Searching

By Blackonyx

“So yesterday I was at this party, and all of the sudden this girl starts rubbing against me. She was hott so I let her grind on my dick for a while but damn, her skirt barely covered her fat ass. I could tell she was going to be an easy hook up.”
“Mark, you always let fat bitches rub against you because that’s all you ever get. And I really don’t want to hear about you getting laid, it’s nasty.”
“Whatever man, at least someone is on me. All you got is that lame ass wife who decided to stop sleeping with you the minute you married her.”
“I know. Man, how fucked was I to get married at 20.”
“I told you that you were making a mistake…”
“Fuck you.”

I can hear my brother, Mark and his friend Luke, through the thin wall that separates my room from his. I wonder when his life started to suck so much and I worry that I am following in his footsteps. I do not want to be him in five years. I’m in my last year of college and the world has suddenly started to loom over me, taunting me with my ignorance and laughing at my lack of understanding. Aren’t you supposed to have more confidence after four years of constantly taking in information? I used to think so…but now I’m not so sure.

My friend Lisa told me that it’s ok to be scared of the future. But in my family, it’s not ok to be afraid of anything. My dad told me the day my balls started to drop that being a man should be one of the most important things in my life. I’m not allowed to back down. I always have to fight for what I want. Women can’t be trusted. And if he ever sawing me crying he would beat the shit out of me again and again until pain would become the backdrop to my already pitiful life. I guess it’s nice to know he cares about the impression I make on people…or how my behavior reflects on him, probably the latter.

In high school I ran track. I remember the feeling of the wind against my face and the sound of my feet pounding against the ground and how great it felt to know that I could do something well. I loved flying past my opponents and knew they would never catch up. The burn in my legs propelled me forward and everything else just faded. Running probably saved my life during one of the most awkward transitions a teenage boy goes through. My friends were all doing their work and getting good grades. They were interested in politics and science and they couldn’t wait to explore the world. But I just wanted to keep on flying. I didn’t care about terrorism or engineering or seeing what else was out there. I was content, as long as I could run.

Junior year, my dad decided that running was for pussys and he told me to join the football team. I wasn’t too scrawny and the fact that I could run fast would be an asset for the team. I didn’t really have a choice so I tried out and became the quarterback. During the third quarter of the last game of my high school career one of the players from the other team hit my leg wrong in a tackle. My leg pretty much shattered from the impact and the fall. The way my life goes, of course that would happen.

My dad hasn’t spoken to me since my leg healed. He helped take care of me when I couldn’t take care of myself but he was ashamed that I had become a weakling who would never be able to use his leg to the same extent as before.

I still can’t run for very long. And the idea of getting even close to my previous speed is a total joke. My doctor was a piece of shit and screwed up when he operated and reset everything. Now I’m practically one of those crippled kids you see limping across the road slower than old people fuck.

My brother was great during my recovery though. He never went to college. After graduation he got a job at the paper mill in town and they paid him so well, he just decided to stick with it. He is still there, it’s been ten years and he’s still there. I don’t understand that. He’s so intelligent. In high school his English teacher told him he could really make it as a writer if he wanted. I don’t know how much you can trust that kind of thing, but the fact that she said that has to mean something. Instead Mark has dedicated his life so far to working and fucking. Girls in this town are putrid though. He’s run through them all.None of them have stuck. His friend Luke married his high school sweetheart. Pretty fucking stupid if you ask me. They’ve been together for four years and they have a two-year-old daughter. She’s adorable but Luke barely gets any time with her because his wife, Rachel, is a controlling bitch.

There’s not really that much to say about my old man. He’s a mechanic. He comes home everyday smelling like grease. He doesn’t talk much. He fought in Vietnam and definitely has that PTSD shit. My mom left right after I was born. I don’t really blame her. Mark told me that dad used to throw beer bottles at her head and beat her with his belt buckle. Sometimes he would think she was Vietnamese even though she was Latino. When that would happen he would take out his handgun and threaten to shoot her. Pretty messed up shit. Luckily Mark and I both have dicks so dad didn’t beat us too badly unless we really pissed him off. Nowadays when I come to visit he just ignores me.

My life is spiraling into nothing and I don’t know how to stop it. Mark, Luke, my dad, they don’t really matter but analyzing them instead of myself is comforting at times. I just want to be ok again. I haven’t felt free or happy or loved since I stopped running. There is a huge hole in my life, and I am just searching for the something or someone that can fill it.