"Father" by Armin Tolentino

"The fella that had you down for the count?"

"Yeah."

"We got him sobering up.  He's got some lip on him.  But, boy did he have you good," he started chuckling a bit.  "Looked like a cowboy and a rodeo pig all tied up.  He was likely to crack you in--"

"Can I see him?"

"Nope, son.  Not unless you want to share a cell with him.  You're lucky that you're underage.  You're still in a mess of trouble.  That other fella, Mr. Sanchez says he doesn't want to press charges, but public drunkenness, underage no less, disturbing the peace… I can go on.  But at least you're not sleeping in a cell tonight."  I was going to ask him to give Paul a message from me, but I didn't know what I wanted to say and so that was how I left it.

Mom started crying once we hit the highway and I looked out the window at mile markers and small dead animals littered on the shoulder, their eyes glowing in our headlights, their mouths open.  The radio was off and her crying was soft enough to blend in with the engine, the combustion of fuel.  The entire universe had the sound of rough surfaces grinding on each other.

She didn't say a word until we turned down our street.  Our lawn looked trim and neat.  My brother must have gotten the Snapper fixed because my Mom wouldn't have known what to do with it.  She asked me what I wanted for dinner and I was surprised by how hard it was for me to talk, my mouth frozen like those opossums on the road.

"Anything," I croaked.  "Anything's fine."  She didn't make any mention of it when I started sobbing.

The next five days were expectedly awkward.  My mother treated me as delicately as a suspicious package in the mail and my brother said nothing to me.  My room was in shambles; I suppose they tore it apart to find clues as to where I had gone.  The first night, I couldn't sleep, stayed under the covers and could hear my mother open the door every hour to make sure I was still there.  I was a zombie.  I watched TV mostly, found I missed it a lot and my mom said to me that she made an appointment with Dr. So-and-So and I said okay and that was it.  She looked at me full in the eyes for a moment and like looking at the sun, it must have been too much, she turned away and started crying in the kitchen.  That whole week she was in a perpetual state of crying like drizzle in Portland.

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