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Another Version Of The Truth

Posted on April 20, 2007
Filed Under The Stories |

“You see son, your mother and I wanted to believe that there was another way to resolve this crisis but we have tried everything in our power and there doesn’t seem to be anything else for us to do.”

He was thinking his father could go extremely long without having to take a breath. Just because he was small for his age he often got treated like a child. He was fourteen years old. He was not a child.

He had smoked a half cigarette with Manish when he was eleven. He had been stealing sips from his father’s Black Label and soda since he was seven. He had tasted his mother’s gin and tonic several times but he thought the gin spoilt the taste of the tonic so he gulped down the remnants when his mother had fixed her drink. Nishita had allowed him to touch her boob when he was twelve. She was thirteen at the time so that had made the whole experience extra special. He knew what words like ‘blowjob’ and ‘wank’ meant, well at least he had an idea that they were in some way connected to sex and he already knew what that was.

So he knew that his father was shovelling bullshit his way.

He knew about Kaajal aunty. He had known about Kaajal aunty for a lot longer than his mother had. He knew that Kaajal aunty liked to touch his father a lot when she talked to him. He knew that they did silly things like tickle each other when they were both a little drunk at the parties his parents liked to throw.

God parents can be so stupid sometimes!

His thoughts were not on how he would deal with the separation of his parents. As far as he was concerned it was a damn good thing that they were finally breaking up. He could see so clearly that they were wrong for each other and he hadn’t even had a girlfriend. The boob thing with Nishita didn’t count because he heard from Kapil that she allowed some dude from class ten to put his hand up her skirt and they kissed, with tongue and everything. That was way bigger than the boob thing. So she was technically the guy from class ten’s girlfriend.

Oh yes he also knew how to use the word ‘fuck.’

He was old enough to have stopped saying ‘forget you’ and ‘fish off’ and he loved to scare off the uptight kids in class by saying ‘fuck you’ and ‘fuck off.’ Actually right about then, he wished his father would fuck off. All this bullshit about crisis and resolving it…his father always talked like a dictionary audio book. It was quite annoying. The kids had already made enough fun of him for that. He didn’t need this shit from a dude who clearly didn’t give a damn about his mother or him. Actually he didn’t even know why he was getting the speech. Maybe there was something in one of the books about stuff like this. His father loved his books and he loved to go on and on about how it wasn’t research if you didn’t crack open a book.

He thought Google and Wikipedia were for the lazy. To his mind there was nothing quite like a book to gather information. Maybe he should have checked his precious books about what he was doing with Kaajal aunty. That would have spared him this annoying speech.

“Any questions son?”

He waited for what he thought was an appropriate amount of time, blinked for effect and then shook his head. His father got to his feet and solemnly put a hand on his shoulder, “you will be fine son. Your mother and I will make sure of that.”

He nodded and then thankfully, it was over.

He went to his room and sat down on his bed. Several minutes passed before he allowed himself to smile. The smile became laughter and he had to cover his mouth with both his hands to prevent himself from making a sound. He collapsed on the bed and waited for the laughing fit to pass, it did but a second wave took him over. By the time he was done, by the time it was safe again for him to drop his hands to his sides he had tears streaming down his eyes.

There had always been something despicable to him about his father. The countenance of a professor didn’t sit well on his oily skin.

He had always been his mama’s boy. Not just because she was beautiful, which she was. Not because she didn’t lecture him, because she did.

There was just something about his father that prompted him to draw his mother’s attention to what Daddy was up to with Kaajal aunty at the last party they had ever thrown. It was his soft spot for his mother that had prevented him from telling his father about Amit uncle and what he got down to with Mummy.

He liked Amit uncle. Amit uncle was cool. He hoped he would some day become his daddy too.

This was only the first step.