Chapter 23 Crap-accio #2
“Randy, your dad came in and made our life hell too, y’know? He is a piece of selfish crap. Just seeing him with our mum made me so mad. And yeah, we took it out on you, because we couldn’t say a word to him.”
Frank’s eyes narrowed at him. “Steady on there, Bobby.”
“Randy’s right, Frank. We’re not kids anymore. We don’t have to play kids’ games. You haven’t been a father to any of us. All you’ve done is bring us all misery. And yeah,” Bobby turned back to Randy, “Then we passed the misery onto you, Randy. I’m sorry for that. Really.”
Everyone now turned to Frank.
“I… I thought we were all having fun… I mean…”
“Don’t pretend, Frank,” Jake said.
Frank’s face had turned white. His sneering scowl had gone, and he shook his head, trying to shake the truth out of his thoughts, before covering his face with his hands.
“Oh God, what have I become?”
When he finally looked up, it was at Randy.
“Randy. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize… Okay.
That’s not true. I did. But it was easier to just not think about.
I loved your mum, really. And yes, I ruined it all, because I was a tired and bitter man who thought he deserved more than he’d got.
And when you don’t shine things, well, they start to get dull.
After she left me, everytime I saw you, I saw her, and I goddamn hated you for that. ”
“Frank, I was a scared kid. I needed a role model, or at the very least, someone who would turn up. Instead, I got three monsters.”
“Yes, yes.” Frank was nodding now.
From inside the house, there was sobbing. Carol came out onto the porch, wiping her eyes, and her two boys wrapped their arms around her.
Frank heaved a sigh of painful agony, of years of menace being unwound.
“Randy. Boys. Carol. You all deserve better. You don’t have to give me a chance, but I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to be an old man who only gets older and dies with only hatred as his memory.”
Bobby nodded at him. Accepting the words. Then Frank turned to Randy, who looked much less convinced.
“Randy, what can I do?”
“That’s up to you, Frank. But you can’t scatter a few words after everything, and then it all goes away.”
Frank nodded sadly.
“You know I leave you a ticket for every game? Home and away. I stopped expecting you to turn up a long time ago now. But I still do it. I guess it’s just a habit now, a ritual. But if I still do that, then I have to believe that maybe there’s some chance for you to still be my dad.”
“I haven’t been to see you play for years,” Frank sank his head into his hands, despairing at his fully deserved nomination for ‘Worst Father Of The Year’.
“Well, maybe you could start by turning the fuck up. Just for one time.”
“Will you come back inside?” Frank asked, his eyes red and pleading.
“No, Frank. You need to do the work now. I’m going to get on with my life. You decide whether you want to be a part of that, before that door closes on you forever.”
As we walked away from that porch, Randy walked taller, his chest pushed out, his head high.
It couldn’t have been easy. Years of torment were wrapped up in that moment, and they wouldn’t disappear anytime soon.
But I was proud of him right then. And maybe, just maybe, things might get better now that they were out in the open.
We got in the car and Randy drove round the corner, pulling over in the first quiet spot on the side of the road. After a few seconds of simmering silence, Randy started roaring, punching the roof, and hollering into the air.
I nervously waited to see whether this was a good thing, and was relieved when I finally saw the elation spread across his face.
“Haha. Lucy! I have wanted to do that for years! In my head, how I imagined it, it would never work out. I was so afraid to risk it.”
He went back to screaming, the release coming like a celebration, and I joyfully joined in. As we exhausted ourselves, we were both left with red faces and panting hard, but still couldn’t keep the grins from our faces.
“God, I feel so much better,” Randy said.
My heart was still thumping with excitement as I turned to him and saw the wild, excited look in his eyes.
“I’m proud of you, Randy.”
“Fuck yeah!” He boomed back.
“Randy...”
“Uh-huh,” he turned to me, his eyes still blazing with adrenaline.
“You still wanna fuck in your car?”
“Yeah, I fucking do!”
He reached over toward me, but I stopped him with my hand. “Uh-uh.”
I applied enough pressure on his chest to ease him back into the driver’s seat, before I hitched my dress up and straddled my knees on either side of him.
“You’ve had your excitement, Randy. Now it’s my turn to misbehave.”
Our eyes slipped downward from each other’s, both watching my hands running over his pants and onto his belt, clinking it loose.
“I hope you’ve got a pre-programmed seat position for this?”
“You know, I don’t,” he grinned back. “But let’s make one, right now.”
The seat rolled backward with me on top of him. For just a moment, it felt like things really were going to be okay.
But that wouldn’t last long. Not even twenty-four hours…