Chapter one of "Sasquatch Diaries"
Dear Diary, I’m done! He’s embarrassed me for the very last time! Sorry to begin this by screaming, but that drunk loser I call “Dad” simply doesn’t deserve my efforts anymore. He just uses me to further his failed country music career, and I’m sick of playing the whining misused gal from a bad country song, especially when the carousing, immature cowpoke is my dad! Sorry, screamed again.
Dear Diary, the idea of diaries gives me the creeps, kind of like talking to myself on paper. Writing a diary is the kind of thing some Barbie-playing, no-life, girly-girl would pine about her crush in. You know the type. “Dear Diary, you wouldn’t believe it! Brad’s a Scorpio! That means we’re like, perfectly matched! And his favorite color is green!”
I’m only doing this because it’s my tutor’s idea of therapy. I’m moving to a new home in a new state, starting at a public school for the first time in three years, and moving in with a mother I barely know and a stepfather I don’t know at all. My tutor, playing shrink, gave me this cheapo compo book to jot down my feelings and codify my adventures. Oh well, I’m sure there won’t be much else to do up there in the boonies besides spit tobacco at chickens, chop down trees, or make bearded faces out of moss and rocks. I’m not much for huntin’ and fishin’ after all, so a journal might keep me occupied for an hour a day as I walk through the valley of the shadow of boredom.
How should I start this? You’re probably wondering why I’m mad at my dad, but now that I’ve calmed down a mite, I guess I shouldn’t begin a diary on that note. There’s too much negativity there. Instead I’ll be positive. I’ll get to my dad later, when I’ve had a little more time to load my gun.
I’ll tell myself, as this diary’s sole reader, who I am and what I look like. I’ll keep it simple. My name is Sunkist Daly and I hate it. My dad named me after what he was drinking at the Memphis hospital where I was born. Thank God they didn’t allow him his usual drink of choice, Old Milwaukee. Why couldn’t he have been drinking a Margarita or something?
OK, now I’m calm enough to talk about my dad in a dignified manner. He’s a washed-up, alcoholic, country singer, straight out of a bad Nashville song. Living the example, I guess. When I was born, Dade still rode his horses high on the charts. Ever hear of Bo Daly? No? That’s because Bo is his real name, and it would have been fabulous name for a country music star. Naturally he had to change it, and he reached for the lowest common denominator. Ever hear of Bubba Bassboat? Kinda brings to mind pickup trucks up on blocks on the front lawn with duct tape reflectors. Ah, now I see the light of recognition sparkling in your eyes.
Bubba Bassboat’s biggest hit hearkened to a baseball game, our hero rounding the bases as his honey, at home, is rounding bases with his best friend. He knows, but the game must go on, and Bubba wails the heartbreaking chorus, “This game is called, on account of pain.” There were a number of low-ranking hits for my dad in the Garth-filled Nineties.
As you’ve probably guessed, my dad’s not the best songwriter. His career took a slide during the second half of the decade until, in desperation, he handed me a pen and told me to write a song for my allowance. I wrote “Pickup Truck,” and it went top ten. They stuck the name “Daly” on there and nobody knew the difference. He hasn’t had a hit since.
I’ve lived with my dad without my mom for fifteen years, ever since the divorce. Back then he could afford better lawyers than Mom, and she didn’t fight to keep me anyway. In fact, she kinda disappeared. I traveled with Dad and his band, including a tutor who doubled as his drummer, and gained extra-curricular education from honky tonks and state fairs.
We were fine until Dad took a lesson from Billy Ray Cyrus and inked a deal with Disney’s biggest competitor. Ever hear of Lauren Oregon? No? She (I) was a country singer by night and an ordinary high school student by day. We made a pilot episode with the pseudo-hit song, “Where’s My Cow?” The pilot only aired on Nepalese televisions. Something about Disney claiming copyright infringement. “Where’s My Cow” went to #43 in Nepal and brought me enough money to hire a lawyer and locate my mother, as Dad downed some Kentucky bourbon and contemplated baby names.
It turned out I overreacted. Dad didn’t fight, and there aren’t too many hurdles a well-adjusted seventeen-year-old must leap over to get away from an alcoholic dad. He granted me something called “emancipation.” It means that I don’t need my parents’ permission to do anything. The only thing I knew how to do, however, was write bad country songs. So I called my mom and spoke to her for the first time in over ten years. We had a tearful reunion over the phone and she’s agreed to let me move in and leech off her for a while. She lives in Idaho, somewhere on the eastern side near the Montana border, a little town called “Lurstinawuts.” It’s an Indian name pronounced “lost in the woods.” I think it means, “lost in the woods.” Got it?
So that’s why I’m mad at my good-for-nothing dad. He didn’t act mad or try to stop me. Now he won’t even show up at the airport and see me off or give fatherly advice like, “check your oil.” That wouldn’t make any sense since I’m riding in an American Airlines plane, and they would have a problem with my checking the dipstick. No, the dork is passed out somewhere from last night’s binge.
Mongo, my tutor, drove me to the airport. He hugged me with his big black drummer’s arms, gave me his words of wisdom, “Don’t feed the grizzlies,” and wouldn’t leave until I was safely aboard the plane.
At least he cares. I think I saw a big old tear trail down his liver-spotted cheek. Dear old Mongo’s always been the mom to Dad’s dad, or something like that. He gave me a cell phone, said he’d pay the monthlies and please keep in touch, then he held up that bear claw of his, sideways, like a gun aimed for a kill shot. That’s his way of saying goodbye and the reason he has so many restraining orders on him.
Now I’m in the airplane, and I watch him disappear into the reflections on the airport windows as the plane taxis away. It’s about three hours from Memphis to Coeur d’Alene and I won’t spend that time mad at Dad. If I want life with Ma to be any good, then I must move on. I don’t wait for the seatbelt sign to turn off, jot down the final sentences in this diary entry, pull out the book I bought at the airport, and open to Chapter One.
Memphis fades as the Mississippi River snakes below. I guess I’m headed for a whole new world.
Dear Diary, the idea of diaries gives me the creeps, kind of like talking to myself on paper. Writing a diary is the kind of thing some Barbie-playing, no-life, girly-girl would pine about her crush in. You know the type. “Dear Diary, you wouldn’t believe it! Brad’s a Scorpio! That means we’re like, perfectly matched! And his favorite color is green!”
I’m only doing this because it’s my tutor’s idea of therapy. I’m moving to a new home in a new state, starting at a public school for the first time in three years, and moving in with a mother I barely know and a stepfather I don’t know at all. My tutor, playing shrink, gave me this cheapo compo book to jot down my feelings and codify my adventures. Oh well, I’m sure there won’t be much else to do up there in the boonies besides spit tobacco at chickens, chop down trees, or make bearded faces out of moss and rocks. I’m not much for huntin’ and fishin’ after all, so a journal might keep me occupied for an hour a day as I walk through the valley of the shadow of boredom.
How should I start this? You’re probably wondering why I’m mad at my dad, but now that I’ve calmed down a mite, I guess I shouldn’t begin a diary on that note. There’s too much negativity there. Instead I’ll be positive. I’ll get to my dad later, when I’ve had a little more time to load my gun.
I’ll tell myself, as this diary’s sole reader, who I am and what I look like. I’ll keep it simple. My name is Sunkist Daly and I hate it. My dad named me after what he was drinking at the Memphis hospital where I was born. Thank God they didn’t allow him his usual drink of choice, Old Milwaukee. Why couldn’t he have been drinking a Margarita or something?
OK, now I’m calm enough to talk about my dad in a dignified manner. He’s a washed-up, alcoholic, country singer, straight out of a bad Nashville song. Living the example, I guess. When I was born, Dade still rode his horses high on the charts. Ever hear of Bo Daly? No? That’s because Bo is his real name, and it would have been fabulous name for a country music star. Naturally he had to change it, and he reached for the lowest common denominator. Ever hear of Bubba Bassboat? Kinda brings to mind pickup trucks up on blocks on the front lawn with duct tape reflectors. Ah, now I see the light of recognition sparkling in your eyes.
Bubba Bassboat’s biggest hit hearkened to a baseball game, our hero rounding the bases as his honey, at home, is rounding bases with his best friend. He knows, but the game must go on, and Bubba wails the heartbreaking chorus, “This game is called, on account of pain.” There were a number of low-ranking hits for my dad in the Garth-filled Nineties.
As you’ve probably guessed, my dad’s not the best songwriter. His career took a slide during the second half of the decade until, in desperation, he handed me a pen and told me to write a song for my allowance. I wrote “Pickup Truck,” and it went top ten. They stuck the name “Daly” on there and nobody knew the difference. He hasn’t had a hit since.
I’ve lived with my dad without my mom for fifteen years, ever since the divorce. Back then he could afford better lawyers than Mom, and she didn’t fight to keep me anyway. In fact, she kinda disappeared. I traveled with Dad and his band, including a tutor who doubled as his drummer, and gained extra-curricular education from honky tonks and state fairs.
We were fine until Dad took a lesson from Billy Ray Cyrus and inked a deal with Disney’s biggest competitor. Ever hear of Lauren Oregon? No? She (I) was a country singer by night and an ordinary high school student by day. We made a pilot episode with the pseudo-hit song, “Where’s My Cow?” The pilot only aired on Nepalese televisions. Something about Disney claiming copyright infringement. “Where’s My Cow” went to #43 in Nepal and brought me enough money to hire a lawyer and locate my mother, as Dad downed some Kentucky bourbon and contemplated baby names.
It turned out I overreacted. Dad didn’t fight, and there aren’t too many hurdles a well-adjusted seventeen-year-old must leap over to get away from an alcoholic dad. He granted me something called “emancipation.” It means that I don’t need my parents’ permission to do anything. The only thing I knew how to do, however, was write bad country songs. So I called my mom and spoke to her for the first time in over ten years. We had a tearful reunion over the phone and she’s agreed to let me move in and leech off her for a while. She lives in Idaho, somewhere on the eastern side near the Montana border, a little town called “Lurstinawuts.” It’s an Indian name pronounced “lost in the woods.” I think it means, “lost in the woods.” Got it?
So that’s why I’m mad at my good-for-nothing dad. He didn’t act mad or try to stop me. Now he won’t even show up at the airport and see me off or give fatherly advice like, “check your oil.” That wouldn’t make any sense since I’m riding in an American Airlines plane, and they would have a problem with my checking the dipstick. No, the dork is passed out somewhere from last night’s binge.
Mongo, my tutor, drove me to the airport. He hugged me with his big black drummer’s arms, gave me his words of wisdom, “Don’t feed the grizzlies,” and wouldn’t leave until I was safely aboard the plane.
At least he cares. I think I saw a big old tear trail down his liver-spotted cheek. Dear old Mongo’s always been the mom to Dad’s dad, or something like that. He gave me a cell phone, said he’d pay the monthlies and please keep in touch, then he held up that bear claw of his, sideways, like a gun aimed for a kill shot. That’s his way of saying goodbye and the reason he has so many restraining orders on him.
Now I’m in the airplane, and I watch him disappear into the reflections on the airport windows as the plane taxis away. It’s about three hours from Memphis to Coeur d’Alene and I won’t spend that time mad at Dad. If I want life with Ma to be any good, then I must move on. I don’t wait for the seatbelt sign to turn off, jot down the final sentences in this diary entry, pull out the book I bought at the airport, and open to Chapter One.
Memphis fades as the Mississippi River snakes below. I guess I’m headed for a whole new world.