Pulling up to the family compound on Friday morning, I deftly dodged giant potholes, wandering chickens, and the gaggle of small children scurrying every which way in front of my moving vehicle. As was always the case at the Perry house, there were no adults in sight. Kids, at least ten of them, darted around like animals at feeding time. As I waved at all the dirt and snot-smeared faces, I had to wonder if they’d multiplied since my last visit. Jesus, it was like a human zoo here.

I parked next to the old station wagon. A fixture since my younger years, it was matted in rust and sat on dented rims, the tires and any other useful parts having been stripped away long ago. The kids who lived here used the corroded hazard as a fort, but they were well aware, as I had once been, that the wagon was an interactive play area. One false move and you’d be in the kitchen pouring whiskey on the open wound.

Two boys, both my cousin’s kids, ran up to me as I stepped out of my car.

“I’m Indy!” the older boy screamed, pretending to be me, while the younger one slashed him with an invisible cleaver. ‘Indy’ grabbed his throat and rolled his eyes before falling to the ground, theatrically flopping around in the dirt until he ‘died.’

“Obviously you’ve been watching my movies too,” I said, helping him up. My many onscreen deaths were a source of great amusement in the Perry household.

“Yep, with Shelby last night.”

Of course you did. “Those are all rated R movies. How old are you again?”

“Seven.”

Of course he was. “Awesome. Well, nice job on the death scene. Next time, not so much drooling.”

Because they were so starved for attention, I had to spend time chatting with all the little kids before taking care of the business I’d come here for. The pint-sized welcoming committee consisted of my niece and nephew, second cousins, and other children, some I wasn’t even sure belonged in the family. Sometimes I wondered if people in the community just dropped their kids off and used our fenced in property as a sort of day care. With the whole lot of them running around unattended at all times, no one would know the difference.

Although I only lived about twenty miles away, I rarely made the trip. For the life of me, I just couldn’t understand how my relatives thought it was okay to let these kids fend for themselves surrounded by piles and piles of trash. Even though I’d grown up as one of them, and for the most part had loved it, watching this new crop exist in such conditions bothered me. Back then, I knew I wasn’t living the norm. I saw how ‘real’ families lived on television shows and it was as foreign to me as rules and dinnertime and bedtimes. As a Perry, I got to run around at all hours of the night, grab snacks whenever hunger struck, and fall asleep where I lay.

Now that I was looking at the situation through adult eyes, I could clearly see that my upbringing was a form of parental neglect and abuse; but as a wild kid, it was just my life and I’d thought it was a blast. Until it wasn’t. Plucked from the chaotic life at fifteen years old after an incident with one of Misty’s boyfriends turned ugly, I never went back, but my younger half-brother, Rocky, and all the others remained. It was one of my greatest victories but also one of my deepest regrets. I’d unintentionally saved myself only to let my only brother rot.

I couldn’t blame Shelby for her lack of parenting skills because she was a product of her upbringing just as much as I was. In fact, everyone who lived on the Perry compound was a product of someone else’s poor decision making skills –aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, nephews, you name it, they all lived here, each one more screwed up than the next.

My great-grandma, Gigi, owned the property in a small town nestled up against the mountains in the Santa Clarita Valley in Northern Los Angeles County. Although it was flanked by prosperous and sprawling cities, this was a place left behind. Gigi’s land was as close to country living as you could get in the LA area. Neighbors were few and far between in these parts, mostly because so many houses had been abandoned after natural disasters like earthquakes and fires had damaged them beyond repair. But Gigi never let Mother Nature take her down and had stubbornly remained in her home since the 1970’s.

That’s not to say her humble abode wasn’t marred like the rest of them; in fact, one look and you’d wonder how it was still standing. Gigi’s four-bedroom house stood at the opening to the fenced-in lot, giving the appearance of a single family enjoying a quiet lifestyle – but makeshift homes, none built to code, had gone up all over the land. Trees, overgrown brush, and an honest-to-god junkyard had kept the structures from being seen and condemned.

My tiny niece, who was appropriately named Posy, tugged on my jeans. “Do the jumps, Indy,” she said, clapping.

“I can’t,” I responded in the high-pitched voice I reserved just for her. Posy was four years old and had the sweetest doll-face I’d ever seen. Her cuteness always robbed me of my manhood. “Your Uncle Indy hurt himself the other day.”

“You don’t look hurt,” a tougher-looking six-year-old challenged.

“Well, I am.”

I bristled a little at his assumption that I was making up my injury, but I shrugged it off and ruffled his hair. “I promise, as soon as I’m better, I’ll jump for you.”

“Pussy,” a foul-mouthed ten-year-old spat, kicking a little dirt in my direction.

I dropped my gaze to take in the skinny little jerk… another one of my cousin’s kids. What were all the older ones doing home, anyway? Had their parents forgotten it was a school day? Usually it was just the kindergarten crowd hanging during the morning hours. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“Shouldn’t you be changing your tampon?”

The other kids laughed at his insult. I had to admit it was pretty inventive for one so young, and I rewarded him with a courtesy chuckle… until the others turned on me too.

“Yeah,” a kid wearing a Viking helmet piped up. “Shouldn’t you be peeing sitting down?”

“Shouldn’t you be asking for directions?”

That zinger came from a little girl wearing bunny pajamas.

“Shouldn’t you be a scaredy-cat?” my niece asked, joining in the roast with the others, although clearly not understanding that the theme of this particular smack down was masculinity shaming. Wait a minute! Wasn’t Posy supposed to be on my side? “You’re a whiny little pussycat.” She completed her diss. Or not.

I glanced around at all the angry, demanding little faces. Well, hell, this was taking on a decidedly Lord of the Flies-type vibe.

“Okay, fine,” I said, giving in. Taking off my hat, I ran my fingers through my unruly curls before handing the traitor Posy my baseball cap. “Hold this.”

I ran to a concrete sitting wall and flipped my way over it before jumping several times to clear various obstacles. For my final encore, I scaled the retaining wall and back-flipped my way off. As the kids cheered and nodded their approval, I rubbed my sore ribs. Yes, I was going to pay for this later… but at least I wouldn’t be peeing sitting down tonight.

The attitude toward me shifted immediately, and I was once again the crown jewel of Perryland, what we liked to call our squalid home turf. Like the celebrity they thought I was, the kids were hanging all over me as I made my way up the driveway to the main house. That was more like it.

“Is anyone home?” I asked, receiving a few casual shrugs in response. That would have probably been my reply at their age too.

Next to the house sat an old red pickup truck. At least I thought it was red. Rust had crept over the paint years ago and had mixed with the original color, giving off a moldy feel. The entire right side of the vehicle was caved in as if it had been sideswiped by something monstrous in size, like a cruise ship. Aside from the severe body damage and missing front bumper, the truck had three standard-sized tires and one that looked only slightly larger than a spare. Hanging from the rearview mirror was a pair of black and white dice so faded that they’d taken on a pinkish hue.

“Oh, hell no,” I roared. “SHELBY!”

I wound through the obstacles blocking my way to the main house. The landfill had expanded since my last visit. Television sets, toilets, clothes, trash… really anything you could dream up probably existed somewhere in the piles of crap littering the acres of property. Passing the three-legged dog, I gave him a sympathetic pat on his deserving head before storming my way into the main house screaming Shelby’s name.

“Good lord, boy. Even I can hear you, and I can’t hear shit,” my great grandma Gigi complained. The old reclining armchair she was sitting in, had over the years, molded to her over-sized body. Pretty much anything she desired could be had from her seated position. Magazines, piled high, littered the ground around her. A side drawer filled with snacks and a small refrigerator were situated just to her left. Across her lap lay one of those grabber arms, which she used to get items out of her reach without ever having to leave the comfort of her chair.

It was as if Gigi were in it for the long haul and had figured out the path of least resistance. When she did move from her chair, she made a giant scene out of it… moaning and grumbling about the aches and pains. Come to think of it, I was starting to sound a lot like her. Of course, if anyone suggested she might benefit from a little exercise, aside from the overly taxing trips to the bathroom, she threatened to eject them from the premises. Since no one who lived here seemed to work a steady job, none could afford to pay for their keep on their own, so everyone just kept their mouths shut about her exceedingly unhealthy lifestyle.

“Where is she?” I demanded.

“Calm the hell down, drama queen, what’s your problem?” Shelby moseyed on in, and it was clear from first glance that she was dressed for success… at least, for her version of success. The plunging open neckline and skintight jeans was no one’s idea of a business casual outfit.

“Tell me that piece of crap sitting in the driveway is not what I traded my car for.”

“It looks worse than it really is.”

“Really? Because it looks like a piece of shit that someone threw up, then shit back out again.”

“Once you throw it up, can you really shit it out again?” Shelby mocked me as she adjusted her bra by actually picking up her breasts and relocating them. “Besides, haven’t you ever heard the saying, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’?”

“There are clear exceptions to that rule, and one of them is sitting out in the driveway. There’s no way that thing is making it through the desert.”

“Rocky drove it all the time.”

“Oh, well, that makes me feel so much better, seeing as he’s sitting in the slammer for grand theft auto.”

“He was framed.”

“No, he wasn’t. He’d been gainfully employed at the chop shop for two years. It’s a miracle he wasn’t caught before the high-speed chase.”

“You’re so judgmental, Indy. Just because someone steals stuff doesn’t make them a bad person.”

“By definition, yeah, it kind of does.”

Shelby sighed overemotionally as if our conversation was such a bore.

“Where are you going, anyway?” I asked, flicking my eyes over her stripper outfit. “You said it was a business trip.”

“It is. I’m meeting my boss in Anaheim.”

“At a pole dancing convention?”

“No,” she said, as she peered into a mirror and ran the tip of her finger over the edges of her lipstick line. “I’m there to keep him company.”

Blasts of fury threatened to erupt from me. I’d been had. This was no business trip. She was the entertainment. Speaking through clenched teeth, I glared at my sister-mother. “Please tell me you aren’t sleeping with this one too.”

“She is,” Gigi piped up, not even bothering to look up from her magazine. “And I’m predicting we’ll have another little mouth to feed by spring.”

Shelby grabbed her purse as she rolled her eyes. “Haha… hilarious.”

“I wasn’t kidding,” Gigi whispered, nudging me with her grabber arm.

Thankfully, Shelby had gotten progressively better at birth control over the years and had managed to keep her live baby count down to four. And either DNA testing was more advanced than it had been when I was born or my mother was just paying better attention to whom she was bedding, since my two younger half-sisters both lived with their respective fathers. Only my brother had grown up amongst the chaos, fatherless like me.

“Look, Indy, I hate to break up this little reunion, but I really have to go. I promise you, everything will be fine. Can I have the keys?”

“I don’t like this at all.”

“I know you don’t, but you’re helping out your mom, and that means something. Keys.”

Reluctantly, I laid them in her hands. She kissed my cheek and hustled out the door, presumably to put distance between herself and the scene of her latest backstab.

Gigi looked up from her reading. “You’re a good boy, Indy. Stupid, but good.”

* * *

The Grim Reaper of all motor vehicles made it about seventy miles before its inevitable demise. While pieces of the truck had occasionally flown off during the drive, it was the explosive backfires that had caused the most panic amongst the jumpy LA drivers making their way through the desert. People sped up or slowed down in an effort to put distance between themselves and my unsavory ride. Still, I was pleasantly surprised that the pickup remained relatively intact for longer than I’d ever thought possible. It wasn’t until I was on the two-lane highway that I heard a loud pop and the truck puttered to an uninspired stop. I spent the following couple of minutes slamming my hands against the steering wheel and swearing into the phone as people drove around me, flipping me off for the traffic jam I’d left in my wake. Of the twenty messages I’d left for Shelby, not one of them had been answered. But, of course, she’d already known this would happen, so certainly she’d be savvy enough not to respond.

It took me fifteen minutes to push the truck into a diner parking lot – fifteen minutes of searing heat and pain so fierce I truly believed at one point that my ribcage had collapsed into my lungs. Barely able to drag air in, I crawled into the flatbed of the pickup and collapsed onto the mattress, swearing at the injustice of it all. Why did I do this to myself? I’d spent my life being manipulated by that woman, and finally, yes finally, it was going to kill me.

I awoke sometime later, feeling flushed but alive. The pain had receded to an aching drumbeat, and I could breathe easily once more. Stretching out on the padded mat, I was pleasantly surprised my mother hadn’t embedded sharp spikes in it just to drive the last nail in my coffin. Death averted, this time. Sorry, Shelby.

Maybe it was best to concede defeat now, before things got any worse. All it would take was one call to my cousin Bucky for a tow back to Gigi’s place. I supposed I could waste the next two days waiting on the return of my car by watching videos of myself getting brutally slaughtered over and over again. That should perk up my spirits.

I thought about what I would miss out on this weekend, all because I didn’t have the backbone to say no to Shelby. Aside from giving birth to me, she really hadn’t done much to earn my devotion, and I had no reason to keep handing it over to her, no questions asked. What was it with the nasty habit I had of attaching myself to unscrupulous women? Shelby, of course, would always be queen bee; but my ex, Alexis, slid right in there in a comfortable second place finish. In my defense, she’d seemed perfectly normal when we first met, even charming and approachable. But as time went on, she morphed into someone I didn’t know; or like, for that matter. Before I knew it, she was blocking my friends on my cell and threatening to kill herself if I ever left her.

No, I’d managed to get myself out of that toxic relationship, and I could do it again. Shelby had to be put in her place before she totally ruined me. In that spirit, I was determined to not give up on my weekend without a fight. Hell, I’d learned the odd trick or two about cars over the years; maybe all the rust bucket needed was a little tender loving care.

Or maybe not. After nearly an hour of tinkering, banging, and threatening, I could safely report that love did not heal all wounds. The crap-mobile was finished; in fact, I was fairly certain that its soul had already floated up to jalopy heaven. As I stood there drenched in sweat and beyond frustrated, my alcohol-fueled weekend was looking to be headed in the same direction… until she pulled in.

They say sometimes you just know. They say love can happen at first sight. I say bullshit… or at least I did until she crossed into my line of vision. Initially I just assumed my starlit attraction towards her was simply the build-up of lust; after all, that dress was… um… sinful. The way it adhered to her curves, dropped in all the right places, and afforded me a nice helping of side boob was enough to win my vote for lust at first sight; but it was everything else about her that had me questioning my long-held beliefs. Had I understood the importance of that moment while it was happening, I’d like to think I would have made a bigger deal out of it. After all, it’s not every day you come face to face with your future.