Clear Glass Bottles With Water
School was lame today. I participated for the first time because we had to play this one game where we talked about ourselves. I told my friend I did it for the participation point so that I seem cool cause the cool kids never participate. “My name is Nathaniel. My favorite color is red. My favorite food is pancakes.” The class stares at me silently, and we patiently wait for someone else to participate. Through the window, you can hear people arguing outside, traffic and maybe a homeless man asking for change to spend on drugs, it’s nothing new around here in north Philadelphia. As other students participate and time passes by, the teacher tells us to pack up. I notice everyone has a jacket but me. Why? I asked mama to buy me the red jacket from the store and she always told me that she can’t get it and i’ll have to wait. I did not like waiting because she always lied to me about getting the stuff I want, and when I complain she hits me. Walking down the hallways I see other classes, everyone wearing a coat, some wearing hats and gloves, some wearing scarfs, but everyone had a jacket except me. As usual, she is late to pick me up and I call, nobody answers.
She pulled up 1 hour late, black trench coat, large black timberland boots, damaged blonde hair with split ends, she walks towards the front entrance where she sees me. She can’t even balance herself, swaying left and right and her long hair covering her face. Through the tangled mess of hair you can see her eyes, bags under them. She is equipped with dark baggy cargo pants. Just as she signals me to come with her, she heads out, I tell her she forgot to sign me out because I been stuck here all day. She signs it, sloppily, and we leave. I enter the car and mama gives me a kiss, and I smell her new breath, Plymouth Gin, I know she’s sad.
“What is that stench?” I say, and she responds in a raspy voice, too nasty for me to make out anything she is trying to say. The mucus in her throat, it makes everything unclear. I look down at my feet and see the white plastic bags with large glass bottles. I don’t understand, it looks just like water and she mixes it with some of the juice and when I ask for some when I am thirsty she hits me. She said I am never allowed to touch it, otherwise I would get beat. She starts up the car, it takes a few tries for the old and beat up toyota to begin because we had this car ever since grandpa was around, and we head down the street.
“Mom are you ok? You’re acting weird. What’s the proble-”
...She shuts me up before I could finish my sentence. She is swerving on the rode. Wait, is she drunk!? It all makes sense, the glass bottles, her breath, and her overall appearance, she’s drunk out of her mind. I am not up for the abuse again, not today. I am so tired of her always going out and being late to pick me up, never answering the phone when I call, always hitting me with anything in sight.
We finally get home, in one piece. She fails to park, driving up to our spot and stumbles her way into the house and collapses on the floor. She yells at me to help her up and she smacks me for having an attitude.
“I’m tired, every day I come home and you are drunk, and I act like I don’t notice, but if you touch me again I swear to God, I will put you to sleep!”
She throws the house phone at me and I dodge it, it cracks the wall and as it falls to the hardwood floor, the battery comes out of the phone, flying to the opposite direction.
“I warned you!”
I yelled at the top of my lungs. My head is sweating despite how cold it is, my anxiety building up and my arm shaking. I gather enough courage to stop her from trying to tackle me, and I smack her in the face. You hear the loud clap sound, her hand on her face and as she slowly drops to the ground to lay down and cry in confusion. I have never been so angry in my life, I finally woke up from this cycle.
“I am tired of this shit mom!”
I never felt this adrenaline rush before. She lays down on the ground and begins sobbing. She is saying something, I lean in and she says...it’s all her fault and she never had bad intentions. Today marked the day I hit my own mother, she doesn’t understand how it feels.
“If you could be sober for once, you would understand how I feel.”
She lays there crying, and I walk upstairs into my room and listen to music to end this day that feels like it’s lasting forever.
