I don't remember where I was coming from. I remember I was in the passenger seat, but I don't know who was driving. I know I was 18-years old. I know I had graduated high school, but can't recall if it was a week after I graduated or two months after. I know it was summer. I know I was being dropped off. I know I was being driven to where I lived, my dad's house...I realize most kids who have yet to leave the nest would refer to that place as "their home", but that's not how I was raised, it wasn't my home, it belonged to Steve.
I know my car wasn't running, it was in the driveway, broken down, I don't know exactly what was wrong with it. I don't know why the person who was driving me dropped me off and left, in hindsight, that was a bad move on my part.
I know that as we drove down my street to the house I began to make out the shapes and forms of items on the lawn, big items, small items, a lot of items. I remember looking out the passenger window as the car slowed in front of the house, I remember Steve, my dad, sitting on the porch.
All of my life my dad told me when I turned 18, I was out. He beat it into my head (literally). My 18th birthday had come and gone in January of that year without any acknowledgement whatsoever by my parents, so although I was a little bothered no one noticed, I was also a little relieved I wouldn't be homeless with 5-months left of high school. When my high school graduation rolled around, and neither of my parents even asked about it or acknowledged that their was a commencement ceremony, I didn't bring it up, I didn't attend it and they didn't care. Again, I didn't get tossed out of the house, so I counted my blessings.
My luck had run out that day. That day, everything I owned was on the front lawn. My entire life to that point was strewn across the grass as if a micro-tornado hit just my room, just my life.
I had no car to pack it up into and in 1989 I had no cell phone to call anyone. My dad simply said, "I changed the locks" got up, went in the house and shut the door behind him.
I stood there, stunned a bit and turned and walked away...from it all. From my things, my clothes, my life.
I had no siblings out there in the world to call, no friends or relatives to take me in. When I called my estranged mother from a pay phone her response was, "So, wow, where are you going to go?". Exactly what a boy in trouble wants to hear from his mom.
I wasn't a bad kid. I wasn't in trouble. Never got suspended, never got so much as a parking ticket. I just wasn't what my old man thought I should be.
That's the day I learned that no one will ever have my back.
