Ever sucker punch yourself because your ears wasn\u2019t stuffed with cotton when you learnt the rest of your life was going to be a suckfest?\u00a0I did.\u00a0Broke two knuckles.\u00a0If there was a way to rewind backwards to that\u00a0bloody afternoon,\u00a0I woulda chose to eyeball my step-Grammy\u2019s Section 8 cooter rather than get told\u00a0my family tree had a dumbass parked on practically every branch.<\/p>\n
Me and Grammy was hanging out, watching\u00a0Little House on the Prairie<\/em>\u00a0reruns at her apartment.\u00a0When you\u2019re twenty-three, been rocking her ganj for hours and woofing popcorn tins like they was lobsters \u2013 you\u2019re on top of the world and think there\u2019s nothing that can\u2019t go wrong.\u00a0Her weed made you forget all them D.U.I.\u2019s and restraining orders.\u00a0You didn\u2019t care you was unemployed or what month the calendar said it was.\u00a0What you didn\u2019t expect was to get knifed in the ribcage.<\/p>\n Grammy\u2019s ambush caught me totally unawares.\u00a0If I wasn\u2019t so stoned, maybe I coulda seen it coming.\u00a0Karate chopped that wrinkly arm before she stuck me.\u00a0I respected Grammy for how fast she moved, but the poor old lady just wasn\u2019t strong enough to gash any vitals.<\/p>\n Blood squirted out the knife hole, down the outside of my ribs and half-filled my pants pocket.\u00a0Didn\u2019t want to blow up and start a war because I love my Grammy, so I pretended I got into a scuffle with Little Joe.\u00a0Figured if I made him look like a real tossbag, she wouldn\u2019t feel bad about trying to kill her grandson.<\/p>\n Bloodstains don\u2019t come out of velour couches.\u00a0I found that out when Grammy flipped me a ragged old doily and told me to plug up the hole with it or else I had to steal her something new to sit on.\u00a0You never question anything she says you if you know what\u2019s good for you.\u00a0Like when she cooks something.\u00a0Even if it tastes like lug nuts, I always eat it.\u00a0If I don\u2019t, she\u2019s liable to pour hot oil down my back.\u00a0By the way, the reason Grammy got pissed was because I mopped up some spilled bong water with her brown wig.\u00a0BFD.\u00a0When she wears that thing, it looks like a badger landed on her head.<\/p>\n She refolded the switchblade.\u00a0Slipped it back into her knickers.\u00a0Said it was time I learnt about where I come from.\u00a0I wanted to bolt because I was pretty sure babies came from vaginas and I was afraid she\u2019d show me her flaps.\u00a0You can probably imagine my relief when she kept them knees together and unrolled a sheet of yellowish paper.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t get that pot boner fantasizing about my Grammy.\u00a0I got excited because I anticipated she was going to tell me this was a treasure map.\u00a0Told her to just show me the island and I\u2019d be shovel ready.\u00a0I hit the bong hard.\u00a0Like a ancient pirate would do.<\/p>\n She gave me a pathetic stare.\u00a0Youda thought I spray painted her cat.\u00a0Grammy sobbed and voodoo clucked while her crooked finger ouija\u2019d all over that map.\u00a0Was she playing me?\u00a0Trying to throw me off by pointing to the wrong place?\u00a0I blew up.\u00a0Smacked her a good one to the side of her head.\u00a0Pretty sure she seen stars.<\/p>\n Grammy rolled up the map and looked right into my bloodshots.\u00a0Said this wasn\u2019t no buried treasure map.\u00a0It was a chart of my family tree.\u00a0I replied by saying she was full of crap.\u00a0Grammy got one of them teacher looks on her face, which made me want to cheat.\u00a0Said the chart had higher accuracy than a lie-detractor machine.\u00a0It proved I resulted from generations of big-balled idiots on papa\u2019s side knocking up wagonloads of boozy crackers on mama\u2019s side.<\/p>\n That last sentence hung in the air like she pooted a taco.\u00a0Changed my life.\u00a0When you get proof your body\u2019s chock-full of stupid genes, your list of options grows to practically nothing.\u00a0It means you can never be a astronaut.\u00a0Or win a Mega Millions.\u00a0No use taking another GED test.\u00a0Demoralized me to where I wanted to guzzle kerosene.<\/p>\n This may surprise you, but it blunted a secret fantasy of mine.\u00a0At one time, I had a hankering to be a writer.\u00a0Maybe land a job reporting on traffic accidents or advise people about what fork to use when they have company.\u00a0Well \u2013 scratch all that.\u00a0Them experts say you should write about what you know.\u00a0Ever since I was a kid, I heard Grammy and every dirt-bag in town say, \u201cThat poor little Ardel Leonard.\u00a0He don\u2019t know shit.\u201d<\/p>\n Ever sucker punch yourself because your ears wasn\u2019t stuffed with cotton when you learnt the rest of your life was going to be a suckfest?\u00a0I did.\u00a0Broke two knuckles.\u00a0If there was a way to rewind backwards to that\u00a0bloody afternoon,\u00a0I woulda chose to eyeball my step-Grammy\u2019s Section 8 cooter rather than get told\u00a0my family tree had a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-fiction","category-things"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5064\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013
\nMcCartney<\/strong> has been sacked by several powerful organizations for his inability to brown-nose and his goat-logic problem solving skills. His work has appeared in The Story Shack<\/i> and Squawk Back<\/i>.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"