20. I Don't Need You

The end of Part 2, or the beginning of Part 3. Actually, it's more like the middle ground between them

This is when I’m seven years old, going on eight. I follow the stampede of other second graders outside the school, into the big chaotic crowd they form while looking for a bus. In their excitement to get out of class, they’re all running and laughing and yelling. They all seem so happy in a way I can’t understand. I don’t get on any of the buses waiting on the street, since I haven’t been assigned to one yet. Instead I walk down the sidewalk until I find my Uncle T’s car parked parked along the curb. He’s standing outside of it, waving at me with a big, dumb smile on his face. I silently wave back and get in the passenger side. He gets in too.

“It’s so nice out.” he says, turning the crank to roll his window down.

“I guess.” I sigh absently. He starts the car and pulls off.

“So, big man,” he eggs on. “How was your first day of school?”

I’m not sure how to answer him. “It was okay.”

“Just okay? Come on, what did you learn?”

“Nothing. The teacher didn’t make me do any work because it was my first day.”

“Well did you make any friends?”

I turned away, toward the window. “No.”

There was a pause, and a change of tone in his voice.

“Why not?”

He took a quick glance at me before returning his eyes to the road.

“Nobody talked to me,” I answered. “They all just look at me like I don’t belong there.”

“That’s just because they don’t know you, yet. You’ve gotta open and introduce yourself.”

I keep looking out of the window, watching the suburb of Queens blur by.

“Don’t worry about it,” Uncle T continues. “It’s a good school.”

“How would you know?” I reply. “You never went there.”

He struggles to find an answer. “Well, that’s just what I’ve heard.”

I persist. “I still don’t see why I have to go there.”

“I told you, Richie. If you’re going to be staying in my house you have to go to a closer school.”

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to stay here. I thought my dad was coming back.”

My uncle sighs, and for a moment the two of us just sit with the sounds of the road.

Without any of the warmth or desperation in his voice, he replies. “So did I.”

We’re silent when we enter the house, as we were for the rest of the car ride. He closes the door behind me without another glance I walk upstairs to my new room. The only thing here is a bed, and a big duffle bag full of my clothes laying on the wooden floor. I stare at them, realizing these two things are now all I have in the world. They are now my entire life. I glance around at the off-white walls surrounding me, taken back by how empty they look.

I get a picture in my head of all the other kids I had seen at school, the ones who didn’t talk to or even notice me as they went on with their regular, happy kid lives. I imagine them arriving home, to the source of their happiness. To hugs and smiles, to loving scolding, to an equally happy mom and dad. Maybe to an older brother or younger sister, or to a dog. To a hot dinner and to long talks where everyone shares the story of their day. These images, playing back to back in my mind, seemed more and more foreign to me. As I stood in this empty room with nothing but a bed, a bag and all the silence in the world, I couldn’t imagine any of those happy kids coming back home to this.

As I stand there, it feels like the room’s emptiness is washing over me, passing through me. It feels like it’s consuming me and making me a part of it. Shuttering, I drop my book bag onto the hardwood floor and stumble back through the door, out into the hallway. I break away from the emptiness, but it feels like a little part of it has buried itself deep inside me, and it may remain there the rest of my life.

My uncle’s house is bigger than I had ever noticed. The ceiling is high, and every little creek in the floorboards seems to echo under it. It’s a very old-fashioned seeming building, like the kinds I see on old TV shows, everything is made of wood and all the walls are painted a boring white. I had been to this house plenty of times before, but exploring it now from my current emotional perspective makes it feel like a foreign land. In the small corridor between the kitchen and the living room, I find three pictures hanging in a neat little row. The one on the right is my Uncle T, many years younger than I had ever seen him. He has longer, curly hair and is dressed in a suit for some reason, awkwardly smiling in a way that looks nervous and fake. On the left I see my Uncle Keegan, in a flashier suit, with an honest seeming grin. Even though he’s younger, he still looks the same somehow. Between them is a woman. I struggle to recognize her for a moment, until I realize she’s my mother.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen her. It’s only ever been in pictures and one or two home videos. She looks at me with big, warm eyes and a happy smile, as if she knows I’m looking back at her. I vaguely see myself in her face, and that gives me a chill. My uncles look at these pictures and they see a person they’ve known their whole lives, who breathes and talks and laughs and dreams, but all I can see looking at her face is a twisted, distorting mirror. An unnerving reflection that reminds me this woman I’ve never met lives on inside me, and that my uncles probably see her every time they look at my face.

I wonder if my father saw her in me too. Maybe looking at me brought back the sadness of her being gone, maybe that’s why he left. Maybe he saw himself. I wonder if my uncles see him when they look at me too. Thinking about it, I feel stuck and hopeless. Like a hollow non-person, trapped in the identities of the two people who had brought me into this world only to leave me behind.

What am I supposed to be without them? I remember how all the kids at school walked past me without speaking, ignoring me as if I had no place in any of their lives, and for the first time wonder if that’s just my role in the world; to go on being ignored and left behind forever. Can I blame them? If my own dad didn’t want to bother with me why would anybody else?

A hand falls onto my shoulder. I had been so lost in my thoughts I didn’t notice my Uncle T walk up behind me.

His voice low and tired, he sighs, “I’m sorry, Richie.”

I don’t know what to say, so he doesn’t wait for a response.

“I know you didn’t ask for this. I know you didn’t want to move and start your whole life over, I get it. Truth is I don’t have that much more control than you do. But I’m trying to make it work here… You’re too young to know this, but that’s what life is about: everything always starting over. The only way you can be happy here is if you give it a chance.”

I try to speak but my throat is swelling up. Everything goes blurry as tears fill my eyes and begin streaming down my face. Without saying anything, without quite knowing why, I take off running.

“Richie!” my uncle calls out, but I’m already making my way up the stairs.

I run back into the empty room that’s now mine and slam the door behind me. I collapse onto the bed as I begin to sob. The room’s cold, lonely emptiness consumes me once again, this time creeping in and burying itself inside me. This time it lodges itself deep in my body and it feels like it might stay there the rest of my life. My lungs struggle for air as my body twitches and shakes. I cry myself to sleep for the second time in that bed.

I find myself far into outer space, floating through an endless void of stars. Each one I pass seems to whisper something to me.

“Always starting over…”

The voices sound vaguely familiar, but they quickly disappear and I can’t remember them. One of them surprises me.

“Thanks for noticing me…”

I spin around as fast as I can to find the star responsible for that one, but it doesn’t seem to be there. Just more empty darkness in its place. I look down and I see a hardwood floor floating through the void, rising up to me. It gets closer and closer until I’m standing on it. I hear another voice, this time it’s an actual person.

“Richard…” he calls out. I turn around to see him. It’s my father. He looks exactly like he did the last time I saw him, except this time he’s not angry. In fact, he’s smiling, with his arms stretched out as he looks down at me.

“Dad?” I call out as he steps closer.

“Sorry I left,” he says. “But I’m back now.”

He looks me right in the eye and places a hand on my shoulder.

“I’m back now, Richie. I’m here for you, just like you always wanted.”

I hear another whisper, and I look up, above us. To my surprise, all the stars are now gone, and the empty void is all that’s left. When I look back at my father, I’m shocked to see we are now eye-level with each other. I look down at my hands, and they’re no longer small and weak-looking. Ten years have passed, and life has changed me. I now have all these crazy memories of Queens and of friends, of facial hair and of driving, of high school and of parties. Of you. So many memories of you.

I look back to my father, who hasn’t aged a second. With all my might I raise my hand and slap his off my shoulder. His face looks shocked and hurt.

“It’s too late,” I call out. “I don’t need you anymore.”

He doesn’t say anything, and that makes me angry. I shove him as hard as I can and he doubles back.

“Did you hear me? I don’t need you!”

I close my eyes and with all my strength I scream at the top of my lungs.

“I don’t need you! I don’t need you!”

Realizing how heavily I’m breathing, I inhale deeply and calm myself. My eyes still shut, I say it one last time. This time, it’s a realization.

“I… I don’t need you.”

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