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I never said, “I hate you,” to my parents. Except this one time. I was around 10 years old at thetime. I wanted to watch cartoons, my mom wanted me to do my homework. I had heard kids talking or watched them on TV fighting with their parents and it seemed like that was what I was supposed to say.I had to wait for her to yell at me first. “Turn off the TV or it stays off all week,” she said. Andthen I said it. My mom's expression was a mix of shock and disappointment. She told me she hoped Ididn't mean it. As usual, she was right. I was punished for the rest of the day. I sat there and thoughabout those kids who could tell their parents they hate them and mean it. How? It was just beyond myability to reason that a kid could hate their parents.Freddy Minzer was a kid that could probably say it and mean it. I knew him up until 4

grade.He used to act out in class all the time; it would go past simple temper tantrums. Things that kidscouldn't understand and the teachers didn't know how control. Getting up and running around the roomduring class, throwing scissors, kissing people randomly and whatever other strange things. Looking back, he probably just wanted a little attention and maybe some affection now and then. You never know, maybe he was crazy – you just hope that things would work themselves out.I saw him, Freddy, out on the blacktop “yard” at recess one day after one of his outbursts. You'd be surprised they would still let him out. But at this point simple punishment wasn't likely to makemuch of a difference anyway.I wanted to say something to him. The logic was simple in my mind – stop being bad; stopgetting in trouble; start making friends. My friends all told me not to talk to him. “He's crazy. He'sweird. Dangerous,” they all warned me. I didn't care, my curiosity was whetted and I couldn't be settleduntil I talked to him.“Why?”He didn't even look at me. He sat there against a wall, his legs pulled against his chest.“I mean, why did you do that in math?”He looked back at me, he looked like he wanted to say why. All he said was, “I wanted too,”

through choked tears.Maybe if I was older then 10 I could have thought of something smart to say to open him up.Instead I stared at him, dumbfounded. The teachers watching the yard shooed me away. Even though hewasn't technically punished, he still had to suffer some how. That was the beauty of the Catholic schoolsystem. As I walked away I heard them say something under their breath about bad parenting.That last bit stayed on my mind for the rest of the day. The parents. How could a parent be to blame? I was still at the stage where I thought my parents were always right. The thought never crossedmy mind that they could make mistakes or bad decisions, or even malicious ones. There was only onething I reasoned I could do – ask one of my parents. My dad worked nights doing emergency repairs onheating and air conditioning units in corporate buildings. Sometimes it would be a slow night and hewould stop by the house to tuck me in, but usually it was just my mom and me at night. After dinner,when my mom was reading in the living room I decided to spring the question on her.“Mom, are parents ever wrong?”She looked up at me through her reading glasses and gave me a look of sudden concentration.Her eyes sparkled from the reading lamp enough to give me a startle. “Why did you want to know?”“I was just curious,” I said while looking at the floor.“Well,” she gave a sigh, my mom always talked like this when she had something important totell me. It was the same tone she used when she told me my grandfather died last year. “It's no secret, parents are human too. Your father and I make mistakes, but we always try to make the best decisionswe can when it comes to you.”This still wasn't what I was looking for. I didn't feel any great misjustice against myself, it wasagainst Freddy. “Yeah, but what about other parents?”“What happened?” she asked me. 10 year olds are transparent like that. So I laid it out for her. Itold her about Freddy getting expelled, about talking to him at recess, about what the teachers about his parents.

“You know I don't like you talking to that kid. And is it really your teachers job to guess whatgoes on in other people's homes?“No, but,” I could see I was losing control of this conversation, “what if they're right? What if itwasn't Freddy's fault?”“Even if Freddy's parents don't make good decisions, he should still be responsible for his own behavior. Do you or your friends act that way in class?”The question was rhetorical. Looking back, the whole conversation was rhetorical. I was never one to let things rest. My opportunity struck again, about a month later. Life went along normally thatmonth until I got an invitation in the mail. “Join us for Freddy's 11

Birthday!” the letter told me in bold bright colors. I looked up at my mom who in turned looked over at my dad who finally sighed andsaid, “I'll mark it on the calender.”Freddy lived in a decent sized, two story, white paneled house somewhere on the deep easternside of the county. My dad took me across the unkempt lawn as I noticed the overhanging trees made itseem as if it was nighttime, despite it being a sunny day. “Alright bud,” my dad said, “if you have any problems, just call home and we'll come pick you up.”“Oh don't worry, we'll take care of your son,” a sullen man who was not standing at the door, but now was said. He took the gift, a 9.6 volt radio controlled car, and led me into the house. “Justfollow me, the other children are on the patio.”Inside the closed off patio, decorated with colored streamers and balloons, were a cast of children I could only guess to be Freddy's cousins. So far, I was the first person from school to showup. The other kids ranged in age from probably five to a couple years older then me. Freddy was alsono where to be found in the room. I sat down on a bench across from a greasy looking kid who wasindulging on all of the chips.“Hi. Do you know where Freddy is?” I asked politely as possible. His attention was totallyfocused on eating as many chips as possible until one of the adults would yell at him for spoiling one of

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A story I wrote a couple of semesters ago. It was suggested that I greatly expand it. Never thought of a good title either.

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Category:	Creative Writing > Short Stories
Rating:	(2 Ratings)
Upload Date:	03/25/2009
Copyright:	Attribution Non-commercial
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