There’s still something wrapped around my lungs this morning. A tight netting and I can’t see the boat or the line or understand why it’s caught me in the first place. I’m not sure what I need to do to untangle it all – scream, sprint 8 miles, eat less butter, drink less coffee, write. I take a sip of coffee as I write this – how can you say no to Blue Beard’s Old Man Winter blend from Tacoma, Wash. Nope. You can’t. And I’m not sprinting 8 miles. So I’ll scream, write and try to eat less butter. But what if I slather the butter onto the broken parts of myself? Maybe I should eat MORE butter…?
I got a strange Facebook message from a teenage boy in Porterville, Calif. He sent it at 1:04am my time and wrote: im related to u please write back. It’s plausible almost probable – my dad grew up in Porterville and he shares the last last part of my name, the name my dad had before he married my mom. But what the hell does this kid want with me? And then I started to imagine he was secretly my half-brother or something and I dug around his wall and yup, he seems like he would be on my dad’s side of the family – he says fuck a lot for no reason and he apparently just got out of jail?? His friend wrote this: DUDE!!!!! Waz up bro!!!!! How you doing on the out side fucker? Don’t be robbing any houses all fucked up ya hear? Good to know your on the outs bro! Stat the hell out of that fucking hell hole dude! I got mad love for your short shit ass! Always remember that man!
What does “I got mad love for your short shit ass” mean?
Sounds like a sweet kid, eh?
He is super skinny and in his profile picture he has his shirt off – his little boy body looks exactly like mine! Just kidding. Actually he looks nothing like me or my brother, so I guess the secret half-brother thing is out. I’m guessing some random cousin 5-million times removed, but what the hell does he want? More Facebook family? Money? Friends? Mentors? Clearly this kid wants something and my mind starts to wander again into this strange story about him just getting out of jail with no parents, trying to find some family on Facebook and out of all the people he finds me because he knows I’m the curious one, the one who loves stories like this and he knows I would write him back and say “Who are your parents?” and that’s where things begin – even if he is a little fucker – by putting your hand out.
In the end it will be nothing like I imagine it to be. No long lost family drama, even though I’ve always believed there was some deep dark secret tangled up in our history. I think I know most of them… until the random kid from Porterville pops up and changes everything you know… =)
I’ll keep this one in my story bank.
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