Ball and Chain: The Story of My Life

     Now I’ll be first to admit that most the choices I make aren’t always the best. Like everyone else, I’ve made my share of mistakes. Yeah, I smoke cigarettes, yeah I’ve heard all the warnings of how it’s going to kill me faster and sooner and all that other crap, yet none of these medical reports ever mention how cool it makes you look.
     I pissed around in high school and barely passed. And as much as I hate to admit it, I was just another teenage statistic. I’m nineteen years old, and I already have a two year old daughter. Now I’m not going to go through the vivid details of the night Prudence was conceived. Let’s just say on May 12th, two kids, I and my then girlfriend Sana Cantell took one night of unbridled passion and nine months later came Prudence. Now as much as her parents and mine objected to it, we decided to go through with it. I’m not saying that Pru was a mistake; I love Pru, but anyone can tell you that raising a kid is hard. It’s even harder when you haven’t finished high school. Well Sana and I toughed it out, and we got through the remainder of high school, although it wasn’t together. I guess having a kid can really put a damper on your love life, so Sana and I agreed that it would be better for the both of us to just not date anymore. God damn story of my life, I can have a kid with a girl, and am still not able to hold a girlfriend. Go figure.
     Anyway, what I wanted to tell you about is one specific time. It wasn’t the moment that I realized I loved Prudence; I realized that the first time I saw her. I want to tell you about the time that I realized that I would do anything for her. I even went so far as to disown my family for her. If that’s not love then I bloody don’t know what is.
     It was Thanksgiving 2002; my family had just finished eating the pumpkin pie that my grandma made every year. We were all sitting around in the family room with an odd silence when Pru came and sat on daddy’s lap. My uncle, that fat son of a bitch, had a little too much to drink that night, and decided to take full advantage of my black sheep status.
     “So Chris, how about you? What things are going on in your world?” He asked.
     “My world?” I replied sarcastically. “Well, seeing as how my world is the one we live in, I would say pretty well.”
     This is the point where things begin to escalate. Now he started it, when he talked to me. Now I know what you’re saying, I didn’t need to answer him in a sarcastic tone, but after all the years you think they’d be used to it by now.
     “What’s with the tone?” My uncle said.
     “I know what you’re fucking trying to pull here,” I said cynically.
     O.K. maybe I did escalate it. That’s not the point. The point is . . . well I’m not sure of the point yet, but when I figure it out, I’ll tell you.
     “Well smart guy, what am I fucking trying to pull here?” My uncle said, trying to use sarcasm to the best of his very poor abilities. You have to understand, though, he’s from the South. Prudence was still on my lap, mind you, so I figured it to be a very opportune time for her to go in to the other room and play with her aunt Jessika.
     “In an attempt, albeit a poorly done attempt, you compare me, the so-called black sheep of the family, to your two golden boys over there.” I said, looking across the room
     At my two cousins, John and Robert, sitting next to each other on the sofa. We were all about the same age, only I was a lot better looking than they were. Yeah, I think they inherited the ugly gene. Makes me glad that I inherited the ability to eat my weight in Twinkies.
     “Trust me;” My uncle said, “There is no comparison. They’re successful and they have girlfriends.”
     “No, there is no comparison between me and them.” I said. “What I find odd, is your basis of success on the amount of people you’ve fucked.”
     That’s right, I said people. Not girls. People. Apparently my uncle counted all the partners my cousins had been whether they female or male.
     “I did not say that. Stop putting words in my mouth.” He said.
     “No, you didn’t but it was what you implied wasn’t it? You base success off of sex,” I said.
     “Hey! Shut up, I’m not the bad guy here. You are. You’re the one that has brought shame to this family” he yelled.
     “Well, then say hello to the bad guy.” I said standing up in my chair, with my eyes locked on my uncle. My cousin John, having no sense at all, stood up as if I was going to attack his dad.
     “Sit your punk ass down Johnny boy,” I said
      “Shut the hell up,” John said.
     “Fuck off John,” I yelled.
     “Hey!” My uncle yelled. “At least none of them have a kid!”
     Now was that a stupid move or what? At that point, I could have very well snapped and gone all crazy kung-fu on his ass, but no.
     “Yeah, I do have a kid,” I said calmly. “And I love Pru, I love her so much that I would never expose her to this shit.”
     Man, that was such a “My So Called Life” type of reply. Only instead of daddy saying I couldn’t go to the dance and running to my room with tears in my eyes, I just took Pru and left. I felt that the awkward silence that my uncle would face was more punishment than him leaving and not getting another slice of pumpkin pie.
     Well, it was Thanksgiving, and I was sure Sana’s family would love to see Prudence. So that’s where we went, out of the trailer park and into the upper class homes. Sana’s father was like a brain doctor or something, I never really hung out there enough to find out, but the fact is they lived in a big ass house. So I knocked on the door and waited and waited, and finally Sana opened the door.
     “Oh, Hi!” She said.
     She was always so chipper when ever I came to see her, which was odd. How did I ever get together with this girl? She was always happy and upbeat and I was always bitter and cynical. Go figure.
     “You wanna take her?” I said handing Pru over to her, my arms were weighed down with Pru, and her toys. “Go see mommy.”
     “Come in, come in, how was dinner with your family?” Sana asked.
     “Well, other than the fact that I’m gonna be ostracized by them, I would say things went really well,” I said.
     We took Pru up to Sana’s room so she could go to bed. Yes, Pru did have a bed time. Well, she did when we went to her mom’s, I’ll put it that way. Sana’s room was a lot like my mine. Hell, most the stuff in it was stuff that I gave her. There was the Mickey Mouse bear that I bought her from Disneyland, a few of my old CD’s, and a whole lot of dried up flowers. Pictures(mostly of her and Prudence) lined the wall of her room, and she changed them periodically. (mostly of her and Prudence). Yet there was one picture that was always by the side of her bed. It was of me and her from Prom. We were able to get out that night and go to our senior Prom. Well, I didn’t really wanna go, but Sana did, and I knew that no other guy would ask her since they all knew she was a mom. So I took her. Am I not the sweetest guy or what?
     Pru finally went to sleep at about 8:15, and Sana came over and talked to me. Look it’s not as if we haven’t seen each other in a while; I mean I see her every weekend. It’s just seems that she’s always been so eager to know what’s going on with me.
     “So what’s up?” She asked.
     “How you been, kitten?” I said
     “Well, you know me, same old crap different day.” She said.
     Sana always had this thing about using profanity; she never used it when she didn’t have to. Now, I always thought that was kinda cute, it’s like one of those things that most people would just stop and say, “Awwwwww.”
      “So, are you seeing anyone?” she asked, with those beautiful brown eyes looking up at me.
     “You know you were the last.” I said. “As corny as this sounds, there is no possible way to do better than you.”
      “You always say that,” she said. “You always could make me smile.”
     I’m a sucker for a pretty girl, and Sana was no exception. Sana looked just like Pru, straight down to those big brown eyes. I know you think that I still like her but I don’t, and I bet you are all thinking that with this, me and Sana were gonna get back together, but I don’t like her, I swear. Now perhaps in a fairy tale it would occur this way, but the truth is I hugged her goodnight and went home, simple as that.

     Well, anyway, as you may have guessed, I don’t go home for Thanksgiving anymore. After that whole debacle last year, instead I decided to just sit in my apartment, eating my precious number four from Wendy’s.
      “Oh Wendy, you are my true friend.” I said out loud, knowing that no one could here me, but still, it was one of those things that felt better being said than it did just thinking it. All of a sudden there was a knock on the door, which was odd, since I purposely rented this place because only a few people knew where it was. Anyway there was a knock at the door and to my surprise it was Sana holding Pru’s hand.
     “Hi princess!” I said.
     “Hi daddy!” Pru replied.
     “Hey, I heard you were going to be alone this Thanksgiving, so I thought I’d come by and keep you company.” She said.
     Good old Sana, she was always there when I was alone. Usually I hated having people over, but not Sana. Not that I liked her or anything like that, it’s just I enjoyed her company.      Stop making assumptions.
     “Come in, make yourself at home, you guys hungry?” I asked. “I still have few Jr. Bacon cheeseburgers.”
          “No, we already ate with my parents,” she said. “Hey, where can I put her down, it’s time for her to go to sleep.”
     “Yeah,” I replied. “Her room is down the hall on the right.”
     “Night-night my princess,” I said to Pru, kissing her on the forehead.
     “Night-night daddy.” Said Pru.
     OK while Sana went to go put Pru down for the night, I did my best to clean up the mess that I called my apartment. It wasn’t to impress her or anything; it was merely a rule of good hosting. I watch Martha Stewart; if I wanted to, I could make a lovely centerpiece using only beer bottles and cigarettes butts, so there. She was only in Pru’s room for about ten minutes before she came walking back out, and took a seat next to me on the couch.
     “Hi kitten,” I said.
     “Hey,” she replied. “Can I ask you something?”
     “Ummmm, yeah sure, go ahead.” I said.
     “What happened to us?” She asked.
     It was a very good question, and I pondered it for a few minutes. There was no real reason that we broke up. It wasn’t because we fucked and had a kid and it wasn’t because we had grown apart. Like I said, I couldn’t figure it out.
     “I don’t have the slightest clue,” I said.
     She looked kind of disappointed in my answer, and I hated to see her disappointed.
     “Oh, I see,” she said. “Well do you miss us?”
     “I can’t say that I don’t miss us. I mean, I look at Pru, and I see you, and that’s hard,” I said.
     “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.” she said.
     She sat up as if she was going to leave, but I grabbed her arm and sat her back down. I looked in to her eyes, even though I knew she hated that, and she immediately looked down.
     “Sana, I love you.” I said.
     And with her big brown eyes, glistening form the tears swelling up in them, she weepingly replied.
     “I love you too Chr”
     That’s all that she was able to get out, because my alarm went off and I woke up. The clock read seven o’clock.
     “Son of a bitch!!!” I yelled.
     It was all a dream, a long, drawn out, goddamned dream. I can’t even hold a girlfriend in a dream. Story of my life. It’s always a pisser to start off your day mad, and today was gonna be one of those days, I could already tell. Dammit, I hated doing this crap. Well at least it was a Friday.
     I Slipped on my boots and headed to school. English class began as normal: we started by writing about the topic on the board. However, Sana Cantell, the girl who sat next to me, who only had to be one of the most beautiful people in the world, tapped me in the shoulder and asked:
     “Hey, what are you doing tonight?”