Unconventional Chapter 3

*Before…

“Dad? Can we get some maple sugar to take to Tomas and I have a friend I might be meeting down there too.”
He grins and takes a couple of blocks from the deepfreeze. “We’ll get some Canadian stuff from the dollar store too okay. I’m not paying the prices that they want at the airport.”
“Sure!”
We get into the car and we head out with dad driving and putting in one of his CD’s and we’re listening to some of his music as we go. I’m not a big fan of Bon Jovi and all of that one size fit’s all glam rock stuff but it’s okay.
It’s okay because Tia came up for air today.
I have a name.
I have a name!

*And Now…

Well okay… *It’s my life* is not a bad song and yeah it kind of speaks to me y’know with things.

With me and being Tia.

Having a name.

Dad looks at me and he’s smiling. “You’re excited. It’s kind of good to see you happy.”

“I… “

“I want to be like happy dad.”

He looks at me. “Well hopefully this’ll do it. I kinda get it too…this is your thing, you kind of need a thing Tom, we all do and this stuff is yours with the cards and comics ad stuff. And I get that you’re not going to find a lot of that stuck here in Truro.”

Oh Dad if that was like just it.

But I nod anyways.

“There’s not a lot of stuff like this here dad just like a few gamers her and there and like down at the Esplanade.”

That’s the CN mini-mall sort of station downtown where the hobby shop is at.

Dad nods. “I read some stuff too when I was your age. Not anything like the stuff now but I did and I wasn’t into it anywhere close to you or have like spent the time or the cash on it and stuff but I get it with these things…there’s fans and then there’s like drawing stuff or writing.”

“Dad?”

I’m a little confused.

“Look this isn’t my thing and definitely not your Mom’s stuff or like your brother’s”

I roll my eyes at this.

“Yeah no kidding, he’s such a doodbro.”

“Doodbro?”

“Yeah that typical asshole jock or motor-jock guy that is like all about being super macho and being all about the bling and swagger and just like being a dick and proud of it.”

Dad laughs. “Yeah, yeah as bad as that is that was sort of me at that age too.”

“Really you sort of seem kind of sensible.”

“Parker is too in his own way, he’s good with his hands, good with younger kids too.”

I look at him. “Yeah well he’s not really LGBT friendly.”

Dad looks at me.

“Dad he says like horrible shit all the time.”

Dad’s frowning. “Okay, that I didn’t know. I’ll admit I’m not up on any of that stuff except to know enough to keep my mouth shut.”

I look at him. “So what do you feel about LGBT humans.”

“Not much actually…I man gay’s gay right it’s not like anything else is going to change because I’m not with it.”

“You’re not?” I sort of feel my heart sink.

“No, no…it’s not that, it’s just that we’re not going to change people from being people because we don’t like it or it makes us uncomfortable or that they’re like going to hell…it’s not going to do one damned thing but to like spread misery with people.”

I nod.

“Parker’s…well he says a lot of that crap dad.”

Dad has the serious face. “Well then I’ll have a long talk with him.”

I look at him with a raised eyebrow.

Dad looks at me. “What?”

“So he’s been like this for years and now you’re going to do something?”

He gets the frown going on the tense and semi-pissed one that is so much my dad to me so much of the time. “Well I have to know about something to do something about it Tom, I’m not a mind reader.”

We take the corner or the turn off for the Wall-Mart-Mall… ages ago it used to be the K-Mart mall and some people still call it that in town even if there’s like no K-marts left like in Canada…the other one across the street is The Old Mall… seriously when the tiles are like permascuffed and discolored it’s like old…Dad still goes to there though.

Really there’s nothing there except shopping…and iffy stuff at that.

There’s nothing, and I mean nothing in this freaking town that I like.

“Sorry dad.” I say as I grip the Jesus-strap on my side and he slows down a lot and he sighs and he looks at me.

“You sounded like your mom there.”

Mentally I’m nodding…and not…mom and I aren’t close either she’s very much this whole local girl and stuff with her like not being into my music or my like games or anything else that I like or care about.

Instead mom’s like into stuff for the house, fixing things up and in the yard a lot too which is usually at least like three sort of projects a summer even when we’re working and doing stuff.

And it’s doing projects while you’re sort of broke which means I’m roped into landscaping…or should I say “landscaping” with air-quotes since it’s endless shoveling.

Our place is on a crap lot and we have a kind of a side yard but that’s where the cars and the driveway/parking lot is and we have like a bit in the front and a little bit on the other side but the oil tank access is there and we can’t really put stuff there so it’s been.

This big sort of flower-box in the front only mom’s bad at growing things and then Dad built out deck at the side of the house with the driveway and that’s okay but only after him and her fought about how she wanted it done and dad elected to do what we could do with his time off and budget.

I will give her this she did get us some cool and okay stuff for the deck including our first gas grill.

It’s third hand but still it’s kind of nice since we had charcoal and had it outside in the driveway most of the time.

And now…well now mom has her sights on a backyard with a garden which has been meaning a fence or in theory and we don’t have one of those digger up things and we don’t have half the stuff that we need and that means like a pick if we like have one and shovels.

Or it will for Parker.

Unless the assbutt saves it for when I get home.

We head into the mall and we sort of do the bee-line to the travel place to get my tickets and in doing so we’re like avoiding most of the shops in there and that’s alright by me.

The place is either full of stuff that makes me want to gag because it’s just all so here and preppy and vanilla and just…nope or it’s like things for girls that I will never likely ever have the chance to like wear or shop for either.

Which just adds to the suck.

And then there’s avoiding the girls.

Because one thing I have found about girls and the mall and being there too.

It’s socially frustrating as all hell and it’s really, really just a good way to trigger a nice bout of dysphoria.

But all the potential stuff that could trip me up or shut me down is like fading fast under the power of the plane ticket that’s in my hand.

A ticket out of here.

Hopefully Tomas’s place will be better than here and hopefully the con will like be awesome.

Hopefully I can at least meet Jennifer there.

We hit a few of the places in the mall picking up some cheap (Frowns) Canandiana stuff and I’m like hoping it’s alright and all because some of it’s that kind of like cheezey bad stuff like a hollow fake lobster pin with a Nova Scotia tartan ribbon on it. But that does get me getting some Nova Scotia stuff too while I think of it and post cards and other things too and we do get some maple cream blocks to take down too since even dad thought the ones we had would be like too old.

We head home but not before we stop at the discount bread place for buns and then head home. It’s just across the tracks and the CN station and it’s the first street on the right and it’s this old Ben’s Bakery and Wholesome bread wholesale place that does things like sell the day olds and stuff before it’s like tossed or sold to like the piggeries around here. Seriously we go to places like this, and we shop there and we shop at like other places that are like right next to dead cheap.

And yeah I kind of am not cool with it because people see you.

And I know it’s shitty and I know it’s not cool to be not cool with being poor and stuff but it’s.

People see you and they judge you and like I said here at school you’re lumped in really fast with the not worth my time people.

And I hate those judgey assholes.

We get home and I head to my room and get my ticket in my carry on and then I turn on my stereo and pop in a mixed CD and I start blasting music.

*Hellen…a women’s metal group out of the southern states.
*Witchburn…Old school Seattle metal before the grunge bullshit.

Seriously Grunge music and all of its incarnations are like soft metal infused with depression and chronic fatigue syndrome. Yeah I think it’s garbage.

No strike that Garbage for not being metal is actually a good band.

But it’s my stuff that I like and I put on my headphones in case parker comes home and starts to decide to be an ass about the fact that I have like mostly women in my collection.

*Kittie… Canadian metal and awesome and kinda light.
*In this Moment…Really, really underrated.

*Halestorm… Lzzy Hale, always Lizzy Hale I mean if there was a woman that is part of me in like that living and breathing way it’s her…all of the songs are great and her voice has that old school high carries with her notes that’s old metal like Iron maiden and Judas Priest and not the operatic kinds of music you hear out of the powerful European stuff. And then there’s the fact the RJD loved her voice.

Yeah seriously…Ronnie James Dio.

I will listen to like few metal bands really that are guy forward but I will always listen to Dio.

And Maiden and Motorhead…well because y’know Lemmy and Lemmy is just well… he’s Bon Scott that never died.

*Straight Line Stitch… Alexis Brown…one of the few women of color in metal and the stuff she can do with her voice is stunningly amazing.

*Epica…yeah…what I said about Lzzy Hale it goes for Simone Simon’s too…instead of being me I’d so love to be like her…achingly so.

*Nightwish… and now I’m zoning out into the whole European vocal operatic metal and just feeling the power in the voices that are so synched with the rest of the band.

I’m right into it a whole lot when I see Jennifer’s Starbuck’s better as a brunette thing come up in my e-mails and I log in and see her out in like places and she’s sent me selfies of her being legitimate her and like at a park I think and with some other kids that are sort of like in the back ground and kind of photo bombing.

Friends…

Yeah it’d be nice to have friends like that here.

I send some smiles and comment on the pictures on her Google-plus and by the time I’m done that it’s time to go and have that whole last family supper.

I really, really want to get out of here.