Patchwork People XXVI The great escape
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Patchwork People XXV: Who's Your Daddy? free porn video
XXV. Who's your daddy?
When they asked me at the hospital who my parents were, who my emergency
contact was, I guess you can say that I kind of panicked.
They were making it pretty clear they weren't going to let me out of here
on my own, no way, so I had to come up with someone. Who could I finger
for the honor? Mom was out of the question, at this point, and once
Marcia found out that I'd lied and basically stolen her money, which I'm
sure she must have realized by now, she wasn't an option either.
I could have given them my birth-mom's name, just out of revenge, if
nothing else (what a disaster our reunion turned out to be but more on
that later), because even considering the dire circumstances I seriously
doubt that she would've showed up to claim me. She made it clear enough
that she wanted nothing further to do with me. And, really, all
considered, who could blame her? You meet your long-lost daughter for the
first time and the next day you get a call that she's in the hospital,
under police supervision, after a drug overdose? No thanks, right? Well,
it would have given her a chance to redeem herself for one thing, that
is, if this were a movie, but this wasn't a movie.
So in desperation I blurted out, "Walt."
"Who's Walt?" they asked.
"My dad."
Like I said, I don't know what possessed me, but then again what else was
I going to call him but "dad"? My transsexual adoptive dad's boyfriend?
Sometimes you have to cut through the complicated truth of life, you
know?
So they called him up at whatever ungodly hour it was and I was afraid
that he'd spill the beans, say something like "her father, what the hell
are you talking about? I'm not her father" as Walt is just that kind of
bluff honest guy, the kind of guy who, in all innocence, would try to set
the record straight.
But instead he surprised me, as people will do just enough to keep you
from losing faith in them entirely. Instead of telling the truth he must
have played right along because, later, when I was a bit more lucid, they
came back and informed me that they'd reached my dad and he assured them
that he would be on his way down to New Mexico first thing in the
morning.
Sometime later, just before dawn, I managed to talk one of the younger
nurse's aides into bringing me my bag. It had been thoroughly gone
through of course. For drugs, no doubt. But my phone was still there. I
used it to call Walt and I thanked him. I made him swear he wouldn't
bring either my mom or Marcia with him. He promised me on the proverbial
stack of Bibles I forced him to swear on that he wouldn't and I had no
choice but to trust him.
Sometimes circumstances leave you with no choice but to trust people.
It really sucks when that happens.
* * *
A quick breakfast and they were back on the road shortly after dawn.
Marcia forced down a scratchy slice of buttered toast and two cups of
coffee. Walt plowed his way workmanlike through a blue-grey sausage
omelet. Their flagging appetite for such unappetizing fare was stimulated
by the fact that they might be hours on the road before they got a chance
to eat again.
Marcia had gotten virtually no sleep at all. She'd dozed on and off in
the armchair, disturbed by unpleasant dreams, in which the uncomfortable
design and rank smell of the chair had clearly factored. Walt hadn't
fared much better, sleeping until dawn, but waking up with a backache. It
wasn't a good way to face the long day ahead.
By one in the afternoon they were within a hundred miles of Chupadero.
Close enough to see it's occasional inclusion on signs for many better-
known and more desirable destinations. They decided to stop for lunch,
after all, before the final stretch. The Iguana Caf? looked like it had
once been a convenience store. Marcia, suspecting an emergency visit from
the health inspector to be in order, chose a container of brand-name
yogurt from the cold case and a packaged bag of trail mix from beside the
cash register. Walt, feeling more adventurous, ordered a sandwich packed
with various unidentifiable meats they were calling The Rifleman Special.
They ate outside at a picnic table beside the sun-splashed gravel of the
parking lot. In the distance, they could see a purplish row of snaggle-
toothed mountains.
All morning Marcia had wanted to bring the subject up but somehow
couldn't manage it. Now, with time and distance running out like a quick-
burning fuse, she forced herself to blurt it out.
"She didn't want me to come, did she?"
Walt looked up from his sandwich, chewing over the wad in his mouth as if
he wished it could last forever. Or at least until a good answer came to
him.
"You don't have to tell me," Marcia answered for him. "I know she
doesn't. I'll bet she expressly told you she doesn't want me to come.
It's okay. I think I knew it all along."
Walt swallowed. He said nothing.
"Okay then. Fine. I'll stay outside in the car. Or better yet, maybe I
can take a bus back by myself."
"Marsh..."
"No, it's okay. I can't deal with another rejection from that kid. I've
tried to be her parent. I've wanted nothing more than to be her parent.
But she's old enough to make her own choices and she doesn't choose me.
Why can't I get that through my stupid head?"
"Marcia," Walt said again, swallowing at last. "You're saying stuff you
don't mean."
"The hell I'm not."
"The hell you are. This isn't about you. This is about
Phoebe. What she thinks she wants or doesn't want, it's irrelevant. Right
now she isn't thinking clearly about anything. You keep saying that you
want to be her parent, that you've always wanted to be her parent, and I
believe you. But you aren't thinking like a parent. Sometimes a parent
doesn't listen their kid and that can be a bad thing. But sometimes it's
a good thing. I know you try to respect Phoebe as an individual, but
she's still a kid in a lot of ways, even at nineteen. In fact, I'm
wondering if in some ways she's ever allowed herself to be a real kid.
Right now I think she needs you not to listen to her. I think she needs
you to ignore her rejections, her tantrums, her anger and all the rest of
the bullshit. She needs you to plow right through all that. She needs you
to stop being so sensitive. I'm sorry to be so blunt but she needs you to
stop acting like a child."
Walt saw the stunned look on Marcia's face, but decided to go on anyway.
There was no longer any time to pull punches.
"Marcia, you've got to stop thinking of yourself and start thinking about
what Phoebe needs. You have to lie to her if need be. You have to ignore
what she says she wants because half the time she doesn't even know what
she wants. Or, if she does, it's not what she really needs. Right now,
she needs you to tell her what she needs. For once, you need to know
better than she does."
"Are you saying I should be more like Claire?"
"God forbid. That's the opposite end of the spectrum. I'm saying it's a
tightrope between the two of you; it's not easy to find the balance, but
giving up and just letting yourself fall and fail and feel sorry for
yourself is the easy way out. She needs you. I know that. You know that.
She may not. Or she may and she's waiting for you to force the issue."
Walt was right, she knew that, but what was the use? "I'm just no good at
force. I'm just not strong enough for that."
"You ever hear those stories of mothers who suddenly find the strength to
lift a burning Oldsmobile off their child's chest? I think you have that
kind of strength inside you, baby."
"What if I don't?"
"Then at least you tried. But if you do have the strength, now's the time
to find out. Because the way I look at it, right now Phoebe is trapped
under a burning Oldsmobile."
* * *
What did I think was going to happen? That her eyes were going to well up
with tears the instant they fell on me? That we were going to throw
ourselves into each other's arms weeping? Mommy! My Baby! That we were
going to swear never to part again?
Yes, I'm ashamed to say it. I guess I did imagine something like that,
goofy as it sounds, even though, at the same time, I knew better. I knew
darn well that it was all but surely not going to be anything whatsoever
like that. We must be even more conditioned by all those stupid
sentimental Hollywood movies than we even realize. All those dumb happy-
ending fairytales that were read to us as kids have set us up for a world
of disappointment and humiliation.
What was it really like?
I'll tell you.
We met at a cafe in this dinky strip mall just outside of town. Of
course, I knew her address but she didn't want to meet at her house. She
made that clear enough, though I knew where it was and had gone by it
just to see what it was like.
A nice-looking place, a ranch I think you call it. A couple of expensive-
looking cars parked in the driveway. Pretty landscaping. Pool in the
back. Of course, everything is cheaper out here, but still. She must be
doing pretty well for herself, my mom.
I saw some kids' stuff in the yard. A plastic pedal car, a bicycle with
training wheels, a big yellow ball with a blue star on it. She had kids,
then. Other kids.
Anyway, she was still youngish. Younger than mom or Marcia, which made
sense, since she had me when she was just barely a teenager. Dressed
really nice. Not fat or anything, but she had a tendency towards fatness.
If you're like that yourself, which I am, you recognize it right off.
Like she has to watch herself all the time or things are going to get out
of hand fast. A greased slide downhill straight to Lardsville.
If you looked hard enough, if you knew what you were looking for, got
beyond the blonde hair and blue eyes which would be the most obvious
obstacles, you could see the resemblance between us, except that she has
no Mexican blood, naturally.
I was her, you see. The perfect, blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl, only
ruined. Spoiled.
Yeah.
I'm sure I must have been a big black splotch on her perfect sitcom life
for the brief time we were together. Nine months and the two extra ones
it took for her parents to persuade her it was only sensible to put me up
for adoption. Erasing the dark stain of sin and shame from her lily-white
life. Okay, I'm bitter, so sue me.
We had a cup of coffee each. She tore to pieces the pink diet sugar
packet, a habit we both share, but seeing her do it kept me from doing it
this time.
Right away I could tell that she was a lot more nervous than I was which
made me feel in control. I felt really cool and remote, like a
blackmailer, or something. And that is what made me realize what she was
so nervous about.
It hit me all of a sudden. I was like totally stunned at
first, then I almost started laughing. I think I did laugh, but right
away I felt like crying too.
She was talking low and fast, in this hushed breathless voice, and I was
only listening with half an ear because I knew already what she was
saying. It was as if she were on television, reporting from some remote
place by satellite, delivering a report from a foreign country and
speaking on a tape-delay. But I already knew what she was going to say.
Like I had already reviewed the written transcript in preparation for
this interview.
She had this nice life, she was saying, and she'd put the past behind
her. She was sorry, she'd wanted to keep me, blah blah blah, but she
couldn't, she struggled with the decision, don't think she didn't, she
cried and cried, but in the end she'd done the right thing, she was sure
of it, why just look at me now. I'd turned out just fine, hadn't I?
She didn't know the half of it.
Well, she hoped I was happy, that meeting her would heal whatever old
wound I still had, provide me with closure, but that she'd appreciate it
if we just left it at that. Meaning, I guess, that we left it right here
at the table where we were sitting, among the half-empty coffee cups and
dirty spoons and the sad confetti of her torn-up pink artificial
sweetener packs.
She had a nice life, you see, (she repeated this several times) and never
told anyone about her past, well, not about my existence in it, which was
more like a dream episode so out of keeping with the rest of her nice
life that it hardly seemed real to her anymore. She'd never told her
husband, or her friends, or anyone in her nice new life. I was her dark,
dirty little secret. She didn't put it that way, of course, but that's
what it amounts to, after all. At first her parents had forbidden her to
say a word; now she saw the wisdom of it, how it enabled her to get a
fresh start, a do-over. Everyone deserved a second chance, didn't they?
That's what she hoped she'd given me. Surely I could understand, she
asked me, hopefully. Well, you get the drift of what she was saying.
Basically, it was " get lost."
She could give me some money, not a lot, mind you, they weren't rich, her
and her husband, and they had kids, too, and her mother (my grandmother,
the one who hectored her into give me up, I presume, so no great loss I
never met her) was now in a nursing home, and needed round-the-clock
care, which was so expensive...
Well the long and the short of it was that she was bribing me to stay
away, since her husband and his family still knew nothing about this part
of her life, this tiny lacuna of judgment, this one little brown stain,
and while she felt bad about keeping it a secret it was even worse now
that it had been kept so long.
So I understood, right? She kept asking me if I understood. Oh I
understood alright.
She was practically ringing her hands at this point, practically begging
me to just disappear then and there, that I'd seen her, that she'd
granted this wish of mine to meet, what else did I want from her? I felt
so stupid sitting there, so ashamed and dirty, you can only imagine. I
almost couldn't get myself to move. It took all my strength. I felt like
I had a hat on that weighed about ten thousand pounds, but I stood up
under it somehow.
"Don't worry," I said, all breezy. Like I'd just stopped by Chupadero for
a bag of chips and a Coke. "You'll never hear from me again."
Then I walked out of there, determined not to turn back, even if she
called out to me, which, of course, she didn't. I was going to keep
walking, even if she changed her mind and ran up and tried to stop me,
which she didn't, even if she apologized, hugged me to her chest, weeping
the way I'm ashamed to admit I still hoped she would right up to the very
end when it became obvious that she wouldn't.
It would have been hard to keep walking if she'd done any of those
things. I don't know if I would have had the strength to do it, to ruin
my storybook ending, if I would have regretted it later and forever if I
had, but I'll never know one way or the other. Because she just stayed
put there at the table. She watched me go. And if the expression on her
face when I told her that she'd seen the last of me had a caption it
would have been "Whew! What a relief!"
What happened next is kind of a blur. Generic, really. I have dim
memories: a grungy part of town, an idling van, a guy in a stained denim
vest, vials, a thrumming bass beat, a gold-toothed grin.
I woke up in this hospital bed. An overdose, they told me.
Accidental, I assured them.
My money? The bank card?
"Gone," they told me.
* * * *
Author note: I plan to publish "Patchwork People" in its entirety in
weekly installments here on Fictionmania. In the meantime, the complete
novel is currently available as an Amazon Kindle ebook for $2.99.
For more of my writings, drawings, erotica, and photos please visit my
blog Bad Pussy
sissyforlife(dot)blogspot(dot)com.
Lizbeth
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