Clouds Over Paradise

My real daddy's name is Jerry. He's been in jail since before I was born. Mama's got a picture of him. His hair's long and brown and blonde like mine, kind of pulled behind his ears, and he's got a little mustache drooping over his lip. His eyes are kind of sleepy and baggy looking. I don't know why he's in jail. Mama says he just went bad one day.

Sometimes he writes me a letter, but he makes me mad cause he always spells my name wrong - Micheal instead of Michael. You'd think he could get that right.

My stepdaddy's name is Ron and I call him Daddy cause he's been around since I was two. He's a long haul driver for Yellow Freight Lines and he don't get home much, but when he comes home he brings me presents like match box cars and long peppermint sticks. He bought me a Super Nintendo from a friend of his but I only have two games and they both suck, they're for babies. When Ron's home him and Mama buy Budweiser and rent movies they won't let me watch.

We live in the Paradise trailer park on Leeman Road by the junkyard. I can't get in the junkyard cause there's a high metal fence all around it, but there's a hole in the fence at the back of our park and I can sneak into the Meadows trailer park right behind us where they got some woods to play in. Mama tells me to stay out of the Meadows cause there's gangs in there, but I ain't never seen nobody get beat up and they don't bother me none.

Most of the trailers in our park are kind of ugly - the paint's peeling off and the skirting's falling down so you can see the axles underneath. Mama planted flowers where the hitch goes in the front of ours, but they look kind of sad. Our porch is rickety, and you have to be careful not to pull too hard on the handrail when you're going up the stairs or it’ll come loose. Mama says we have roaches in the kitchen cause the neighbors are so trashy.

Sometimes when Daddy's not home Jason the maintenance man comes to see Mama and he stays late. I don't like him cause he chased me out of the pool one day, and when he comes Mama cooks steaks but I don't get any. Mama says don't tell Daddy cause Jason's her secret friend and I can't tell secrets.

Aunt Tisha, that's Mama's sister, come over one day and her and Mama were talking in the kitchen and Mama said Jason was better than Ron and started laughing, then Aunt Tisha saw me in the living room and jerked her head at me and Mama yelled at me to get outside and stop being nosy.

Christy the girl who lives by the office come up to me one day and said "I know what your Mama's doing with the maintenance man!" I knocked her down and she started crying. Christy's mama come to the trailer and started hollering and told Mama she was going to sue and didn't everybody know she was screwing the maintenance man anyway?

My Mama told Christy's mama to get out or she'd kick her ass and just then Daddy came walking in saying "What the hell's going on in here?"

Christy's mama said "You're married to a whore that's sleeping with half the trailer park, that's what, and that no good boy knocked down my baby girl, and I'm gonna sue!"

Daddy stood there still for a minute, not saying a word. and I saw Mama go all white. "Get out, bitch," he said to Christy's mama, and what she saw on his face made her head for the door fast.

"Ron, it ain't what you think," Mama whined.

"Get out, boy," Daddy said real quiet.

"I ain't," I said, and went to stand beside Mama. "That Christy's a liar, and so's her mama."

"This is between your Mama and me, boy. Go on now."

Mama looked down at me and nodded. "Go on, baby. It'll be all right." She bent down to hug me and her tears were wet on my neck. "I'm sorry baby, I'm real sorry."

"It's not true, is it? Mama? Tell me it ain't true." I turned to Daddy, the only Daddy I knew, and I was afraid of the dark I seen in his eyes. "It's not true, Daddy. I don't even like that man!" I looked Mama one more time and said "Mama? Mama?"

But she just stood there, the tears running down her face.

And I went out on the front porch and I ducked under the fence into the woods in the Meadows and I started running, cause I didn't want to know and I didn't want to hear the sound of Daddy's fist slamming into Mama' s face, and I knew for the first time what could make a man go bad, and I wished my real daddy wasn't in jail so I could ask him if this is how it all started. And somehow it didn't matter he couldn't spell my name.