Julian's Surrender

I wrote a short story after reading here and other places about the new diagnosis of children called ODD - yep, odd - oppositional defiance disorder.

After spending a day reading posts from people, I wrote this....



Julian's Surrender


Joseph punched the wall, cracking the sheetrock, and screamed in frustration. How dare she? How dare that stupid bitch call his mother and lie? He threw himself on the bed and turned up the heavy metal song on his iPod. Yes, he touched the girl, but she was asking for it, sitting on the bus in a skirt with her legs open. Stupid slut should have kept her legs closed if she didn’t want someone touching her; it was an invitation. His mom wouldn’t see it that way, though, she never did. She never took his side; she just blamed him, always blaming him for everything.

His heart pounded in his chest and he threw the iPod against the wall, yanking the buds from his ears painfully. He jumped to his feet when he heard the key in the front door and met his mother as she stepped into the house, overloaded with bags of groceries. “Joe, get the rest of the groceries out of the car, please,” she said, carrying the load into the kitchen.

“No,” he said and slammed the front door.

Julian set the bags on the counter and sighed, as the television blared to life in the living room. With her purse still slung over her shoulder she went outside and retrieved the rest of the groceries. She began putting the goods away and dreaded the weekend - if she could work seven days a week, she’d do it.

She went to her bedroom and changed out of her uniform, leaving her purse and a bottle of Merlot on the bed. “Could you turn the TV down, Joe?” she asked as she began preparing dinner.

He ignored her.

She wanted a drink, but she didn’t drink in front of her son. She saved the wine for bedtime, locked in her room, and it seemed to help her sleep, although she wasn’t sure it was safe to sleep so soundly. She fashioned hamburger patties and was setting them in a pan when Joseph stepped into the kitchen, she felt her stomach tense as he tore open a bag of chips and jumped up to sit on the counter.

“I didn’t hurt that girl, Mom,” he said, chewing with his mouth open, despite all the times she had instructed him in the proper and polite manner.

“You sure scared her,” Julian said, her nerves grated by the loud crunching.

“She’s just being a whiny bitch.”

“Watch your language, Joe,” she said softly, turning on the heat under the pan and opening a can of beans. “Besides, she’s just eleven. You scared her.”

“She shouldn’t dress like that, how in the hell did I know she was only eleven?” He crunched, and she could see the partially chewed food in his mouth.

“You’re supposed to keep your hands to yourself.”

“I’ll put my hands where I want, it’s a free country.”

“It’s only free when you keep your hands to yourself, I talked her mother into not pressing charges,” she said, wondering why she did. “But you can’t ride that bus anymore, her mom said if she saw you on the bus again she’s calling the law.”

“Good, I hate riding that bus anyway, you need to get me a car.” He crunched and her nerves screamed for a drink.

“I’ve told you before I can’t afford another car, much less the insurance on a teenager.” She watched the burgers sizzle, but kept him in her peripheral vision.

“Other kids have a car, why do you want to treat me like a red-headed step kid?”

“Other kids have families with two incomes or have their own job to pay for a car. You’ll need to get a job, you’re old enough.”

“I’m not working at some fast food joint while some loser barks orders at me all day. That’s not going to happen! You could get another job and help me out.”

She sighed. She’d love to get another job, maybe two or three to avoid her son 24/7, but her son was her second and third job. “No, I can’t. I’ll just have to take you to school and pick you up until I can figure out something else. Or you could walk.”

“Or I could just drop out, problem solved. I’m not walking a mile and a half twice a day, you need to buy me a car.”

“You’re seventeen, Joe, it’s time to start acting like it.”

“Oh, and I know you’re so going to kick me out when I turn eighteen. I just know it.”

“No, I’m not,” she said. I might kick myself out, she thought.

“You think I can’t read the writing on the wall, Mom? I know you’re sick of me. Hell, I know you never loved me.”

Here we go, she thought and flipped the burgers. “Of course I love you, Joe.” Okay, if the truth were told she was at the end of her rope.

“No, you don’t. You haven’t loved me since Dad died.”

He was probably right, although she’d never admit it to anyone. She was just beginning to admit it to herself. He was her son and she loved him for that, but the last ten years had been hard, nearly impossibly hard, and she had no idea how she managed to make it day to day with the constant weight of stress and worry on her back.

“If you loved me you’d buy me a car. If you’d loved me you’d buy me the shoes I wanted for Christmas last year. If you loved me you wouldn’t be such a bitch all the time.” He dropped the bag of chips and jumped off the counter, crushing them into the floor.

She felt her heartbeat accelerate, took a deep breath, and stepped into the pantry for the broom. “There’s only so much money, Joe,” she said calmly. “I can’t afford three hundred dollar shoes.” She waited until he was done grinding the chips into the linoleum, and had stepped away, before she began cleaning the mess.

“No, there’s plenty of money, you’re just greedy.” He leaned against the door jam and watched her sweep the greasy crumbs into the dustpan.

She didn’t even try to explain mortgages, car payments, utilities, insurance and the realities of keeping a roof over their heads. Not to mention the loan she had to take out to pay the fines when he wrecked her last car. The car he had stolen, although she didn’t tell the police he had stolen it.

“You just want to keep me locked up here like a caged animal, no car, damned discount clothes, and no money.”

“I thought you said I wanted to kick you out,” she said, cautioning herself to stay calm and not talk back.

“You just want to ruin my life, make me as miserable as you are.”

She sighed and put the broom away. She stirred the beans, keeping her eye on him discretely. She didn’t know why he behaved the way he did, but he had been a difficult child since he was a toddler. She had taken him to doctors and they seemed to blame her - she was over-protective, not attentive enough, needed to spend more time with him, needed to be more sympathetic and she was depressed.

Hell yes, she was depressed! She felt like a caged animal.

And yes, she hadn’t really loved him since Jerry died.

The police ruled it an accident, they said the gun misfired when her husband was cleaning it, but she had her doubts. Although the police stared into her son’s tear-stained, blue eyes and saw only a little boy who had been traumatized by witnessing his father’s death, she saw something else. She still remembered the chill she felt when he crawled in bed with her the night of the funeral, hugged her tight, and said happily, “Now it’s just you and me, Mom.” She chastised herself for seeing such darkness in a seven-year-old boy, but try as she might she couldn’t push the feeling away, anymore than she could push away the fear.

To finish

[link to turtlesvoice.blogspot.com]