Personal Narrative: My Step Daddy Cade

living room where my Step Daddy Cade was already firmly perched at his usual spot on the couch watching television. He looked dressed for success in a dingy wife-beater and an old pair of ratty boxers. As I watched him stare almost comatose at the television to me he looked as if he was already half-crocked.
I continued to stand there for another moment unnoticed as his attention appeared intently focused on today’s episode of Maury. On the screen newly mothered teens where arguing with their boyfriends about whether they were the fathers’ of the babies whose pictures appeared draped in the background.
When I eventually did catch his attention, he took one look at me and I watched as a smirk curled up from around the corners of his mouth. That was right before he had stashed it away behind his bottle of beer, taking a long swig.

“Late night, I see,” he said sounding unusually jolly.

And in that one sententious sentence I knew I’d been busted. There was no point in bullshitting him. He was too smart for that and had been down that road before. Besides, I was sure that the way I must have looked in my enervated hung over state. I had what I’d been doing last night written all over me.
“Yeah,” I said in response to his question right before quickly ducking my head into the refrigerator to see if there was any O.J. left.
As I searched for the juice the refrigerator’s cool air rapidly encompassed around my aching head and it felt really nice against my flush skin briefly ameliorating my headache. At that moment I had wished I could’ve just stayed in there forever.
“Don’t worry, kid, your secrets safe with me,” my step daddy then said to me before letting out a solid burp which he then followed up by lifting his leg so he could scratch his

ass.
“Thanks,” I said cautiously, not knowing if his silence was going to cost me down the road.
“Don’t mention it,” he responded tipping back his bottle and draining the last of its contents in a series of quick gulps. “I don’t want your mama havin’ anything else to worry about on her plate right now. Things are bad enough as it is with the house bein’ foreclosed on and everythin’.”
WHAT? I thought as I shot up my head from the refrigerator.
“What do you mean, with the house bein’ foreclosed on?” I asked quizzically.
“Yep, your mama didn’t want me tellin’ ya until after she’d come home from work tonight. That way we could break the news to ya together. But, you’re old enough now for us to stop beatin’ around the bush with that sorta thing and just tell ya the truth like an adult.
“She had gotten a call from the Sheriff’s Office yesterday while she was at work. They told her that the bank had submitted all the proper paperwork needed to begin the foreclosure process on the house, and that we’d have to the end of July to get out.”
So that’s why she was crying when she’d come home from work yesterday.
“But they can’t do that, can they?” I asked my step daddy pleadingly. But then before he could even open his mouth to say anything I started in again. “Don’t they legally have to give us a chance to pay, or at least a chance to try to set up some sort of payment plan or something?”
“Just what-in-the-hell do you think a mortgage is?” he snapped back at me with a bite of sarcasm to his tone. “They’re the bank. They own this house. They can do whatever the hell they want. Besides, your mama already tried talkin’ to them about makin’ a payment, and I tried talkin’ to them again earlier this mornin’. But it ain’t no use. They said that the filing process had already begun and now there’s no turnin’ back. The only way we can keep the house is if we pay off the loan completely, and that’s with includin’ the interest, the processin’ fees, and whatever else they can find to pad the bill.
“THE GODDAMN HOUSE IS ONLY WORTH SEVENTY-FIVE THOUSAND FOR CHRIST SAKE, AND WE STILL OWE EIGHTY-TWO!!!” This is what he then shouted at me before taking another big sip of the new beer that he’d just popped the top off, swishing it around in his mouth before swallowing. “Ah, hell… Let them have the goddamn place.”
“So where will we live?” I then asked hesitantly, my voice starting to break. And as I waited for him to answer me, I found myself fighting a sob that was beginning to creep up in my throat.
My Step Daddy Cade then glanced up at me with an ashen look on his face that I had never seen before. It was one of utter disdain and disgust for life. He then let out a sigh and said, “It’s alright, kid… Everythin’s goin’ to be just fine. Your mama and I will figure out somethin’. Don’tcha goes worrying about it. It’s our problem. Not yours. You just worry about gettin’ that money together for the Trans Am. Summer’s half over already, and Ida figured I’d seen you flyin’ around up and down the Gulf in it by now.”
“Yeah, it’s comin’, I just got a little sidetracked, is all,” I said now noticing the clear shakiness in my own voice. I then wiped my nose with my wrist after it had begun to run. “I just really didn’t plan on losin’ my job at the pizzeria,” I then told him.
“Yeah… I know you didn’t, kid,” my step daddy then said to me in a more soothing tone as he sighed once again. “There are alotta crummy people out there.”
“Look, I gotta go, all right?” I said as I picked up my backpack full of beachwear up off of the kitchen table.
“Sure, kid, sure,” was all he replied back. Then I watched him pick up the clicker off the coffee table and began going through the channels on the television.
“Oh, and Cera?”
“Yeah, Dad.”
“I mean it. Don’tcha goes worryin’ about any of this. Your mama and I have it under control. You just go about doin’ your thing about findin’ another job so you can get that Trans Am on the road. And, you’ll be needin’ to start thinkin’ about savin’ for college soon too. You only got one more year, ya know.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, giving him a wan little smile. It was my way of trying to let him know that I would be alright. “I’m gonna head out now and see if I can find somethin’ at Jack’s. I heard they’re hiring.” (Jack’s is a Southern fast-food chain throughout most of Alabama, Mississippi, and I believe possibly in parts of Georgia. They’re your typical burger and fries joint.)