I pushed the door. It was hard to push because it was weathered and warped. It looked like some local kids had been using it for a party pad, but not recently, I didn’t think. There were ashtrays running over, beer bottles, liquor bottles, decomposed food, and empty packs of condoms strung about.
The same table, couch, and wood stove were still there from when had I lived there. I walked into the kitchen and opened the cabinets. Our mismatched dishes were still in the cupboards. It was like my dad had just left and left everything behind. I wondered where he was. Did he die? Did he move? I walked back to mine and Justin’s bedroom, and it too still had the same old mattress thrown on the floor. My old dresser that wasn’t much of a dresser when I used it was still in the corner. I got excited when I saw it.
A couple of days before I was to leave with Drew Kelly, I placed a square tin in the back, underneath the bottom drawer. It was one of those tins that you get cookies in at Christmas. I think the local church had dropped it off for my brother and me one year. I slid the dresser out and screamed to the top of my lungs. A hiding cat jumped out with a squeal and darted right under my legs out the door.
Jesus H Christ…
My heart was now beating out of my chest. I swear it was. I held my hand on the corner of the nasty old dresser and held my chest, trying to regain my bearings.
What the hell was I doing there? I pulled the thin sheet of wood from behind the dresser and there it was, just where I had left it. I picked it up and beat it on top of the dresser to knock the mice shit off of it.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Awwww,” I let out a blood curdling scream.
There went my heart again. I turned to see a big burly man with a beard clear down his chest. His head was wrapped in a rebel flag do-wrap, and I could tell that he had long hair in a ponytail hanging down his back. His arms were covered in raunchy girl tattoos that were clearly unprofessional.
“ Bobby?” I asked.
“Morgan?” my first cousin, Bobby said, and then grabbed me up into a big bear hug.
“Where the hell you been chica?” he asked, grinning his missing teeth smile.
“Oh, around,” I replied. “How the hell are you?
You grew up,” I stated. Bobbie must have been about fifteen when I had left. He was a scrawny little, pimpled face kid the last time that I had seen him.
“Is that your fancy ass car out there?”
“No. I just borrowed it for a few days. I drive a 1993 piece of shit.” It wasn’t a complete lie, and with my cut off jean shorts and my ace of spades t-shirt, I thought that I could pull it off.
“It’s sweet as hell,” he exclaimed. “How long you in town for?”
“Just passing through, I’m not sure why I even came here to tell you the truth.”
“Well, I’m glad you did,” he smiled.
I talked to my cousin who really was no relation at all now that I knew that my dad wasn’t my dad, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. I hadn’t been around him in years. I didn’t trust him at all. We walked around the trailer poking around. There wasn’t really anything there that I wanted. It was all pretty much trash. I did find a couple of pictures that had seen their better day. I took them and placed them on top of my tin box. I didn’t open the box yet. I decided to wait until I was alone for that. I really couldn’t even remember what was in it.
“Do you know where my dad is Bobby?” I asked, plundering through a drawer in my parent’s room. There was nothing there, some old bills, a penknife, and a container of KY.
“He lives in town now, over top of the Laundromat. He married Connie Patterson, you remember her?”
“Yeah, she worked with my mom,” I replied. I knew exactly who she was. She was the truck stop whore.
She’d broken the record for the most times being in the bunk of a semi-truck.
“Where’s your mama?”
“She lives in North Carolina now. I don’t talk to her much anymore.” That wasn’t a complete lie either.
Okay, I was a liar.
“You gonna go see your pop?” Bobbie asked.
Fuck no…bastard sold me.
“Nah, we didn’t really split on good terms,” I smiled.
Bobby walked me out to my car, carrying my treasures.
“You sure you don’t want stay the night. We’ll probably end up over at Booner’s later on.”
I had no clue who Booner even was, and there was no way in hell I was staying there.
“I’m meeting a friend. I can’t, but thanks for the offer. It was good seeing you.”
Please don’t hug me.
“You come back and see me now, hear?” Bobby said with a big brawny hug.
“I will. You take care.”
I had decided before I backed out of my old drive that I wouldn’t go all the way that day. I didn’t think I would go far at all. I felt dirty, and was kind of grossed out from walking around my abandoned, childhood home.