5 Yrs old: My Mum and Dad
I remember being a football match for the Cleveland Browns. The memory is not of the games though, but of looking across at my parents. My Dad is sitting next to me. He is clean shaven, and his hair is neat as it pokes out from underneath a Cleveland Browns cap that he wears backwards. I see him fiercely munching on popcorn, and spitting it back out again when he shouts at the game being played. He frowns a lot as well. He’d occasionally shoot a smile across at me and say, “Concentrate on the game, son.” My mother is sat the other side of him. I can only catch glimpses of her in between my Dad rocking back and forth as he moves with the football game. She is softly staring ahead of her, towards the pitch. She doesn’t smile, or frown. She also never looks across at me. It’s obvious that she doesn’t belong there.
6 Yrs old: The day I found out Mum had gone
My Nan picked me up from school that day. That’s where my memory starts. She was standing talking to my teacher, who was frowning at what she was saying. I shouted to get Nan’s attention. Her worried face turned towards me and changed to a beaming smile. We walked hand in hand to the car. I didn’t ask why Dad hadn’t come to pick me up. I sat in the back of the car, rather than the front, as I would with Dad, and that annoyed me. I could tell Nan was thinking a lot, but I didn’t think ask her what it was about. I was more interested in the dark clouds infringing on the beautiful blue sky. We pulled into the drive, and the house was dark, but I could see that Dad was looking out of the living room window. His eyes were swollen; a little like a teddy bear I used to have once. The next image I have is me standing in the living room doorway, with my Dad silhouetted at the window looking out onto the front yard. His back slumped as I had never seen it before. I felt grey. Everything was grey. Grandma just kept smiling. All I can remember then is Dad holding me. His heart beat was slower than normal, and he was colder. It felt like he was trying to get heat from me.
9 Yrs old: When we left our home
I was in my room, building a huge Lego machine. I’m not sure what the machine was, but it was huge. I knew my Dad had gone out earlier, but I didn’t know where. He didn’t say. He often went out, leaving the door unlocked and the TV on, but he always came home. I also knew that he had lost his job recently; I had only eaten noodles for the last week. The front door opened, and I could hear more than one voice, shouting and arguing. I stopped building as I heard him coming towards my room. I was a little scared, actually. The other voice I recognized as Grandma. Dad was saying, “We don’t need your help!” and Grandma was saying, “Please! Just let me give you something!” He burst in. I’m not sure if I was crying at this point or when I was being dragged down the hallway to the front door with a small bag of clothes. Grandma was still doing something between begging and shouting. He put me in the car. I was definitely screaming by this point. We drove away, leaving Grandma behind. I never saw her again. I never went back to that house again, and I never saw Dad cry again. That was out first day as drifters.
16 Yrs old: Detroit
We were in the upstairs private section of a bar in downtown Detroit called Charlie’s. Dad had befriended the owner of the car after several well received jam sessions with a local band. After much persuasion, Dad convinced the owner, Roger, to let me into the private area and take part in a poker game. Dad had been teaching me the basics and thought it was time to play a proper game. “If you can’t learn to gamble, then how will you know what you’ve got to lose?” he always says. I liked being among older people. It gave me a pride in being so mature and grown up. I was also allowed to drink that night; one of my first ‘proper’ nights of drinking. As the booze flowed and the money changed hands, I felt a joy and acceptance I hadn’t felt for a long time. I felt a strong friendship towards my father, and that I could do anything he would support me. I felt part of a team, a troupe, a family, if only for one night. Everything I said seemed to make people laugh as well; I was on form.
