Blazed (7 page)

The man who hit my mother and pushed her down.

The man who's never spoken to his son or even fought for the chance to speak to his only son.

His name is Justin, by the way, and he's wearing a pair of tight black dress pants that look expensive. A charcoal-colored button-up shirt is tucked into those slacks, and a black leather belt wraps around his waist.

His shoes are also black. They're leather and they're shiny and he's also wearing a gold Rolex on his right wrist.

Maybe I'd be more nervous if I was meeting him before
I saw my mother laid up in that stuffy room, but I'm not. And I don't feel anything in particular at all right now except for anger and a hint of hate.

He smiles at me. Sweat gleams from his forehead.

“Jaime,” he says.

“Sure. What?” I snort back.

“Oh my god,” he goes. “My son. It's so good to see you again.”

He steps forward, his arms spread like he thinks he's gonna be able to hug me or some bullshit. I step to the side; he ends up holding out his hand.

Instead of shaking it, I make a fist and tap it. “Yo,” I say.

His cheeks turn mildly red. “Hi.”

“Cool.”

“It's just . . .” He stops and shakes his head. “I mean, here you are. You've grown so much. I can't believe it.”

I roll my eyes. “It's what happens, dude. The last time you saw me, I was one and you were hurting my mother.”

“Hey,” he starts.

But I cut him off. “I'm fourteen. People fucking grow a lot in thirteen years.”

The doctor, my father, and the child welfare lady all look horribly uncomfortable after I say this. And they should.

They should feel more than uncomfortable. They should feel shame and guilt for what they're doing to me right now, and what they're doing to my mother.

My father sighs. “You're right. Kids grow up. It's so
much different, though, when it's your own family. Your own son.”

“I'm not your fucking family.”

“Jaime,” the doctor snaps. “Let's keep this civil.”

Me and my father, we lock eyes and stare at each other.

We look so much alike, too.

“I'm really happy to see you, Jaime. I know this has to be incredibly hard for you right now, but I want you to understand that we're excited for you to spend a week with us. I think you'll really enjoy it. San Francisco is a great place for you to get your mind off of what's happened.”

“You think I'm gonna start hanging out, and stop thinking about finding my mother lying in that shitty bed?”

“That's not what I meant.”

“You think I'm going to enjoy myself while my mother sits in a mental hospital?”

“Oh, come on,” my father snaps. “You're my son too. I'm your father.”

“You're a fucking sperm donor, dude. I don't have a father.”

“That's not fair.”

“Right,” I sigh. “Right . . .”

Pause.

“Please go on, man. I'd love to know what you think is fair.”

He doesn't say anything.

“I'm betting my mom would love to hear it too.”

“Okay,” the doctor says. “That's enough. You two have a plane to catch. I'd suggest you accept that, Jaime, and make this as easy on yourself as you can.”

“Piss off,” I go. “I'll be outside when you're done signing all the paperwork, Justin.”

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING I'M
taking to san Francisco besides my laptop and notebooks and camcorder are thirty baby blues. I take them from a safe under my mother's bed, along with five thousand dollars (she has more than a thousand Oxys and twenty thousand in cash in this thing).

My father stays in the car. He said he had to make some important phone calls.

“Great for you,” I said back. Then, “I bet it must be neat being you and stuff,” before going into the house.

I dump the Oxys into a Tylenol bottle, and then take the last three from my own stash and put them in the tiny pocket of my jeans.

After I'm done stuffing my backpack, I grab a fairly large black suitcase from a closet in the hallway and pack it full of cut-off jean shorts, tank tops, tight black jeans, flannels, slip-on shoes, and a green parka.

Holding a piece of aluminum foil in my left hand, I chase the dragon. I don't smoke it all, but I smoke enough.

Not even my stupid fucking father sucks enough to leave a stain in the lovely glass castle I've just built.

In the kitchen, I slam a beer.

I'm numb.

I look around the house and it means nothing at the moment.

This is what really matters. Feeling nothing.

I put my headphones on and play that Angus and Julia Stone song “Big Jet Plane.”

It seems kinda fitting, even though I'm not taking some gorgeous girl I'm in love with on a trip.

I walk outside. My father is leaning against the car, smoking a joint. I laugh.

He quickly puts it out. He says something, and I take my headphones off.

“What was that?” I ask him.

“I said, it's just something I do from time to time. Not a lot. Just when I'm stressed. But I don't do it all the time.”

“It's just pot,” I say.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“I mean that it's just pot, dude. Who cares? Most of the kids in my class do the same thing during lunch.”

“Really?”

I make a face. “Yeah, man. Really. You get stoned. So what? There's a ton of shit you've done that you need to answer for, but smoking joints ain't one of them.”

WE FLY FIRST CLASS. IT'S
a direct flight from O'Hare to San Francisco. The two of us, we both pull out our laptops the second we get in the air.

I've rejected all my father's attempts at conversation so far. He looks stressed out anyway. And not just because of me and my sudden reappearance in his life.

Right before takeoff, he bit a Xanax bar in half and washed it down with a glass of white wine. He's on his fourth glass now.

He pounds the keyboard with his fingers. He shakes his head and rolls his eyes and rubs his face in obvious frustration.

Finally, I take my headphones off and go, “What's got you so creased?”

He looks almost shocked that I've addressed him. “Excuse me?”

“What's got you so creased?” I repeat.

“Nothing,” he says.

“Doesn't look like nothing.”

“I had a number of meetings that I couldn't push back, and I'm trying to decipher exactly what happened in my absence.”

“Sucks.”

“It's not ideal.”

I make a face. “I'm really sorry if my situation is fucking up yours, man. This is the last place I wanna be.”

“Your language.”

“What about it?”

He sighs.

And I say, “I'm sure you know where it came from.”

A smile cuts across his face, and he laughs. “Yes, I do.” He laughs again and leans his head back against his seat. “I've never heard anyone cuss that much. Never.”

“Rappers don't even cuss as much as my mother.”

“I used to give her so much shit for it, and how she—”

“Never knew she was doing it,” we both say at the same time.

We laugh. It's the first time me and my father have ever laughed together, and it comes at the expense of my mother.

My father goes pack to pounding his keyboard, and I turn and look out the window.

“So how'd you get your black eye, Jaime?” my father asks, just like that, without even looking at me.

“I got hit. How do you think?”

“Who hit you?”

His questions irritate me. I scowl. “This kid at school yesterday.”

“Why'd he hit you?”

“Because I decked him for talking shit.”

My father finally looks up from his computer. “You get into a lot of fights, don't you?”

Shrugging, I go, “Not a lot. Some. But not a lot. How would you know anyway?”

“Your mother told me.”

“When? You didn't see her at the hospital.”

“Last week, I think. Maybe the week before. It came up in our conversation. She's said it before too, that you get into fights frequently.”

I get nauseous.

My cheeks begin to burn.

“I didn't know you two talked.”

“We talk a couple times a week, Jaime.”

“Excuse me?”

My father looks confused now too. “Your mother and I talk frequently. You didn't know that?”

“No.”

“She always tells me you don't want to talk to me when I call. She tells me that she can't force you to talk, and that's the end of it. You didn't know?”

It feels like my heart's sitting in the pit of my stomach. I didn't know. She says that my father calls maybe once a year, if that. And when he does, she says he never wants to talk to me.

This is so gross.

I need to be away from him.

I walk into the bathroom and lock the door. Then I
grind an Oxy and snort the whole pile with a one-hundred-dollar bill.

Splash cold water on my face repeatedly.

My mother warned me about my father. She's always said he's manipulative and a liar. It's how he got her to go along with their plan after they found out she was pregnant. She was going to take a year off from dancing after she had me, then he was supposed to quit his job in the financial world and go back to freelance carpentry so she could focus on getting back into shape to join the ballet again.

It never happened, though.

She said he never intended to leave his posh job and was lying to her the whole time. That's when she said she knew she'd married a monster, and he couldn't be trusted.

“He'll lie to get what he wants,” she's told me so many times. “He's selfish like that, Jaime. Never believe anything he tells you.”

“I won't,” I always said. “I'll never meet him.”

“I'll make sure you never have to.”

“I know, Mom.”

“He's a bastard, Jaime. He doesn't even ask about you when we talk. He's never wanted anything to do with you or me.”

I dry my face off with a couple pieces of toilet paper.

Like fuck that guy out there thinking he can just say whatever and I'll believe it.

Just fuck him.

I won't listen anymore.

When I sit back down, my father starts to say something else, but I turn to the window and put my headphones on.

I play the Lamborghini Dreams album
Mulatto
.

I don't talk to my father the rest of the flight.

The only time I speak is when the stewardess asks me if I need anything.

And I don't.

I've got my baby blues and my music and my notebooks.

What more could anyone ever need anyway?

IT'S ALMOST FOUR IN THE
afternoon when we land in San Francisco. I take a photo of the sunny runway surrounded by this perfect blue water and tweet it, tagging my school, and writing,
What you seen today, you bald, creepy fuck?

By the time I'm walking off the plane, it's been retweeted thirty-seven times.

Sixty-one people have favorited it.

I smile cos I'm proud of that, but fuck all the kids who liked it and passed it along.

Just fuck all of them.

Those fakes.

Those goddamn phonies.

My father spends every second at the bag claim on his phone. He's going on and on about some amazing artist chick painter named Savannah.

It's annoying.

And it's interesting.

And he keeps barking at whoever is on the other end of the call to make sure she's got everything she needs to work this week and be comfortable.

“She gets whatever she wants,” I hear him say. “Anything Savannah needs, she fucking gets.”

A black town car with tinted windows picks us up.

The driver tries to take my bag to put in the trunk, but I refuse to let him do this and put it in myself.

“It's his job, Jaime,” my father says.

“It's my bag,” I say back. “Plus, it's not hard.”

“What?”

“I can put my own bag away. Nobody needs to do that for me.”

“But it's his job,” he says again.

“Not with my stuff it isn't.”

The car speeds down the highway. My father is wearing sunglasses. He taps his fingers nervously against his legs.

“Who's Savannah?” I finally ask as the car begins to merge into traffic and the cityscape appears in front of us.

My father looks over at me and pushes his shades to the top of his head. “Savannah is an extraordinary artist. She's so immensely gifted,” he says.

“What kind of art does she make?”

“She paints,” he says slowly. “Her work is stunning, Jaime. It's on the verge of brilliant. She's only twenty-one years old, too. How goddamn phenomenal. The quality of her work at that age, it's just incredible. And she's just arrived in the city, too.”

“From where?”

“Charleston, South Carolina.”

“Why is she here?” I ask. “What does she have to do with you?”

“I flew her here. One of my galleries is hosting the opening of her new exhibit next Friday night. She'll be staying in the apartment above my gallery in the Lower Haight to work on the final piece of the collection.”

“Wow,” I say. “Sounds important.”

The car takes an exit and we move into the actual city.

My palms begin to sweat. My heart beats faster. This is it. This is fucking San Francisco, and I'm here and I'm excited and I'm scared and I'm nervous and I'm enamored.

My father lowers his shades back over his eyes and goes, “It is important, son. I believe she's a once-in-a-lifetime talent. Potentially
the
most important painter of her generation. The fact that she's debuting her new pieces at my gallery, it's a very big deal. It's one of the most important things I've ever done.”