Just Wanted to Learn

by William Swafford

  Life was getting really messed up between Ashley and me. My head wasn’t right. The arguments started leading to the cops being called a lot.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  My daughter had turned one. Things weren’t going good. I was having a hard time dealing with things.

  I was always used to be alone and now had to try to act like a dad. I always wanted to be a good day, but I wasn’t ready to give up a certain way of life.

  My resentment and anger started coming out towards my dad. I had gotten upset that she had never seen her grandpa sober. I had tried to talk to my dad about it.

  There had been other things on my mind. I can’t say that I was pressured to do it, but there was no one advising me not to.

  He didn’t want me with Ashley. He didn’t keep it a secret.

  He had always known about how I felt about him getting too drunk. I never minded someone drinking and having a good time. My daughter deserved not to have to associate alcohol with her grandpa.

  He was already drinking when I had tried to talk to him. He didn’t say much at all. I had done most of the talking and yelling.

  The conversation ended with me saying that it was his beer or his granddaughter. He didn’t say anything. He just raised his beer can. I walked away.

  We had moved to an apartment next door to a bar in Camden. My dad had stopped to get a weed eater that I hadn’t returned.

  He got into an argument. He had said something about smoking weed and children services. I flipped out.

  He had started down the hallway and I had gone after him. I grabbed the back of his overalls and turned him around.

  I got up in his face. I told him that there were two things I would do for my daughter, kill or die. I would let him decide which one.

  I couldn’t believe what I had done. I had thought about hitting my dad before, but never had the courage to do so. The dad of the past would have made me pay for what I had done.

  I didn’t talk to my dad for a while after that. It wasn’t long before he moved down to Mississippi.

  He had been talking about it for a while, but I didn’t think that he would do it. His girlfriend’s daughter was living down there. When I had found out that he had left, I had a feeling he wouldn’t be back to Ohio.

  As hard as it might be to believe, things didn’t get any better between Ashley and me. Things just kept getting worse. A situation occurred and it made me not want to play guitar around her anymore.

  I was still hanging gutters for the same man. Work did get a little slow and things had gotten rough.

  My boss had a guitar that he wanted to sell for a hundred-and-fifty dollars. It was a nice red six string acoustic guitar. He took a little out of my check every week. I didn’t take the guitar home till it was paid off.

  I was happy with the guitar even though I hadn’t played it. I was excited about getting it. Then a good thing turned horrible.

  We had gotten into a fight about something. She took the guitar and started slamming it on the floor. Then she went and threw it out the back door.

  The guitar was completely ruined. The body was crushed and the neck was split in half. There was no way to fix it.

  I had stopped playing music when she was home or if I thought that she could hear me. I hated to have to be that way. I couldn’t bring myself to play in front of her anymore.

  We ended up going homeless and then moving into an apartment building. Things just couldn’t get better between us. We split up and I had gone back to the motel.

  Construction was slowly down again because of the economy. After eight years of working with the same guy, I headed to factory work. I wasn’t used to a factory job.

  There was no making it without a steady paycheck. I had to pay for my motel room. I had already sold my truck to stay longer.

  My uncle had moved into my grandma’s house. He rented his house to me. I wanted my daughter to live with me, so I gave her mother another chance.

  I knew that it probably wouldn’t have worked out. I just wanted my daughter to live in the house next door to the house that her grandma grew up in. Things weren’t giving much thought.

  Things between us weren’t good, because I wasn’t holding grudges against her. I didn’t feel that I could trust her. I wasn’t even being honest with myself.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Things had calmed down for awhile. I was still working. I wasn’t playing that much. I was just basically going through life.

  One of my aunts had passed away. My dad’s older brother and sisters were a lot older than him. I thought my dad would have come up for the funeral, but he didn’t.

  I had gotten upset with him. I knew that my uncle had sent him money to come to the funeral. I had expected that he would come up from Mississippi.

  There were probably feelings coming up from my sister’s death. That’s probably a little of the reason why I had gotten so upset up with him. It’s hard to know where the real feelings are if you never deal with them.

  I had called him and asked him why he didn’t show. He had said that he had gotten the money late and wouldn’t be there for the viewing. I understood that, but didn’t understand why he didn’t at least show up for the funeral. I also had another question for him.

  He had always told me that he had traded my grandma’s guitar. He said that the guy who had it was supposed to give it to me when my dad dies. I wanted to know who had it. I wanted to buy back my grandma’s guitar.

  He confessed to pawning it off. He had lost it because he had failed to pay the bill. It wasn’t the first time that I heard of that happening to one of his guitars.

  I didn’t talk to him for awhile after that. I couldn’t understand why he would pawn something like that off and then lose it. He lost the first guitar that I had touched. Three generations of our family had played on that guitar.

  Throughout the years I had never owned a really nice guitar. My Fender twelve-string guitar had cost me the most. There had always been one guitar that I wanted to own.

  I had gotten some money and then my tax refund had come in. I wanted to buy a Les Paul, but I didn’t think I played enough to spend that kind of money on a guitar. I bought I Gibson Maestro to see if I was good enough for the Les Paul.

  I had spent some time debating on whether or not to buy the guitar that I had always wanted. I paid the rent three months in advice and bought some things for them. Then I bought my Les Paul. I hadn’t even broken in the Maestro yet.

  I had to call down to Mississippi and brag about my new guitar. My dad said he had one like mine. I never seen his guitar, but I knew it wasn’t like mine.

  I gave my Gibson Maestro and small amp to my niece. I don’t think she ever did anything with it. I never took the time to try and teach her anything.

  My amp that my mom bought me needed more to it. I actually need a new amp, but I got a pre-amp instead. It gave me something new to learn. I knew nothing about using a pre-amp.

  I wanted to show off my new guitar to everyone. I didn’t care if they played or not. I just didn’t want to play it in front of anyone.

  When a person has a nice guitar, people expect that person to really know what they are doing. I didn’t feel like I was good enough to live up to the hype of the guitar. It’s bad when your guitar appears than you appear.

  Chapter Forty

  Things weren’t better for Ashley and I the second time. We both didn’t even give it a chance. We had a lot of things between us and had spent too much time apart.

  She was seeing another guy. There were dozens of signs of her cheating. She didn’t confess to it till she had left. It ended up being a guy that I had gone to school with. He was even the first person I had ever jumped in my life.

  We were in the fifth grade and friends. I don’t remember what the fight was over. I was upset with him. I just started hitting him one day in the bathroom.

/>   Things were just different for Ashley and me. I didn’t even tell her I loved her or even kiss her the whole time she was there. There were just no feelings for her.

  Ashley had caused a lot of problems. She caused bad feelings to be made between my family and me. She cost me a lot money and stress.

  She likes to lay her hands on me. Things were getting violent. I decided that I couldn’t do it anymore. She didn’t make it easy to get her out.

  I couldn’t just kick her out. She had to be evicted. Her taking my daughter had made this hard. It made me feel like a bad dad.

  She had moved out for good. I found out that I was a better father without her than I was with her.

  It was hard letting things go at first. I had to get used to the idea of being alone again.

  Dad started calling more from Mississippi. He was playing in a band down there. I would already figure that he would be.

  He would always ask if I was playing. My answer would always be no. I didn’t know why he would even care. I figured he had stopped wanting to play with me while he was still in Ohio.

  I was always ashamed of not playing. He was still trying to keep me playing when he was thousands of miles of away. It was like I didn’t know how to do it on my own.

  The phone calls would always be short. He blamed it on never having any minutes on his phone. He would never take my advice about getting a cheaper phone service.

  I would never talk too much about my life to him. Something would have to be really bothering me to bring up in a conversation with him.

  I didn’t want to admit to myself that I missed having a dad around. I missed having a dad to go to when something was wrong or just had to get away from things. It wasn’t something that I would have ever told him.

  There were times that I did want to talk to him. It’s just that when I did get him on the phone. I wouldn’t know what to say. The conversations never went how I thought that they should have gone.

  I spent my whole life not knowing how to talk to my dad.

  I started hanging out with a guy named Chris. I had met him through my dad. My dad had stayed with Chris’ mom, only as friends, when Doug and my dad worked together.

  Chris is always hyper and on the go. He was in his early forties. He’s stocky and about my height. He had just broken up with his girlfriend. He had a police record that would shock most people.

  He had a nice music set up in his basement, but we only used it a few times. He did a lot of talk about playing music. If we did play any, it would be at my house. I always thought that his music equipment was going to waste.

  Chris might have been all talk, but it did do one thing for me. It gave me the desire to learn again.

  I would sit at home and learn newer music. Then I would show him that way he could see what we could do.

  Chris would help me out with a few things. He mostly helped keep me high. He gave and sold me a lot of weed.

  I knew better than to go to bars with him. He always seemed to be getting into fights.

  I hated it when he wanted me to go anywhere with him. He would want to leave in the morning. Then we would run around all day and wouldn’t get home till late at night. He always acted like I had nothing better to do.

  I had gone to the bar one night alone. I just felt like getting out of the house. There were a lot of people at the bar.

  There was so many people that I decided to sit at the end of the bar closest to the door. I don’t like walking through crowds of people. The only time I like crowds of people would be if I was on a stage with a guitar in my hand.

  I was sitting by myself at the bar drinking a beer. The closest people to me were a few seats down.

  A blond hair girl came up to the bar and ordered a drink. She was pretty with short blond hair. She had on a dark blue blouse and black trousers. I had noticed her looking at me.

  “Do you know who I am?” She asked.

  “No,” I replied.

  She just kind of nodded her head. I took my attention off her to take a drink. When I looked back at her, she was gone.

  There was something about her that I just couldn’t let go. Her facial features had reminded me of someone. Then I knew who she was.

  She was the girl that was driving the car that my sister was in the time of the accident. I hadn’t seen her for years.

  She didn’t even bother to tell me who she was. That was stuck on my mind for a few weeks.

  Chapter Forty-One

  I had a falling out with Chris and another friend. It was over a girl named Becky. It started with my friend Danny.

  I hadn’t heard from Danny since high school. When my brother and Danny had gone out huffing paint, and then my brother stabbed me. It had brought back some old memories.

  Danny liked a girl who lived two houses down from me and across the street from him. He told me about her, but I didn’t really know who she was. I had seen her drive past in her car.

  She was a twenty-year old blonde girl. She drove a black car. She had looked pretty from what I had seen of her.

  I thought that he had no chance. I was thirty-two and he was thirty-three. He did talk to her and give her his number.

  After a few weeks had gone by, he still hadn’t heard from her. I decided to on a moment’s notice to play a joke with him. He brought it on himself.

  I had gotten another phone, but hadn’t given my number out. I had sent him a text just saying hi. At first I was just giving him my new number, but he had gotten me started.

  He automatically thought it was her. I had just gone along with what he was already thinking. He had made it too easy.

  I turned the volume down on my phone. We were in the same room. He was focused on his phone.

  We kept texting back and forth. I wouldn’t touch my phone right away. I would wait for a couple of minutes to reply so he wouldn’t think that it was me.

  We went to a drive thru. I kept texting him while we were waiting on my food. I didn’t know what was funnier, him believing that it was her or him not evening realizing that I was texting the same time that he was.

  After a while we were sitting on my front porch, and then I sent a text saying that we should hang out. He sent a text asking when and I sent one back saying now.

  There wasn’t a word said to me. He got up and took off. I let him get to the road before I yelled for him.

  He started to get rude. He didn’t have time to walk back to the porch. He was in a hurry to get home.

  I had asked him where he was going. I already knew. It was hard not to laugh. He was pacing back and forth.

  He said that he had to hurry up and get home. Becky was on her way to his house. He said that he would talk to me the next day.

  He turned to go and I stopped him again. I said that he would probably kill me, but I had to tell him something. I told him that she wasn’t the one texting him.

  He got upset and still had gone home. I probably had gone too far.

  Shortly after that I had gone out to Chris’ house. He daughter and her boyfriend were there. They had brought their friend named, Becky.

  I didn’t know who she was at first, because I had never gotten a good look at her. Then I had seen her car.

  At first I didn’t think that it was the same car, but the more I looked at it the more I was sure that it was. I took a picture of it and sent a picture message to Danny. I asked him if he knew who’s car it was.

  I told him that she was out at Chris’ house. He thought I was joking with him again. He got upset and stops talking for a while.

  We had gone down to the dock and spent some time around the water. I had told Danny about it and he had gotten upset.

  I told him how I had gotten my hands wet and didn’t have anything to dry them off on. Becky had a short grey skirt on. She said I could use it. At first I didn’t, but then she said I could again. I dried my hands off on her skirt w
ith her still wearing it.

  Then I told him how she looked in her bikini. She looked good except for the tattoo that covered her whole right leg. It was a gun and flowers.

  He had gotten upset with me again. I wasn’t trying to get with her, because I knew that he was trying. He didn’t talk to me for a day.

  Danny gave up on Becky which was good. I just had a good laugh out of it. Then Danny got upset with Chris.

  Danny and I were having some beers at the house one night. The Chris stops by and has Becky with him.

  At the age of forty-two, Chris was trying to get with his daughter’s twenty-year old friend. His daughter had gotten upset with him.

  I just sat back and watched the show. I had found Chris and Becky outside kissing.

  Danny and Chris had stopped talking for awhile. They would stop by occasionally.

  Becky had come over by herself a few times. We would listen to music and I would play guitar. We both smoked weed.

  She liked to drink more than I did. I never liked a woman who liked drinking more than a man. We didn’t have much else in common.

  The thing that got her was when I had gotten a new CD. She had come over to the house and we were listening to it. Then I took out my guitar.

  I started messing around and found a chord. I restarted the song four times. Then I was playing along with the CD. I was playing a song that I didn’t even know just by listening to it. She was amazed by it.

  It wasn’t long after that she was in my bed. This had upset Chris. He got really mad when he asked how it was and I just said that it was alright.

  The Becky phase ended faster than what it had started. She wasn’t the type of girl that wanted to be tied down to one man.

  I had talked to Danny and Chris since then, but things aren’t the same. I have mixed feelings about that.

  I had spent some time alone. I was online one night and had started talking to Becky’s mom.

  Things almost happened between Becky’s mom and me. She had invited me over to her apartment one night. She wanted me to bring over my guitar.

  It was late at night, but I still had gone over. She had just gotten a new apartment. She barely had her things unpacked.