life; the never-ending rollercoaster;1

THE NEVER ENDING ROLLERCOASTER,
AKA MY LIFE
By: Jenn Rose Fagotti



CHAPTER 1

“JAMIE! Where are you?” He swore at the name with his mightiest. “JAMIE! You’re late and I’m - ” The bellowing man, my step dad unfortunately, swung open the back door to the porch, where he found me, Jamie, with my head against the drain pipes. I was giving myself an excuse for not coming inside by pretending to be asleep. My step dad stopped shouting and let his fist do the talking--
Now, let’s get one thing straight, before I go any further: I am, indeed, a guy. Not a girl, a guy. Jamie is a boy’s name too, okay? Just like Jordan. And Casey. And a bunch of other names, too, I guess.
--And actually, he wasn’t my step dad. It’s a bit complicated, really. You see, my dad died before I was born, and when I was four my mom got remarried. Well, at least, I think my real dad died. I wouldn’t really know for sure, because I wasn’t alive when it happened. But I’m pretty sure he did. Anyway, then, the man that she remarried died when I was seven, and she got married again when I was eight. Then, when I was ten or eleven, she died. So, my step dad, isn’t really my step dad. He’s kind of just my ‘legal guardian’, but just referring to him as my step dad saves me from a heck of a lot of explaining. You ought to know how much, because I only explained it the simple way to you. Imagine saying that to every teacher, adult, friend, and principal you have every year. And a normal kid my age, or a kid of any age, when you think about it, doesn’t really refer to the person who has custody of them as their ‘legal guardian’. Sometimes, I wonder how they could classify that guy as ‘legal’.
My step dad’s a guy that, at first glance, reminds you of an insane, rabid dog. That’s when he’s angry, or pretty much anything but happy, which he rarely is. Especially with me. When he’s faking that he loves me when another adult’s around, then he just looks like a sweet man trying to raise another rebellious teenager. Most people see through the act. But they’re too afraid to do anything.
My step dad is around six feet, kind of stocky, and (let’s not forget) really strong – I learned that the hard way. He’s in his fifties and balding, with a round face that might have even been handsome for its age if it hadn’t been so cold and hateful looking. Given his build, his attitude towards life, and his academic intelligence, you’d think that he spent his entire life in a gas station. But he was smart when it came to making me look and act like a normal kid. He never let me go anywhere with bruises on my face. If I ‘happened’ to get them anywhere else, fine. But not anywhere really obvious and out in the open. He’s not dumb enough, basically, to put himself in jail. I wish he were. He has eyes almost like the sky; Blue as the sky, and looking down on everything just like it. They’d look exactly like the sky, if the sky froze over. Dressed sharp in suits and ties and pants with a seam so clean that they looked a steamroller just ran over them, he was enough to intimidate anybody. Or scare anybody out of his or her wits. That was kind of his goal in life. My step dad only dressed like that on work days, though. That’s four days a week, which isn’t a lot if you really think about it. I don’t know what he does, and frankly, I don’t really want to. Usually, when he gets home from work, he either goes out or, most often, gets drunk. But he doesn’t have to be drunk to get violent -- oh, no -- it’s only worse when he’s drunk, with his eyes wild and red-rimmed, his buttons on his shirt done up all wrong and such. It’s a sight that’s funny inside of a comic book, and terrifying in real life when he’s three inches from your face or coming at you, wobbling, but angrily.
I never voluntarily spent time with him, so I usually delay it as much as possible, no matter the consequence. Unless the consequence is death or worse, or the hurting of one of my friends, then ignoring his existence when he calls for me is worth the price. Especially when he’s angry. But, then again, maybe it just makes it worse. You really can’t trust any way of thinking with my step dad around. Everything’s always wrong, even if it’s right.
“There you are, you scrawny little rat!” He hissed.
He harshly shook me awake, even though I already was. He was probably enjoying the sight of my head loll, while yanked me inside by the collar. It was pretty considerate of him to ignore the solid BANG that my head made off the edge of the counter, huh? Ow. My hair was shorter in the back than in the front and sides, so there wasn’t much to shield it. I stood there a minute, stunned by the blow to my head, almost hearing birds chirping around me. The fireworks that had popped in front of my eyes were beginning to fade slightly, allowing me to see where I was going. Too bad that it was absolutely nowhere. I learned, when I was eleven, that I was to stay in the room my step dad brought me into he told me to leave. If he said 'you could go if you want', it usually meant 'stay here, or else. Going is the wrong choice, and I hate wrong choices'.
“Stupid kid! You’re fourteen years old and you don’t know when you’re supposed to go inside. Its daylight out, what would the neighbors think? For that, you don’t get any food this morning!” My step dad roared. Like I had expected food, anyway. I hadn’t eaten a decent meal in days. Maybe a week. I longed for food more than you could imagine; my stomach ached like a Rhino’s horn was stuck in it and I was so weak that I could barely stand up from a sitting position. “Get your school-clothes on, you worthless piece of trash.” He threw me into the staircase. I regained my balance. If it were up to me, I would have gone to school as I was then. Just to get out of that house. Just to get away from him. On the other hand, maybe not: I couldn't really wear my shirt while it was all mangled and covered in dried blood and still-wet rain. That might raise suspicions. I knew enough about that to be conscious of it. My stepfather was the only person I knew that still said ‘school-clothes’, but I wasn’t in the mood to laugh.
“Y-Yes, sir.” Hold on, did he say ‘school-clothes’? Wait – it was the end of summer break! I could go to school. I didn’t have to stay there while my step dad beat me up, or bum the streets anymore. The only things keeping me from jumping for joy were my sprained ankle, my head aching and spinning, and the fact that my happiness would make my stepfather livid. Thinking about all that, now I didn’t want to jump for joy, anymore. Oh, yes I did: Yahoo! Actually, it really didn’t take much to cheer me up if it involved leaving that place. Anything to get break the three months of madness, which had been summer. Most kids look forward to summer, they use numbers as a countdown to freedom. I hate summer, and think of it as an eternal weekend that I can’t get out of. I think of the numbers as the countdown to misery.
I climbed the first few steps, wincing severely from my hurt ankle. Right now, I was pretty sure that I had a cracked skull to go with it. I was all-too dizzy from the whack, too.
“MOVE!” He slugged me in the stomach. I doubled over, tumbling back down the few steps I had climbed. But I bit back my yelp. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he had succeeded in hurting me. If he made me miserable and it showed, it made him happy. If he made me miserable and I didn’t show it, then it made him irate, which led to him making me miserable, which led to the cycle beginning all over again. And, unfortunately, my throat was too sore to swallow my pride, so I always took the second route. To keep my misery from showing, I just forced a blank look on my face while inside my chest was crying out in pain. I just kept forcing it down until it was a normal feeling, and I think it was getting close to full. There was no more room left. But I kept forcing it down, pushing as hard as I could and almost busting the seams, capping it before it could all rush out and tying the drawstring before it could all burst away.
So I climbed faster.
Once out of sight in the upstairs bathroom, I leaned against the wall, my head spinning, and (flinching), I touched my hand to the back of my head – where it had hit the counter. It came back wet. Why did the counters have to have jutted steel sides? Shouldn’t someone grind them down, at least, so that they weren’t sharp? Isn't that a hazard to pets and children and whatnot? I wonder if I could sue the counter company…Nah, I wasn’t their fault, it was his. I don’t think that they actually anticipated someone thwacking a kid’s head off of the corner.
I groaned and cleaned out the wound, which was bleeding openly. Looking in the mirror, I stared at my hazel-eyed reflection until all of the tears were gone. Actually, they weren’t hazel. I didn’t really know what they were. I called them ‘dishwater’. My mom used to call them that. They were blue-gray with flecks of green, but they were brown around the center and the rims. Who had dishwater like that, I didn’t know. Who really cares, anyway, though? They’re just eyes. But they’re the only thing I like about myself, because my mom always liked them. The rest of my face isn’t too bad, really. I’ve got tan skin, and a nose without a bump on the bridge. Good. That’s one less bump on the road of life. My face isn’t round, but it isn’t really narrow, and it’s not heart-shaped, or upside-down heart shaped or any of that crap – apparently, there isn’t a name for it, yet. It’s head-shaped. My ears are kind of weird, though. They look maybe elfin; kind of pointy and not real big. My hair’s dark brown, like the color of mud, and a little long: It’s borderline hanging in my eyes and kind of separates into tufts in the back, curling under my ears and sticking out and junk like that. It could lay neat, but I preferred it this way. Neatness is overrated. On my one side of my face, there’s a scar. It’s not big, maybe two or three inches long, but it’s the only one I have on my face, kind of at my jaw line. I’ve had it since I was eleven, and my step dad gave it to me. I don’t exactly remember how it really happened, but I’ve always told people that my neighbor’s dog scratched me. My neighbor doesn’t have a dog. I was so dumb when I was eleven.
I threw on one of my old long sleeved teeshirts and a Philly’s hat to hide the cut (it was probably still visible), and hobbled down steps silently, as not to be noticed. My best friend, Jason, always wondered why I supported them. The Phillies, I mean. We live in Pennsylvania, in the northeast, so a lot of us like them, but not a lot. And they still aren’t too good. They were the wild card last year, but that doesn’t mean that four games are going to make everyone jump on the Phillies wagon. I mean, Chase Utley’s amazing, and Jorge Posada stinks, yet everyone loves the Yankees! For Pete’s sake, at least support your own state.
I grabbed my Jansport and left for school, the sky still dark in the early hours of the morning, thinking about how my life was like a roller coaster; It’s good points were the high, and the bad was the low. What had just happened was definitely the low. But I knew that I had one thing to look forward to: The bump up. Now, usually when I think ahead, I only see the bad, so this should probably go down in world history. But there was one difference between my life and a roller coaster: People voluntarily went on roller coaters. God threw me onto this one without any say. And roller coasters ended.