‹ Prequel: Stony Park
Sequel: Searcher

Volume One

two of three

Come on dad come on don’t do this to me now you piece of shit wake up.

I think back to all the times I thought he didn’t mean something, all the times I’d rather it been just mom and I. She would get home from work to a clean house and a happy kid, and I would talk about how Milo and his dad worked on the car together and I watched with a Dr. Pepper in my hand that I pretended was a Coors Light. It didn’t have to hurt, not having a dad. What hurt was having a dad you wanted to hide because you didn’t know what kind of person he was going to be.

June 11th, 1999. Loving father. October 31st, 2006. The kind of father that punches you in the face when you’re home too late--dad you should have been there, Milo and Lisa went to this house and they had an awesome thing set up well I’m sorry I’m home late I really didn’t mean to it’s just Mr. Thompson--and there’s nothing you can do about it. I didn’t want to, somewhere along the lines I realized I couldn’t change a man who couldn’t recognize himself in the first place. He didn’t know change unless the words were spoken by Jack Daniels himself. I’d never be that Daniels fucker, and all I had to keep myself going was that I never tried to be.

Keep your distance, keep a need to know basis. Ask mom how her day was and crying means you put on a rerun of Law and Order and make her dinner. Assume he never made it home, or even worse, he did.

I think of the kind of person my father made me into, and I smile. I run my hand over his chest and he’s barely breathing and the fact of the matter is I still care. I try hard to be someone I’m proud of, the guy who’s happy and not a piece of shit because he’s smart and found a purpose somewhere between weed and making the important people happy.

I’m calling 911 and his eyes are opening but I don’t think he knows who I am now, Tulip the man who nearly watched his father die. He didn’t start calling me Tulip till I started disappointing him.

May 7th, 2008.
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just another small something to understand the other characters a little better. lisa's is coming next.