I maybe walk a bit too quickly for Ebbie's shuffling 13 year old legs to keep up with but I know he has the secret stores of energy that he keeps in reserve for emergency cake or chicken retrieval.
We get to stand J and I say before I see the times, "if we have to wait longer than five minutes we're not going on the bus." The round trip's about fifty minutes in total and then we have to get another bus from town home. Ten minutes to wait. "Nah, we can't do it's there's not enough time." I keep walking, he pulls on my rucksack sending a twinge up my fucked neck. I turn around putting on the act of the sulky teenager, Kevin and Perry's best mate Matty-Bob, I know how it amuses Ebbie to pretend to swap roles.
"No," he scolds me like the angry parent from behind his red and black overflowing fringe. I flop my arms about tutting and sighing. "Oh my God, it's so unfaiirrr!"
Play time over Ebbie shrinks back into his shoe-gazing, hunchbacked pose. There are other people, teenagers especially, about you see, not just me and him and this little bubble of happiness is over. One like Ebbie has to clam up, battern down all shutters and doors and retreat in front of people his age as they're the ones who ruined his life, ruined his change at a mainstream education with their poison-tipped slurs. Angry, angry at the situation, angry at the majority, at the world, me not him. Angry that my once-happy, friendly, overexcited, well-articulated, toddler has turned back into this shuffling Neanderthal communicating in the quietest of grunts, headphones turned up higher, just by the mere presence of other people his age. I stubbornly refuse to let them win and try desperately to cling on to the silliness we only moments before had, I pug, mope and try to annoy him out of his insult-proof shell with soft belly and shoulder pokes, blowing at his floppy fringe, a slow-motion featherpunch to his belly of what the normal response is usually a return sock to the face, sometimes a literal stinking sock with foot included, all with the timing and dialogue of the worst of stuntmen but his refusal is concrete so I switch tactics. I lean in close so the dreaded teenagers can't hear and offer quiet words of encouragement, telling him not to give a fuck about other people, they're all vaping twats who's only ambition is to get pregnant before they leave high school so they don't have to go to work. Ebbie's stuck in lockdown and I know it'll likely last until we get home. I move slightly away, forgetting, ever forgetting that anymore than two feet in public is a no-go and he grabs at my arm and mutters a, "No, Daddy."
From out of nowhere pops up a ferrety little weasel in a light blue tracksuit, he has sly eyes and the type of beard that's there purely because he hasn't been arsed to shave, his missing a front tooth, a land-pirate if ever I saw one. Those eyes bore into mine and he asks, immediately aggressive, "is she okay?"
I'm polite, confused as fuck but polite. "Yeah, he's okay, thank you." I don't even put an emphasis on Ebbie's gender, try as he does he still looks like the gender he was assigned at birth. Weasel pops back to his girlfriend and toddler in the pram but I can see his face still staring in the refection behind Ebbie. "Mate," I say to Ebbie, once again with the conspiratorial lean-in, we don't want people to hear after all, "you need to stop standing like a little prawn, all hunched up. It makes you look like you're being abused and I really don't want you to grow up with a shit neck like I have."
"I like staring at my shoes."
"Yeah, I know, but unfortunately we have to worry about how we appear to other people."
Weasel is still looking.
The bus arrives and we walk back as far as we can, we can't go too far as there are teenagers the the back. Weasel sits his girlfriend and baby in the pram section at the front, a few words are shared before he walks towards me. "Are you sure she's alright?"
Second time he's got it wrong, I totally get it but want to prove to Ebbie that I support his decisions. "He. He's fine. Thank you."
Weasel looks at my child. "That's a boy?"
I nod.
"That's a boy?"
"Yes," I affirm verbally as maybe my nod wasn't obvious enough.
"Well you don't treat him good."
"Oh really."
"Yeah, you treat him like shit."
"I'm just talk to my son how I normally talk to him."
"He's your son? You were treating her like shit."
"He's a teenager, I generally speak to him how he speaks to me. We know how each other works."
"I love my son, he's down there. I wouldn't treat him like that."
"Well that's you and unless I'm mistaken your son isn't a teenager. Teenagers aren't exactly the most respectable of people and my son is no exception."
"Yeah well if I see you again I'll knock you the fuck out!"
I'm understandably livid and having spent the first twenty or so years of my life being a lesser socially awkward version of Ebbie have refused to be bullied since I finally grew a set. I learnt that the festering rot of keeping quiet lasts a lot longer than any cuts or bruises. "Just fuck off and mind your own fucking business. How I am with my kid is nothing to do with you."
His girlfriend tells him to leave it and he backs off down the bus and purposefully sits so he can face me the whole trip. As he sits he looks at all the lone mothers with their young children, at the teenage girls and smiles sweetly, well as sweetly as one can missing a front tooth and insists that he's sorry for all the bad language, he just hates seeing people be cruel to kids. Smiles of admiration are beamed at him, wary side-eyed glances at me. The journey, which has barely started, continues, I refuse to let the experience show on my face,I carry on as normal, pointing out the doggos and other sights through the bus window. Ebbie is further withdrawn but I persevere.
Weasel is down the front being the good father, making memories with his little boy, video calling some other blonde to goo and gush over her child too, being doubly the nice, loving, guy that he is. As the bus nears his stop he comes our way again. "If I ever see you again I'm gonna knock you the fuck out."
I laugh, "You do that you stupid fucking knobhead. By the way all this violent talk is really setting a good example in front of your own child."
"I'm the knobhead? Me?"
"Yes. Now fuck off and mind your own business."
He laughs and looks around at his captive audience, talking to them as he knows he can't threaten me, "we'll be seeing him on bloody WatchCrime or something."
They smirk.
"Crimewatch, actually." I correct picturing Nick Ross announcing the upcoming reenactment of my dastardly deeds, I hope they get a flattering actor to play me and I know Ebbie will flip if they get a girl to play him.
"Either that or on Facebook on Paedohunters," he adds to his fans.
"I can mess about with my thirteen year old son however we want."
He nears the bus door, ushered by his spouse. "Messing about with thirteen year olds?" He twists my words. "There's a word for people like you. Maybe you should go to America they get away with it more there."
I have no response as I really don't understand what Americans and America has got to do with anything. I send him off with a two-fingered wave and another "fuck off."
He points at his eyes and then at me through the bus window. I give him two thumbs up and gurn stupidly whilst putting an arm around Ebbie. "Actually," I say pressing the stop button repeatedly before the driver pulls away, "I want to know exactly what it was that he saw."
Ebbie claws on to me and refuses to let me get off the bus.
The bus rolls on, mothers cast me with suspicion, move their darlings away from us and risk looks at the scary man with the big tuft of red hair at the back of the bus. We ride the rest of the circular trip and I try to explain to Ebbie what happened as another layer of shit gets added to the shell of her social anxiety and hardens in the abnormal October sunshine, how our outwards appearances and mannerisms matter to other people, that the man wasn't necessarily wrong, I could've been the nonce trying to abduct a seemingly teenage girl, my behaviour, his behaviour could be interpreted the wrong way, just because we know how we are doesn't mean others do. People don't see the daft extrovert, who numerous adults have said is scary-looking with his tattoos, weird clothes and loud hair, who isn't afraid of embarrassing himself in front of anyone wildly gesticulating, fannying about with not just his kid but one of his best fucking friends who he treats like his best fucking friend, who, since birth, has treated like his best fucking friend, through thick and thin, through years of talking to teachers about bullying, five years of being a single father due to his own stupid paranoia, through years of coming to terms with a second child who is severely autistic, COVID, lockdowns, and having two kids who refuse to go to school, through gender-awakenings, through decisions to homeschool when they have little to zero faith in their ability to do so and their child's ability to have the patience to endure their parents and their little autistic brother twenty-four-seven, through money issues, house moves, separations and rejoinings.
They don't see the thirteen year old who has had to learn from a young age that people, other kids especially, are cruel, cruel to you if you have eczema, cruel to you if you have parents with tattoos and bright coloured hair, cruel to you if you don't like the same thhbgs as they do, kids that tease you for your father losing weight, for your love of reading, 'books are stupid'. Cruel to you if you don't respond when they call you fat, or ugly, or if the bag or coat you chose in the summer holidays is something your mum or your dad would wear. Cruel to you for just being you. They don't see the frightened boy who wants nothing else in the world but for everyone else but their mum, dad and brother, to just fuck off and stop existing purely so they can hold their head up and see their own way. They see a huge scary overbearing ogre looming over a poor, obviously-abused, maybe even sexually, shrunken little 'girl.'
All weekend Weasel's words have haunted me, have hunted me, why? Because part of me believes every word. I've never seen myself as a good father, most of what people see as me being a wonderful dad is simply endurance through no other choice. Endless hours in the cold and rain watching traffic or riding on scum-riddled buses with people who verbally, and quite often threaten physically attack you because you refuse to not bite back when you are bitten. Most of the things I do for my children are done because I love them, I want to make them happy, mostly because I can't be arsed to fight, to argue as I know with every No I give them the guilt overwhelms and I feel like shit. I'm not a good dad, I swear, shout, confiscate phones for disobedience, make silly threats that I never ever keep. I let them eat whatever they want as life really is too short and the last thing I want to do is bestow my horrendous eating habits on them. I slack as a homeschool parent, leave it all to my disabled wife and go to the gym, I know my kids are learning stuff off their own backs, we have a sarcastic little no it all emo who knows everything there is to know about the things he's interested, has the same mood swings and gift for original insults as his dad and our little baby eleven year old who could literally take us all over England without anyone else needing to consult a timetable, who watches his programs in several different languages with English subtitles and quite often will communicate in bursts of Spanish or German. I know I'm not a good dad. I'm not even a good husband. I'm a teaser, a wind-up merchant, a dickhead, an antisocial reclusive, a reader, a writer, a daydreaming pervert who occasionally looks at people half his age and wonders where the hell the time has gone. But I love my children, have fought for them, often verbally, sometimes almost physically, almost ripped people to shreds for even questioning mine or my wife's parenting. We are all corners of the same square, there is no room for anyone else. Our friends, pets, relatives are inside that shielded perimeter and even though at times we may appear to be unstable we hold firm despite our crumbling foundations.
I tried to carry on as normal this weekend phrases from that man's torrent have replayed on a persistent loop. "We'll be seeing him on WatchCrime or something."
"You're cruel to her."
"You don't treat her right."
"Either that or on Facebook on Paedohunters."
I can't, those words continued to taunt, to play over and over until they effected my usual routine. On the way to the gym I told myself if I saw a person in a red coat I'd go straight to the pub. I turned left and saw a woman in a red anorak and laughed 'no, I create my own fate.' I switched directions away from the Wetherspoons and nearly bumped into another woman in another red coat, this one a fleece, and continue towards the gym, tears in my eyes still hearing his words. I know I need to get this out of my system and begin writing as soon as I've changed in the gym, tears welling I begin my self-exorcism, trying to purge the demons this weaselly cunt has inspired to writhe inside of me. Someone invades my personal space, maybe I'm not using the gym equipment enough for them, and I have to stop myself from growling verbal abuse at them. I can't gym, can't lift weights when there's so much already on my sagging shoulders. Hell, I can't even subtly perv as usual on the exquisite alternative Indian woman with the silver piercings and long pink hair. Nothing else matters, I need to pass this like - for a moment I can't spell the words I'm looking for and Google it the only way I can think of how it's spelt which gives me a great synonym that I'll be sure to use instead of my intended correct spelling, given the situation that caused this it's far more appropriate too- I need to pass these ghoulstones, piss this stinking, painful filth out of me so I can give myself back to the people who want and deserve the real me and not allow mindless non-beings to waste anymore space in my head. I'll seal them in a storage container and ship it to the outer regions of Weaseltown were it can rot until its blue tracksuit is black with its own filth and the rest of its teeth have gone the same way as that missing front one.
I leave the gym, ignore my usual greeters, eyes down, newly shaven head sweating, anxiety threatening to spew onto the just mopped floors and end up at the pub, not to drink alcohol, I gave that up five plus years ago so my family could have the real me instead of the irresponsible knobhead booze inspired, and after three, or four, coffees I have a slight headache from sitting facing the sun, neck ache from leaning over my phone and not doing my usual stretch at the gym, but the weight on my shoulders, for now, until next time, as there is almost always a next time, has lessened considerably and the tears in my eyes are from feverish stream on conscience writing, only pausing to refill a coffee cup and allowing blood to circulate back into my forearms and hands. I feel just about ready to go home, and be me again.
