I mean, look at me. Jake Dakota. I’m 57. Broke. Jobless. Divorced. For the second time! Kids won’t speak to me, their minds poisoned by the exes. No health insurance. A shitcan car.
Me! Voted most likely to succeed, but at what? Life? Or being screwed over? Right now, living in my brother’s dark, dank, and dirty basement, but his wife wants me out. Next stop? Some rat-infested boardinghouse.
I am on my knees.
Am I to blame? No! Not entirely. Mostly, I blame others, and I know that sounds like a copout but believe me, in my case, it’s true.
For instance, my parents.
The year we moved to the new neighborhood — I’d just turned 10 — the textile mill laid Dad off and the hospital cut back Mom’s hours on the cleaning crew. They’d barely scrounged enough money for the house, mainly to get us kids away from where we’d been renting. I wore hand-me-downs and bobos until they fell apart.
Then, the incident.
I shoplifted for the only time in my life. At Moe’s Sporting Goods. I stuffed a baseball mitt under my winter coat and walked out, shocked by how easily I could pull this off. My parents found out. I don’t know how, but they did. They made me return it. I asked if my older brother could come with me.
“No.”
I carried the mitt in a brown bag, and I dawdled outside of Moe’s until I was sure that there were no other customers. When I entered, the bells on the door jingled.
Head bowed, I approached the counter. My embarrassment inflamed my face, and I knew that even my big ears blushed when I dumped the mitt onto the counter in front of Moe Jr.
He must have been about 18 at the time. He looked at the glove for a few torturous moments and then whistled.
“You’re my new shortstop,” he decided.
He hadn’t even looked at me and yet, somehow, he knew. They nicknamed me “Blanket” because I covered the whole right side of the infield for the Little League team that Moe’s sponsored. He gave me the mitt, as well as his old banged up bicycle so that I could get a paper route and contribute to the family by at least making my own spending money. No more bobos for me! Converse!
Still, that memory makes me tremble when I think of how it could have so easily played out in different ways, ninety-five percent of them awful.
But my parents never doubted that they did the right thing, those goody-goods. So, yes, I blame them. I too often in business chose to be honest rather than clever and paid the price for it.
Who else?
Oh, yeah. My high school teacher, Mr. Blandix. I also blame him. In senior year, I’d been accepted to Sacktower University; ready to take out $100,000 in loans in order to get a degree in English lit. Mr. Blandix sent my business term paper to a friend of his at another college and from that they uncovered my aptitude, and I got a full free ride — but I’d have to major in business. Still, who’s to say I wouldn’t have become a great novelist? So, I blame Mr. Blandix, too.
Who else?
Teresa. I blame her. We met a few years after college, and we knew. In three months, engaged. In six months, Teresa is dead. How? Stupidity. Firefighters were on the way that winter night, their sirens getting louder. That didn’t matter to the mother, however. She took one look at the babysitter choking on the pavement and started to run into the burning house. A neighbor held her back. The woman stopped struggling only after Teresa promised that she’d get the baby. Teresa thought that she could dodge the flames.
And she did, too. She dashed inside, saved that baby. They took Teresa to the ER just to make sure. She protested — “I’m fine” — but she went. And died on the way. Heart attack caused by smoke inhalation. Then, a few years later I marry my first disaster that led directly to my first bankruptcy.
So, yes, Teresa’s to blame as well for my crap circumstances.
Right?
I squint at my boxes of stuff stacked in a corner of the basement. The salvaging from my once comfortable life.
A door opens and my brother calls down, saying that IRS agents want me to contact them. He works from home and usually would have texted me because normal conversation takes too long. I suspect he worries about leaving an electronic trail.
He lingers at the top of the stairs. I know what that means. He’s concerned about guilt by association. Nobody wants the IRS poking about nearby even if they’re not the focus. His wife wants me out. He wants me out. Boardinghouse here I come.
I can’t really blame them for wanting me gone.
That thought allows an altered perspective to invade. Suddenly, I feel like a detective in one of those crime shows, blinkered by initial assumptions, only to find that they don’t hold up.
My parents sacrificed for me. Mr. Blandix steered me toward a lucrative career. Teresa taught me about love and courage.
So, who’s really to blame for my circumstances?
I do know who to blame.
I stand, pick up the pillow I’d been kneeling upon, brush it off and fling it back onto the tattered couch that’s been my bed the last couple of weeks.
I shake my fist at the ceiling.
You!
I blame You!
Why do I even talk to You? You did this to me, God! You stand back and just watch as my life implodes! God’s not great nor good. God’s indifferent. I blame You! We’re done, God! This is Jake Dakota’s last prayer! And, as usual, I don’t expect an answer.
Amen!
Frank Diamond’s poem, “Labor Day,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize Award. His short stories have appeared in RavensPerch, the Examined Life Journal, Nzuri Journal of Coastline College, and the Fredericksburg Literary & Art Review, and The Fictional Café among many other publications. He has had poetry published in many publications. He lives in Langhorne, Pa.
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