Leaving Home, Going Home

I've spent two weeks in a world the size of a petri dish, having had no contact with anyone except for my immediate family. I plan on changing that before my departure tomorrow, but plans follow a rather consistent spiral into the depths of hell around here. This place felt like home for a day or two last week, but something happened to change that--maybe not completely, but enough to make me want to get out of here. I keep wondering if my father means any of the things he says when he's sober or if he just likes to hear himself talk. I know in reality that it's some combination of the two, yet the ratio is perpetually perplexing. He's made it clear on several occasions that he wants me as close to home as possible--that he'd be perfectly happy if I were here all the time. It's a violent sort of wanting. It's like he wants me here because he misses me, even if he never sees me or does anything with me. It's like he's just happy to know that I am here, sitting on his couch, doing nothing. The first thing he said to me when I told him that I might be going to California was, "I'm not getting on no fucking plane." I've learned just how selfish my dad really is in the years I've had to live with him--in the years I had to skip school sometimes because he'd keep us up until 5 am, ranting drunk and half-naked. My brother and I never learned, so it seemed, because we would never back down. The fights would escalate. Things were broken and punches thrown. I managed to knock his teeth right through his lip one time. He'd kill me if he knew I were writing this. He cares more about his reputation than how this has affected me, and I know it has. It's probably a large part of who I am. The first time my dad ever saw me perform was when I was a freshman at Pitt, and I've been playing drums since I was eleven. I'm not even going to go into the rest of the shit because I'm just going to get upset about it even more. Where was I? So what happens when it's 5 am on a Tuesday morning, and you have a history exam for which you are now completely unprepared in just a few hours...and he's still awake? You get in the car. You drive to a parking lot with a donut shop to get an orange juice and a plain cake donut, cover yourself with a sweatshirt that you find in the backseat and try to sleep for an hour or so, hoping that'll buy you enough time. Did it happen often? Every few days, sometimes a few in a row. And sometimes we'd go two weeks without anything. But I always knew it was going to happen. I got sick of wathcing my mouth every night. I got sick of him coming after her, and so did Darrell. Since I've been at Pitt, I wonder how many times it has happened to her because I know it has. My dad is incapable of change, and my mom is incapable of leaving, it seems. She used to tell us how she was going to leave when this came around or when that happened or when we were older. But it kept happening. It got pretty bad after Darrell got arrested. That year drained so much out of me. I never wanted to be here. I tried to spend as much time away from this place as possible. I found safety at Jude's. I knew I was always welcome. This place became my prison. And I could see her suffering here too. And I know the worst of it is that she was doing it for me. She stays because of me. Or maybe she just doesn't know what else to do now. I used to scream to no one: "This is NOT a family!!" Things got a little better as the time for me to leave came around, and we always say that we are closer now than we were back then. I don't know if I really believe it, at least when my dad says it. Shit. My mom came in and started asking questions. Why do I still feel like I have to hide here?
That flashback incident..."you people out there voted for that Facist pig. you know nothing. you're stupid. you're all fucking idiots. he's the reason your loan got denied. you didn't know that did you? yeah, your mother's paying out of her retirment for your god damn school. the woman you yelled at the other day. what the fuck do you have to say to that you little prick?" there was probably more. There's always more about how stupid I am or how I'm doing something awful to him. "What am I supposed to fucking do then? You're selfish. You want to go out to fucking California! You could get shot! You could die. I'm just trying to fucking protect you!!" I don't have room for all of the exclamation points on paper or in my head. And for the first time since I can remember, I said nothing. He kept coming back with more and more. And I only managed to say one thing: "You're fucking selfish, and you don't give a shit about me. The only reason you don't want me to go is because you'll miss me." And I seriously don't think he sees a problem with that. So I tried to leave. I just wanted to be away from it all. But my mom begged me. We compromised, and she parked in some random ass parking lot again, and I had to relive that shit instead of just going for a walk by myself. Not being able drive means never being able to get away when shit like this happens.
These experiences taught me a lot about how to deal with things, for better and for worse. I'm still struggling with when I should run away and when I should stand up and fight. I never want to run away. I don't know why I chose it last week. I never have. And I don't know whether I'm progressing or regressing.
So what happens in the morning? They blow it off like nothing happened. We just pretend it never happened. There are no conversations. There are no apologies for specifics. I've never once heard my dad say he was wrong. I've never once heard him admit that he's got a drinking problem. And it always keeps on happening. If you do nothing, nothing changes.
I've been screaming on the inside. It's hard to describe what I see when I look at my dad. I never know how I am supposed to feel about him. I don't really like him, and I kind of hate myself for that. I hate having to deal with him. I hate that my mom has to deal with him. I hate that he wakes her up at 2 or 3 sometimes to make him food. I hate that he then makes more food and doesn't eat most of it anyway and leaves everything in the sink and on the counter, and I hate that there are beer cans everywhere I step every morning. I hate being reminded of that shit, and I think that's a major reason that I don't want to be here. This place tries to bring me down, and I feel like my dad does too, sometimes intentionally, as I have just seen, and sometimes not.
I could go on and on about this shit. I've told only a hanful of people about this, and I think I'm safe because only a handful of trusted individuals read this anyway. I fucking hate complaining like this. I feel like I have no right to it with the kind of shit that other families have to endure. It's just what has always been for me, and I've known for most of that time that it's not right, but part of me feels like everybody's got something.
As much as I hate saying that this kind of shit has made me who I am, I know it's true. The littlest things about my personality can be traced back to these incidents, and I don't know how I feel about that because the problem has yet to be solved. And I know it's never going to be unless he dies, as terrible as that sounds. Do I like to fight? Playfully, yes. But sometimes it's necessary to fight for real. You stop letting people hit you. Words don't always work with people. So you fight back. And there were times when I welcomed it because at least I would have gone down fighting. But it never came to that. There was that one time when she wasn't home to stand between us. I got knocked down 3 times, and my head hurt like hell after the first. I tried to push him out of the way on the third time, but I got knocked down again, and he just laughed at me. Then I punched him in the face. Bleeding must change your mind because he walked away after saying something that probably made me even angrier. My mom came back and then drove us away again. To this day, I wonder what would have happened had she not come home. That's the day I truly learned that I'd be okay in a fight. I don't even know where all of this is coming from right now. I had a plan when I started writing, but that's all gone now. I'm just getting feelings now, and words are coming at the same time or a little bit later. It's always harder when that happens first.
Sweat is dripping down my arms right now.
And I just don't feel like cutting the grass because it's not my job anymore.
And I just don't feel like being here anymore because it's not my home anymore, and it's not my job to pretend that it is anymore.
I don't know if I'll ever be okay with how I feel.
But I'm trying. I don't know if I should be.
I'm scared that this will happen when Darrell comes back here, and he won't know how to handle it anymore. I feel like he has changed so much and wishes that my dad has too. But maybe he knows better than to believe that. And maybe he's afraid of it as well. I'm so worried that this is all going to fall apart when he comes back here. It's held together with duct tape, it seems. But duct tape melts when exposed to heat.
I'm going home tomorrow. I'm going to a place where I can forget about this. I'm going to a place beyond this and beyond having to deal with this. I've made it a point to rise above this kind of shit in my life. I don't want to look back. It hurts to look back, and I'm afraid that someone's going to grab me by the collar and drag me kicking, screaming, biting, and punching all the way back here if I don't keep running as fast as I can.