BAD REPUTATION.

02

Judd Kidd

I'm leaving Hollywood. Going away. Saying goodbye. Adiós Hollywood. I'm leaving the only place that I've called home for the last ten years. Leaving my life behind, leaving everything that's familiar.

Okay, I'm being a little melodramatic, I'm only leaving for the summer.

This decision was not easy to come by. It took a lot of arguing and cursing (me),a lot of guilt tripping (me), self examination (me),more shouting and less cursing (my mother),heaping more guilt on my conscience (my mother), cancellation of my ten years career as a teen heart throb(my manager/mother and the rest of the world) and a dead best friend to realize that I needed to step out of the spotlight and get my life together.

When my mother told me that since rehab was clearly not working for me, she was going to do something different, I didn't think something different was me moving to a town that is barely a blip on the map, but that's where we are at.

"Where the fuck is Grace whatever?"

"It's Graceland, a small town in North Carolina, your grandmother has a huge house there."

Okay, when I agreed to this move I was thinking in terms of staying at a five star hotel, with a beach nearby and endless supply of tall,smooth skinned,well tanned girls and most importantly, somewhere far away from my mother. I'm slightly confused though."Grandmother? I thought your mother died of some cancer or something?"

My mother releases a long sigh that deducts ten years from her life and sits down on my bed where I've been spending a lot of my time lately. A dead career leaves you with a lot of time to sleep- just saying.

My mother is blinking at me like she's trying to remember the moment her once innocent and sun- shinny boy turned into this emotionless drug addict. "I'm talking about your father's mother."

Although I meet up with my father every now and then so that he can fulfill his fatherly duties ,we have never talked about the existence of anyone from his side of family. The only relatives I know are from my mother's side.

"Well, it's good for her that she has a big house or whatever but I'm not going to stay with a stranger also I have a feeling that what-its-name town sucks so I'm reconsidering my agreement to go."

"You are going. A small quiet town is what you need right now."

I want to put up more fight, but I know it will be futile. My mother is one willingful woman when she wants to be.

"Book me into a hotel then." I won't settle for less than that.

"I don't think you staying in a hotel is a good idea and I don't even think that town has any good hotels. You'll have to stay with your grandmother."

"No. I'm staying at a hotel."

She just levels me a gaze that says everything.

So not only I'm I going away, I'm practically falling off the face of the earth.

This is too much for me to process so I'm just going to ignore my mother and think about why I didn't (until a few minutes ago) know about the existence of another grandmother.

Here's the deal about my parents.

My mother's name is Lucille Morgan and my father's name is Japheth Davidson. They met at Cal U while studying Mass media and Communication. After college, they got married but found out they weren't good at the marriage thing. Somewhere between me being born and turning six years old, they were completely-with no hopes of ever getting back-divorced.