My Life as a White Trash Zombie

Chapter 19

Dad called the next morning. I was expecting it, but that didn’t make it any easier.

“Angel, it’s your dad,” he said after I answered. Not “Dad” but “your dad.” In case I wasn’t sure, y’know? “Baby, I’m real sorry about what happened.”

I sat on the couch and pinched the bridge of my nose with my fingers. “I know. You were drunk.”

“I was wrong, honey. I . . . I dunno why I get so worked up.”

Because you feel like a failure, I thought. I’m a fuckup, which means you failed as a dad. But I wasn’t a fuckup anymore. Or at least not as much of one. He couldn’t see that. Or maybe he didn’t want to see it. Then he’d be the only loser in the house.

“Can you come bail me out, please? I been here a day and a half now. They keep it so goddamned cold in here, and I’m hurting bad.”

Shit shit shit. I squeezed my eyes shut. “I’m sorry, Dad. Maybe if you tell them you’re in pain they can take you to the clinic?”

“Why can’t you come bail me out?” He sounded tired. Old. I felt older. Yeah, he’d been a complete piece of shit, but he wasn’t always like that. Not always. Sometimes he came through for me—like the day he took me to the ER with broken ribs and arm when I was twelve. I could still remember the dull pain in his voice as he told the police to go and arrest his wife, because he knew that if they didn’t she’d end up killing me. She’d been mentally ill—I could see that now. But all I’d known then was that Dad was saving me and at the same time betraying my mother. I’d loved him and hated him.

Still did.

The knot in my throat made it tough to talk. “I can’t,” I said, my voice little more than a hoarse whisper. “Dad. I . . . don’t think they’ll let me bail you out,” I lied. “And I don’t have any money left, remember?”

He was silent for so long I thought maybe he’d hung up. It was only the noise of people talking in the background that told me he was still on the line. “Okay, baby,” he finally said. “I understand.”

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I choked out.

Then the background noise cut off, and I knew he’d hung up.

I sat there with my head in my hands for several minutes, then called the jail up and asked to have my number blocked from the inmate phone system. He’d get out eventually, but I wasn’t going to help. And I couldn’t take any more calls like this.

Go me, I thought dully. I’m not that victim.