My Name Is Jimmy and You Better Not Wear It Out

I popped a couple of the pills that were SUPPOSED to keep my reflection at bay and then passed out on my bed until about five in the morning when sunlight started filtering in through my dirty window. I sat up and groaned. Less than four hours of sleep after being high most of the night never agreed with me.

"Mom? You home?"

I waited for an answer, prayed that she was home and in bed. I rolled out of bed and peaked out my door and the hallway mirror. My reflection didn't pop out and start degrading me, so I took that as the sign that the pills from last night were still working. I would have to take some later, but for now I had to look around for Mom.

I crept into her room, making sure not to step on all the squeaky spots on the floor. If she was here and asleep, I didn't want to wake her up. I regarded her lumpy bed like it was something brown and mysterious on my shoe. I didn't know if she was really there or not. After looking it over for a minute or two, I finally put a hand over my eyes to protect them from the horrible sight that was my mother sleeping like she usually did (naked) and pulled off the covers.

I took a peak through my fingers, then let my hand down and sighed. She wasn't there. Looks like I would have to go searching for her. Again.

I quickly changed pants and pulled on my jacket, put on my shoes, and I was out of the house like it wasn't five in the morning and I wasn't tired as a fucking race horse and I wasn't looking for my probably-drunk-off-her-ass mother again.

As usual, she hadn't told me where she was going, so I started by looking for my car. I found it at her friend Hank's house about two blocks away. I looked in the window. The keys were still in the ignition. Pulling on the door, I found it was unlocked, as usual. My mother is going to get my fucking car stolen one of these days.

I snatched the keys out of the car and locked the door, then went up to the front door of the house and knocked.

Hank, looking his usual hung-over best, opened the door and squinted at me.

"Hey Hank. Is my mom here?"

"Nah, she went off to Barb's last time I heard."

Thus began the house hunt. I went to Barb's, then to Sally's, then to Mark's, then to Gret's, and on and on and on. I must've been to at least ten different houses before I finally hit gold.

I pulled up to god damn Jack's house and got out of the car. I could still hear music blaring from behind the closed door. I didn't even knock, I just went in. They wouldn't have been able to hear me anyway.

I stormed through the upstairs, fatigue pushing me past kids half my mother's age making out in the halls, then through the lower rooms until I found her in the dining room, finishing a beer and opening another one.

"Mom, come on, it's time to go home."

The people around her groaned. She was the fucking life of the god damned party, wasn't she, to get a reaction like that?

"But I don't want to go home!"

I was too tired for her whiney bitch shit. I took the bottle from her hand and up-ended it into the sink behind her. She watched me like I was ahorrible fucking dream, then she realized that I was actually doing this to her, and she slapped me.

That was the last fucking straw.

"We're going home now, I don't give a fuck if you want to stay."

I pulled her up out of the chair she was sitting in and practically dragged her to the car with her kicking and screaming the whole day. I had to shove her into the back seat while neighbors came out of the homes, wondering what in the fuck was going on. I couldn't pay them any attention at the moment, because I needed my god damn mother in my god damn car so I could get the fuck home and get some god damn sleep. And I finally got her in after about five minutes, and the whole time the neighbors were watching probably insanely fucking happy that they weren't me.

I slammed the door on my mother, then opened my own door before I even realized they were still looking at me.

"What am I, a fucking freak show? There's nothing to see! SHE'S IN THE GOD DAMN CAR!"

That made them leave for the safety of their homes. They probably thought I was going to kill them all in their sleep later. I got into the car and slammed the door closed. I was so close to snapping. I couldn't take this shit anymore.

"But you will because you're a fucking pansy, Jimmy boy."

I glanced in my rearview and saw my reflection grinning back at me. The meds were wearing off. I gripped the steering wheet, willing him to go the fuck away. I didn't want to deal with him. I just wanted to get Mom in bed and then pass out on the couch for an hour or so.

"Oh, and you can't do that when I'm around? Oh right. Night terrors."

My knuckles were going white. I wanted him to go away. I glanced into the rearview mirror to see him staring back at me, but then I saw something else that horrified me even more.

"MOM IF YOU PUKE IN THIS CAR, I SWEAR I WILL THROW OUT ALL THE ALCOHOL AND CIGARETTES IN OUR HOUSE AND I WILL KEEP THEM OUT."

The green tinge in her face was replaced by a look of complete horror.

"You wouldn't."

"I would."

She tared at me for the rest of the car ride home, obviously trying to get her drunk mind working hard enough to see if I was being serious or not. And God so help that addicted bitch if she thought I wasn't.

After I pulled into our driveway, I helped my mother out of the car and then waited on the front porch as she puked her guts out onto the front lawn. Waited for the torrent of verbal injury to fall out of her mouth so she could feel better about her punk-ass son pulling her away from her "friends" and her booze.

I didn't have to wait long.

"You fucking asshole. Why in the hell did you do that? That was my fucking beet, you had no right to pour it down the fucking sink. Do you know how much I work to put you through that damn school with their fucking uniforms and their fancy ass teachers who think they're better than everyone else? I deserve a fucking drink every now and again!"

and it just kept coming and coming and coming and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I felt like I was suffocating. And I looked up, past my mother, and I saw him laughing at me. Just laughing and laughing, and I felt like I was fucking drowning. Then I remembered what Tunny said last night.

"Jimmy, we need to get you the fuck out of here."

And that's when I heard her say the words that she would never be able to take back.

"Maybe you should get the fuck out of my house."

"Maybe I could." I replied, standing up.

That definitely made her stop. "What did you say to me?"

"I said, maybe I should. I'm going to fucking drown in this place. So I'm going to get the fuck out of your house."

And then I was inside, dumping my school things out of my back pack onto the floor as I climbed the stairs. Mom was calling after me, but I ignored her. I stuffed jeans and shirts into the bag, feeling more free than I had in my fucking life. I was grabbing all the money I had saved up in the past year and a half and I grabbed my pills and I popped a few then threw the rest in my bad and then I was flying down the stairs and into the warm morning air.

My mom followed me, just watching as I threw my bag into the back of my car. The car that she wouldn't ever be able to use again. Because I was getting fucking out of Shitsville, USA.. I was getting away from her and her addictions and her abuse.

I was about to get in the car when I realized that she was just staring at me. I walked up to her and she wrapped her arms around me.

"Jimmy...Jimmy, I didn't mean it. Please don't leave your mother all alone."

I pulled away from her. "I'm going to suffocate here, Mom. I have to go."

And then I climbed into the car and I was leaving the place I had called home for so long behind in the dust.

To live and not to breathe
Is to die in tragedy
To run, to run away to find what to believe
And I leave behind this hurricane of fucking lies
I lost my faith to this, this town that don't exist
So I run, I run away
To the light of masochists
And I leave behind this hurricane of fucking lies
And I walked this line a million and one fucking times
But not this time
i don't feel any shame, i won't apologize
When there ain't nowhere you can go
Running away from pain when you've been victimized
Tales from Another Broken Home