Goodbye Teddy

by Stockholm, JD

  I don’t care that I left school early. I am not supposed to, but it doesn’t matter. What is the point in school? I was just there so I could go to medical school and now I can't. I go home instead after I have sat on the ground at the Rock Gardens for a long time. Maybe school called my mum and dad. I don’t care if they did. Maybe my dad will get mad like always. It’s all he ever does. Even if I breathe, he gets mad. I hate him. I hate all of them. They just all do what they want and they don’t care.

  I go to my house and I use the front door. I don’t care about that, either. My stupid mum can get mad all she wants about it. She can hit me and shout. I am not bothered. I run up the stairs and get changed. I get all my books. I get the ones that Mr. Royal gave to me for science. I put them in a backpack and then I go to the attic where my dad keeps his wine. I get two bottles of it. One in each hand. I put them in the bag too.

  I don’t see my mum when I go down the stairs. I don’t know where she is. Maybe she went out. Maybe they all did. Maybe she is in the bathroom being stupid and thinking about the doctor that doesn’t really love her. I don’t care where she is. I go to the garage and slam the door behind me. I tip the books on the floor and I open my dad’s wine. I light a cigarette and I drink the wine from the bottle. I drink it fast. I drink it so fast that I can't breathe and it burns my throat.

  I put my cigarette out on one of the books. It makes a burn hole in some of the paper. I light another cigarette and then I hold it to the corner of some of the other papers. The paper starts to smoke and then it sets on fire. I watch as the flame grows from a little light to some fire and then the fire goes all the way up the page. I get another page and rip it out and do the same. I hold it until it nearly burns my hand. I do it with the next one and the next one. I rip all the pages out and I burn them all. I do it until they are all gone and the wine is all gone too.

  I drink both bottles of wine. I make sure it is all gone. I make sure everything is all gone. It has gone dark and I didn’t notice. I sit in the corner and smoke. I am not crying anymore. My head feels funny from the wine but I don’t care. I try to stand up but I can't because my legs are wobbly and my head feels like it is asleep I laugh at myself. I can't even walk. I wouldn’t be a good doctor anyway. It is a good job I couldn’t get the subjects I wanted. My mum is right. I would have killed someone.

  I go to my bag and get my homework out. I haven’t done it yet. I set that on fire too. There is no point in doing any homework. No one cares, no one will help me and make it better and I can't go to medical school. Mr. Royal is leaving and Karl went away. He got away from his mum. I didn’t. I have to stay here because I am bad and I made them this way. I make them all bad. I make them hate me.

  I hear the kitchen door bang closed. Someone is coming from the house. It’s probably my dad, but I don’t care. I tip the bottle to my mouth so there isn’t any wine left at all. Not even the drips, then he can't take it back. It’s gone and he can cry like a baby because I drank his wine that he made. He comes in and turns the light on. There is smoke everywhere from my papers.

  “Are you crazy?” he asks me, and then he walks over to the pile of papers and stamps on them with his boot. “There is petrol in here, you could have taken the whole place down.”

  I don’t care. I wish I did, then I could go away and it wouldn’t matter. My mum comes out to the garage too. She comes in the door and swears about what I was doing. She asks my dad what he is going to do about me.

  I don’t know why they can't leave me alone. They should let me stay in the garage and I can go away. They won’t miss me. They don’t want me. They just want my perfect brother. I am no good for anything. My stomach rumbles inside because I am hungry. I laugh about it. My mum and dad were right about that too. I don’t deserve food. They knew all the time and I didn’t believe them.

  My hand is swollen from where I fell over at the Rock Gardens. It looks bruised and when I move it, it hurts. But I do it on purpose. My dad is shouting at me, but I can't hear him. I just look at my hand and laugh because it hurts so bad. I hope when I look in the mirror, the boy is crying. He deserves it. I hope he is hungry and it all hurts.

  I kick the ash from my books and take the bottle with me. I don’t care when I walk past my mum if she is going to hit me, it’s what she usually does. Or she gets her nails and digs them into my neck until I fall onto the floor and cry for her to stop it. I walk right past her and out into the back garden towards the house. She shouts my name. “Get back here right now,” she says to me.

  I swear at her and stick my fingers up. My mum follows me. My dad is at the garage; he has some ash in the bucket. My mum grabs my arm and makes me stop. She digs her nails in and hits me in the face with her other fist. It doesn’t hurt.

  I try to shake my arm so that she has to let go, but she doesn’t. “Let go,” I say to her. I shout it at her many times. I start to swear. My dad moves closer.

  “Watch your mouth,” he says to me. I swear at him too. What’s the point? What’s the point in anything now? It’s all gone and they don’t even know it. “Is this what you did? We got a call from the teacher. You left school and came home? What did you do? Decide you can come back here and have a right to get pissed on my wine?”

  “You don’t know anything,” I say to him. He doesn’t. He doesn’t care like other people’s dads. My dad just shouts at me some more. But I don’t hear him because I shout back. I try to shout louder than him; it hurts my throat. He puts the bucket down to walk to me. I know what he is going to do. The big, hard man. It’s all he ever does. He’ll hit me or have sex with me so it hurts, because that’s all I am good for.

  He moves closer. I get the wine bottle and I lift it up. I want to throw it at him. I want to hit him with it. I hold it up and my dad stops. I shout at them both about everything. I don’t even know what the words are, because I can feel my head is all messy inside from the wine, like the petrol, but different.

  “Are you going to hit me with that?” he asks me. But I don’t answer, because I want to. I want to hit him so hard with it. I want to smash it in his face and then I want him to cry about it and say he is sorry. I want him to feel sorry. But I don’t throw it. It hurts my wrists to hold the bottle high up.

  I turn a bit so it doesn’t hit my dad. I throw it as hard as I can. It makes me scream because it hurts my wrist to do it, but I throw it and it hits the wall near my dad and smashes. He jumps. I tell my mum and dad to get lost. I tell them I hate them. I wish I was dead. I wish they were.

  My mum lets go of my arm and I storm into the house. I go to my room. I slam the door but the glass doesn’t break. I wish it did. Then I sit on my bed. So what if it gets a mess and isn’t perfect. It can have creases all over it. I lie down, but the room spins around. It feels like when the dentist gives me gas to make me fall to sleep. I try to roll on my side but I know I am going to be sick. I get up and run to the sink in the corner. I am sick in there. My mum will be mad about that. It doesn’t matter. I go back to my bed.

  I feel sick again. But I can't be bothered to move and go to the sink. It doesn’t matter. I just let it come out while I lie on my back. It is hard to get out of my mouth and makes me cough from choking. It goes all down the side of my face and down my neck and under my head. I have to turn my head to spit it out. I don’t get up.

  My mum and dad haven’t followed me. I can hear them shouting, though. I can hear my mum asking my dad what he is going to do about me. I close my eyes and don’t move. I lie there and wait for my dad. But he doesn’t come. I fall asleep. I don’t wake up until it is morning. I don’t even know what day it is. I know I am going to be in trouble. I can smell the sick. It is cold and around my head and in my hair.

  I move around. My mum or dad didn’t come in my room last night. My curtains are still open. I am glad. My mum would have been mad about the sick. I try to move but it hurts all inside. It makes me want to be sick again. My head thumps. I try to sit up to take my top off, but I can't. I ro
ll away and go to sleep again. I don’t care if I miss school again. I don’t care about anything. It is all bad. All the time. I wish God was real and that he would not let me wake up again.

  I ask him please don’t let me wake up. I go back to sleep.

  Sixty Three

  I try to get up when I wake up again, but I lean on my hand and it makes my wrist hurt. It makes me cry and I have to get off it fast. It hurts as if someone put fire inside it. I look at it; it is swollen and bruised. I get out of bed. My hair is all stuck from the sick. I don’t feel very good. My mouth feels very dry and my head hurts too bad. I wish I could sleep forever.

  My dad has gone to work when I go downstairs. My mum isn’t in. I don’t know where she is. The doors are locked. Maybe she went to the shops. She does that at lunchtime. I look at the clock. It is lunchtime. I missed school. It doesn’t matter though. School doesn’t matter at all now. I have nothing anymore.

  I get mad when I think about it. I feel it inside and my stupid teacher that didn’t let me have the subjects. I hate her. I wish she would get lost too. I go to the bathroom and get a shower. It is hard to do because my wrist hurts so much. I hold it in front of me so that I don’t move it and make it worse. I try to wiggle my fingers, but even that hurts.

  I stand in the shower for a long time. I think about school because I can't help it. I cry. I cry hard until it makes my head hurt some more. Everything is gone. When my shower is done, I get dressed in some clean clothes and ball up my dirty ones. I have rinsed the sick out of them in the shower and then my mum doesn’t get mad about that. She will be mad about the bed, though. It is covered.

  She is in the kitchen when I come out. I didn’t hear her come in when I was in the shower. She doesn’t say anything to me. I ask her if I should put my clothes in the basket or in the machine, but she doesn’t answer me. So I put them in the basket and walk out of the kitchen. My mum goes over and gets them and puts them into the machine.

  My dad comes home. He is early. I don’t talk to him. I move back out of the way so he can get past me. I hug my arm up so he doesn’t hurt it. “What’s up with your arm?” he asks me.

  I shrug and tell him I don’t know. I hurt it. He asks if he can have a look. I put my arm out and he gets my hand and wiggles it around. It makes me cry. I tell him to stop it, but he turns it over and does it again. “I don’t ever get a minute’s peace,” he says to my mum. “Get your shoes on,” he tells me.

  He takes me to the hospital. He says he thinks my arm is broken. He isn’t coming in with me, though. He doesn’t have time. I have to go myself and I can walk home if I am stupid enough to break my own arm. He drives up to the hospital and tells me to get out. Then, he drives away. I don’t even know where I have to go. I just go in the big doors and ask the woman there. I tell her I think my arm is broken. I show it to her. She tells me to sit down.

  My wrist is fractured. That’s what the doctor says. I have to have a special thing on it to keep it still. He gives me some medicine to make it stop hurting. I have to walk home by myself. I don’t really know the way. I know where school is, though, so I walk towards that and then I can find my way home.

  My mum and dad don’t say anything about my wrist when I get back. I just go to the garage and don’t talk to them. I sniff the petrol and smoke my cigarettes and go to sleep there. I don’t have anything else to do.

  I thought I would have been in trouble for the wine and for shouting at my mum and dad. But they didn’t do anything. They just didn’t talk to me. But that’s normal. They don’t talk to me unless it’s to tell me what sex thing they want me to do. Probably the only time my mum talks and smiles all at the same time with me. My mum didn’t even get mad when she cleaned my sheets up. She told my dad all about it, but he didn’t come and hit me for it. He didn’t say anything at all.

  I hear my mum complaining all the time to my dad. Maybe he is sick of me now. He doesn’t come and shout at me all the time. School has finished now for the summer. It all goes very fast. I only have two more years left. But they don’t matter anymore. I don’t want to go back to school ever again. I don’t want to be there and do the work. I wish I could just die and make everything go away. I wish it didn’t feel so bad inside.

  I'm not going to be a doctor anymore. I don’t tell my mum or dad, though. They will be happy about it. I don’t tell them anything. The only time my dad comes near me is at night to have sex with me. He does that every night, then he doesn’t talk to me when I go back to bed and to my room. I don’t know why I can't be like my brother. I don’t know why my dad can't love me like that. I don’t know why I am so bad. I wish I made them happy. I wish they liked me.

  Maybe all I am supposed to be is for sex. Sometimes my dad tells me to go to the bathroom, then he comes too and he does it there and watches in the mirror. I don’t look. I don’t want to see. I'm not good for anything else.

  I don’t even make dinner now. I don’t eat. I laugh when my stomach complains that it hasn’t had anything for a while. It’s good when I am hungry. It’s what I deserve. When I see Lewis, we drink cider. My stomach shuts up then. My mum and dad were right all along. I don’t deserve to eat. I don’t deserve anything. Maybe I don’t get to be a doctor because of God. Maybe he is real. I have sex with my dad and God sees, so he knows I am bad and now, he takes everything away. Maybe I really am from the devil like my mum says.

  She tries to get rid of the devil part still. She tries to get rid of the bad man. She says she sees him in the house. She gets her church people there. I don’t like them. I don’t like when they are near me. I remember their faces but I don’t know why. They look at me and I feel bad inside about it.

  Three of them come; I don’t know their names. I don’t care either. I have to sit on the dining chair in the middle of the room. Everyone has to sit around me. It is so stupid. But my mum wants the bad man to go away, so he doesn’t get my brother too. She says I keep him in the house. My Nan bought me a Stephen King book. I liked it and read it. I bought some more. My Nan always gets them from the jumble sales where she goes. I like to read them. I like how he talks. My mum wants me to burn them. “They are evil,” she says to me. “They keep the evil spirit here.” But I don’t care. I am not burning them. I hide them so she can't see them. So, then, she had to call the church people to do an exorcism to get rid of him because he doesn’t go away. My brother saw him in the mirror in his bedroom.

  I sit in the chair. I don’t really know what they are doing. One of the men splashes water at me. It’s so stupid; they think the water is from God. It’s from the tap and they waved their hands over it. The man tells me I have to think about something called a chakra; I don’t even know what one is. Maybe it is a flower? He says I have to think about sitting in it, and then it closes and the evil spirit is outside; he can't come in. The chakra keeps me safe and severs the ties.

  I try not to laugh. They tell me to close my eyes. I think about the bad man and his face, his nails and his teeth. I don’t like when I can see him. It makes me remember all the things from my Nan’s house when I was little. It makes me think about the bad things he did. He used to count on the wall. Every time he came in, he scratched it on the wall above my head. I remember when he did it. His long, dark fingers with his sharp nails. I couldn’t get away because he was behind me and he held me tight. He had sex with me like my dad does. Sometimes he used other things too. They made me scream and cry, but my mum didn’t ever come. Then he “would bite” my shoulders and dig his nails in really hard until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I think about that when the men tell me to think about the chakra.

  I am crying when I open my eyes. I didn’t know I was. The man smiles. “It worked,” he says. I let go of my arms. I didn’t know I was holding them. I have dug my nails in as hard as I can. They are all red.

  Sixty Four

  I’m meeting Lewis today. I haven’t told anyone. Not my mum or dad, or even Rachel. I just told her that I couldn’t see her this wee
kend. She doesn’t mind, though. She hangs around with her friends from school anyway. I am glad. Then she isn’t upset. I don’t see her a lot now anyway. She has new friends and a boyfriend. Sometimes she comes around, and we talk when I am on my paper round.

  Rachel is different to me too. She doesn’t like to smoke and drink. I do. She still likes me, but she doesn’t like those things. My mum hates me too. She doesn’t talk to me either. Only when I have done something bad. Then she wants to shout at me or moan to my dad that I am too bad. She doesn’t understand. Neither of them do. They don’t have dreams about things. They don’t want to do things. I wanted to be a doctor and now it is gone, and all my mum and dad do is shout about everything I do.

  I don’t care anymore. I get on the tram to meet Lewis. Today, we are going to the Pleasure Beach. It always reminds me of Karl because he lived next to it. I wish he would come back. I miss him. He is lucky because he gets to live somewhere else. He was supposed to come with me to meet Lewis. He was supposed to meet one of the girls. Now it’s just me. I am meeting Lewis’s friend, Michelle. I am nervous about it. But I am excited.

  The tram feels like it takes a long time to get to the other end, to the Pleasure Beach. It is miles away, but sometimes it feels fast. The tram is full because it is the summer holidays and there are people everywhere. They go to the town and the tower and all the different things here. I can see Lewis before the tram stops. I get up and press the button so the driver knows I want to get off at the next stop, but he will stop anyway, there is a big queue of people.

  Lewis is there with Rebecca, and Chris is there with his girlfriend, Wendy. There is another girl there. I guess she is Michelle. I nod at all of them as I get off the tram and walk to them. I take a cigarette out and light it so I don’t look at them when I walk; it makes me nervous.

  “This is Michelle,” Lewis says to me when I get to them. I say hi to her. She says hi back and smiles. Me and Michelle follow the others, but we don’t talk as we go into the Pleasure Beach. Michelle talks to me about things. She asks me about things I like. Music and films and lots of things like that. She is nice. I like her. We laugh at people that walk past us. We go on lots of rides all day. Lewis says he has a ride he knows we should go on. Chris jokes about it, because it is the tunnel of love. Me and Michelle laugh at it when we see it. It’s all pink and full of hearts and flowers. We all sit in the same boat together and go on the ride. I sit with Michelle. I try not to sit very close to her. I don’t want her to know I am bad. My dad had sex with me this morning. I can smell it. When I move, it is there. I look at Michelle to see if she screws her face up, but she doesn’t. Maybe if I don’t sit close enough, she won’t smell it on me.