Fuck ’em up Worse
By: Kimberly Shaw
When our son was born, Adam and I were both thirty. Age does not equate to maturity. The night our son turned a month old, Adam was at my cousin’s house at a cookout. I was pacing from the front door to our bedroom window with our son tucked in my left arm and my right hand parting the white mini – blinds every time I imagined the sound of Adam’s bald ass tires crunching the sticks and sand and gravel in the driveway. When I called, he consistently
told me he was “on his way home.” He forgot to add the adverb eventually. I imagined him sitting on his orange Igloo ice chest drinking Keystone Light, smoking Marlboro Reds, and laughing at me.
I could have driven the two miles to my cousin’s house. Everyone would have been happy to see the baby with chubby cheeks, his dad’s widow peak, and baby unibrow, but I knew I would be more miserable there. My plan was to protect my child from all the things I thought had messed me up. Adult parties were one of these things. I also knew I would want to drink, and I was determined not to drink after our son was born.
Adam tarried. I don’t give up easily. I started calling the friends and family I knew were with him. A certain professional would tell me my memory was triggering me to act compulsively in order to avoid the pain. I imagine my memory was avoiding the acknowledgement of a scene from my childhood: couples over for card games, the men
chuckling, relaying the story of impulsively running off to Vegas, having to call the wives -who were taking care of the kids- for money, the other wives’ attempts at good -natured comments, my mother’s “I still don’t think it’s funny.” Around adolescence and possibly the hundredth time
I heard that story, I determined I would never be that wife.
Another common story about the irrational acts of women in my family: wives showing up at bars and parties when their men didn’t come home and throwing a fit. This was one role
I could choose not to acquire, no matter how bad I wanted to. I stayed home and saved my fit.
Our son was five weeks old at Adam’s preliminary hearing for the driving under suspension charge he obtained when I was eight months pregnant. My Aunt Cindy worked three
blocks from the courthouse. She agreed to watch our son for me. This was not in Adam’s plan:
“We can’t leave him, he needs to go with us.”
My serious face entails a clenched jaw and a raised left eyebrow. Adam took one look at this face and backed down. Our son was not going to make his first appearance in court on Adam’s behalf before he was two months old. He hung out and had some fun with his great aunt Cindy instead, as all babies should.
The judge remembered Adam and his dad from the nineties.
“How did I let you graduate from drug court without a license?”
Adam chuckled. “I don’t know, sir.”
The judge replied, “You and your dad were just so convincing.”
Adam left the Kiowa County Courthouse with a payment plan.
When our son was four months old, I finally let go of the delusion Adam would change. Neither of us handled the break – up gracefully. Over the next two years, Adam faded from our lives.
Amos was mad, he just gets like that sometimes. He simmers for a while, then graduates to a full rolling boil. I was outside, cleaning the grasshoppers and algae out of the first and last vinyl pool we will ever have and ignoring Amos as he was glaring through the window yelling, “Mooooooooom,” over and over. He knew I was ignoring him, and I knew he was not going to give in easily. He never does.
Amos did what a certain professional tells me my memories do when I ignore them, he got louder. He accompanied his yelling with some rap, ta, tap, tap. I kept my face turned away from his furrowed brow, caught some more chlorinated insects in the aqua blue net, shook them
out on the yellow grass and blocked out the vibration of the half century old window pane until,
CRACK.
The outdated glass and my selective oblivion split at the same time. I ran inside. Amos was hiding but not hurt. I yelled at him and jerked the Nintendo from the wall. The heat caused the missing window to take precedence. I resumed my rant as I secured a replacement pane to the
frame with yellow duct tape. I went back outside to clear my mind.
Amos calmed down before I did. He wanted his game back. “Mom, I’ve thought about it, I’m just sad because I don’t get to see my dad.”
Sometimes when I am scared it presents itself as anger. “Son, I’m sorry you don’t get to see your dad, but there are hundreds of men stuck in prison right now because they were sad and did something stupid. Sad ain’t an excuse for breaking shit. You start acting like that now and
you’re gonna end up just like them.” He ran back inside.
Later, as I read my eight year old his bedtime story he asked, “What did you mean when you said people go to jail for being sad? Am I going to go to jail one day?” I closed my eyes, took a deep breath. “No son, it means you can’t use all the sad things in your life as excuses for bad decisions.”
He scrunched his dark brows and said, “You didn’t have to say it so mean or yell it at me like that.”
“I know, son, I’m sorry,” I replied as I closed his door and turned out his light. I walked to my room, turned out my light, crawled in my bed, shed some tears and thought: I wonder if I’m fucking him up worse.
From rural Oklahoma, Kimberly Shaw earned her MFA from Oklahoma State University. Her writings reflect her continuous efforts to understand life – what we are given and how best to carry that gift. She has previously published work in The Stonecoast Review and forthcoming in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature and Blood+Honey.