Fathers raise their sons with respect and love

Handle anger and pain with no need for no guns

If we hope to be free it takes you and me

To start over here and now
//

Jack

Fall had to be my favorite season.

I just love driving around and seeing all the bright splashes of red, orange and yellow on the dying trees. It just got prettier the farther you ventured away from town, the houses got smaller and the vegetation grew thicker.

The less people there were around the more beautiful they were.

Most people never really saw this part of town, few had any reason to wander from Towson to the places where lunch ladies and janitors lived.

Around here there were only run down strip malls that get robbed weekly, filled with dollar stores, liquor shops and tobacco outlet shops.

But nobody would really be surprised how often I come around here, if they knew about me.

“God dammit!” I heard someone shout inside of the small, nearly shack sized house that I was approaching and rolled my eyes.

The front door was already cracked so I let myself in, and turned my head to see Derek sitting on his ratty ass couch, and slapped a hand on his wiry thigh in disgust.

“I told her to DVR one god- damn show for me, and all that’s fucking here are shitty episodes of 16 and pregnant!!” Derek exclaimed, tossing the remote control to the tv aside.

“Maybe she’s trying to tell you something,” I suggested, plopping down on the couch next to him.
He glared at me in annoyance and brushed some of the long brown hair away from his face.

Most of our conversations consist of him complaining about his wife and me giving him some snarky responses, or about the latest game that I had probably missed because I have a life while Derek just stays here and gets high.

The fact that he is even married is proof that there is really someone out there for everybody. Wiry and gritty, never seemed to be wearing any shoes, dirt caked under his fingernails, and appeared ten years older than his actual age, yet he is happily married. Well, maybe not that happily.

Me along with a handful of other people like me visit Derek pretty regularly, and he probably managed to move ten pounds of dope a month with all the fucking stoners in this town.
The only reason that he had never surfaced on any law enforcement radar was because there weren’t many people who could bring themselves to care that he even existed.

He works full time as a gravedigger in the town cemetery ever since he got out of prison. He only manages to make 9 dollars an hour but his drug dealing kept him stock piled on his microwavable tv dinners and satellite television for his wife.

This afternoon, Derek seemed to be hopped up on something, not the shit he was pushing but he was wired and kept shifting around.

He carefully shredded the weed and loaded a bong hit, which got passed to me. Pot buying protocol dictated that the buyer had to take a bong hit in the presence of the dealer.
Some long standing rule was involved, I don’t know what the origin of it was but I didn’t bother to ask the first time, so I might as well not ask now.

Weed is not really my drug, it makes you slow and stupid. But rules were the rules.

Once we both had a surprisingly good buzz, I turned to Derek who leaned back into the couch.

“Weren’t you just here like 3 days ago, man?” he asked me.

“Yeah, business has been pretty good.” I responded.

“Apparently. What do you want?”

“A couple of ounces.”

I watched as he left the room and returned with a grocery bag. I opened it and pulled out two ziplock bags and gave him a weird look.

“This one’s light.” I told him, handing the lightweight bag up to him.

“Aw shit. I bet that goddamn bastard is stealing from me again.” he huffed.

I didn’t really give a shit who he meant, I just wanted to get my money’s worth.

I managed to get out of that hell hole a few minutes later and got on my bike.

I debated on calling Cass to tell her to let Mike and Alan know that I got their usuals, but I thought I could just do that later because it didn’t really matter.


----


I rolled my eyes when I saw my dad’s beaten up pickup truck parked terribly in the driveway as I pulled in. He’s usually never home, but on the rare occasion that he is, it fucking sucks.

I walked through the front door and was welcomed with the delightful stench of cigarette smoke, so I kicked off my converse and made my way to the stairs.

“Jack!” I heard my voice being screamed from the other side of the house. I groaned, huffing out an annoyed breath and walked over to the recliner chair he was constantly stuck in.

“What.” I responded with a monotone voice.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?! Why didn’t you clean up the shut like I told you to? You fucking useless piece of shit, can you do anything?” he spat, pushing his cigarette into the ashtray on the coffee table, and surprisingly hoisting his fat ass off the chair and stood up.

Here is the loving, graceful, role model of a father, Bassam Barakat. Ever since my parents got divorced when I was 15, mainly because my dad was abusive to my mom and shit, he’s been even more of a train wreck then he was before.

He’s a drunk and is rarely ever home, when he is he’s either wasted or high, or banging some slutty divorcè that he usually fucks in gas station bathrooms but sometimes he has the decency to bring them back to his dirty ass bed.

He’s the bassist of a shitty band, filled with shitty grown men just like him, that play scummy bars every night for a job. Most of the time he crashes at their houses, or with the middle aged sluts covered in cellulite, cheap perfume and spray tan he sleeps with, and sometimes I see him sleeping outside on park benches.

But it’s not like I’d ever take the time to put a blanket on him.

Usually the house was pretty clean because I’m the only one that really lives here, and if he came home to see a mess he’d murder me, so I’m assuming the mess that he’s talking about is one that he made.

“You didn’t tell me to clean anything.” I defended, rolling my eyes at him.

“Go to the fucking kitchen and do what I fucking say!! I’m the one who pays for the roof over your head, I’d be more than happy to kick you the fuck out!” he screamed, pointing his grimy finger towards the kitchen.

I know what you're thinking, where is my mom?

Well she isn’t exactly mother of the year either.

She’s in Arizona going to medical school to become a nurse, and she left me here, with him.
How fucking sweet.

My dad convinced her that I would be better off here before she left, instead of moving me with her. He said that I belonged with the friends I grew up with, and I was going to a really good school. He had his act together back then, because that was right after all the therapy and shit. For some fucked up reason, she agreed with him.

She said something about me needing a father figure in my life to teach me how to be a man, and that we both needed to bond because after the divorce I wanted nothing to do with him.

After she left me here with him, he quickly transformed into the asshole he is today.

Some father figure.

I stared at the mess in the kitchen just in front of the sink and shuddered. It was just a shirt covered in vomit, probably from earlier today, but it was being attacked with ants and other bugs.

“Hurry the fuck up!” I heard him yell, closer now. I turned around and saw him leaning on the doorway to the kitchen, wanting to watch me pick it up.

“I’m not cleaning up your dirty ass, vomit covered shit! Do it yourself, or get one of your whores to do it for you! One of them has gotta be a cleaning lady or some shit!” I yelled.

I didn’t even flinch as he grabbed me by the collar with a shaky hand, and I shoved him back hard so he would stumble backwards into a wall.

He doesn’t fucking scare me.

I don’t care if he’s my dad, he might as well be just some dick that occasionally sleeps in my house, and pukes in it every once in awhile.

Once he regained his balance he didn’t bother fighting anymore, and went back to his recliner chair in front of the TV.

I shook my head, walking upstairs and pulling out my phone to text Alex like I promised him I would.

Notes

i am sorry
for this lame chapter
i am very aware that it sucks

it's just a filler chapter so you can get some background on jack, and the types of stuff he does and what his family and life is like

so yeahhh
basically he has a really shitty Dad, and his mom is okay but she's pretty much an absent parent

i promise i will update with a longer, better chapter as soon as I can because I HAVE SO MUCH MOTIVATION TO WRITE THIS STORY AND I'M SO EXCITED FOR ALL OF YOU GUYS TO READ IT :D

i'm gonna try to post a chapter for this story at the same time as my other story each time but idk if i'll always do that

plus i've been updating a lot latly and idk how long that is going to last also because the amounts of homework i get are very unpredictable lmao

i really hope that you guys liked this chapter even though it was pretty boring, and i'm so excited for you to read more!!! :D
plz leave a comment to tell me what you think and they make me superr happy and motivate me cuz y'all are always so sweet

why did i say y'all
idk
why am i like this



<3