When I heard my step dad’s foot steps in the house my whole body winced and I braced myself. I’d run through a checklist of everything I could think of that he might get angry over.
- Was I being loud?
- Was the TV too loud?
- Was I turning the TV channel changer too fast
- Was I watching something he wouldn’t like?
- Did I have a bad attitude on my face
- Were there things in his walkway?
- Had I set the counter on the VCR exactly where he left off before I illegally watched it while I was home alone.
- Had I perfectly re-folded and put back in its exact position his off-limits bag of fancy potato chips after I snuck a couple for myself?
- Had I set back down the glass lid on the cookie jar with absolute perfect silence?
- Had I fed and watered the dogs that day?
- Did I have too many lights on?
- Had I turned up the heat?
And:
- Did I look too comfortable?
If I was laying in the couch watching TV, I would sit up and try to look as uncomfortable as possible. I’d sit on the edge of the couch– never let my back rest against the back of the couch. Maybe lean to one site as if I wasn’t fully sitting enjoying my body fully resting on the couch to appear like I just sat down, and I would be back up in a second.
Because if he thought I looked like I was enjoying myself too much or being lazy he would send me outside to work.
“Boy, what have you done today? Get up. Now.”
Work always felt like a punishment and an unpassable test to confirm I was lazy piece of shit.
When my step dad wanted to clean out his car, he would go out to the driveway, open all the car doors, play his music loud, and clean.
He brought out the vacuum and an extension cord and vacuumed the carpet. He cleaned the inside of the windows with windex and a rag. He wiped down all the plastic and leather surfaces with surface cleaner and a rag.
Whatever trash was on the seats and floor of the car, he simply tossed out onto the ground in the yard.
Pop cans, cigarette containers and the this plastic wrapper that blew away so easily, food wrappers, pieces of paper… and the ash tray. He’d dump the ashtray, full of cigarette butts, right onto the ground. In the yard.
Then he’d tell me to clean the yard.
“Go get a garbage bag and pick up the trash in the yard. I better not see anything you missed”
I’d walk around picking up whatever had blown in from the road, toys left over from winter, and half burned cans and debris from the burn pile.
And then I’d get to the driveway and see all the trash surrounding his car.
I can’t decide if it was actual vindictiveness towards me or complete unawareness and disregard for my feelings.
Now, it makes me angry. At the time I was so used to what felt like arbitrary punishment, I just did it. I hated it and trudged through it, but I did’t know I could be mad.
What I hated most was picking up cigarette butts. They had already mixed in with the driveway gravel and blades of yard grass. They were coated with ash and smelled horrible, which now was all over my fingers. It was gross and I wanted to be anywhere else.
When I was done I’d enter the house in a way I hoped wouldn’t piss him off.
“Dad, I’m done.”
It makes me fucking sick to think I called him dad.