This guy is on Fire

To scorch, or to be scorched?

Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash

It's a fall day in the late 90s. My momma is making something affordable for dinner, and I'm on the couch. My chosen seat is twenty-years-old, brown, floral, sticky from years of smoke, but still more comfortable than any of the stiff couches at my friend's homes.

I read Flowers in the Attic, and the cool breeze floats calmly through the screen door. Leaves are rustling, and the sky is gray and cloudy. These are my favorite days.

But that’s the thing about peace. It never lasts long.

The back door is in the small kitchen, a few feet from where I am in the living room. It opens with a bang and a howl.

"MOTHER FUCK!!"

It's my dad. I hear a commotion and see my brother walk through the door with his football practice gear, laughing.

My mom speaks. "Roger, what's wrong?"

"Ask your GOD damned son."

This is typical. Their goddamned son is always doing some ridiculous shit, and I’m getting to the age where it’s honestly not that funny anymore.

I tune them out and go back to my book because I'm at a great fuckin part. Let them have their drama, I'm trying to live in my fucked up fictional world.

In the background, there's banging, and kitchen utensils and keys are being tossed. A lot of talking that I ignore.

Until.

"Ginny!!" My mom again.

I huff, sit up, and put my book on the couch.

Without answering, I walk the five steps into the kitchen.

My dad sits on one of the four chairs on the small round table. My mom's arms flail about as she says, quite frantically, "Your brother has set your dad's hair on fire again!"

I stare at my parents, my hands on my toned waist, visible under my blue crop top. "Dude. What?"

There is more frantic waving of the arms. "Douglas set your dad's hair on fire on the ride home from football practice!!"

My dad chimes in. "This is the third fuckin time, Janice! That boy is outta control."

I hear my brother howling in his bedroom.

I stifle a laugh and look at my mom. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Help me fix it! It's charred over here, and I've got to even up the sides now."

I eye my dad, and man, is he pissed. His hair is sticking out on one side, shorter and with broken, fried ends. I still don't understand how this is my problem, and I make that clear.

"Doug set Dad's hair on fire because he's crazy, and I have to help you fix it?"

And on second thought I offer, "With a lighter? That shit wouldn't happen if you guys would quit smoking."

My mom is absolutely befuddled that I'm not running to help her with this disaster.

"Ginny, please," she begs, with a tear in her eye, and I mentally give her a score of ten on drama acting.

Fuck me. I get the kitchen scissors, and I start chopping away at the side pieces like I have any fuckin idea what I'm doing.

My dad is sitting silently, pissed as hell, picking at his eyebrows, which is something he does when he's mad and doesn't want to yell.

I cut and chop his hair until it looks ok. Ish. I'm fuckin seventeen years old. I cut my bangs once, a year ago. It looked a lot like Lydia from Beetlejuice, and that is the extent of my haircutting skills. Not great.

But I’ve done my best, and we all sit down to eat homemade hamburger patties with big splotches of ketchup and Wonder Bread and French fries. My sandwich is just cheese and bread because I cannot eat a ball-shaped homemade hamburger that weighs six pounds.

We're all eating silently because my dad is still ticked, but then my brother looks up at him to test his level of anger.

And my brother just stares.

And stares. His eyes are wider than I've ever seen.

And this mother fucker, I swear to you, he can push it so damn far. He busts out laughing so hard that he's almost choking. I look at him, thinking he's for sure trying to get himself killed today.

My mom looks at him, shocked, and my dad glares.

"Boy, what in the hell is so damn funny? I think you've had enough laughs for the day."

Douglas composes himself, sort of.

"Dad. Where. Are. Your. Eyebrows?"

My mother and I turn our heads in slow motion to see what he's talking about.

I’m horrified.

My dad's eyebrows are gone.

Absolutely bald.

Just green eyes, hanging on his face with little faint white patches of skin above them.

He was so mad about his singed hair that he picked every hair of his eyebrows out while I cut his hair.

My dad jumps up and runs the seven short feet to the bathroom to look in the mirror and screams, "JESUS FUCKIN HELL!"

We lose it.

My mom ruins yet another cheap chair cushion because she pisses all over it, and Douglas and I end up on the floor, screaming, laughing.

And all I can think, all I ever think, is my childhood is fuckin whack, and someday I'm gonna write a story about this shit.