Little did I know, my organic grandmother—my father’s mom, a woman who’d lived through wars and ration books and men who never came home—was about to unravel the neat little lie my father had been feeding her. He told her I wanted to live at a friend’s house, that I was on some grand teenage adventure. This from the same people who pointed the finger at my mother for telling stories. The hypocrisy was thick enough to choke on.
The truth was uglier. I was fifteen, homeless, thrown onto the street for the second time like an empty beer can. All because my spineless father wanted to get more ass from a wife who was denying him, or maybe because they were just that goddamn sensitive about me being home for dinner at five to eat a single, broken chicken leg.
But my grandmother wasn’t one to swallow bullshit. She’d spent a lifetime dealing with men who dodged responsibility, and she wasn’t about to let her own son off the hook. “I want him here,” she must have demanded, her voice carrying that weight that always stopped him in his tracks. My father, a man who couldn’t talk his way out of a paper bag, suddenly had to scramble. He had no choice but to track me down, and the only contact number he had was for Artesia High School.
Lucky for him, I was actually attending my second-period class. It was the only one I ever went to. I was told that’s when they take roll, and if you go missing from that period, the red flags go up and the authorities come looking. So, when the phone on the teacher’s desk rang, I knew. The teacher, some sad-sack Robin Williams lookalike who looked good in a sweater-vest, picked it up. He gave me a quick glance, a slight tightening of his jaw, and I already knew—trouble was on the line.
He hung up. “They want to talk to you in the office.”
A simple command. I stood up, my heart thudding a sick, fast rhythm. I walked out of class, but you think I was going to that office? You must be crazy. My pockets were full of contraband, and I had a drug deal to make right after the bell. I had business to take care of before I disappeared into whatever fresh hell was waiting for me. I just lingered in the hall for thirty minutes until the bell rang. The empty hallway would soon fill up, and I figured I could slip into the crowd.
I wasn’t fast enough.
“There he is!” Some English teacher I didn’t know pointed me out of the crowd. Then I saw them. Two school narcs. Middle-aged men with cheap, short-sleeved button-ups, clip-on ties, and that righteous, self-important gleam in their eyes. They came at me fast.
I ducked into the art room, dodging between tables, shoving past kids smearing paint, a last-ditch effort to disappear like in some B-rated movie. But there was no escaping it.
They tackled me just outside the door. The hallway erupted. A sea of students gathered, grinning, whispering, watching me go down like it was the most entertaining thing they’d see all week. They had seen it coming before I did.
After a short ride in the narc-mobile, they manhandled me into the principal’s office. Threw me in a chair. My pockets full of dope, my acid high from the night before barely fading. The principal looked at me, and for a second, I saw something flicker in his eyes—recognition. He remembered the other kid, the handsome surfer dude who used to play hacky sack, the one who still gave a damn. Now, he was just looking at another delinquent with a bleached mohawk and a bad attitude. Another name on a list.
He sighed, a long, tired sound, picked up the phone, dialed, and handed it to me. “Someone wants to talk to you,” he said.
I took it. My organic father’s voice came through the line, calm, indifferent, like he was calling to ask about the weather.
“We’d like to have you over for a family dinner this weekend,” he said. “Around 11 a.m.”
Not, Where are you? Not, Are you okay? And certainly not, I’m sorry I threw you out. Just a casual invitation, like none of the shit that had just gone down even mattered.
“Sure,” I said, my own voice just as cold, just as indifferent. I hung up without another word.
The principal just stared at me. I could see the wheels turning behind his eyes. What the hell happened to you? Who did this? How does a kid like you end up here?
But he didn’t ask. Maybe because he didn’t want the answer. Maybe because he already knew it wouldn’t change a goddamn thing.
What I needed in that moment was something simple. A hand on the shoulder. An acknowledgment that my life had gone completely sideways, that maybe, just maybe, none of this was my fault. But all I got was silence.
I walked out of that office, back into the chaos of the school day, not sure if that phone call had been a lifeline or just a different kind of leash. All I knew was that I wasn’t ready to believe in family, or redemption, or anything at all except the next deal, the next high, and the next goddamn way to keep moving forward without ever looking back.
Author’s Note
People read this story and maybe they see some grand tragedy. A lost boy, a broken home, the usual sob story. Bullshit. What you should see is a comedy. A goddamn farce.
Think about it. Here’s a kid, fifteen years old, his brain buzzing with cheap acid, pockets full of dope, getting tackled by two out-of-shape narcs in clip-on ties. And the grand solution from his long-lost father, the man who kicked him to the curb? The big intervention? It’s a fucking invitation to a “family dinner” delivered over the phone like he’s ordering a goddamn pizza.
You can’t write shit that absurd. You have to live it.
The lesson here isn’t about drugs or skipping school. It’s about learning, at fifteen, that every adult who is supposed to save you is just as lost and clueless as you are. They’re just better at hiding it behind a desk and a tired sigh.
So there’s your note. It’s a story about a kid realizing the safety net has gaping holes in it, and the only thing to do is learn how to fly, or at least how to fall without breaking your goddamn neck. It was just another day at the office.
