Pontoon Boat is in the Front Yard

Get this out of the way: I did put a cigarette out on your mother’s arm Thanksgiving weekend 2013, yes I fucked Renee the girl working the snack shack at the ballfield used to give you free lollipops when you was in Coach Pitch, and no I didn’t ever get around to getting the boat out of the front yard I was fixin’ to work on it.

She told you all this shit and said that’s why ya’ll left and we couldn’t see each other last five years. Well it’s bullshit and you’re 16 which makes you a man now so you got a right to know the truth. I feel terrible every time I think about you having to live with Craig, that asshole.

Your mom’s a slut. I just have to throw that out there. This isn’t going to be easy for either of us but we’re ripping off the band-aid, son. Ask her about Reynolds High, under the bleachers, Tommy Atlas. See if she doesn’t squirm a little. We’d been steady three months. Exclusive. That’s just one time is all I’m saying. I’m not going to waste my computer hour running down your mom’s dirty sex life. Maybe over some beers some time. I’d like that a lot, you know.

She lies to you constantly. Five minutes before I stubbed that butt on her arm she threw a full glass, with ice, of her fucking Tequila Sunrise at me. Square in the face. My eyes were burning. Renee was not my goddamn cousin. She knew my cousin or had slept with her or something or other but we were not related. I was neither a party nor present at any such encounters.

I refuse to speak ill of your mother though or disrespect her. The fat fuck in the room, as they say, is Craig. Craig’s why you can’t visit here and Craig’s got your mom all out of sorts, lying and pinching pills again I’m sure. I’m going to educate you about this Craig you got lording over you now. I’ve known that cum rag since 8^th grade, not a damn thing he done or put his little pecker in I don’t know about.

Ask him about getting thrown in Russell’s pond. Ask him if we didn’t sit on the bank and watch his little hands slapping at the water hollering for his big sister trying to doggie paddle back to the shore like a little bitch. Matter of fact ask him where that same big sister was homecoming night 97’. See if my truck wadn’t fogged the fuck up. There’s a hundred Craig’s, they all got sisters and I’d forget every goddamn one of them if this one hadn’t shown up at your mom’s parlor talking about “do you do men’s cuts?”

See thing is he had the dumb fucking luck to pick that day. Any other day she’d slap his ass on sight for carrying on like he had a pair. But, well, you remember that day. She had every right to be pissed. I won’t shit you; I do not recall the order of operations here. But the glass on that aquarium did give way, from a hairline crack that’d been there months or some sudden impact I do not know hand to god, but your mom walking down the stairs all made up for work seeing me out cold on the couch sleeping one off and stepping on a puffer and ruining those heels with the saltwater — I do not begrudge her anger. Slap at me, spit on me, tickle Craig’s cock in the back after you blow dry fat fuck’s little mane but the rest of this is completely unnecessary.

So tell me how the cops show up and all of a sudden she’s giving out tours of the basement that she swears she’s never once in her life even set foot in, at least not since we first signed the lease officer and, oh my what is all this maybe my boy has a science fair coming up at school?

I have deleted some words about your mother which are unkind but I trust you understand my position. And to hear Janice tell it she waited, what was it, three days? Three days and Craig’s shit-stained Hanes probably hanging out to dry over the couch and you, poor boy, you got to sit there and watch this travesty unfold? Changing of the guard, they call it. Well I just want you to know I love you and as far as I recall, and up to and including the information I have since gathered, that boat wadn’t checked one time and I bet if you found yourself with a few spare minutes you could easily make your way to the back right bench and lift that up and find a little Colt .45 fully loaded and once those responding officers hear about the abuse, I’m talking sexual, mental, emotional, that Craig has been putting you through, well I can’t see how they don’t label this an open and shut case of self-defense from trauma inflicted, and I swear to you son on Nanna’s life if you’ll just do what’s right then in 26 months when this time here is paid we can get back to being a family again.