Slightly late Father's Day Oneshot...
When you're little, you play house. And there's always a mommy, a daddy, a baby and a dog. And maybe, sometimes, the dog is a cat because the person playing likes cats more,
Just like maybe sometimes the daddy is the uncle because the mommy likes him more.
Playing House
Today was Father's Day, and my least favorite day of the year. Worst than the first day of school. Way worst than the day after Christmas. Worst than that day in the middle of April when you realized that you still have five whole weeks of school left. The most hellish of a day ever invented.
I'm sixteen though, so really, the horrible day was nothing new. Actually it's been the same for a while. I have my day down flat.
See, I always wake up with this overly happy smile, to show my distraught mother. I prepare a breakfast of Coco Puffs and milk and then make an excuse to leave the house, well before the rest of my friends are even out of bed.
I then go sneak a peek at Dan Scott…the devil of my Father's Day. My father.
Except, maybe father isn't the right word, because he's never really been a father. Biologically he was, but that was about it.
He never taught me how to play catch or took me to my first day of school. He never had taken me fishing or gone to one of my basketball games.
He didn't help me learn to stand up to the class bully or how to multiply by twelve's.
He never taught me how to ride a bike or shoot a free throw or drive a stick-shift.
And he sure as hell had never called me son.
He's Dan. And I'm Lucas.
And then there's Keith.
And you know, maybe father's day should be named something else…or maybe father shouldn't just mean the male part of the duo that produced you.
Because Uncle Keith may not have been Webster's Dictionary's definition of a father, but he was mine.
He's the one who put ice on my eye; after I failed to catch the first ball he ever threw at me. He was also the one who had to calm my hysterical mother after she caught a glimpse of the swelling mass that used to be my eye.
He was the one who coaxed me out from under my bed the first day of Kindergarten, with promises of chocolate and cartoons. The one who dropped the nice guy act after I bit him in the foot, and instead promptly pulled me out from under, grounded me from the TV for two days and carried me straight to the bus stop.
The one who pulled me out of school the Friday of my 8th birthday to go fishing. And, you know, we may have been stuck in a motel because of a storm, but it was my best birthday ever. With crappy food from the vending machine, a dirty hotel room complete with peeling wallpaper, a static TV stuck on the channel and my Uncle Keith.
Keith was the one who came to every single little league basketball game I had. Even the ones where we were beaten by twenty-eight points because the apposing team's coach kept calling fouls on six year olds and sending his son Nathan in to make the foul shots.
My Uncle was the one who told me to stand up for what I believed in, and if I believed that pinching girls was wrong, I should stand up for that. Later, after Nate kicked me on the playground after I told him off for pinching Haley, Keith was the one who assured me that violence was something boys sometimes partook in and taught me a killer right hook.
Keith was the one who sat with me for three hours, despite my constant complaining as he made me memorize my twelve timetables. And we worked forever on 12X3, until finally he asked me what the score would be if he had scored 12 three pointers in the first quarter of a basketball game. I aced that quiz…
He was the one who held onto the back of my bicycle when I was first learning. And he held on tight, not saying a word as I wobbled around the school's track three times before finally granting him permission to let go. Keith had looked on as I biked the track twelve more times before finally calling it a day.
The one who bought me Michael Jordan basketball tickets, so I could see a perfect form free throw, even if only once. He pointed out each step Jordan took, each flick of his wrist, and each pleased smirk that consumed Jordan's face after each swoosh of the net.
He was the one who instructed me through 178 stalls the first time he ever taught me how to use a car with a clutch. The one who held his tongue when I rammed his pickup truck into his mailbox, even though there was still a dent in the mailbox and still a streak of white paint on his black car.
Keith was the definition of my father. A person there for you, whenever, wherever and whatever happens.
Looking back on my past Father's Days, I sometimes wonder I f I was doing it all wrong. If going over and hiding behind Dan's shrub next to a window on his house and peering into a different family's holiday was the smart thing to do. I wondered if watching Nate and Dan pump iron together in their weight room was really how I should celebrate my father. And I'm not talking about Dan.
It took me sixteen years to figure out an alternative plan…
But I did.
Today was father's day. I woke up, smiled at my distraught mother but instead of walking by Dan's house, I walked to Keith's Motor Works.
To celebrate Father's Day with my father.
Hope Everyone Enjoyed It. Thank's y'all-
Kat