Page 3 of Calavera Society

TWO

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‘RETURN OF THE TRES’ DELINQUENT HABITS

I’ve always noticedwith pure hate that given the chance, life will undoubtedly roll you over and fuck you dry just for the thrill of it. I mean, have you ever seen a motherfucker who hasn’t released a tear over the unfairness of life? No, you haven’t because each and every one of us isn’t ignorant to the hateful world we live in, and the worst part is…we created this society we live in.

Everything is all backward. Like an abused spouse who stands up for their abuser because they believe it’s done out of a sick version of love, or a person asking for honesty only to get offended by it. It’s shit like that that really dumbfounds me but the one fucked up scenario that really gets me is when karma lumps the innocent with the guilty. As far as karma is concerned, we’re all fucked one way or another.

We pacify ourselves by saying bullshit like,karma always repays the guilty, well by that thinking, we must all be a bunch of guilty bastards because I have yet to see anyone not bitten by the venomous fangs of that bitch, and for some unknown reason, that cunt is gunning for me.

My feet stomp down the sidewalk as my insides boil with barely fettered anger. I don’t notice the heavy silence around me, nor the way the fog creeps along my legs, swishing like smoke with each aggravated step I take down the two blocks to Noah’s house. All I see, hear and feel is the slap my mother delivered at the defense of the man who left her, left us! How could she do that to the one person who never gave up on her? I can’t even try to convince myself that she did it because when he was here, he was good to her…he wasn’t. I’ve done my best to forget my dad, but the things that won’t simply fade into the abyss of lost memories are the times my father made my mom cry. The times he demanded I stop crying because tears are a sign of weakness and no Calavera is born with weakness.

If I didn’t stop crying, he’d give me a reason to. For years it was punishment by taking things I loved from me. Soccer, my piano, gifts my mother got for me but the punishments got worse with age. I was backhanded, forced to hold a push-up position for an hour. Those were the worst, but my mom always tried to help me by winking at me while my dad was none the wiser, so I could let my arms rest until he came back in.

I know my mom tried to help in other ways, ways that ended with her bruised, broken and sobbing while I covered my ears and imagined my father’s blood spilled at my feet.

Sure, there were times where he seemed like an almost normal dad, especially when he’d return home in fall after spending the entire summer break working out of state, but that only lasted a couple of weeks. I never understood why my mother stayed with him, why it was Roberto who left instead of us.

According to my mom, he wasn’t always that way. But that’s the same story every abused spouse says. What I saw was something very different. I had a father who was like two different people, all depending on the day. If he was ever the kind of man my mom talked about, then he went from madly in love with her to tolerating her existence the day I was born.

A few months before he left, we had a weird reprieve from his iron rule in our house. He closed off and barely paid attention to us. He never sat down for dinner, never bothered to ask me about my grades. Just nothing. He was there, but not really. I was grateful he seemed distracted enough that punishments were no longer a threat, but it was also a cause of huge anxiety for us.

Often, I found myself wondering when the next shoe was going to drop. It was like living with a bomb, the timer set for an hour we had no knowledge of, and the fuse was slowly shortening. When it finally blew, our lives were left in tattered remains.

He left us and took with him every financial stability we had.

We had to leave our fancy neighborhood with its gated community and coveted education system in an effort to survive on our own. I don’t know what kind of childhood my mother had, but from the looks of how she floundered for a few months, I’d say she had never seen a day of struggle until that moment.

But she didn’t cave. She learned, she adapted, and she got us through the worst time of our lives, all while suffering from heartbreak.

For me though, it was a relief. The dad I was supposed to have, was never there. Instead, I had someone I wished were dead. I felt for my mother even if I didn’t understand her pain. I knew that for her, it was more than heartbreak over a lousy break up, it was living with the betrayal that hurt most.

But as far as I can tell, that’s the way love goes. Love is nothing but a noose around your neck, one wrong move and its death for you.

“Omigod! Just shut the hell up already!” I sigh to myself before stepping off the sidewalk to cross the street.

Noah’s house sits quietly with the curtains pulled open, the lamp inside shows the hundreds of crosses on the wall surrounding the largeofrenda. Noah’s parents are hardcore Catholics…at least, that’s what they say they are. On the outside, they represent everything the religion states, but behind closed doors, they’re so off the standards of what we know that I don’t honestly believe they're true Catholics…not the kind you see today at least. Mrs. Cabañas, Noah's mom, tried to have the sexual orientation exorcized out of her only child and when that didn’t work, she decided good old fashioned ass beating would help her son. All of this done with Noah’s dad watching like a disgusting prick.

First of all, Noah is perfect the way he is, but even he hasn’t put a label on himself. His mother, with all her two brain cells of higher intelligence, has decided her son needs fixing.

Fuck, if I could, I’d shoot the bitch in the face, but Noah chooses to be better than her. To be better than most. He’ll never have to deal with her again once he moves out, he’s just waiting for an acceptance letter from one of the many colleges he applied to. Until then, he refuses to stoop to her level of sadistic insanity.

Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day, I’m going to make sure that whore knows what it feels like to be at the mercy of someone else.

If your “religion” forces you to do unspeakable things to your children, then you are one sick motherfucker if you continue to practice. It’s one thing to disagree with or even hate the choices your child has made, but it should be common fucking knowledge that you don’t beat the shit out of your kid in hopes they see the fucking light.

Fuck, this all makes me feel like shit for being so pissed at my mom. She’s a fucking saint in comparison to Noah’s bitch ass egg donor. She’s done more for me than Mrs. Cabañas has done for him.

I turn my back on the house and pull out my phone to text Noah that I’m outside. I get his text back immediately.

Noah: Sit tight, bonita, but don’t let the wicked witch see you.

I grin down at my phone before pocketing it and walking toward the overgrown tree he’ll be climbing down before dropping my ass on the curb to wait.

This giant Elm tree should have been removed by the city long ago since its roots are a hazard for anyone walking down the sidewalk, especially anyone with a disability or elderly people, but it’s technically on the Cabañas property and we’ve already established that Noah’s parents are worthless. So here it stands, huge and proud, giving cover for me and a ladder for Noah. I’m sure if his mother knew he was using it to sneak out, she’d have it removed in a day.

My phone buzzes with a call, my mom’s name flashing on the screen, but I ignore it and text Noah to hurry up, but of course, I get a taste of my own medicine when he ignores me.