(step)dad

(Parenthesis) Step (end-parenthesis) Dad. When I think of my dad, I think of him just like that. I had no biological claim to him, not like my half sister did. He was her father.  He wasn't my father, but he wasn't just one of my step dads. He was my (parenthesis) Step (end-parenthesis) Dad. He was my dad when we drank beer and watched George Brett play baseball on TV. Me in my little red chair with an A & W mug, he with a bottle of Miller High Life. He was my dad when we said, "Aw shit" and "Damn it all to hell" and mom came out of the kitchen to scold us with a sharp mouth but laughing eyes. He was my dad when he was swatting me with a flyswatter, a flip-flop, or a switch from Mr. Shoemaker's lilac tree. He was my dad when we played "Monster."Him, dragging one foot behind his body, as if it were some deformed horror. Me, screaming with laughter and a little bit of fear. Then he was picking me up, and swinging me round and round until I was airborne, flying through my yellow room. A yellow I hated, because I wanted pink, and I was a girl and girls don't like yellow, they like pink, and mom knew that, and she still painted it yellow. Until I hit the bed, safely bouncing. Except for that one time, when my miniature body bounced up from the mattress, and my head penetrated the drywall painted yellow,and then he stopped laughing, because I had stopped laughing and we didn't know if I was hurt, and when I knew I was alive, but my head was stuck in the wall, the giggles took me over and then he was laughing too, and we laughed until mom came home from work and found us, the monster and his victim, laughing too hard to stop and she wanted to know why my head was stuck in the wall and that just made us laugh harder. He was my dad when a bad man came into our neighborhood to be a window peeker, even though I didn't even know what a window peeker did. But my dad did, and he ran after that window peeker in his white dad underwear, and my baseball bat. I was glad he didn't catch that window peeker, because my dad was scary that night.  And he was my dad when he stayed up too late, drinking beers, listening to "Dust in the Wind" with his friend, Greg, and they sang it too loud, but it still made me laugh when I peeked at them from my doorway,  but it didn't make mom laugh, not at all. He was my dad when he took us to the beach and he drank too many beers, while we played in the lake, and in the sand,and he fell asleep, and when he woke up, he was red, like a blister, but all over, and then he took us home, and he couldn't hardly move for a week, and mom was mad, but she didn't say anything. Her lips just turned into a straight line and she never smiled at him anymore. And he was my dad when he cried, and he told me he was leaving because he and mom were getting a divorce, and I thought he was lying, just kidding, not really, they were going to change their minds, and he was going to stay 'cause he was my dad. But he didn't stay, and he didn't come back. Not for me. Because he was my(parenthesis) Step (end-parenthesis) Dad.