Danny Montomgery (in_the_genes) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2010-01-29 20:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | #solo, 2009-07-02 |
Could've Been
Who: Danny & Tim (NPC)
Where: The Montgomery House
When: Thursday Night
Barring his maternal family, not a single member of which Danny had been acquainted with since he was old enough to remember, there weren’t that many times when Danny would opt out of spending time with his family. Whereas most people his age tended to have a relationship with their kinfolk that was, at best, tenuous, Danny had always been the type of person who embraced his extended family. It wasn’t unexpected. People were shaped by their life experiences. Danny was no different. He lived with his grandparents until he was eleven, sharing a room with his father for a majority of those years until his uncle moved out to attend college. Sometimes, people who weren’t aware of their situation would assume that they were just brothers who were separated by a large age gap. It was a possibility, but hardly the reality.
By extension, there weren’t that many members of the family who viewed Danny’s conception and existence as some sort of blight on the family legacy. No, that honor would have to fall on Beth, his first cousin once removed. Crack whore. Literally. Still, there were a few who had long held a preconceived notion that “Timmy’s” swift and sudden fall from grace could be tied directly to, well, Danny. Amongst those number, none were more adamant about this idea than Uncle Clifford. Hardly surprising since the man was a Reverend. Take the bible loving ways of that dad from 7th Heaven, toss in your usual blind religious outlook, add a dash of Hitler’s fanaticism, hit puree and there was Uncle Cliff. Complicate matters by throwing in the fact that Cliff was Tim’s godfather, who took that whole responsible for the religious upbringing of the child thing to the next level, and there was a very, very complicated relationship.
Cliff lived in Wisconsin, a placement that at least made his visits blissfully few and far between. But he and his sister, Danny’s grandmother, had always been close. She didn’t hold the word of God to quite the level of exaltedness as her big brother, but few could contend that one of the reasons they had that bond was because of their shared religious beliefs. Thankfully, she didn’t hold her son in contempt for his discretions, and she’d be the first one to actually tell Clifford that he had gone too far. Just as well, she was the only one he listened to.
One of those sporadic visits was upon them. Unannounced. Some gathering of Reverends in the state that had ended. A sort of pep rally for the messengers of the holy spirit. And, on his way back, he decided to see his sister and her family. Danny’s aunt and uncle weren’t in the immediate area, which meant that Tim had to field Cliff’s attention alone, with his parents are the only buffers. Danny could have gone, but since Cliff had never really made it a point to curb his whole ‘you could have done something with yourself if you wouldn’t have gotten that girl pregnant’ spiel, even when around Danny, it was mutually decided that the boy would skip that one out. If inquired about, an unlikelihood, they’d fall back on him being at work.
Danny wasn’t at work, though. He was in his room on the computer, his camera plugged in to the port, the program pulling up all of the pictures that were on the memory card. It hadn’t been a particularly picture heavy summer for the aspiring photographer. Even with work, Danny was usually snapping pictures on his day off before. Only now he had to field the whole witch thing, and he wasn’t stupid enough to go gallivanting around town with a camera when he could get attacked by a demon. Funny how a status-quo shaking revelation and something that could basically be considered a state of emergency could screw with a guy’s free time.
He’d managed a few snapshots here and there, including some pictures of the vampire that he had met and talked with in Ann Arbor. They turned out better than he expected. The tail managed to not look photo shopped. He was unsure of how that was going to turn out. Even with the authentic look, people would probably doubt it. He’d just have to convince them otherwise. Danny was pretty good at that.
Photography was more than just a hobby to Danny. It was a passion. Barring altercations, which were now possible and frequent, a picture was about as pure a form of truth as a person could get. At his grandparents’ there were plenty of pictures of him. School pictures, formals, team photos, etc. But mounted on the wall in frames were actual photos that the teen had taken. Some of them were on the walls of his own home, too. A portfolio in the making. He only hoped that he would be good enough to make a career out of it.
Hearing the door open and close, the second part with quite a bit of force behind it, Danny knew that his father was home. He shut down the program and walked into the living room. Tim was prone on the couch, head tossed back as he just stared at the ceiling. “Let me guess,” he started sarcastically, “you’re a failure who had every door open to you but you decided to give in to your hormones and basically screwed yourself over for life?”
Tim ran his hands down his face, “That, and some other things. I honestly blocked out most of it. I just heard his voice, for a long, long time. I can’t believe I left work an hour early just so I could meet them at the restaurant. Never again.”
“You say that every time he visits. You can’t get rid of him, dad. He’s your mother’s brother. Your uncle. Your godfather. I know he puts a little bit too much emphasis on the God part, but you should have known that. He’s always been like that, hasn’t he?”
Tim nodded. Uncle Cliff was always one of those adhere to the word of the Bible type of people. But he’d been pretty cool before, too. In fact, it was Clifford who Tim went to when he found out that he was going to be a father. A mistake that he would never be able to remedy. “I couldn’t even eat anything.”
“Did he pay for dinner?”
The man smirked, “I made sure to get the most expensive thing on the menu. I could have eaten, but I was thought I might have choked on my anger as I was biting into the lobster. Dad made sure I kept the knives away.” He turned his gaze directly to the boy, “What’d you do for dinner?”
“I just grabbed something from work. I could order something for you if you want. Pick it up. Pay for it. Consider it my sympathy meal.”
“Maybe after my stomach unknots itself.” Tim sighed. “I couldn’t have a normal godfather, could I? You know, some guy who sends me some money on my birthday and Christmas. No, I’ve got to have Uncle Cliff…”
“The guy you picked for me got kicked out of Notre Dame because he was taking steroids…” he pointed out.
“Matt was the most responsible person that I knew when I was 17! My brother was only 10 when you were born. I really didn’t want to give you a godfather who still wore teenage mutant ninja turtle pajamas and would jump into bed with my parents when he had a bad dream.” The deal was that Tim picked the godfather, Danny’s mother picked the godmother. She picked her older sister. Seemed like his kid got shafted both ways in that department.
“I’m just saying…” he shrugged casually. Matt, a guy that Danny could scarcely recall, ended up not being able to make the cut after his time at Scarlet Oak high came to a close. Once a football great with potential, he just couldn’t cut it in the big leagues and took dire measures. It didn’t end well. Danny understood how it was, though. He’d gone into college thinking that he could outperform the swimmers like he did in high school and ended up being shown otherwise. “Maybe I should have gone with you guys…”
“Why?” Tim inquired. Exposure to Clifford was rarely desired barring some sort of lapse in mental health.
“I could have told him that I got some girl pregnant. Maybe he just would have left.”
Tim blinked. He wanted to believe that his son was lying to him. More than anything, he did believe that Danny wasn’t telling the truth, that he was just joking. Still… “You… didn’t… right?”
“Don’t worry. You’re not about to add grand to your name any time soon.”
“Good. I’m too young to be a grandfather.”
“I bet grandpa said the same thing when you told him about me.” Danny pointed out sarcastically.
“I have this undying urge to call my father up and apologize for that.” Tim fell silent for a long, lingering moment. The look in his eyes showed that he was thinking. It didn’t take a genius to understand that his mind was on the dinner disaster.
“Why do you even let it bother you, dad?” Danny asked, sitting on the other couch. “You know what he’s going to say. You know that he’s going to tell you about what you did and how it was wrong and how you should have done this and that. It never changes. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you think he’s right. That you did screw everything up. Maybe Uncle Cliff is just saying everything that you’re thinking, but you’re too afraid to admit. I know there weren’t that many guys when I was 17 that wanted to be dads that young.” A few were, but that was beside the point.
“I don’t regret being your father, Danny…”
“That doesn’t mean you never wonder about what could have been, dad.” There wasn’t anything wrong with that. He did it. Danny wasn’t proud to admit it, usually because it always centered around his abandonment complex, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t do it. It was a very human thing to wonder about how something could have been so different if the slightest change had been made.
Tim didn’t say anything, instead he stood up, looking dejected… defeated in a way. “I’m going to go take a shower. Maybe when I get done I’ll feel like eating something.”
Danny watched his father walk down the hall into the bathroom. Tim was hiding something from him, but he couldn’t say exactly what it was… a fact that only bothered him more. Before Danny left the living room, he passed the picture of the two of them that had been taken when he was 17. Their own family portrait. They were both smiling, a similar grin that only helped punctuate the rest of their shared features. The Tim in that picture was a far cry from the Tim that Danny had just seen. He much preferred the former.