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"SSC24 - Brand New"

It was a hard time for me, the end of Year 10. My mum and dad were always fighting, sending me up to my room away from the madness. What they didn’t realise was when they scream at the top of their voices at each other pretty much anyone within a two mile radius can hear them. I remember my dad telling me one day “it was on the ropes”. Well what the hell does that mean, dad? Can’t you tell your own son that his parents’ marriage is deteriorating? That you look at her with a look of utter detest every morning, one that’s most likely mutual? Don’t you think your son has probably got an inkling due to the glum faces, cold stares, and loud shouting preventing sleep?

My dad was, day by day, distancing himself more from my mother and me. We still talked, albeit briefly, but my mother barely showed a single emotion at this time. I’d ask her if she was planning to make dinner, “dunno”; I’d ask if she wanted me to make dinner, “dunno”. Conversation hardly extended beyond dinner, really. She had abandoned herself. My dad actually seemed quite happy. Well, I find it hard to say he was happy, but somehow he seemed…comfortable. Strange considering he was sleeping on a two-seater sofa. Then came the morning where I realised how much he’d distanced himself from us, his family, how independent he had become.

The door slammed shut downstairs, waking me, and knowing it was him I rushed to my window that looked out upon the street. Light blurred my eyes for a second, but I looked down to see the man I thought I would; yet not in the way I had expected. He was so unfamiliar, despite the fact that I’d known him my whole life. Gone was his normal walk, replaced by a strut, and a leather jacket dangling off him. Yes, a bloody leather jacket. I’d never seen him with even a shade of the style (I guess you’d call it that) that he was flaunting. Who else’s dad wears a leather jacket? Mine does, apparently.

Suddenly it became a little clearer, as he turned around across the road, and I saw the face that confirmed it was my dad. It might has well have been someone else. He looked so different, dressed to impress. Not for a job interview, to impress some bloody sl*t willing to give his love pole a tug with minimum effort going the other way. He was wearing these stylish jeans, the type you’d see the typical trendy kid at school wear. And after he always used to tell me only to wear shorts in summer. Well guess what, dad? It’s the middle of f**king June.

He was wearing jewellery, he hadn’t worn his wedding ring for a few months but suddenly there were chains on one wrist and a watch on the other. Dye had plagued his hair, no grey showing through. He’d gone from the natural bloke that used to just wear whatever was practical to some manufactured ponce. It was like watching a clothes catalogue with legs walk down the street, for me, where had he got all these brands, threads and “bling”? I can’t believe I’d ever associate the word “bling” with my dad. It was like he was a young, single go-getter all over again.

And then…just then, it occurred to me. He was young, well not really young, but young enough to know a good time. He was single, and nobody wants to be alone. For a moment I wasn’t sure what to think. I couldn’t see either one of my parents being the overriding factor in the split of paths; they both told me that neither were having affairs and it was just “stress”. This surely meant that I couldn’t be mad at my dad, though, an anger which felt justified. He was fake, for f**ks sake. I can’t believe he was fake in the fifteen years of my life that I knew him. Either way, from that moment I never looked up to him, or my mother, ever again. That sounds dramatic, but the way they both exited their relationship showed how weak they were as people.

Seeing that my dad wasn’t what he used to be hurt, though, it hurt me a lot more than seeing my mum being depressed. That’s not the person she was, but she at least seemed hurt by the experience, and I knew she’d return to her normal self. With my dad I was convinced he never would. He wasn’t the man that took me to football on Saturdays anymore. He wasn’t the man that taught me how to do algebra late on Thursday evening, just in time for the next day at school. He wasn’t the man that helped me to ride a bike, to build a go-kart, to do my paper round when I was ill. Now he was just hollow. With the dye in his hair touching up his pride, a strut in his step instilled with confidence, and a jacket concealing his past, his soul, and his heart.

You’ve got the style, dad, but you haven’t got me under your f**king hand anymore.

Nice. I may vote for it.