At the age of 16, I laid no claim to understanding the concept or the value of a home. I thought the whole thing sounded overrated, but never having had one I couldn't really make a fair judgment call. Fair or not, the whole idea of physically, mentally and emotionally attaching oneself to a location seemed not only foreign and perplexing but completely ridiculous from my point of view. I had spent my entire childhood bouncing from family member to family member.
As it was, neither of my parents possessed any innate paternal characteristics. My mother had left my life only hours after it began and I would never see her. As soon as she had recovered from child birth and the infant version of myself was out of her hands, she got out of New York City as fast as she could. Through my entire adolescents I've wonder whether the fact that this had been the plan established by my parents made her disappearance more or less justified. She had bitterly declared that she wanted nothing to do with her own child as soon as she realized she was going to have one. She came to my father and explained, none to kindly, to him that the whole situation was his fault and he would be responsible for me. At least this is what my fascinatingly blunt Aunt Cassandra, who was devoid of any compassion, had told me when I'd become interested in my mother at the tender age of eleven. Later that year, unsatisfied with her sister-in-law's story, I asked my Aunt Christine about my mother. Christine, Mrs. Beat-Around-the-Bush herself, simply said she was "a woman of questionable repute." Not understanding the term, when I went to Cousin Jacob's home the next month I asked for some clarification. After a definition that was horrifying to an eleven year old, I lost all interest in my mother.
My father on the other hand came in and out of my life like an extra in one of his plays. The only times we saw each other occurred when he decided I'd overstayed my welcome in the last relatives' house he'd left me in and came to get me. He thought this gave the illusion that I lived with him sometimes. We'd travel together to a new place in the country, I'd join family there and he would leave. I was never bitter towards him as many people assumed I was. I knew he cared about me; he just cared about himself and his always "just about to take off." acting career more. He was just to young to be a father.
Some people claimed to be Southerners. There were New Yorkers. People would declare themselves Japanese or Italian. The way people classified themselves by locations was odd to me, but seeing as it was normal, I could only call myself an Everywhere-ian. Anywhere in country had the potential to become my next home. It seemed that I had family in every region of these United States. What can I say? The Kloppman family was taking the nation by storm.