I'm the Shadow on the Ground

It was 12:05 AM when the phone began to ring. Upstairs I could hear my disgruntled parents, awoken by the mysterious midnight caller getting up out of bed to get the phone, upset because they knew that the call would interfere with their work schedule the next day. Me on the other, although it was a school night and my parents were fairly sure that I had fallen asleep hours ago I was still up, toying with my guitar, as usual.

“Hello?” My dad grunted into phone, he was mad I could tell. The tone he was using suggested that whoever was calling better have one helluva reason or else they were going to get an earful. From upstairs I thought I heard him sigh followed by more footsteps on the floor, getting closer to the stairs. I quickly propped my up guitar on my night table and hit the light switch as my dad slowly descended down the stairs.

“Hailey are you still up? My dad asked as he walked down the little hallway to where my room was. I debated for a second, whether I would answer him or not, give myself away and possibly be yelled at.

“Yeah the phone woke me up.” I said in an attempt to sound tired and upset as my dad pushed the door to my room open and flipped the light switch.

“Yeah she’s up.” He said into the phone as he let out a chuckle and surveyed my room, my guitar propped up against my night table as he looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “Of course, just give me a minute.” He replied as he held out the phone. “It’s for you,” I gave him a look as I gingerly took the phone from him. He shrugged at me, who the hell would be calling at this time?

“Hello?” I said as I took the phone, it was more of a question then a statement, my dad winked at me as he turned and then left the room, probably to get a few more hours of sleep before the day actually began.

“Hey kiddo how’ve you been?” A voice asked me as I smiled to myself recognizing it. It was my dad, my real dad, my biological father who lived in LA and trust me after not hearing from him in a month or so, it was incredibly good to hear his voice again.

“Hey Dad I’ve been great, how about you?” I asked as I ran a hand through my hair and sat up; already I knew that it was going to be a long conversation, a very long conversation indeed, one that I was really looking forward too.

“Not too long on the phone!” My adopted father called from upstairs as he surely shuffled off to bed.

“I know!” I called back and with that I heard their door close quietly.

“I’ve been good, busy as hell but good.” He replied as I chuckled, of course he was busy; he was always busy and believe me that was a known fact. “So what’ve you been up too? Still playing guitar?” He added after a moment as I smiled and looked at my guitar or the
cheap piece of shit that my Dad called it.

“Of course I’m still playing, learning some songs by this old band Motley Crue, I’ve heard a few of their songs and they’re decent I guess.” I told him as he chuckled, I could almost see him rolling his eyes and shaking his head.

“Decent? Really? I thought they were really good when I listened to a few of their songs.” He replied in a straight tone.

“Well their okay, the bassist though, he’s really hot, so is the singer, before he got fat.” I told him, refraining from laughing; I wanted to see how far I could take this.

“Of course the bassist is just gorgeous, but I personally prefer the guitarist, now that’s one helluva man.” He gushed into the phone as I started to laugh, pretty soon my dad was laughing too.

“So what have you been up to?” I asked as I managed to stop laughing and examined the cut on my finger. How the hell had that gotten there?

“Nothing really, mostly getting ready for the tour this summer, y’know Ozzfest, other than that, nothing, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.” He said as I groaned, Ozzfest I forgot about that, which meant that more than likely I was going to be stuck here all summer.

“Yeah I bet it’ll be awesome, except you’re not coming to Canada!”I said into the phone, making sure that I expressed my displeasure, see if they had been coming to Canada that would’ve meant that I would at least get to see my dad once. Of course it was an all American tour, just my luck.

“Don’t get mad at me about that, I didn’t decide where the tour was taking place, you know that.” He told me softly.

“Yeah I guess.” I replied rather reluctantly as I rubbed my eyes and stole a glance at my clock. 12:22, wow was it getting late.

“I’m guessing that you already know that since I’m on tour all summer you won’t be able to
come and visit.” My Dad said after a moment, I stopped for a moment, yeah of course I had already figured that out but why when he told me did it still take me by surprise?

“Yeah, I kinda figured that much.” I replied as I thought about it, now I was going to be stuck here all summer, oh well. I thought about it, after summer I’d be in school, grade ten and I probably wouldn’t be able to take a week or two off to go see him, which meant that I wouldn’t see him until Christmas, unless he came up here. Christmas, that was a long way away, I mean it was only the last week of May!

“Don’t worry about it kiddo, we’ll see each other again real soon. “ He told me, as if he knew what I was thinking about.

“I guess.” I replied in flat tone, Christmas was really far away now that I thought about it, eight months away and even then I’d only get to see him for a day or two before he went back home. After all he did have his other kids there, grandchildren too.

“Don’t say I guess to me like that, you make it sound like you’re in Canada and I’m in Australia for Christ’s sake!” He told me as I giggled, in reality I guess we weren’t that far apart, sure far but not really far.

“Well it’s not fair that I never get to see you!” I started to protest.

“Calm down I’m sure that we’ll see each other a lot sooner than you think.” He told me, cutting me off from my little mini-rant.

“If you say so.” I mumbled, half convinced that he had something planned, half convinced that my dad was a ranging lunatic, I’m quite sure that I wasn’t going to be the only one who thought that.

“Yeah I do say so. Y’know I’m really sorry that the tour got in the way.” He told me as I examined the nice cut on my hand, which now had blood streaming out of it; well it looks like later I’d have to get that cleaned up, funny it didn’t hurt. “Hailey are you even listening to what I’m saying?” He asked as I hummed to myself and licked the blood off the cut. What? At least if I licked it I wouldn’t have to worry about my blood getting on my bed.

“Huh what?” I asked as I broke out of my streamline of thoughts, I heard my dad sigh, it wasn’t my fault I zoned out, he was the one who called at midnight!

“I said that even though I’m not with you, I’m still there and you should know that.” He told me as I smiled; leave it to my dad to make me feel better. “And that I’m always going to be around you because I’m a part of you like you’re a part of me and that if anything I’ll always be a phone call away if you need me. Always,” I thought about what he had just said, about the fact that he was right, he’d never be farther away than one phone call even though that phone call would have a huge bill to follow it.

“Thanks Dad, I guess you’re right, you’ll always be a phone call away.” I agreed after a moment as I stole another look at my alarm clock. 1:07 AM, oh school tomorrow was going to be loads of fun.

“Of course I will sweetheart. Just one phone call away, now it’s really late so I’d better let you go or Todd will have my head.” He joked, Todd being the man I lived with, my adopted father.

“I guess.” I replied, in all honesty I didn’t want to hang up and go back to sleep, I’d much rather stay on the phone with my dad all night and suffer tomorrow at school.

“There’s no I guess in this, you better get some sleep or else I’m the one that’ll get yelled at for keeping you up this late.” He told me, “so I gotta go but we’ll talk soon, I promise.” He told me as I sighed, it looked like this conversation was drawing to a close.

“Alright sounds good Dad night.” I said tiredly, hey I said that I didn’t want to hang up, not that I wasn’t tired.

“Night sweetheart.” He said, was it just me or did he sound really tired too? He probably did I mean it was midnight there, or a little past.

“Love you.” I said quietly a moment too later as I hung up the phone and threw it across my room before crawling up in my bed and falling asleep.