This is the original link. This story is not mine. Just felt like sharing with you all...

LANGUAGE WARNING!

Know this when going in: drugs are BAD. Especially METH. You're about to find out why...in a rather long story.

Begin!

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Everyone has trouble with their families. As the saying goes, you can pick your friends but you can't pick your relatives. Now, I'm not going to presume on anyone's family relationships. Maybe some are too painful to speak of. I hope that is not the case for anyone I know or anyone who reads this. But as said, all families have problems, to various degrees.

This is a story of perspective, to perhaps give you an idea of what it can be like for some...and how bad your problems may be in retrospect (unless, god forbid, they somehow mirror this tale...I sure as hell hope not)

A little context.

This is not an original story from me in any way, shape, or form. This was posted by a poster called 'Humper-Monkey' on another forum I attend. He's ex-military living in Idaho somewhere with a wife (also ex-military) and three daughters. He has one eye from an injury, and apparently suffered another head injury in a battle that lead to some kind of injury based psychosis that he has to take pills for. He described his problem as a BAD case of explosive anger disorder. 'I go from perfectly calm to murderous rage within a split second, then the anger is gone. It's weird. With the meds, I can't break the "MUST KILL!!!" barrier.' His military history appearently spreads to his family: there were many arguments as the story was orginally posted if how he chose to raise his kids was right or wrong, but that's beside the point. He seemed, overall, like a decent person.

There is a chance he is making it all up. That's the chance you take with the Internet. I don't think so, as utterly incomprehensible as this tale gets, and maybe I'm wrong. Decide for yourself.

I'm assuming everyone here knows what Dragon Ball Z is.

And I'm warning you up front, this does not have a happy ending. This is a story I am telling for cautionary terms and for perspective into the dark heart of life. And life can be a total, utter, unfeeling, cruel beyond words bastard. Real life has a bad habit of that, actually. Don't read it for laughs (even if it almost starts out comically) and if you're in a good mood this might sour it. It's best read with a musing mindset. The warning is given, you are on your own. Remember, this will NOT end well.

Let us begin...

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Part 1:

I come from a long line of military service. We're talking Revolutionary War back there. I was raised in the code of "Honor. Duty. Courage. Love. Mercy. Compassion." and that military service was a way of paying your debt to society for freedoms, free schooling, and all the other wonderful benifits that living in America gives you.

My old man was awesome beyond words. His father was frightening, yet awesome. I was raised to honor the laws, the office if not the man, obey the laws, and knowing when to fight against injustice. He believed in his military oath, even the "Foriegn and Domestic" part of it. When he joined the Army he was a 4th grade graduate, when he retired he had his Masters.

He stressed to us that men and women were different, yet equal. He adopted children. Not the easy ones, the discipline cases, the ones that people pretend don't exist. The poor fers that didn't have a chance. Not one of them failed to graduate high school, most went into the military and I still talk to them today. He only lost one adopted kid, who was hit and killed by a drunk driver in the parking lot of G.I. Joe's while walking home from his part time job.

He left his mark on me. Sure, I'm a psychotic, but I do have a great capacity for love and compassion because of him. I've always tried to lead by example, even as a civilian I believe that holding myself to a higher standard than society does is what a man does.

Coming home busted up beyond nearly recognition was not dishonorable. I had lived, and that was enough. I had nothing to be ashamed of, but it did not make me better than those who never served. "To protect those that will not or can not defend themselves" does not give you the right to judge them for their choices.

My father had thousands of sayings. He left his impressions on all of us.

So, now you know me.

A couple of years ago, my first wife gets ahold of me. It turns out that she had given birth to a son, and wanted me to take a paternity test. I refused, and eventually was compelled by court order to give up a sample of DNA. He turned out to be my son, and the State of Florida attempted to bill me for all her years of welfare fraud.

She also demanded back child support. We went to court, and the judge threw it out, seeing as she had been married to someone else the entire time. She got pissed, and in the parking lot, told me that I needed to act like a man, and take the kid.

So here's this kid that I've never even fing met, that I didn't even know existed before she contacted me after almost 15 years. Things had changed so much, she didn't even recognise me, and she wants to hand me a 13 year old? Aw *.

So I tell her that I'll be back in 2 days to pick him up, have his s ready. I'm not playing games with her, and the local cops are coming to witness it, along with her signing over ALL legal rights to the kid. I fly back to Olympia, and borrow my brother's pickup, leaving the family car with him.

I show up, my wife with me, and here's this kid. Aw *, there's no denying that's my kid, we didn't even NEED the DNA test. One look at the two of us, and everyone would realize that's my kid. Despite the fact he's skinnier than I was at that age, he looks like me at 13.

"So your the guy whose my real dad?" he asks. Oh God, he's a whiner.

"Yeah, turns out I am. I'm Monkey. That's Monkey-Wife. You have 3 sisters, here's a picture. Let me help you load the stuff into the truck."

"I'm tired from bringing it out here. My mom didn't help me, and my step-@#%$ wouldn't let me take all my stuff. Can't you do it?"

Well, I kind of want to get off on the right foot, and going all Drill Sergeant on his ass wasn't exactly what I wanted to do. So the wife and I load all his s into the truck.

"Can I say goodbye to my girlfriend?"

I tell him sure, just give me directions. He does, and she comes bounding out of a trailer home with a blue tarp on the top. She's obviously pregnant, and looks, well, like Britney Spears had been beat in the face with an ugly stick and her tits had fallen into her gut. In other words, dressed in tramp style and just plain acne covered shack nasty ugly.

"I want to stay overnight here." he says.

"No. We have 1500 miles to go, your sisters are with your uncle and aunt, and I promised him I'd pick them up. Get in the truck."

"No."

"Boooy." I could hear my father's ghost laughing. Ever heard the Tall-Man from Phatasm say "Booooy!" That's how the males in my family sound when they say it.

"I'm staying with her. I love her."

"Get in the truck, now."

"You're just trying to keep us apart! We're like Romeo and Juliet! We're like (some fing people I found out were from some @#%$ anime) and you're like (the villian, I guess), and you can't make me!"

"Get in the @#%$ truck, or I'll put you in it."

He does some s with his hands and exhales like Darth Vader doing something exceptionally sexually perverted and tells me: "Don't make me kick your ass, old man!"

* this. I'll handle it the way my old man would handle idiots. I grab him by his collar, bounce him off the side of the truck, grab one leg, and throw him in the back. He looks up, and I smack him.

"I'm the alpha male. Stay in the truck or you'll learn what happens to pups who make challenges." He recoils and I fire up the truck and leave pregnant and ugly behind.

We stop at a gas station, and I tell him: "Pump the gas, I'm gonna grab some coffee."

"No."

???? "Why not?" My temper's cooled, and my meds are working.

"I don't know how."

"What? Why not?"

"Mommy didn't want me to. She said it was dangerous." WTF? Mommy?

So I show him how to pump gas, get my coffee and a donut, pay for the gas, and see him walking across the gas station/truck stop parking lot. I set my coffee and donut on the hood and jog toward him, and he breaks into a run, looking like a spastic chimp.

I catch up to him pretty easy. Don't be fooled by the limp, I was still running 2-5 miles a day. I grab him by the collar and swing him around.

"Don't. Run."

"You can't keep me from her! We're destined to be together! I'm Alexander the Great, she's Cleopatra!"

"Get in the @#%$ truck. Now."

"You can't tell me what to do, I'm Alexander the Great and she's Cleopatra, we're destined!!" He swings, badly telegraphed and totally uncordinated. I duck underneath, pop back up, and grab his ear and twist.

"He was queer. She was ugly. Now get in the truck. I'll buy you a fing dress in Seattle."

So he's ranting and raving about how he can't be kept from her, I'm dragging him to the truck by his ear, and wondering if I'm gonna have to put this kid in therapy. Given the choice between having his ear torn off or getting in the truck, he gets in.

I'm losing my patience.

We hit the freeway, and keep going till I have to get gas again. I stand by the side of the truck and stare at him, my wife pumps the gas. When we get to a rest stop, I start opening his boxes, and he freaks out.

"What are you doing? That's mine!"

"I'm tossing your s. Get used to it." I find porn with names like "Daddy's Girls" and "Family Love", that goes in the garbage. I find a bag of marijuana and some other s, I just toss it in the garbage.

"That's my stuff, you can't do that."

"Shut the * up. You can't be trusted, you tried to bring drugs into my house. The porn is sick incest s, and it ain't going to my house."

We get back in the truck, my wife drives, I sleep.

I'm woken up by a loud cry of pain and sit up.

Mr. Wonderful is laying on the ground crying, my wife has her fists balled up and is literally shaking. She's got a palm mark on her face.

"What the hell?" I ask, getting out of the truck.

"SHE HURT ME!" he squalls out.

"He slapped her!" this black dude says. We're at another rest stop. "He tried to walk away, she grabbed him, and he slapped her. He raised his hand again and she pulled some karate s and bounced him!" He and his friends are all laughing.

Oh. F. See, she may look sweet, but she spent 12 years in the military, got out on a medical after she fractured several vertebra in an ambulance humvee crash. She was a vet of Haiti, Desert Storm, Panama, and was decorated for bravery. She took part in the Red Team Gym combatives team.

"That's pretty much what happened." my wife tells me.

"Get in the truck, now." I tell him. Why punish him? He tried his hand against the Alpha female and got fed up. He climbs in crying he's going to call CPS on us. By this time, I'm ready to fing turn him into CPS. What the f kind of kid did my ex-wife raise?

So we get back in the truck, and she's pissed. He fing slaps her, and tells her: "That's what you get for touching me!" So when he raised his hand again, she did the standard US Army Judo throw and bounced him off the pavement.

We bypass Seattle and stop at Fort Lewis to pick up my kids. My brother comes out all smiles and my kids run up and surround me. Everyone wants to see "The Boy." He's huddled down in the truck, and when he gets out, he snubs my brother by saying: "Army guys are wimps! Saiyans are the real badasses!" I'm like "What the * is a say-anne?"

"He's an anime geek." My brother tells me, and shakes his head. "Good luck, Monkey." We hug, and he goes back in the house. We make "The Boy" ride in the truck still, since he wanted to snub his sisters by ignoring them. The wife loads the girls into the car and he asks: "Can't I ride in the cab?"

"Get in."

We get in, and he sprawls out in the seat and pulls out a Gameboy.

"Hey, buckle up."

"Seat belts are for mortals."

"Seat belts are going to be wrapped around your fing neck." I warn him. He sighs, rolls his eyes, and buckles up.

We ride for the next 6 hours in silence, just his Gameboy beeping, until we get to the house. His sisters are already in bed, my wife beat me there by about an hour, and I had to chase him through the woods once at a rest stop. Took me longer to drag him out by his collar than to catch him. He had all the running wind of an asthmatic parapelgic. Without a wheel-chair. Deaf people in other states could hear him panting. For those of you who ever run from a one-eyed psychotic in the woods, here's a hint: Don't run 200 feet, think you're safe, and light up a joint. He's gonna catch you.

I march in, grab the phone, and call my ex.

"What's the real reason you shipped him off to me?" I ask.

So, it all comes out. He threatened his step dad. Started slapping her when he didn't get his way. Beat up his little sisters. Was smoking pot in the house. Was failing in school. He wouldn't do his chores, but stole money from his parents.

I remember thinking: Great, this is just going to get worse.

I was right.

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Part 2:

OK, so I'd hung up the phone from my ex and turned around. He's finally come in the house, and is looking around. Now, this is a little house I bought when I figured I'd either get killed, or need somewhere to live after the Army wouldn't let me stay anymore. It's a little four bedroom cottage, cute as hell, with hardwood. My wife worked hard to make it into a home, and I could see her touches everywhere.

"What a dump." Way to get on my good side.

F this. I've had about enough.

"Strip."

"What?"

"Strip to your underwear, throw your clothing on the floor."

"No."

"Booooy." By this time he's learned that when I said it like that, and the vien in my forehead pulsed like a python eating a baby, I was about at the end of my rope.

"This is sexual abuse." he whines, but starts undressing.

I check him for needle marks, look up his nose, then toss his pockets. Three joints I'd missed at the rest stop, and a small baggy of ragweed hidden in his wallet.

"Get dressed, get your s, put it in here. I can't trust you, I'm searching your s again." I tell him, sitting down and lighting a smoke. I want a fing drink and for him to vanish up his own ass. All the father/son bonding scenarios that I'd wished for when I was driving to get him had all turned to some kind of sick joke.

My wife took the pot and threw it in the wood stove, and I started a fire while he lugged his s into the house, whining the whole time. I tossed the s, found more dope, clothing that hadn't been washed in long enough it stunk to high heaven, more sicko-porn. It went into the fire. I ignored his complaining, and finally told him to put everything in his room, and to go to bed.

"I'm sorry." My wife tells me, reaching out and holding my hand. I knew what she meant.

"I'm going to sleep on the couch." I tell her. She just nods, and goes to bed.

0430 and I snap awake, clawing at the couch and nightmares scattering. I get up, stretch, ignore the rice crispie sounds, and wander into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee and smoke a cigarette.

I'm on my second cup of coffee, I've stirred up and loaded up the fire to warm the house, when I hear an unfamiliar alarm go off.

You've got to be kidding me. Sure enough, I hear rustling, then his door (You live in a house for 5 years, you learn to ID every fing noise that house makes) and footsteps. I reach out and turn off the kitchen light.

He reaches for the door, dressed all in black.

"Going somewhere?" I ask from darkness. He jumps.

"Ummm... errr..."

"Go back and put on real clothing. In about two hours I'm taking you to register for school."

He mumbles to himself and walks off. I hear him slam his door, and I call out: "Don't bother trying the windows. They don't open in that room!" I hear something hit the wall and chuckle.

An hour later, his sisters are all trying to talk to him, and he's said s like "I don't talk to mortals!" and other bulls. His sisters are crushed. On the way to the JR. High I tell him he'll start treating his sisters with respect.

"Or what?" he sneers.

"Or the only thing in your room will be your bed and a cardboard box with your clothing. I'll lock everything else in the shed." I answer. He stares at me in shock.

"Mommy won't let you."

"You're mother isn't here, boy."

We get to the school, he's signing up for classes. They have to wait three days before he can start while his records get transferred.

"I should call the cops on you, my ear still hurts." he whines on the way home.

I pull into the grocery store, jump out, and go over to the County Mounty's car.

"Hey, Bud, my son needs a reality lesson." I tell Bud, the local Sheriff.

"Then give it to him. Need me to hold him?"

"Just explain reality to him."

So Bud goes with me back to the car, and Bud explains that the definition of child abuse in Washington State is a fload different from Idaho, and this was backwoods, and the local law and judges and child welfare services believed that a lack of discipline led to youth crime.

He gets the point that while he may have been able to call CPS in Idaho for being stood in the corner, as long as I don't try to do lasting harm or go all fing Resivior Dogs on him, he's pretty much out of luck.

He spends the rest of the day hiding in his room. I try to get him to come out, but he just slams his door or yells: "LEAVE ME ALONE!"

OK, no prob, he needs time to adjust that he's not able to bully the adults in this house.

At dinner he just sits there, staring at his food.

"I want to call mommy." he says at dinner, "And I don't want this, it looks weird."

"Eat or starve!" my middle daughter quotes.

"SHUT UP, B*!" he screams at her, sticking his fist in her face. I start to stand up and the wife grabs my leg.

"Apologize to your sister." she says. It's the tone. I've heard her sound like that before.

"NO! I HATE IT HERE! YOU DON'T RESPECT ME!" he screams. He points his finger across the table. "YOU'RE A F***ING BIT..." she grabs his finger and twists.

"Eat or starve." My wife repeats, staring at him. I know what he's seeing.

"You can call your mother after dinner." I tell him.

"I'm not eating!" he yells, and throws his plate against the wall. My wife gets up, walks around the table, grabs his ear, and makes him clean it up.

He calls his mom.

"Mommy, can I come home?" he whines. I hear laughter and then a *click*

"I'd say that was a no. Get your laundry, you're going to learn to wash your fing clothing, then you're taking a shower." He stunk like a bag of assholes left in the sun.

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It's 0530, wake up time! The bus gets there at 0700, and there's things to do! The girls get up, chattering and laughing, and I bang on his door.

"WAKE UP CALL!"

"* OFF!" he yells.

I open the door, walk in, and flip his matress off his bed. "Get up. Get dressed in the sweats I gave you last night."

He's obviously surly, but he does it. F it, I'm tired of his s already.

The whole family goes out in the front yard, we stretch, then we start jogging. We jog down to the beach (Not that far, maybe two blocks) and start jogging on the sand. It's the oldest daughter's turn to count cadence, and before we do a half mile, the boy is flagging, gasping for air and bent over.

I turn us around early, and we jog back to the house. (This is a normal routine, my kids and I do PT together every morning. They're proud of themselves, and healthy) By the time we get back, he's crying and gagging. We don't even do a mile.

"Don't you have PE or something?" I ask.

"Mommy told the school I didn't have to do it. I'm telling her you made me do this."

"Mommy can't help you now, boy."

-----------------

I'm a suspicious bastard. My kids know this. I have keyloggers on the computers they use. I have a list of numbers and addresses for all their friends. They get their rooms inspected for cleanliness and such (Don't get me wrong, they get rewards and chore money, I'm not a total Nazi) as well as their mom checking their feet once a week. My oldest daughter knew I'd read her email. Now, she knows I'll pick up the extension and listen.

It's not them I don't trust. It's all them other motherfers out there.

Anyway, I'm playing Civ III and I see the "In Use" light flash on the phone. Suspicious I pick it up, hit mute, and listen.

It's The Boy. He's talking to his girlfriend, asking her to send him $150 so he can get a bus ticket out of here. I make him do chores and stand over him while he does them. I took away his Gameboy and PS1 for threatening to slap his sister when she wouldn't give him the TV remote. I checked his homework every night and his teachers emailed me his homework. I make him excersize. And horrors of horrors, I won't let him watch Cartoon Network, and he's missing Dragonball Zee.

He's going to run away tonight, when he knows I go to sleep. There's nothing I can do to stop him, I'm just a stupid old man. At midnight, he's going to sneak out. She tells him she can't send him money, and he says he'll just steal it out of my wife's desk drawer. (She kept my tips in the drawer)

He starts going on about how they're Cleopatra and Alexander the Great, and she goes on about how she'd waited for him to reborn for eons (Eons? WTF?) and kept herself virginal just for him. (Virginal, she was fing pregnant) He was talking about how he knew his sperm could overwhelm the "stupid mortal" sperm that got her pregnant, and it would be his child, but they'd have to hide it would have a tail. (At this I was totally confused, so I typed in Dragon Ballz on Google and found out. Oh man, this was fed)

So after dinner, he sulks off to his room, and the girls and I play "Monster Tag!" in the front yard till bed and bath time.

I tell my wife about the phone call, and she asks me what I'm going to do.

"I'm gonna invite Bud and Scott over." I tell her. She starts laughing. I go wait about an hour, go out the back door to the back porch, and wait. Bud and Scott show up, and we wait.

He runs, we track him. He gets lost in the National Park, and if we hadn't been tracking him, he'd have died of @#%$ exposure. Bud taught SERE for 4 years after Vietnam, Scott was an Ex-Ranger, and I was raised by my father. It was like tracking an elephant.

He stole $250 out of my tips (The tips were saved until we had enough to go to Disneyland, on a cruise, buy Christmas presents, birthday presents, etc, it was called "Happy Money" by us) and got lost.

The next day, I took him to the local counselling center.

He'd been living with me for a month, and hadn't learned a @#%$ thing.

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Part 3:

Where was I? Oh yeah, the counsellor.

So I take him in, and turn him over to counsellor. This is covered by my DEERS, so it costs me $15 out of pocket. I'm completely confused, because in a way, I'd led a very sheltered life. I'd never seen an anime fanatic. I honestly thought he was fing crazy. So I sat out in the waiting room, biting my nails, and worrying about how fed up he was.

Was he molested as a child? Did he suffer a tramautic brain injury? Was he kidnapped and tortured? Did he see someone he knew die? Why would he believe a cartoon was real? I grew up with Scooby Doo and didn't believe my fing dog could talk. (Well, one dog, but that's a story for another thread) I liked Star Blazer. When I was 10.

So the counsellour comes out and tells me that the kids got some issues.

He's a bully. He lives in a fantasy world of normal teenage power fantasies. Identifying with powerful figures is a way of making themselves feel special. He advises me to take down all of my wife and I's awards and pictures, so he doesn't feel lessended.

He admitted to "trying" marijuana (Bulls, I found at LEAST three ounces of @#%$ rag-weed * in stuff) but swore he'd stopped since moving in with me. @#%$ right he stopped, every time I smelled that s, I went into his room and took it away, then stripped his room down to his textbooks and bed and a box of clothing for three days.

In hindsight, I should have just beat him like a private who just won't learn.

"When can my girlfriend come to visit?"

"When you learn no amount of semen can make another man's baby into yours." I tell him. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying stepfathers can't become the most important man in a child's life. If you're a stepfather or a foster father, you have a hard row to hoe, and have my respect if you're a decent one.

"IT'S MY BABY!" he screams at me, and starts screaming about how she had waited for him down through the eons, and she was virginal before Vegetable raped her. (That's what I thought he said, that some dude named Vegetable raped her. I remember thinking: "@#%$, kids nowdays have some stupid fing nicknames) That his powers could make it his child.

I slam on the fing brakes and turn to him. He's still screaming, and I. Have. Had. Enough.

I grab him by the face and push his head against the window until I have his undivided fing attention, and lean forward.

"Listen, little man. You're a @#%$ 13 year old boy. I am a @#%$ adult. If you EVER scream at me again, I will backhand you. You will straighten your ass out, or I will hurt you in ways you have never fing imagined, and not leave a mark." There's a red haze at my edges of my vision, and I'm dimly aware he's hitting my forearm and chest. I leaned even closer in and whispered: "You're a @#%$ pot-head and your nuts haven't been dropped half as long as I've stood in chow lines. If you EVER scream at anyone in my house again, without @#%$ good reason, I will walk across the room and slap some sense into you."

I let him go, and drove home. I felt ashamed of myself at the sight of him cringed against the door, and knew I had lost my temper. There was no excuse for it, but I was tired at being screamed at by a 13 year old hysteric.

I got out, feeling really low, and started walking toward the house. My wife was looking out the window and opened her mouth.

That's when it happened.

He picked up a @#%$ stick and hit me over the head with it. He was screaming some s that sounded either like total gibberish or a Japanese guy with Tourettes.

POP! I'm aware that I'm quickly going zero to sixty. I take a deep breath, and POP! He hits me again on top of my head.

I turn around and look at him, and he screams: "NO MORTAL CAN BEAT ME!" as he raises the stick again. I'm dimly aware of my wife screaming as she opens the door. The guy across the street is running toward us.

I close my eyes, it's that or kill him. I'm losing it, and hearing machinegun fire and my crew yelling. I haven't had a flashback in months, and I'm starting to have one now.

I'm dimly aware of someone pulling me backwards by my neck, and I open my eyes to see The Boy take a swing at my across the street nieghbor with the stick. He fades back, drifts forward, and catches him on the point of the jaw with a hard right, knocking The Boy out like a light.

He moves forward and is shaking me, and everything speeds back up.

"Are you OK?" both my wife and Barry ask.

"Yup." I tell them. My wife and Barry let go and I walk over to the garden hose coiled up in the front of the house. I uncoil it and turn it on.

"Every boy does this sooner or later, and I guess it's that time." I tell them, and start spraying him with the cold water. He coughs, splutters and starts crying.

"Get up, or I'll take my fing belt to you." I tell him. He gets up, shaking his head, and looks at me.

"Every boy does this with his father sooner or later. I guess it's that time." I say, dropping the hose.

"Don't kill him, Monkey." my wife says.

I take off my shirt and belt, and toss them back behind me.

"I don't want to fight." He says, backing up.

"Pick up your fing stick." I growl. He bends down and picks it up.

"I don't want to fight you."

"The b* is fing other guys, it isn't your baby, and she looks like a hooker's @#%$ after an anal gangbang." I snarl. Bud's coming down the street, no siren, but the cherries are on. Someone called 911.

His eyes go wide, he turns red, and he hits me in the face with the stick right as Bud pulls up. Bud gets out of his car and walks toward us, leans against the pear tree and folds his arms.

At one point I have him down on the ground rubbing his face in the mud, and I pull him up so he can see Bud.

"HELP ME, OFFICER!"

Bud just laughs and says: "Don't pick fights with a guy like your father."

I finish and stand up, picking up my shirt. Bud asks me: "Want me to toss him in the can for a night? He might try something when you're asleep. You know he's got a criminal record back in Idaho?"

"Naw, I'm not worried. I'm a light sleeper."

Bud tells me about his record. Assault and battery on kids two to four years younger. He beat up a retarded kid in the bathroom. Him and four friends beat up a 5th grader six months prior. His step-father called in domestic assault and he'd always claim he was defending himself. He broke his 5 year old sister's arm when he was 12 over an arguement over the PS1. The cops suspected him in a string of house robbings. He carried a knife to school and got caught with it on it.

His mommy went and rescued him every fing time.

"As far as Lenny's concerned, you can beat this kid into a fing coma. If your kid comes in front of Lenny, he's going to be doing hard fing time." Bud tells me. "Are you sure about this?"

"Yeah. I guess I'm going to answer the question of nature over nuture." I tell him.

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Part 4: Bud left, and I went inside while he laid on the ground gasping. I never once hit him with a closed fist or a cupped hand. He'd busted my lip, but what the hell, I'd been hurt worse during nasty alley-behind-the-bar sex when I was younger.

I got the family photo-album, and went back on the front porch.

"Get up, boy. Come here." He did, but moved like I'd been beating him for years.

"Your angry all the time. I understand that. It's in your blood, but it's not so you can be bully. It's so you can deal with life, and all it's unfairness." I opened up the photo album and began showing him pictures.

Me and my brothers and sisters doing pushups in the front yard with our father. My father carrying my brother on his shoulder when he won the spelling bee. My brothers and sisters "I went to Basic Training" pictures. Pictures of Panama. Desert Storm. Haiti. Bosnia. Men and women in uniform. Two of my brothers are obviously adopted, but I don't think of them that way. I told him about each of them, how we were all fups in our own way.

"Look, you're not a bad kid, you've just made some stupid @#%$ decisions."

"You don't hate me?"

"F no. When I was 15 I tried that big monster right there in that photo. He beat the ever-loving s out of me. It's something boys do. Sooner or later, you challenge your dad."

We sat on the porch, and I tried to explain that all I wanted was for him to get his s together, to start getting something besides F's in school, to stay off the drugs, and to act like a normal person.

I sat and listened to how his step-dad beat him with a belt from the age he was five, and how his mom beat him until he was old enough to defend himself from her.

And knew it was bulls. My ex-wife was a dedicated pacifist. My decision to join the military directly led to our divorce. She fing cried at "Save this poor child!" commericals. I could no more see her beating him that I could see Fred Sanford rising from the grave and tap dancing on my lawn.

He sat on the front porch and lied his ass off, sounding like the typical things you get on Maury Povich, Jerry Springer, and s like that. Or if you grew up with my mother when my father was deployed.

I told him to go in the house, take a shower, and do his chores, and I sat on the front porch and tried to figure out what my father would have done.

-------------------------

His fourteenth birthday came and went, as did his 15th. He pulled his grades up to C's, did his chores without b*ing, and was at least civil to his sisters. He started dating a girl from school, and I figured things were going just fine.

Money never came up missing, and I'd stopped tossing his room daily, just the Monday morning inspection. He learned to run, his acne cleared up, and he could keep up with his sisters as far as excersize went. I stopped picking up the phone when he made phone calls, and he was always careful never to call or get calls after 8 PM.

The year was passing pretty calmly, and I figured I had things recovered. He never lacked for affection, but I tried to give him his space as a growing boy. He was invited to paintball with my friends sons and my friends, I took him hunting and taught him to track, to rappell, how to survive in the woods and navigate off the stars. I taught him land nav, basic marksmanship, survival, and everything else he would learn.

Bud even told me privately that he was amazed. He had figured he'd have to haul off The Boy for B&E or A&B before then.

He was no longer a stick figure, he looked healthy, and I trusted him to go out unsupervised. I trusted him to watch his sisters. I figured it was the a combination of learning that he couldn't bully anyone, and it finally sinking in that all I expected was for him to get decent grades and to be civil.

Then Disneyland happened.

I'd saved up and bought enough tickets for 5 days at Disneyland for all 7 members of my family as well as his girlfriend and my wife's adopted sister. He'd been spending more and more time at her house, but I figured it was normal. If he was banging her, as long as he didn't knock her up, there wasn't any problem.

In hindsight, I wonder how I was so @#%$ blind. I guess I really wanted the best for him, and wanted to believe the best about him.

On the ride there, both he and his girlfriend turned into absolute assholes. The music sucked, the girls were talking too loud, the van was making them sick, were we there yet, when were we stopping, it smelled bad, she was allergic to something in the van that made her itch.

We stopped at a gas station, and they went to the bathroom. When they came out, they were friendly and talkative and just kept talking. I was happy, he had gone from a withdrawn psychopath who believed he was a cartoon character and a dead gay guy, to a talkative, friendly, OK person.

But by the time my wife woke me for my turn to drive, they were b*y again. They'd torment the youngest one until she'd break down crying. I saw her whispering s to his sisters. He complained that the laundry soap made his skin itch.

We pulled into Disneyland, and the kids cheered. We got the hotel rooms (2 interconnected) and divvied them up. They went in to put their stuff away, and my wife's mother arrived with her adopted daughter, dropped her off, and I gave the standard safety lecture.

He was 15 1/2, and I believed I could trust him. I let him go with his girlfriend, my wife and I took two little girls each, and we hit Disneyland. It poured down fing rain that day, but we had a blast. The youngest got too cold, so we walked back, and I opened up the door with keycard I had.

My wife returned, and it was getting late. I'd told everyone to be back at 8, it was almost 9, but hey, he's been good for 2 years, so I can trust him, but I hope he's OK.

They don't show up till almost midnight, and they go straight to bed in the other room. My oldest and my wife's sister go into the other one with them (they're the same age as each other) and the door is closed.

I knock and ask if I can come in so I can check on the two little girls, and he lets me in. His girlfriend and he are playing FF VII on the PS2 he got for Christmas, and the two little girls are sacked out, snoring.

The next day, I told everyone we were going to split up again, and away we all went. This was the vacation I'd always dreamed of having.

Day Three, I want us to spend as a family, but The Boy starts snivelling and whining he wants time with The Girl, and finally I have enough and tell him just go. He's spoiling it for everyone. They vanish, I thought they were going to California Adventure, and I steer my group toward Disneyland, wondering why he has to be a dick.

Day four, we all are supposed to go the Alladin play. Live action Alladin. He and his girlfriend b* and whine and piss and moan until I tell them to go ahead and go do their thing, just be back by 10.

That night, they don't get home till nearly 2AM, and I ask where the f they have been. They tell me that they got lost, and they walked almost to the other side of Anahiem before they got directions. They're both in a rush to tell me this story, their words tumbling over together.

For some reason, I feel depressed, and just went into the bedroom and laid there and stared at the cieling.

It all went by me. The itchiness, the scratching. The constant nose blowing. The cycling b*y/hyper.

Oh god, please no.

The next morning, I notice that neither of them have bathed in the time we've been here, they're still wearing the same clothes, and their eyes are bright and glittery. I give him $20, he asks for more, and I lie. I tell him I got my wallet lifted. He stomps off with the girl in tow, and I send everyone off to Disneyland.

I toss the room. I'm good at it. I know all the places problem troops try to hide s, and a motel room is just like a fing barracks.

In her suitcase, I find a glass pipe and in both of their's I find bottles of Oxycotten. Fing hill billy heroin.

I smash the pipe in the parking lot, and put the Oxycotten in my camera bag. At least it wasn't meth. I thanked God for that.

Feeling lower than hell, wondering how the f I missed the signs, I walked to Disneyland and met up with my wife at the Space Cafe. I told her, and she shook her head. In the last few years, we'd seriously let the kids spread their wings. We NEVER read their diaries (I know, shocker) and at the most I'd give the keylogger a cursory examination. Hell, I wasn't even reading his.

We stayed for the fireworks, and went back to the hotel room. With all the kids on the bed, we watched TV till all the kids were asleep, and I said f it and sat in the chair and waited.

They came back about 4AM, laughing and giggling, and went into their room. I heard him say he was glad his "nosey ass half-sisters" weren't in the room. Then I waited. I heard s being thrown around, and finally the door opened.

He was standing there, his face flushed and sweaty.

"Have you been going through my stuff, old man?" So, not Dad any more, but Old Man.

"Is there a reason I should have?"

"That's our stuff, you have no right to..."

"You're doing @#%$ hillbilly herion out of pipe with your sisters in the same room?" I stood up, I was pissed. "You're a @#%$ tweaker and you're going to lecture me?"

"Don't take that from him! I want my stuff!" his girlfriend says, pushing him. "Get it from him." He took a step forward, reaching into his jacket pocket.

I followed hammered in instinct and dropped into the same position I'd been taught by bad assed motherfers who wanted me to kill the other guy for his country.

"Come and get it."

"Go get it from him. He's old, you can take him."

"Is it that time again, son?" I wanted to beat the drugs out his system, beat his addiction from him. I felt betrayed, angry, and coldly furious that he had smoked that @#%$ s with two of his sisters in the same @#%$ room.

"No. Not yet." He said, and shut the door. As I walked up and locked it from our side with the key, I could hear his girlfriend screeching at him.

He and his ugly girlfriend were silent as I loaded the van the next morning, when we dropped off his aunt, and I didn't say two words to him the entire trip back.

When we dropped his girlfriend off, I got out and told him:

"Make it last. You won't be seeing her again."

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To paraphrase the Godfather, 'Just when you think you're going up...it pulls you back down'

And the direction won't be changing...

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Part 5:

We got home, and I tossed his room seriously. Not inspection for cleanliness, roof leaks, cracked windows, and other Monday stuff, but honest to god tossing it. Two of the troops I had been handed one time in 1st Cav had been crackheads. I'd toss their room every day, and I'd learned where addicts hide s. I imagine he thought he was clever with his hiding places, but they were cliche's. The only clever one was taping about a dozen little pills in a tiny plastic envelope to the bottom of his TV.

He kept trying to grab it out of my hand, before I'd throw it in the toilet and flush it. We almost came to blows a few times. I wanted to call Bud, and just turn him over, but I didn't want to fail him like that.

I removed everything from his room but his bed, a cardboard box with his clothing in it, a writing tablet, and a pen. It was late July, I had a month to clean him up.

My wife and I sent our daughters to stay with my little brother, who was stationed at Fort Hood. When he heard what was going on, he paid for their tickets himself.

He whined. He begged. He pleaded. I ran him up and down the beach till he vomited and I'd drag him into the surf and hold his head. I slept in front of his bedroom door. I tried to talk with him, I damn near forced him to drink juice, Ensure, gatorade, to eat something.

I know jack and s about Oxycotten addiction, but when my older brother came back from Vietnam addicted to herion, this was how my father had picked him up and put him on his feet.

It took three weeks, until he stopped cussing me out. I told him he wasn't allowed anywhere near that skank. He wasn't to be trusted. I would be picking him up after school and driving him too school. I told him that I loved him.

He told me that she had gotten him hooked by putting it in his sodas, it wasn't his fault. She'd make him smoke it before sex.

He was lying. I knew he was. It was the exact same story his girlfriend had told her mother before they shipped her off somewhere.

My brother sent my little girls back, and reminded me that our older brother who dad dried out had OD'd two years later.

His sixteenth birthday came and went, I had already given him his stuff back, but he wasn't allowed to go anywhere on his own yet. For his birthday, I told him that he could start going to dances, and go places with friends.

---------------------------

His grades started out slow, but by spring quarter, he was back up to his usual C's. Make no mistake, I love my son still, but I no longer really trusted him. He spent most of the time in his room, watching TV with the headphones on. He was playing Yu-Gi-Oh (I'd sit with my daughters and him on the couch and watch the cartoon. I never could figure out why his friends never noticed he grew 2 feet and his balls would drop, but hey, s like that ain't my thing) with some guys, and I was still tending bar. I put it out that anyone who sold anything to my son would be found in the National Park by hikers sometime next spring. I'd done some of the Mexicans a favor or four, and they backed me. I'm not as pure as the driven snow, I know, but I wanted to protect him from himself.

During Spring Break one of the local dealers tells me that my son had try to buy some crank off of him. He assured me that he didn't sell it to him, but my son was looking. I thanked him, and thought dark thoughts the rest of my shift.

I went home, my wife saw my face and asked, and I explained.

"Billy said The Boy tried to score crank off him."

"Oh no."

I went into his room, and looked him, sleeping. I'd never known him as a baby. I never saw his first steps, and I didn't have any idea what his first word was. He was a bully who played the victim card anytime he got caught. He'd betrayed me again, and tried to bring meth into my house.

He'd stolen the M1911A1 pistol my father had given me when I completed Basic Training from the attic, where it was in a glass case. The case only held the picture of my father on the beaches of Normandy. My medals were gone. My wife's medals were gone. My father's medals were gone. Over a decade of military memerobilia was missing.

I literally had to restrain myself from smothering him with a pillow.

I sat down, and shook him gently. He grumbled and rolled over, and I shook him harder.

"Wake up, son."

He opened his eyes. Clear, blue, and guileless.

"What, dad?"

"If I toss your room, will I find my father's pistol, money, or drugs?"

He stammered denial, and when he sat up claiming I was paraniod, that I needed to see my shrink, I pushed him down and held him, and leaned forward and told him, softly, that he had stolen my past, and he had no clue what he had sold.

I got up, and tossed his room, and found, of all things, a ticket to Idaho and $80. He'd sold all of that, and only got enough to get a plane ticket and $80.

"What were you planning on doing? Running back to your mother? Back to torture your sisters, maybe break their arms again?"

"I hate you, you're nice to me, but when I get in trouble, you come across like some prison guard!"

"YOU'RE GOING TO END UP GETTING STICK-RAPED BY THE FING SCREWS IF YOU KEEP THIS S UP!" I shouted. One of my daughters cried out, and I heard my wife shushing her, telling her that The Boy was sick again. "You're going to end up in Walla Walla with a new husband! Jesus Christ, look at how many people have been ruined by this s!"

Then he said it, and I realized I'd been played for a sucker for three years.

"You don't know what it's like to power up."

"What?"

"My friends and I power up to our true forms with it. Your just scared of it because it lets some of us become more than human! I told you, I'm Alexander reborn, and no mere mortal is going to stop me from doing what I want. Not you, not that b* you're married to, not the cops!"

I honestly had to keep myself from strangling him then and there.

"You never loved me, and neither did that bloody handed whore! SHE loves me! SHE knows me for what I am!"

"Who is she?" I had a feeling I knew.

"The one you tried to keep me from."

"That's what I thought. Tell me who you sold my father's pistol to."

"Make me, mortal." I'd seen that look he had in his eyes before. We had a guy snap, just out of the blue, and stabbed his girlfriend his barracks room. She ran out screaming and crying and holding her stomach. He came out swinging the knife, laughing, crying, and gibbering. It took six of us to take him down and hold him for the MP's.

My son was a @#%$ nutjob.

"I love you." I said simply, and walked out. I fished the key to his door out of my desk and locked him in his room. Then I walked over to the phone and called someone I hadn't talked to in a year.

"Hullo?" She sounded sleepy.

"Who in your family went crazy?"

"Monkey? What's going on?"

"Who in your family is crazy?"

"My mother, why? She takes medication because she hears voices that claim to be angels. Why?"

"Your son is crazy."

"He's just special. I understand he can be a handful, but he's not crazy."

I hung up, laid down on my old friend the couch, and dozed off.

I dreamed of fire and failure.

When I woke up, I unlocked his room, and he was sitting on his bed staring at a VCR recording of that @#%$ Dragonball Z show. He didn't even move when I turned on the light, just giggled and scratched at this legs.

The mug of pennies that was normally on his dresser was spread out across the floor. F. I should have figured. I went through his room carefully, and found some perscription morphine that looked like little plastic tabs, some oxycotten, and some @#%$ meth.

He'd fing brought drugs into my house. Again. He was so @#%$ stoned he didn't even realize I was in the room. While he stared at the person he so desperately wanted to be, I moved his s out his room, once again we returned to a box of clothing, his bed, a tablet, and a pen.

He finally reacted when I unplugged the TV and picked it up.

"Don't make me kamahamheehee your ass, old man." he muttered. So, I was Old Man yet again.

"Sleep well." I told him, and locked the door. I told the school he was sick, and talked to Bud about it. He told me that most people give up, that in order to detox, the person had to want it.

It took four weeks to run all that s out of his system. Four weeks until he no longer freaked out, till he didn't drool at the sight of aspirin, till he stopped making all that noise in his sleep.

I stopped taking my own meds, so that I wouldn't sleep. I poured out all the alcohol in the house. I had to be on my toes. My wife and daughters spent some time at Fort Bragg visiting my sister. Twice he tried to stab me with a fork, and more than once when I opened the door to his room, he tried to fight his way past me to get away.

Finally, he was sober. He'd dropped 30 pounds, but he told me it was all a fog. That his friends had talked him into it. He'd given into peer pressure, school was so hard and he needed the edge meth gave him to get all his homework done. He missed his girlfriend in Idaho so badly, that meth made him feel better.

I wanted to believe him. I didn't want my son to be this way. I wanted the bottle. I wanted my wife. I wanted to hold my daughters.

00000000000

And from a drop...to terminal velocity freefall.

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Part 6:

My wife came home, his sisters wanted to know if he was still sick. His 12 year old sister looked at him like he was scum. She had idolized him, and he had fallen so far. I went back to work in the bar. I put out the word and found out who his dealer was. We went to National Park so he could tell me why he thought he was safe to sell my kid drugs. Before I left, he told me that he had already sold all the s my son had traded him for drugs.

It was all gone, and I'd never get it back.

His grades came up again, and he moved on to his Junior year in High School. Things were looking good again. I tossed his room on Friday and Monday, I watched his personal hygiene, and life went on as normal.

He turned 17, and privately I congradulated him on staying sober. I asked him if he was going to any support groups, but he told me that he was just making new friends.

He wanted to sign up for the Army, get his life straight. I took him to the recruiter, he passed the tests, and went to MEPS. He was told that he could be a combat engineer, and he thought it sounded exciting, and took it.

On the news that night, two soldiers were killed by IED's in Iraq. Combat Engineer == Bomb Hunter.

Still, he wanted it. I wasn't going to unmake the first rational decision he'd made in life. I wouldn't un-man him like that. I encouraged him, made sure he made it to all of his drills, complimented him on his skills and how well he was doing.

He came to me one afternoon, just before he had to leave for Basic Training, and sat down on the couch. He looked at me and told him that some of the kids at school wouldn't leave him alone, that they kept trying to sell him drugs. He had a rep as a druggie, and nobody would let him get past it.

My oldest daughter told me that because her brother was a druggie, the school constantly harassed her. My middle daughter told me the same thing. When I asked the schools about it, they said they always kept an eye on "drug homes" and children at risk.

My wife and I applied online to a few a places. The VA told me that if I wanted to go to college, they'd give me a living stipend. My wife got hired via phone interview, and I found there was a local college.

We packed up everything into a U-Haul, and left behind the little cabin. I had bought it as a place to rest, to heal, and to soothe wounds. It hadn't worked.

We got to the new city, and spent the night in a hotel room. I went out the next day and went house-shopping while my wife went to her orientation. We trusted The Boy with his sisters.

I found a house, it was lovely. It was within our range. The schools were nearby, and it didn't rain for two days straight. We got in contact with the local NG unit, and they said it was no problem for him to switch to their unit.

We moved in, he got his basic training date, and I hugged him when he went to Basic Training. I had faith he could do it.

I felt I could finally relax. I started going to mental health again, and went back on my meds. I attended summer classes and met some seriously cool people. I'd lived here 20 years before, and was surprised when I ran into some people I'd been in the military with, and who had gone to school with me.

When he called me from the airport in late August, I showed up and he was in his Class-A's with his graduation folder in his hand. My wife and I took him out to dinner, and when we came back, we showed him that we had not even gone through his stuff while he was gone.

He was in shape, he looked fit and healthy, and his eyes were clear. The Army had fixed his teeth. I told him that I recorded his cartoon shows, and he laughed and said he didn't need them. He told me he couldn't believe he got into so much s with drugs, and it was stupid. He didn't them, they were for "weak people." He wasn't going to give into peer pressure, he had his career.

I heard the words, but I didn't believe them. I don't know why not, just... something.

He went to school, and pulled straight C's. He asked me if he could a job, and my wife put in a good word for him with the HR Director and got him a job on the assembly line.

In November, he had me cosign on a truck and travel trailer. That way he didn't have to just stay in the barracks like everyone else. Then he asked if he could go see his mother for December and spend the holidays with her so she could see how much he changed.

I agreed. His mother agreed. His stepdad agreed. I was relieved. He'd gotten in the Army, he told me that they pissed him every week because he admitted that he'd done drugs to the recruiter, but had been clean and never convicted. He wasn't crazy, it was the drugs.

I hadn't failed him by not being there.

He left about noon. I came in from the front yard after waving at him as he drove off, and my oldest daughter was sitting there.

"You love my brother, right?"

"Yes, honey, I do."

"Do you love me?"

"Of course!"

"Do you trust me?" Something about her tone and her face warned me right before I answered.

"Of course, you make good choices."

"He snorted something off the bathroom counter. Come look."

F! Sure as s, there was some type of granular s on my counter. I ran bleach in a rag, scrubbed it down, and threw the damn rag in the garbage along with the rubber gloves I was wearing. I wished I had some DS2.

I called his mother. She laughed and told me that she had recommended a "snortable migraine medicine" since he told her she was having headaches.

I could hear his voice in my head already: "Mommy made me do it."

"You're a stupid fing bh." I snarled, and slammed down the phone.

I went through his room like the Homeland Defense Agency crawling up a Muslim's ass looking for explosives in the airport terminal. I was fing pissed. I knew he'd gotten sneakier, it's a side effect of having your s found. You learn where the person doesn't look.

Nothing. Maybe I was being paraniod. Classes were a b*. I was still dreaming about that @#%$ car wreck on I-5 and Matt crying when the woman died in his arms. I was boozing again. I was having flashbacks.

Maybe it was just me.

The matress to the futon. It had a zipper. I unzipped it, and reached around.

Porn. The first one I grabbed was some midget and some guy. Wait. Aw you have to be fing kidding me! More of this @#%$ incest s!

Then I found them. Spiral notebooks. I'd never read any of my children's diaries. I monitored where they went on the internet, but I never read their PM's. I taught my daughters net safety, and they made good choices.

I opened the book, and started to read. The more I read, the more my heart sank. He talked about how I had tried to destroy the Say-anne in him (Or however the f it's spelled) but it would only make him stronger. How a mere mortal like myself could never overcome the will of Alexander Reborn.

Detailed stories about raping his sisters. About raping "that bloody handed whore my father married". About making me beg for mercy before he killed me. About how his girl-friend had transferred her soul into the other girl so they could be together. About how she was the great Egyptian Sorceress Cleopatra (SHE WAS A @#%$ PERSIAN QUEEN!) and their souls were bonded through time. About how he wanted to wait till the next reunion and kill all of his aunts and uncles.

He was crazy. At least mine was from brain and mental tramua. He was just crazy.

How the soul of Gokoo would tell him that he was to be Earth's first SuperSay-anne, and on and on and on.

I felt like I needed a shower after reading it. Defaced pictures of his sisters. I looked at the computer he had bought when he came back from Basic Training, and wondered what secrets it held.

Using "IMALEXANDER" as your password isn't too @#%$ clever.

Lolita porn. At least by title. I've seen enough horrible stuff, and my soul is blackened by my own sins, I couldn't bring myself to look at it. Barely legal teen folders, incest titled avi's.

I had it. That was fing it.

I knew, as if I'd been allowed a glimpse of the future, what would happen if I let him stay with me.

One of us would be carried out in a body bag, and I'd be fighting to save my family from a sick and twisted mind.

I boxed up his s, called his mother and warned her, went to the UPS shop, and shipped all 5 boxes to his mother's house.

I went home, I told my wife all of it. I told her I couldn't do it any more.

He called me yelling because I told his mother he was a pervert, and now he was kicked out of her house.

I told him that I'd read his notebooks.

He hung up.

But the story doesn't end here. My first hand account does, but the story takes a turn into What. The. Fland.

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Right into the ground.

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Part 7:

I'd kept the notebooks. SFC Hammer-head had been one of my squad members back when he was a PV2, and was now an E-7 and The Boy's platoon sergeant. I called him and asked him if he had time to meet for drinks. He told me not really. I told him that "You really need to meet for drinks. Think Carson in the hallway."

He agreed to meet me in a little hole in the wall tavern by the raceway.

I was sitting there, nursing a Pepsi Lime when he came in.

"Damn, Monkey, you look like s. What's wrong?"

I shoved the folders across the table to him.

"The Boy."

He sat there reading and his face got grimmer and grimmer. He asked if I minded if he took them with him, his CO needed to see them ASAP. I told him to go ahead. I was washing my hands of all of it. I told him about the pills, and the meth, and told him that the recruiter had known about it.

He called me two days later to tell me he had put on his applications that he had not done drugs, that there was no history of mental illness in his family. Did I know how to get ahold of him, he had missed drill. I told Hammer-head that The Boy had told me he had set up vacation with his unit. Another lie.

I called his mother, she told me that The Boy had claimed I was just trying to sabotage him, and had told her all about me whipping him with a belt for not doing his chores or not cleaning his plate, and all kinds of other s I hadn't done.

I told her she'd find out soon, and hung up.

Three weeks later Hammer-head calls me to let me know that The Boy is officially AWOL. I gave them his mother's address and we promised we'd get together and talk about old times in Germany.

Later that week, The Boy's mother calls me livid. The some Army guy had shown up, asking about him, and said he was AWOL, and that was a lie. He'd signed in at a NG unit in Idaho and gone to drill last week. I tell her that he's lying to her, and she tells me I've always hated her and The Boy and this was all my fault.

Hammer-head calls me, and tells me they caught him. He showed up for drill all stoned and started fighting with people. They'd sent him to a hospital for evaluation.

Two months later, I get a phone call. The Army had put him on medication, he was sorry he had lied to me and about me. He was doing better. He told me that the MP's had hurt his neck and he was going to get a medical discharge for it.

I asked him if he'd gotten a GED yet or graduated. He suddenly started screaming that I couldn't run his life or tell him what to do, did I know who I was talking to?

I hung up.

I call Hammer-head a few weeks later and ask him to look into things for me. The psych had said that in all his sessions with The Boy, no mention of hearing voices or believing he was someone else had ever come up.

He'd fing lied again.

Hammer-head told me about 2 weeks later that the medical board had found him at fault, and the military would not compensate him for injuries incurred being under the influence of methamphetimines.

About a month later, my ex-wife calls me all pissed off. I hadn't sent him a marriage present. I found out he'd married Cleopatra or whatever her name was. I told her that they could forget it.

She told me that her "spirit guide the goddess had sent her" had told me I would act like this, and that I needed to understand that some people were special.

I told her to seek professional help, and hung up.

About two months ago, he calls me. He's in jail, and wants me to bail him out.

Oh, and bail out his wife too.

And lend him money to get a lawyer so they can get their kid back.

According to him, he'd turned around from the fridge as she turned to ask him a question, and she accidently stabbed him, and the noise the nieghbors heard was her screaming from all the blood.

She'd stabbed him in the leg. The cops took the baby and cited "unsafe living conditions."

I told him that this time, he'd have to deal with it himself.

And hung up.

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And beyond into the abyss...with no end in sight.

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Part 8:

So, this morning I get a phone call from the people renting my little cottage.

Some guy had shown up, and said it was his house, and they needed to get out. His wife had called the cops, and apparently when they described the guy to Bud, he told them to call me, that my son was running around.

He'd made bail, his wife made bail, and they grabbed the kid and ran.

I hang up the phone, wondering what the f to do, when the phone rings again.

"Monkey residence, Monkey speaking."

"Daaaaaaady..."

"Boy?"

"Daddddddddy...."

"What do you want?"

"You screwed me over. You ended my military career, and you tried to stop my destiny. You think you're such hot s. Mr. Soldier Boy. Mr. War Hero. Mr. Drill Sergeant!"

"What now? How fing high are you?" This guy isn't my son. Whoever he is, he's wearing my son's skin, but it isn't my son.

"I'm powered up, and I know a se