Good, The Bat, and the Ugly

Chapter One I hate it when people ask me what I want to be when I grow up. When Mam or Dad come out with this question I flush bright red and I grit my teeth and I don't say anything.How am I supposed to know? I'm only thirteen.They're weird for asking, is what I think. But they think I'm weird because I ought to know already what I want to be. They cluck their tongues and they stare at me across the living room or down the dining table.It's like they're thinking that something is wrong with me. But really, I think it would be weirder to know exactly what I was going to turn out like. I don't have any firm ideas or plans. Plans are for losers. Plans are for weirdos."You want to try out computers, our Jason?"That's my mam. That's what she always says at this point in the conversation. "They're the thing of the future, you know. That's where we're all going. Anyone of your age who doesn't know his way around a computer...well, they won't be anything. Not in the future."My mam likes to think of herself as very modern. She's very keen on the future and being all equipped for it. She's slim and up-to-the-minute and always dressed in what she thinks are the latest fashions. On the particular day I'm talking about -- during one of these talks we were always having -- she was wearing a spangly blue catsuit, ropes of false pearls around her neck, and two false fairy wings strapped to her back. This was something she'd seen modeled on morning TV, which is where she gets all her fashion ideas from.It's where she gets most of her ideas about everything.What I've never understood is that if Mam is so keen on the future and all things modern, why she ever got together with a man like my dad. I mean, he's ancient. He's a skinny old man whose breath stinks of chewing tobacco and Fisher-man's Friends, and he's at least three times the age of my mam."Oh, you don't understand the mysterious workings of love," Mam says when I ask her why she saddled herself with such an old bloke. "You're only thirteen. One day you'll see. You'll understand love when you grow up."What I do understand is that my dad is evil. Really, truly evil. I mean, he was always a bit short-tempered and nasty, but just lately he's been worse than ever. Ever since that fall he'd taken in the attic when he was clearing through his old stuff. He'd hit his head and come downstairs in a stinking mood that had clung around him for weeks.He sits at the head of our dinner table during the silent, ominous, frugal meals we have and he gives off this terrible atmosphere. It's like a horrible smell that takes over our whole house. When we're having dinner it's like the crockery is clinking in trepidation and the knives and forks and spoons are tinkling in fear. The gravy and the custard always grow a thick skin when they stand out on the table, the milk curdles in the jug and if we're having a chicken, say, it looks like it wants to get up and fling itself on the carving knife in order to make sure it's quite safely dead.Mealtimes are especially awful at our house. No one ever comes to visit and you can understand why. It's only ever me, Mam, and Dad. Sat there.Today we were having broccoli, which had been boiled till it had gone yellow and mushy, with raw onions whole and rolling about on our plates. This was because Mam had watched something about healthier eating on telly."This is awful muck," Dad grumbled, stabbing at his broccoli.We didn't dare say anything back.The thing about my dad that you have to understand is that he used to have millions of fans -- millions of fans who knew him as Frank. I just know him as Dad, but my mam calls him Frank, of course.He used to be known to all those people back when he had his own TV show on Saturday nights. This was twenty years ago or something. Prehistory. Now everyone's forgotten about him.This is one of the reasons my dad has turned eMagrs, Paul is the author of 'Good, The Bat, and the Ugly', published 2004 under ISBN 9780689870194 and ISBN 0689870191.