The Adventures of James Dean.

8.

Dad lived in the same neighbourhood where we'd grown up.

The exact same house, if I'm to be specific.

Whenever we met up, we'd generally head out to a restaurant, a bar or a pub style joint. I always told him it was so he didn't have to cook, but the truth was, that I hated going back to that dank, dark, soulless house. Don't get me wrong, I'll never be ungrateful for all the sacrifices Pops made, but that house reminded me of everything I was aspiring to get away from. The place wasn't beneath me, I just hated to think he was still there. I offered to buy him an apartment, something within all the hustle and bustle, heck he could get take out for every meal and never get bored of the variety. That was something you just didn't get in the suburbs. But he stayed where he'd started out.

Sometimes I admired that about him, and sometimes it made me angry. I just felt like there was some potential he'd never reached and that he owed it to himself, but he seemed pretty happy. These days he worked as a fry cook in a diner. I paid off his mortgage years ago, he didn't have to work everyday of the week, but he kinda liked to. I got that. I wasn't much for mooching round the house, gardening and cleaning and cooking and shit. I needed to be out, the blood pumping through my veins. Today it kinda felt right, coming home. My brain was about as frayed as it'd ever been, and I felt this urge to smash my head into the steering wheel.

Again. Not an advisable reaction, but my blood pressure was still peaking, and the drive over had been hairy. I had road rage. Hell I just had rage building inside me, and I hate to admit that maybe some of that was directed my way. I'd been stupid enough not to use a rubber. I have fucking twenty in my wallet. Twenty fucking condoms, and now the thought of sex just made me think of Libby and Gavin screaming at one another from the back seat of Rusty's car. I imagined myself sitting on the train like the vacant father with his toddler, my kid running amok, my hair a not so fetching shade of grey.

And the woman. She tricked me. I'm sure that in some way she orchestrated the unfolding events, but I didn't know how or why, or whether I was being irrational in my current state of mind. This kid was my own social suicide. No woman wants to sleep with a guy who never sees his kids. Nobody wants to party with the man who fucked a girl in a cloak room and got her pregnant. I had a reputation, and not just the one I had regarding women. I was the king of client hospitality. People loved coming on vacation with me because I was as carefree as they came.

Well not any more.

In the space of an hour she had royally fucked up my head. And my life.

.................

My dad had the barbecue fired up and my grandmother sitting in a lawn chair. If I was unorthodox I got it from these guys. In her beige rain coat, Gran was busy with her puzzle book and my Dad waved me over, this little get together laid on for my benefit. I should have been more clear. I just wanted to talk to him but I should have known Gran would muscle in on the action. As soon as she saw me, she jumped from her chair with the agility of someone half her age, and crushed me in a hug. Seriously. The woman cannot be more than a hundred pounds but she hugs me like she can bench press my weight easily.

'I know you like your fancy pants restaurants.' Dad teased, 'and you've probably already eaten, but I got this meat from work, can ya believe they were gonna throw it all out?!

Gran tutted her dismay, and went back to her book. Dad was always finding ways to cut costs, as kids we'd spend hours in the queue at the grocery store while he whipped out a few hundred coupons.

'Huh.....look dad, I need to talk to you.....'

'So you said!' He whistled, going back to cooking, oblivious to the seriousness of what I was about to say.