Publication #6

Isaiah Shafik

Mrs.Christian

English Pre-Ap

2 March 2018

Another Christmas Story.

I believe family is not forever. Last Christmas was proof of that. We were heading over to my hometown for the break to go see my grandma.

Every Christmas, my uncle comes down from L.A to do stuff with us but since we moved up to McKinney we haven't really been able to see him or my grandma. Just to shed some light real quick; my mom and my uncle Steven hate each other, I don’t mind him but he’s kind of conceited.

He just broke up with his girlfriend of two years so I guess he was still feeling the effects of that. They broke up because he wanted kids and she didn’t...deal breaker. Anyways, Steven came down for two weeks to just chill at the house for Christmas time.

When we got to the house everything was perfectly fine. My grandma was cooking and my uncle was chilling on the couch. Throughout the days though it progressively got worse.

Day 2 of 5

“Jumanji”

When I woke up in the morning I got some breakfast and started watching some classic holiday movies. I felt great. I mean this was the happiest I've felt in awhile. After everyone else woke up we opened up so presents and then went to my grandpa’s house and just chilled there for a bit. Later that day we went to go see the new Jumanji movie and that was about it. Little did I know was that tomorrow was going to be hell.

Day 3 of 5

“Bingo”

It was a rainy, nasty day. Now I can’t exactly remember what happened but I will try my best to tell you. My grandpa gave my mom 10,000 dollars for Christmas cause we were struggling with money, which is amazing because its 10,000 dollars and he gave away 30,000 more to his family.

Today we were going to go take family photos at this Korean market. A very poor Korean market which smelled like fish and despair. While taking the photos the entire family decided to get this really hood BBQ once we finished. It tasted like food poisoning. We went to go get my presents from the house and stopped by Walmart to get a SD card for my camera. While over there my uncle pulled me over to the side and asked “Why is your mom so pissed all the time?”

I told him “That's just how she is…” and we proceeded on. Yesterday at the movie my uncle saw that my mom brought a flask to the movie theater. That’s where this story goes bad. We decided to go to bingo night so we could try and win so money. Everyone got in the car and drove off. While on the way there everything went wrong.

My uncle and my grandma was arguing about my mom being drunk and driving and not wanting to remotely be there for family time. It got so bad that I started yelling at everyone and cussing them out because they were all acting like children. “Why the fuck can no one get along in this damn family?!” Everyone got silent. I started crying and just asked “Why is there so much hate in this family?” Nobody answered. “I have nobody else in my family to look up to, I’m already disowned by my arabic side.”

My mom just turned the car around and went back to the house. When we got back my uncle immediately got out the car and just started walking into the distance. We went back inside and started packing up all of our things. My grandma was crying and asking me to stay but I decided to stay with my mom cause she’s the only person that I trust. Now if you thought that this was a terrible thing just wait…

Day 3.5 of 5

“Reagan and her crackhead boyfriend”

My mom wanted to see some of her friends before we left to go back up to McKinney. One of those friends was her ex coworker Reagan. My mom used to work for some asshole named Tracy in a insurance place that tricked army people to sign up for different prizes. Most of the people that worked there were strippers from a club pretty close to there. The only person who wasn’t a stripper was Reagan, a 20 something year old that really doesn't know anything about real life...she’s a little special.

After we left my grandma’s house we decided to stay at her house. Another terrible choice. Once we got there Reagan talked and talked and talked about how excited she was to see us as she introduced us to her three cats. Before we got to her house my mom explained that Reagan’s newborn baby just died from choking on its own mucus and she said that she just spent all day in bed sleeping.

I knew that she was probably going slowly insane so I didn’t really talk to her. We got settled into the guest room. She just moved into a somewhat new duplex where she didn’t even have to pay rent because the leasing office was paying it for her for a whole year! I would think she would spend her time wisely by trying to find a job but what do I know, I’m only a teenager. Reagan told me I could watch one of her many bootleg movies and I decided on a movie called CHIPS.

While I was watching this abysmal rendition of a comedy cop movie my mom and Reagan went to Walmart to get some supplies and left me home alone. I was just chilling on my phone when all of a sudden this guy breaks down the fucking door! I acted calm about it and said “Hey”. He asked me “Who are you?”which is the dumbest thing he could have said because he’s the one who broke down the door but I told him that I’m Elaine's son and he started asking me random ass questions.

“How much do you lift? What’s your name? How old are you? Where do you come from?” He told me to text Reagan and say that he was there. I texted her and said that this random guy just broke into the house. She called back saying that he’s a friend but I already knew they were dating. While I was on the phone he asked for it and I gave it to him. They just talked about random stuff. It took a couple minutes for him to be done but after he gave my phone back to me and went back to his car and just waited there. One thing you should know about him is that he does cocaine.

So while in his car he proceeded to snort a line of coke. When my mom came back I helped unpack the car and I took her to the guest room and told her everything that happened and she told me to just stay in the room and go to bed. Now at this point in this story I did fall asleep while my mom went to drink with Reagan and the guy.

I woke up the next morning and came out into the living room to see the door completely broken off the hinge. There was wood everywhere. The door couldn't even lock. The cats were laying on the couch where I just decided to lay and watch YouTube. At this point I wasn't even surprised. Why was I put through all of this torture? Was it to break me even further? If so then that was definitely achieved. When my mom woke up she told me what happened last night. The guy started to hit Reagan and then left back to his car when my mom started to yell at him.

The guy was really small compared to my mom so it was easy to intimidate him. He tried to get back in the house but my mom was holding the door back when he kicked down the door. He then ran away back to his car and drove off super fast. We woke up Reagan and just yelled at her for 3 hours. All she could say was sorry. A poor excuse for a sorry. I just wanted to leave this crazy place. I just wanted peace and quiet.

Day 4 and 5 of 5

“Carolyn”

After we left that nightmare of a place my mom decided she wanted to see one more friend before we left. Thank god this friend didn’t have a boyfriend who brings a gun with him and cocaine in his back pocket. The last two days of this “vacation” was spent in a decent sized house where I just laid in bed all day and played PS4. I started thinking about my life and what happened throughout these couple days.

I turned into a person who hated everything and everyone. I didn’t care about people anymore. I started talking less and less to people and when people tried to reach out to help me I would cuss them out and block them. While kids were worrying about getting good grades I was worrying about my dad finding me and hurting me or my mother. While kids were playing sports I was dealing with an alcoholic mother and a drug head dad. Some days I would look in the mirror and see someone that wanted to be better than my parents, better than my peers.

I already applied for the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. A place where I could get away from my dad and away from my terrible life and try to start a new one.

At this point my dad knows I go to McKinney High and he gets emails of my absences.

I’m afraid that if I go home one day he will be waiting outside my bus stop ready to take me back home. When I move up to San Francisco I think I will truly be safe. Until then I constantly watch my back cause I’m paranoid that the coke head from my hometown or my dad will find me. I wish I was able to have a normal childhood but I was forced to grow up fast. All I can do is play the waiting game. I knew my life would never be the same. Considering I just lost the last remaining part of my family I was on my own. Whoever said that family is forever was completely wrong... I guess this was just another Christmas story.