At Least They're Committed

Bean bag entrails, chocolate clotted candy wrappers, moldy pennies, broken pencils, a football we’ve been missing for a year, the fleshy residue of a peel-off face mask from two nights ago . . . Demon Spawn’s former room is a character in and of itself, like the Stanley Hotel in The Shining but far less evil and far more vile. Do all 17-year-old boys live like this?

“Eeeew!” evidently Shadow hasn’t overcome the urge to mark his territory. No wonder DS doesn’t want him to move into ‘the suite’ downstairs with him. Got a bad cold, coughing up crap and all that, but when I get the strength I’ll wash the carpet and walls. Got the cleaner out . . . that’s a start.

Did I mention the two empty tubes of hand lotion under the bed? Or the condoms? A three pack, one missing, no doubt firmly and optimistically tucked in his wallet. They’ve been hidden in his room, that two-pack, for about a year. He asked us a couple nights ago if we’d buy him more. We choked back the urge to say, “Why?” and said “yes” instead. That’s been the deal since we started talking to the kids about sex.

He’s at work, which is why he isn’t helping me clean this Trojanesque mess or, for that matter, doing it all himself. I wanted to get some of this crap done before his dad got home today or tomorrow from the funeral in Farmington.

Demon Spawn is a good kid. Naw, he’s a great kid. He started out in this world so angry, even in utero he kicked and clawed and nearly pushed D out of bed. He had an unholy scream that drove people out of grocery stores and food establishments as classy as Burger King and Taco Bell: the glares from old people and dweebs answered tenfold by the defensive rage of Mommy and Daddy as we’d quickly pack him up and leave. Not long after speaking his first word (shit, yes, shit) he would occassionally — not often– tell me he hated me. I said that was OK, because I loved him no matter what. It’s amazing how sometimes, if you love someone enough and you celebrate who they are, the anger goes away. DS is now a most mellow, wise, handsome, incredible young man. Well, maybe a little too mellow . . . laid back enough to live in squalor (as my mom would say) and still come off as cool.

Yeah, I’m pretty lucky. That kid is my sun, my moon, all the stars in my sky and . . . oh holy crap! What the fuck is this gooey-ass green shit? Oh my God I think it’s breathing! That’s it. I’m taking an hourlong shower and going back to bed.