The truth is...

My mom warned me when I was younger that many will find inability to tell the truth very annoying. She didn't say that I must stop lying or misrepresenting the truth. She felt responsible for how I turned out. There was no daddy to blame. Nor was there a drunk serial killer who raised me. My father left our family when we were very young. I lived with my mom all the time after my sister like my dad decided that my dad was infact right to leave. We my mother and I were too suffocating. We were too goody two shoes! We lived like a normal family when in private we were "raging lunatics!" were her exact words when she left. She did not even bother to pack a bag or take a toothbrush. She got up one day at breakfast and said, "that's it I have had enough I am out of here." She got up and grabbed her sweater and car keys and just walked away with her purse flanged over her shoulder! That was the last we ever heard from her.

What had happened that morning? My mom was on the phone with her "friend."

"The new destressed t shits with frizzes look great and they are very expansive. I just won't let this fad go. I know that I am too old to wear such t shirts but with my boob job I look great in my t shirts." she said almost whispering. I looked at her. She was lying she never had a boob job. What she did do though, was take female hormones whose side effects where an overly developed bosom! Per chance! She started taking female hormones to stand up to dad who in their one of many arguments said to her; " why don't you try again at living. And do it right this time, try growing breasts for instance!" he said not even laughing. By the look on his face, he had spent time going over the inventory of what was wrong with my mom. He looked at her as if she should know that already!

"What a cruel thing to say to me, Michael." my mom said.

"And that lipstick that you put first thing in the morning. What is that about? Waking up in a bar or something?" My dad said as if he was making a check mark on the mentioned grievance as Done! next!

" I like my lipstick it has a shea butter moisturizer. So, what if it is blood red in color." mom said

"And that shopping for clothes that are the size that you will one day be. We all know you are a large maybe an extra-large but you waste my money buying clothes that are size small! One day you will be a size small. A size small my foot!" Dad said with a look of disgust on his face.

"Are you done dressing me down." my mom asked "At least I don't do marijuana. There. I don't do dagga!' She said victorious. "You might even be high right now who would say such things to his wife?" my mom said worried.

"My doctor told me to smoke a joint for the pain in my sciatic" Dad said and walked away.

Mom rushed to the kitchen and grabbed a phone and talked to her ever ready friend. Both always had stories to tell about their breaking marriages. Luckily my mom was not getting a hiding. She never had blue puffed up undereye. It was tragic to be around women in our town. They all had questionable lives and had no intentions of leaving their rotten lives. It was all that they knew. It was like pledging to a sorority club without any graduation and escape from it.

"I swear to God if that man won't stop talking to me like he does something bad is going to happen around here. I will kill myself for real I will. If only I can find a way to link him to my suicide. If I can find someone who can assure me that they will say he did it. I am tired of him!" I once heard my mom say on the phone to one of her friends.

From that point on I waited for my mom to kill herself. I did however notice that my dad was very scarce even if he was at home he stayed as far away from mom and I as he could. My sister wore headphones in the house, and she never even pretended to know us. Occasionally we would see my dad ride a car with my sister and they would both return with doggie bags or shopping bags. It was that bad and we never asked them where they had been. It was a divided family and for some time it worked out better that way.

I on the other hand had grown to mistrust anyone who wanted to be close to me. I wanted to belong. I had joined a group of women whom I met at a tennis lesson. They were so bored with living with their parents, they thought that maybe becoming hair stylists will be a better way to spend their boring time during the day. Noone was in a hurry to get married or to get divorced. High school had been tough for most of us with many school shootings and suicide bombers, life outdoors was not safe anymore. I was the only one in the group who had family problems as far as I could tell. My coping mechanism became my great ability to mask the truth just so that I could ride a sports car with the greatest girls in town and forget about my mom and my sister. Whatever truth or honesty that my dad had on his side I was just too busy and not willing to have myself humiliated by trying to find out what exactly the problem was. I kept making imaginary scenarios about why my parents were splitting up. Life had to be the opposite of what I saw with my two eyes of what I experienced because then none of it was worth it. Since I didn't feel like killing myself, I had to act as if I was agreeable and a part of something luscious like doing hair, like having great stories to tell, like having friends who were acceptable and normal. I even dated guys I didn't like just to have a story to tell, my version anyway!

When my sister walked out on us, I wondered that morning if she had made prior plans. It seemed so random. We barely spoke to each other, and I am, up to now unsure why we were estranged to each other. Maybe it was my devotion to my mom who could be a flirt and I felt I had to help tone her down. Or it was her dedication to my dad who was restless. Anyway, our home had a divided line where my mom and I stayed on the other side of the line and my dad and sister stayed on the other side.

"I have money. We can all fly to see the game next week" That was me promising to be with my friends for a trip that I had not planned for and had no money to finance. Plus, the truth was I was starting to be too serious to be joyriding with such opulent friends. It was becoming clear that my parents were permanently split. I worried that my friends would find out and not want me to be around them anymore. I wonder if they knew that I was faking it all. That there had been times that I have had to steal change from my mother's purse just to pay for gas to make it to the haor salon school. To be with them really.

Nothing was fun anymore. We were just too afraid of each other because it was not strangers who were entering our town to destroy us. It was one of us losing it in their private homes and lashing out at anyone who was unfortunate enough to be around them while armed and dangerous! I didn't have money and I had to find out quickly how to pay off my ticket. I had to be one of them!

"No Sir you only gave me change to a ten I gave you a twenty. Look in your till I gave you a twenty." I said instead of holding a gun to his face.

"Alright, here is your correct change." the cashier said.

.. Now I need $150.00...

Should I rob my librarian?

My dishonesty and my frazzled way of looking at life led me to ask my dad's friend for a loan. I could give him a lap dance as payment. He had pinched my butt one time. I hated it but I also needed $150.00. As if I was watching the cranked-up men on "Three's company," he smiled through the phone and asked me to meet him. I did. He gave me the $150.00 and asked to promise to give him a lap dance later he was rushing somewhere. "I give you this money and next week this time you will give me a lap dance. A lap of my choosing! For as long as I need it." he said smiling as if he was saying I finally got through to you.

"Yes, yes I will. I promise!" I said knowing very well that I would never show up again. Well in case I did, I was going to charm him until I ran out of ideas.

Mom calm from her daily rituals changed her lipstick color to purple. Her hair became purple as well. When not at work she wore frizzled denim shorts with her stomach slightly hanging out. I am unsure what message she was sending to me an impressionable lady.

My dad left and she became more and more hot in her mind, but she was unable to take the next step, bringing a man home or going on a date with a man. She talked about it many times on the phone with her friends who also I bet were about to wear frizzled denim shorts.

When my sister left, and we pretended like she never was one of us. My dad on the other hand seemed to be unforgettable. My mom hired boys to stalk him. She had to know where he was and with whom. I found this to be amusing because if my dad were to confront her, she would act helpless and scared, yet she did have the nerve to have him stalked.

"It's safer for me to know where your dad is at all times. This is not the first guy who has cheated on me. You think that they are leaving you when infact they want to know you more. Be with you in ways that are beyond physical. I know that I am hot." Mom said impartial about her memory of how she had forgotten that she was worth it.

"Mom, it's dangerous to have dad followed. He will be very angry if he finds out." I said to my mom.

"What will he do if he finds out? Nothing that's what. I want to make sure that he stays gone. I won't be jerked around by a man who will have his girlfriend join him in ruining my life. I know those cheating types. They are dishonest all the way. There is not a little bit of dishonesty or a lot of it. Any type of dishonesty is as deadly as any fatal attraction. Fool me once, my bad fool me twice it is definitely war, it's on and I am in danger." Mom said thinking that she was wise.

" My parents are on a trip on their second honeymoon." said one of my 'friends after class and we were waiting for the others to come out of class.

"My dad is so happy that he is back in shape again." said my other 'friend."

I said, "My parents are planning to visit Africa. I heard that a sherpa in Africa takes married couples on an odyssey for spiritual renewal. My dad has been cranky lately. Some drinking involved. And mom said " No no you aren't doing that with me, while I am watching you. We are going to Africa!" - I said mimicking an accent of those rich moms who were once cheerleaders and married well--ha ha ha! " Dad was nowhere to be seen. We were not sure if he would ever return to get a divorce from my mom. My mom's spies reported back to mom but there was no way to know if they were accurate with what they reported back to my mom, at $1500 for every weeks!