Of Paths To Take The Path Back Home
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The Path Home free porn video
I was almost out the front door when Dad caught up to me. I didn’t know the man could move that fast. ‘Hey, Russ, where are you going?’
I looked over my shoulder and saw him standing in the living room, wearing a stained t-shirt and striped pajama bottoms. He was scratching his chest, the way he did when he got anxious. ‘Up the road to Anthony’s,’ I told him. ‘We’re going to play a little pool. I’ll be back later tonight.’
‘Stop by the liquor store on your way home and pick me up a fifth of Jack Daniel’s.’
Dad didn’t have a car or a license, so he depended on me to go grocery shopping and pick up household items, but we’d had this particular argument dozens of times before, and I was out of patience.
‘Dad, Anthony lives half a mile up the road. I’m not going by the liquor store, and even if I was, I’m not buying you booze.’
Dad sank onto the couch and ran a hand through his greasy hair. ‘Don’t be an asshole, Russ. Just swing by the store and pick it up for me.’
‘Nope. You need to quit drinking.’
‘You bastard,’ he said through his teeth. If I weren’t so big, at almost six and a half feet tall and 280 pounds, Dad probably would have hit me. ‘I’ll just call Mitch and get him to bring a few bottles over.’
Mitch was Dad’s old drinking buddy, and he still came around occasionally. I hated the guy. ‘If I see Mitch giving you booze, I’m going to kick his ass,’ I warned.
Dad pointed a finger at me. ‘You do that, and I’ll throw you out. This is my house, and if I want a drink, I’ll have a goddamned drink.’
‘To hell with it then,’ I said, stepping out onto the porch. ‘I don’t give a shit what you do.’
He was swearing when I closed the door behind me. Even though I was walking to Anthony’s, I had my truck keys in my jeans pocket. I didn’t trust Dad not to swipe them and decide he could drive to the store by himself.
It was growing dark that Saturday evening, and I enjoyed the brisk walk up the road. The air outside was fresh and clean, unlike the stuffiness of the house I shared with Dad. When I reached Anthony’s house, his mom opened the door and smiled at me. Her smile faded when she saw my face, but she didn’t say anything about it. ‘It’s good to see you, Russ. Anthony’s in the basement.’
Anthony and I had gone to high school together and were good friends, but he left for college after graduation. Now that it was early May, he was home for the summer, having just completed his junior year.
I went down to the finished basement and found Anthony racking balls on the pool table. ‘Christ, man, what happened to your face?’ he asked when he saw my black eye. ‘Did you get that at work?’
‘Good to see you, too, Anthony,’ I said. ‘Yeah, I got it at work. It’s been a shitty week.’
‘I got the cure for that.’ He nodded to a battered coffee table where he’d placed a bottle of cola, a bottle of Bacardi, and a bag of rapidly melting ice. His drink was already made, and an empty cup waited for me. ‘So tell me what happened.’
I didn’t normally drink. I’d watched what alcohol had done to my dad since Mom left over ten years ago, and I sure as hell didn’t want to be like him. But tonight I was fed up—fed up with my dad, and fed up with my job prospects (or lack thereof). I was ready to get shitfaced.
Anthony waited for me to make my drink, light on soda and heavy on rum. I didn’t feel like talking to him about what happened, but I knew he’d keep pressing me for details until I did. Now that he was in college, I felt like there was a kind of divide between us. We never addressed it, but I wondered how we could relate to each other. He was majoring in Business, while I stayed around this town doing odd jobs to bring in some money. I could fix most anything, be it cars, washing machines, lawnmowers. Word got around that I was capable and fair with what I charged, and I had plenty of people calling asking me to do repair work. I also worked as a bouncer at a redneck bar when the owner needed extra muscle, on weekends or for a big event. I made enough to keep the lights on at home, but every day I thanked my dead grandparents for leaving their house to Dad debt-free. If they hadn’t, we’d be homeless.
I got the black eye the night before while working at the bar. It had been quiet for a Friday, with only a couple of obnoxious drunks causing trouble. But around ten, a guy showed up with a girl on his arm. The guy wore jeans, a muscle shirt, cowboy boots and hat, the whole getup. There was no way his date was twenty-one, so Donnie, another bouncer, carded her. As we stood outside near the entrance, Donnie studied the girl’s ID and burst out laughing.
‘I hope you didn’t pay much for this,’ he said.
The girl gave him a doe-eyed innocent look. ‘What’s wrong? It says right there that I’m twenty-two.’
Donnie handed her the ID. ‘I see what it says. I’m saying it’s bullshit. Y’all need to move along, because you ain’t getting in here.’
Her boyfriend puffed up his chest and stepped closer to Donnie. ‘Hey man, she’s twenty-two. I’ve brought her here before.’
‘Not when I was working.’ Donnie gave the girl a dismissive wave. ‘Get lost, jailbait.’
The guy in the cowboy hat lunged at Donnie, and I jumped in to break it up. The girl started screaming like someone was killing her, and her boyfriend managed to land a blow to my left eye. I punched him back, harder than I should have, and he fell to his knees, hands clasped over his nose. Blood dripped between his fingers. His girlfriend finally stopped her noise and went to help him, but he shrugged her off.
‘You probably broke his nose, asshole!’ she shrieked at me. ‘We could have you arrested.’
‘Your boyfriend started it,’ Donnie said. ‘And I’d love to hear you explain your fake ID to the cops. Now get the fuck out of here, both of you.’
The man struggled to his feet, swearing at us the entire time. His girlfriend retrieved his hat from the ground and held it as they walked back to the parking lot.
I touched my face and winced, knowing I’d have a hell of a shiner. ‘Goddamn it, Donnie, why do you have to run your mouth? Just tell them to go home and leave it at that.’
Donnie looked sheepish. ‘I’m sorry, Russ. They just pissed me off, acting like I’m too stupid to know she ain’t twenty-one.’
‘Next time you mouth off like that, I’m not lifting a hand to help you.’
Donnie grinned. ‘Oh, come on. You’re built like a fucking tank. I bet you didn’t even feel that punch.’
When I finished telling the story to Anthony, he laughed and shook his head. ‘You gotta find different work, buddy.’
‘You’re telling me.’ I’d downed half my drink in just a few swallows.
‘I always said you should have played football. Maybe you could have gotten a scholarship or something.’
‘Nah. You know I was never much of a team player. Now are you going to break or are we going to stand around talking all night?’
As the hours passed, I drank more and played less, until Anthony, who was also pretty intoxicated, threw his cue on the table and said, ‘This is hopeless.’
I wiped a hand over my face. ‘Yeah, I think I’d better head home. What time is it, anyway?’
Anthony squinted at his watch. ‘Close to midnight.’
He walked me to the front door, and I tried to be quiet, because the house was dark and his parents had gone to bed. When I stumbled into a living room chair, Anthony shushed me and started giggling.
‘You’re making more noise than I am!’ I said.
‘Get on out of here,’ he told me, still laughing. ‘You’re going to wake everybody up.’
So I staggered out of his house and down the sidewalk to the driveway and on out to the road. The moon was almost full, which provided some light for the walk home, but I should have brought a flashlight.
I fell once on the road, but I didn’t feel any pain, just the jolt of the impact. I got up and dusted my
self off, but the half-mile walk was starting to look awfully long to me. I wanted to curl up in the ditch and take a short nap just to sober up, but that sounded like something my old man would do, and the neighbors talked about us enough already.
I heard a car approaching but didn’t turn around. It was only when someone called my name that I stopped walking and saw Caroline, my next-door neighbor, pulling up alongside me, her window rolled down. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
I peered into the car. I wasn’t able to see much of her face in the shadows. ‘Oh, hey Caroline,’ I said. ‘Sure, I’m fine. I’m just coming back from Anthony’s. We were playing pool and got to drinking, and I think I overdid it.’
‘I think you overdid it, too. You’re pretty unsteady on your feet. Hop in and I’ll drive you home.’
I jogged to the passenger side of her car, careful not to trip. ‘Thanks,’ I said as I climbed inside. ‘You’re out kind of late yourself.’
‘I went to visit an old friend today, and I left her house around seven, but there was a bad accident on the interstate, and traffic was backed up for miles. I thought I’d never get home.’
Caroline reached my house and slowed the car. I’d forgotten to turn the porch light on, and the house was completely dark. I wondered if Dad had managed to get his hands on some booze. If so, he’d be passed out by now.
Caroline turned to me. ‘How about I fix you a cup of coffee at my place? It might help sober you up, and then I won’t have to worry about you stumbling around in the dark.’
‘You don’t have to do that.’
‘I don’t mind.’
Caroline had lived next door to us for as long as I could remember. Her small ranch-style house always had a tidy yard, and after Mom left and Dad’s drinking grew worse, I did my best to make sure our own yard looked decent so Caroline wouldn’t be ashamed to call us neighbors.
As I followed her inside her house, I saw that it was the same as I remembered, clean and neat. I couldn’t help but smile when Caroline looked at me. She had to be close to fifty by now, but she still had that air of authority about her that made me respect her when I was a boy. Caroline never did take any shit. When I was eight years old, just a few months after my mom left Dad, Caroline spotted me in my front yard with one of Dad’s beers and didn’t hesitate to take it from my greedy little hands. I called her a bitch, and she pointed a finger in my face, ‘I will tan your hide—don’t think I won’t!’ But then she drew back and let out a deep breath. ‘I know you’re sad about your mama,’ she started.
I kicked at the grass with my shoe. ‘I ain’t sad.’
‘Okay, mad at the world then.’ Caroline tossed her hands in the air, and she looked like a magician performing a trick, releasing white doves. ‘I bet you’re acting out everywhere. Can’t imagine what you’re putting your poor teachers through.’ She studied my house. ‘Where’s your dad?’
‘Sleeping.’
‘It’s not even six o’ clock yet.’
‘He goes to sleep as soon as he gets home.’
She folded her arms over her chest. ‘I’d call social services if I wasn’t worried about you ending up in an even worse place than this.’ I squirmed as she stared down at me, her auburn hair pulled back from her face. She was a paralegal and was still dressed in her fancy work clothes. ‘You hungry?’
I shrugged. That was a good enough answer for her. She took me to her house and made me a turkey and cheese sandwich. When I inhaled that one in two minutes, she made me another. She also told me to drink a whole glass of milk, which I hated, but I did it anyway since she’d been so nice to me. ‘It’s good for your bones,’ she said. ‘It will make you big and strong.’
Well, I guessed she got that part right.
Even though Caroline didn’t interfere in our family affairs, I always felt like she was keeping an eye out for me when I was growing up. One time in junior high, I helped her rake the leaves in her yard, and she asked me how school was going. ‘It’s okay,’ I said, ‘except for Algebra. I’ll be damned if I can wrap my head around that mess. Numbers and letters all mixed in together.’
‘I was pretty good at math in school, so why don’t you bring your homework over and we’ll take a look at it?’
We sat at her kitchen table, and within an hour, Caroline had those numbers and letters making sense in my mind. ‘I guess I ain’t as stupid as I thought,’ I said, staring at my completed homework.
‘You’re not stupid at all, Russ. I think you could do anything you set your mind to.’
As I grew older, I still waved and made small talk with Caroline when I saw her outside, but once I turned sixteen and got my driver’s license, I was gone most of the time, either at school or working part-time jobs to bring in some extra money. I managed to finish high school, but I was no stellar student.
‘What are you grinning at?’ Caroline asked me now. She nodded for me to take a seat at that same kitchen table where I’d worked on my Algebra with her.
‘Oh, I’m just thinking of how nice you were to me when I was little.’
She had her back to me as she made a fresh pot of coffee. ‘You were a good kid. You had to deal with a lot at a young age.’
I leaned back in the chair, and it creaked under my weight. ‘Well, lots of people do, I guess.’
While the coffee was brewing, she brought me a glass of water. ‘Drink this. It will help with the hangover you’re bound to have tomorrow.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ I didn’t really want any more fluid on my stomach, but I made myself drink several swallows. ‘You got a shutter loose out front. I noticed it when we pulled up in the driveway.’
‘Yeah, I’ve been meaning to fix it,’ Caroline said.
‘I can take care of it for you tomorrow.’
She carried a steaming mug of coffee to the table and raised her eyebrow at me. ‘I don’t think you’re going to be fit to do much of anything tomorrow. What happened to your eye?’
I sighed and quickly told her about the scuffle at the bar. She sat across from me, arms folded on the table as she listened. Her dark red hair had streaks of gray running through it now, but she didn’t try to cover it up with dye like most women her age. She also didn’t bother with make-up.
‘Do you ever hear from your mom?’ Caroline asked, her voice softer now.
I took a sip of coffee and winced as it burned my tongue. ‘Nope.’
When Mom left, she promised to come back for me. She said she couldn’t live with my dad anymore and had to find a place of her own. I remembered her kneeling before me in our driveway, wiping the tears from my face. ‘I swear we’ll see each other again soon.’ She hugged me and told me she loved me, and I watched as she drove away. Dad had been sinking into alcoholism for years, but once she was gone, he left the house only to go to his job as a janitor at the hospital, and when he came home, he drank himself into a stupor. Dad ate just enough to stay alive, so I learned how to cook and clean, and I rode my bike to the store to buy groceries.
Mom called me a lot at first. I always loved hearing her voice, but then Dad started answering the phone and they got to arguing before I could even talk to her, and Mom always hung up on him. Months after she left, I got a postcard from Arizona. I recognized her neat, girlish handwriting on the back. She said she’d met a nice man who treated her well, and once they were settled in their new place, she’d come back for me. I hadn’t heard from her since.
When I was sixteen, Dad just stopped going to work, so I knew I needed to find a job. I took over the finances and paid the bills with the little bit of savings he had in the bank. I convinced him to sell his car when his license expired, and I saved up enough money to buy myself a reliable truck. I’d pretty much been running the house for the last five years.
Caroline shifted in her seat and then reached a hand halfway across the table, almost close enou
gh to touch me. ‘You’re a grown man and don’t need a forty-nine-year-old woman telling you what to do, but I’d hate to see you throw your life away like your father did.’
I shook my head and downed the last of the water. The coffee was still too hot for me to drink. ‘I ain’t drinking anymore. I’ve learned my lesson,’ I told her. Then I started laughing.
‘What is it?’ she asked, giving me a bewildered smile.
‘I was just remembering how you said you’d tan my hide when you caught me with that beer all those years ago. Now here I am, drunk in your kitchen.’ I stood to take my empty water glass to the sink. ‘You going to threaten to spank me again?’
‘Sounds like you might need a spanking,’ she said. ‘I apparently didn’t make myself clear the first time around.’ I’d turned my back to her, so I wasn’t expecting the hard slap of her hand against my ass.
‘Ow!’ I said, and Caroline looked kind of shocked that she’d actually done it, but then I grinned. ‘Hey now, Caroline, I did what you said and drank my milk, and I’ve grown up big and strong.’
‘You sure have,’ she said, staring up at me.
‘So I’m liable to retaliate and give that cute ass of yours a smack if you don’t behave.’
Caroline snorted. ‘Now that’s an empty threat if I ever heard one.’
I put down the glass and reached for her, but she was quick. She let out a squeal and leaped from the chair, running around the table.
‘Empty threat, huh?’ I said, lunging to the left, then the right, making her jump.
‘You’d better cut it out, Russ. You’re going to fall and hurt yourself.’ She was laughing so hard, she could barely get the words out.
‘Oh, don’t you worry about me, sweetheart.’ This time I went all the way around the table to catch her. She shrieked like a little girl and ran toward the living room. Caroline was fast, but my legs were a lot longer and I was able to grab her arm. We tumbled onto the sofa, and as clumsy as I was, I managed not to fall on top of her and hurt her. Instead, I lay down on my back and held her so her breasts were pressed against my chest.
‘Let me go!’ she said, struggling in my arms.
‘Not till you get what’s coming to you.’ I swatted her ass, not too hard, but hard enough to make her cry out. She lifted her head and grinned up at me.
‘Happy now?’ she whispered.
My hand lingered on her ass, and I gave her a gentle squeeze through her jeans. ‘I could not be happier.’
‘Good. Now let me up.’ I shook my head and held her tighter. Before she could protest, I lowered my lips to hers, fully expecting her to pull away, but Caroline let out a little moan and relaxed in my arms.
I grew hard as she lay on top of me, and I wondered if she could feel my erection. She broke the kiss, breathing hard as she said, ‘I’m twenty-eight years older than you, Russ.’
‘I don’t care, Caroline.’ My lips moved to her neck, but she pressed her hands against my chest and lifted herself off of me.
‘Well, I care. And you’re drunk. What kind of woman would I be if I took advantage of you in your current state?’ She was trying to make a joke, but I could see the way her skin flushed.
‘Please, take advantage of me,’ I said.
She turned her back to me and straightened her shirt. ‘You’d better go.’
I climbed off the sofa and started to touch her shoulder, then thought better of it. ‘Thanks for the ride, and the coffee,’ I said.
Caroline turned the porch light on and followed me outside. ‘I’ll wait here until you get to your house. Flip the outside light on a few times to let me know you made it okay.’
‘Really, I’m fine,’ I told her.
She rolled her eyes. ‘Says the man who could barely stand up when I found him on the road.’
‘Yeah, but you sobered me up real quick.’ I let my gaze drop to her breasts. She wore a short-sleeved blouse, and the cool night air made her nipples hard. It took all my willpower not to stroke them through that thin fabric. ‘Good night, Caroline,’ I said.
She shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans and rocked back on her heels. ‘Good night, Russ. Drink another glass of water when you get home.’
‘Will do.’ I headed for my house, glancing over my shoulder every so often to see if she was still standing on her porch. She was. When I reached my front door and unlocked it, I flipped the porch light on and off a few times. From this distance, it was hard to be sure, but I thought I saw her raise her hand and wave before she went inside.
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