power of potential: I could be a cowgirl, a hippie artist in a commune somewhere in New Mexico, I could work in some wild west town as a living historical actor, I could be a trail guide, or a national park ticket holder. I’m sure I could be a waitress at some cheesy roadside diner, and if I made it all the way to the coast, I could marry a rich and desperate older gentleman who would pamper me until he died and I would be left with ownership of his riches.