Author's Note: Squid's Grandmother is gonna play a big part in this story. I thought I should put that, so there isn't any confusion. And, yes, he calls his parents "Momma" and "Daddy". If that bothers anyone, I'm sorry. I know lots of boys who call their fathers 'Daddy'. Maybe it's a Southern thing? Also, Caveman's already at CGL when this takes place.

The seven of us sat in Pendanski's office. Pendanki had his clipboard at ready, and the other's were looking excited. Probably because they didn't have to dig today. I know it took Dr. Pendanski nearly a month to talk the Warden into letting him do this. She didn't like the idea of us not digging, but he seems to think that this'll help us. Whatever. I still don't know why he chose me. What's so interesting about me, I wonder? Oh well. I'm here now, I better just make the best of it. I'd planned it out, and I was gonna teel it to the others like it was. I wasn't gonna leave anything out. But, still I was a little scared of showing any emotion, even though I knew we were the fourth tent to go. I was the fourth guy to tell his story. I don't like it. No sir, not at all.

"Okay, Alan, today's your day!" Pendanski told me. "Does anyone want anything before we start?"

"Got milk?" Zigzag asked, smiling slightly. He was making fun of the ad, and I couldn't help but snicker to myself. At least Zig still had some smiles and laughter to carry around, as well as the tears and rage. Secretly, I hoped he had enough for all of us.

"Haha, Ricky. When we take a break, I'll get you some." Pendanski replied. He turned to me. I was sitting Indian Style on one of the two sofa's he had. X-Ray and Armpit sat next to me. The other guys were on the other couch, or on chairs. "Ready, Alan?"

"I guess." I muttered. I folded my arms under my chest, the way my Granny did when she was setting to hunker down behind an attitude or thought. "I don't know how to begin."

"Begin any place you want."

I shrugged. "No place comes to mind."

"Do you remember the first time your parents had a really big fight?" Zig asked. "I mean, an all out slam-bam?"

"Maybe he didn't have a father right off the bat." Magnet suggested in his most arrogant voice.

I spun on him.

"I had a father." I snapped. "My Momma and Daddy had a real wedding and all, too. In a church!"

Magnet shrugged. "So did mine. You see all the good it's done me? Now, look where I am."

I stared at him for a moment, then looked at the others. Each boy seemed to have the same desperate and lost look in his eyes. It occured to me, that despite all our differences, we each had our own way of saying "Once upon a time". I guessed I could find mine.

"There's no beginning. I don't know if there was ever a time when there wasn't some trouble between my Momma and Daddy." I started. "Sure, I saw 'em be sweet to each other sometimes, but that was like waiting on the raimbows after a storm. Sometimes the rainbows came, but most of the time they didn't. I think it got to where I was surprised to hear them talk to one another with out it ending in a fight.

"I've heard people say that sometimes couples get divorced because of money problmes. Well, that wasn't the main cause of my parents break up, but it didn't help that Daddy didn't make much money and was out of work alot. He was a painter and carpenter mostly but he could do other types of work. He was helpful everywhere but around his own house. When he did work, he worked long hours. I think he had a good reputation as far as that goes, but he didn't belong to any unions or anything, and he wasn't part of a company that guarenteed him regular work. So there were long periods of time when it was real hard for us. My Momma ain't what you'd call an efficient housewife. I don't even know if Daddy would call her a housewife at all. He had other names for her, and none of 'em were very nice.

"My Daddy was a handsome man, really tall, like six feet four. Anyone would take one look at him, and think that he was a ballplayer in school, but he always told me that he was too slow for sports. He said his problem was that he thought everything out before he did it. He said he liked being precise and that helps him in his carpentery.

"Momma, she was completely different. She never thinks much before she does something. Most of the time, I don't think she thinks at all. She just does what she wants, when she wants. They got into alot of fights about that. Daddy said that her brain was like a house without any doors. Things just came and went without any direction. She'd say she was bound to be on old age Social Security before he did anything worthwhile. Granny used to call them Oil and Water.

"They probably shouldn't have even got married, but she was already pregnant with me. The way daddy talked, I thought he blamed her for all the hard times because of it. If she complained, he was sure to remind her that she was the one who got pregnant. He talked like men could get knocked up too, but had the good sense not too."

"My Mother would like that." X-Ray said. "She'd love to see my Dad have labour pains and morning sickness. She's says that if males could have kids, the human race would be an endangered spiecies."

Pendanski smiled, and evryone else kind of laughed. It made me feel better about talking, but I still hesitated, and glanced at Dr. Pendanski for some encouagment before I started to talk about my Momma.

It wasn't because I was ashamed of her, which I had every right to be. Momma had done so many things to make me wanna stick my head in the sand. It used to be so that I was ashamed to meet any of my friends in public when I was with momma. Not only was there no telling of what she would do or say, but she normally had bloodshot eyes and smelled like One Eyed Sam's Bar and Grill, which was down the street from our apartment in Austin. There was a barstool in that place that practically had her name sewn on it. I heard that if she came in and someone was sitting on it, he or she would get up and find another place to sit-or they would stand.

When I was just four, Daddy would send me down there to get her, if he came home from work and discovered she wasn't home. I hated going, but I knew that if he went, they'd get into a fight that would turn physical. Daddy would even get into a fight with another bar customer who felt he had to protect momma, or had been flirting with her and wanted to show off.

Sometimes, it took me so long to get her to leave and come home with me, I'd start to cry. This normally made her mad, because the other barflies would make fun of her and tell her to go. There was nothing my Momma hated worse when she was drinking than being told what to do. It was lighting the wick on a stick of dynamite. She'd fume and fume, and then explode and she'd get real nasty. She might take a swing at Daddy, or me, for that matter. When my little brother Ronnie was a baby, I'd have to worry about him crawling around on the kitchen floor because there still might be pieces of glass from a plate she'd thrown across the room.

But, my hestitaion to talk about her came from another place. Despite what I told everyone, I hated hating Momma. Mixed with all the bad memories were good ones. There were times when she had held me, and sung to me, and kissed me. She used to call me her Precious, and she dreamed big dreams for me. All those memories were planted in my heart, right along with the bad ones, and I couldn't help but feel like I was betraying them when I told about the bad things.

For now, though, that seemed to be what Dr. Pendanski wanted me to do. From the way he talked about it, holding the bad down was like trying to keep poison in your body.

"I can't remember exactly when my Momma started drinking," I began. "But it was always alot, and it was always bad, especially for me and my brother, Ronnie."

They all lost their smiles, and their eyes became hard and cold like the eyes of those that had already seen bad things, and would probably see more. Even just thinking about the begininng stages of it, made me remember myself as a four year old child again, brought back all the demons, and the monsters I thought I'd gotten rid of.

Those monsters were dormant inside me now, but they could be nudged by the sound of someone shouting, by the sight of some poor little kid, playing alone in the gutter because his Mother was neglecting him, or merely by the sound of someone crying in the darkness, someone as alone as I was.

"When I think back now, it seems that there was always alot of drinking going on. Momma smelled from it so much, I used to thik it was her perfume." I said.

Caveman laughed.

"Of couse, I wasn't very old when I thought that. Sometimes, when Daddy sent me to One Eyes Sam's, she would just let me stand by the door, and pretend she didn't know me. I was afriad to call to her, because that would just make her mad. Finally, she'd look at Sam, and say 'My ball and chain's home from work', and they'd all laugh and tease her, and she'd blame me.

"'Why'd he have to send you, huh?' She'd snap at me.

"'He wants you to come home and make us some supper, Momma.' I'd tell her and she'd shake her head and mimic me.

"She'd stare at herself in the mirror behind in the bar for a few minutes, before she'd finish her beer, then she'd take some wobbly steps.

"'What's for dinner, Caroline?' Someone would shout.

"'My heart!' She'd scream back and whoever had yelled it would laugh and laugh. 'Go on, get outta here,' Momma'd tell me. 'You've made enough trouble for me.'

"I'd wait for her on the sidewalk. Sometimes, she came right out, and other times, I'd have to go back in for her, because she'd start up drinking again. Usually she wouldn't say much on the way home, but when she did talk, it was always a string of complaints.

"'The man who calls herself your father promised me easy street.,' She'd claim. 'He said we'd live in a nice house in a nice neighbourhood. and I'd have a yard with a garden in it, like my Momma does. Not some rat-hole four room dump, that doesn't even pay to clean. You wipe the dust off a table, and it floats right back. I told him why bother with it, the last time he complained about my house keeping.'

"She'd stop and look at herself in a store window, and make a small effort to fix her hair or straighten her outfit. It was funny, but no matter what happened between her and Daddy, Momma always wanted to be pretty for him.

"Momma's about five feet six. No matter how much she drank, she never seemed to lose her figure. She didn't get those big hips some women seem to get when they drink alot. Daddy would say that the booze all went to her head and soaked up in her brain. I always thought Momma was pretty, and was only ugly when she was really drunk. Her lower lip sags and her eyes seem to droop. Daddy used to say he couldn't even look at her when she was like that, and one time, when they were having an all out fight, he put a pillowcase over her head, and tied it at the neck so that she spun around flinging her arms and kicking like an animal or something."

Caveman's mouth was wide open. Magnet look like he could throw up, and Zig just bit his lower lip and glanced at Dr. Pendanski. It occured to me that their parents probably only threw nasty words and insults at each other, probably mostly through their expensive attorneys, if they even fought at all. They probably couldn't imagine their parents trying to do each other physical harm. The things I was telling and about to tell, they'd only seen on T.V. or in the movies.

"That wasn't the worst thing," I said, "but my Daddy was generally an easy going kinda man."

"You call that easy going?" Magnet asked, snidely.

"I don't ever remember him lifting his hand to me or Ronnie. It was just that, when my Momma got so drunk that she slobbered and called him dirty names, he lost control, that's all.

"Once, when I still about four, I remember him trying to scare her by smashing a plate. She went even wilder on him, scooping up scaucers, and cups, glasses, and bowls out of the cabinets, sending them every which way, and screaming 'You wanna see something break, Dennis Smith? I'll show you something break!'

"The only way he could make her stop was to wrap his arms around her and hold her down. She tried kicking him and even tried to lower head enough to bite him. She'd bitten him before, but he was a strong man, and he lifted her up and carried her to their bedroom. He had to literally sit on her for almost two hours before she fianlly passed out.

"When he came out of the bedroom, he had scratches on his arms and his neck, some that were still bleeding, I was so scared, I couldn't move. In fact," I glanced at Dr. Pendanski. "I think I peed my pants."

They were all staring at me like I was something from outer space, probably because this was the most truth I'd ever shown. 'You asked for it,' I thought. 'Well, I'll give it to you.'

"I had that problem for a long time after I was supposed to. Momma even took me to the doctor and he told her it was all in my head. She got mad and called him stupid, because it was in my underwear, not in my head. He said I needed to see a psychiatrist, and Momma called him nuts, and she drug me out of there fast, screaming that she wasn't gonna pay no quack a red cent. She vowed she'd cure me, and her way was to force me to wear the wet underwear, even when Daddy complained about the smell."

"Ugh." Magnet moaned, sitting back in his set. "That's sick! Can I get a glass of water or something, Mom?"

"Sure. How about the rest of you?" He smiled at Zig. "Still want milk?"

"No thanks." He said, looking like he was trying to hold down his breakfast. "I'll just take some water, too."

"Okay, let me get us a pitcher of ice water." Dr. Pendanski said, standing up. Zero and Caveman both needed to use the bathroom, so they followed him out. When they returned, Pendanski smiled and nodded at me. I guess he did want me to shake our group up a bit. He poured everyone a glass and told me to continue.

"Right before I turned five, Momma discovered she was pregnant again." I said. "I thought she was never going to have another baby, because she kept from getting pregnant for so long. I didn't know it until later, but Momma had been pregnant before. She lost the baby when I was only two, lost it in the bathtub."

The others froze in anticipation of me describing how. I thought about it for a few moments and decided not to. When I moved on to describe the next pregnacy instead, they all looked relieved. It almost made me laugh out loud. I was starting to enjoy their looks of shock or disgust. It was almost fun for me.

Dr. Pendanski could see it too, and shot me a look that told me he knew what I was up to. I quickly tried to wipe the smug smile off my face.

"For a little while, Momma cleaned up her act. Daddy got steady work and we had some extra money to do things together. We went to Six Flags, and to the Aquarium. We even took a trip to see Daddy's cousin, Kenny, out in San Diego, and we went to the zoo while we were there.

"Momma was pretty big by that time Sometimes, Ronnie'd kick her stomach and she'd let me feel it. I kept thinking about how much fun it would be to have a baby brother to help out with. I didn't realize just how much I'd end up helping as I got older."

"Alot?" Armpit asked.

I stared at him for a second.

"Sometimes he confused who was his Momma and who was his big brother."

"That's sad" X-Ray said. "Making you do that when you were just a little kid."

"Yeah, well, that's the way the cookie crumbles." I muttered, and he looked away. I knew that he knew I didn't want any pity.

"When Momma was in her seventh month, Daddy got laid off again and we had to watch every penny. Momma hated that. It made her even more wasteful, just for spite. I guess it was just her way of telling Daddy he better find work fast. She wasn't going to deny herself her ciggarettes, or occasional beer.

"One night, right after that, while Daddy was out trying to find work, she went off to One Eyed Sam's. When he came home, and found me alone, he went into this huge rage, almost ripping the door off it's hinges on his way out. I was surprised he didn't send me to fetch her, but she was pregnant wasn't supposed to be drinking at all.

"At One Eyed Sam's, a man came between her and Daddy, and the police had to come. I'll never forget that," I said, looking down at the floor. The memory put ice around my heart for a second.

"I was sitting on the couch, watching a rerun of 'Three's Company', and looking out the door every few minutes, scared of what Momma would be like when they came home, when I heard a knock. I saw a policewoman and a policeman. The policeman was black. He knew my name, and told me that they'd come to see if I was alright. Daddy told them I was there. He told me I had to come with them for awhile, and I shook my head and started to cry. I even tried to run away from them and hide, but they caught me and made me go with them. I remember thinking that I was being arrested because I'm Momma's son, and she was so bad."

I took a deep breath and looked up. The six other boys were looking at me, not daring to take a breath.

"They kept me in a room, and gave me hot chocolate and cookies, while we waited to find out what would happen to Momma and Daddy. She'd torn up some of the bar, too, but One Eyed Sam didn't press charges, and Daddy was released on a pending court apperance. The other guy didn't show up, so they dropped all the charges on him. It was enought to put a little scare in Momma.

"She behaved herself for a while after that, and then Ronnie was born in the bathroom."

"What did you say?" Magnet asked immediately. His head spun around at me so fast, I thought it might keep going around and around on his neck.

"Daddy wasn't home." I continued, ignoring him. "It was in the early afternoon, and I had just walked home from the bus stop. I was in the first grade by then. I came into the apartment and called for Momma like I always did, but she didn't answer. At first, I thought she wasn't home. Then, I heard her scream from the bathroom. I ran in there and what I saw nailed my feet to the floor. She was on the floor, and I could see the baby coming. She was yelling at me to go call nine-one-one for help. I saw so scared, I started crying. I couldn't help it, but she kept yelling, so I finally went and did what she said. I told the operator that my Momma was having a baby on the bathroom floor. I was giving her our address, when I heard Ronnie cry. I hung up with the operator, and ran in the bathroom. Momma was lying on the floor, with Ronnie on her stomach, but there was blood, and afterbirth, and......"

"Oh God, do we have to listen to this?" Magnet asked, twisting his face into a grimace of disgust.

Zero looked a shade whiter than milk. X-Ray's mouth was hanging open so wide, I could practically see his breakfast. Ther other guys were just staring at me in silence, looking sick.

"I don't want to upset you, Jose, but you have to understand what Alan's life was like. If it was you, I wouldn't want you to hold back, for fear of upsetting someone." Pendanski said softly.

"Like I'd have something that sick to tell." Magnet replied, not bothering to correct Pendanski for calling him by his real name. "This is just.........gross."

"What might not be disagreeable to you, could be to Alan."

"Oh please."

"Why don't you just put your fingers in your ears?" I snapped at him. He looked like he was going to say something, but held off.

"Just finish telling us what happened, Alan." Pendanski coaxed at me.

"She asked me to get her a towel, and I did. Then, I got her some hot water, and we just waited. The paramedics came and finished off Ronnie's birth, but they took them both to the hospital anyway. Granny came and stayed with me, and finally Daddy showed up to see Ronnie and Momma. She was okay, but madder than hell at him for not being there. They had a fight, right there in the hospital, Daddy trying to defend himself, Momma screaming about how she almost died giving birth to his youngest son.

"Right from the start, she made it sound like Ronnie was only his, and she was just delivering him. That was when she started blamed Daddy for all the work and problems, right then and there. The nurse had to ask them to stop yelling.

Momma and Ronnie stayed only that one night. I went home with Granny and she brought me back the next morning. It was one thing to see Ronnie behind the window at the hospital, but another to see him in the little crib beside Momma and Daddy's bed. I thought just the sight of him was a wonder. His head didn't look much bigger than one of my rubber balls and when he cried, he lifted his little, puffy arms and waved his tiny fist in the ait, like he was looking for someone to punch. I would stand there for long periods of time, just watching him sleep, then wake up and take a tiny breath before screaming.

"From the way Granny talked about the baby, I thought we'd all magically be one happy family, but it didn't work that way. Momma only complained more and more. Daddy got new work, but he wasn't making enough money to satisfy her. When they fought and shouted at each other, she'd blame him for Ronnie, claiming he was the one who wanted a second child. She talked like she didn't even want him, and I'd look at my baby brother and wonder how someone, espically his own Momma, wouldn't want him.

"He was a colicky baby. Nothing seemed to help. He did cry alot and Momma would rage around the apartment, complaining that doctors didn't know anything, and that she'd go insane listening to it. She made Daddy get up with Ronnie every night, no matter how early he he had to work the next morning. When she saw I could help, really help, could hold Ronnie saftly, change his diaper, put him to sleep, and feed him his bottle, she depended on me more and more. She started to keep me home from school, even. The traunt officer came by, and when he saw I wasn't really sick, he said he'd turn Momma in, and they'd take me away from her.

"I heard her mumble, 'Take them both.'

"Maybe she said it because she was mad, but it still hurt. It burnt into my brain, and I thought it might really happen. I had trouble sleeping and every time someone knocked on the door, I was sure they'd come for me. Granny came by as often as she could, but her and Momma got into fights about the way Momma cleaned, and took care of us. Ske knew Momma was drinking again, too.

"By this time, Momma was hiding booze all over the house. She was driking vodka, because it didn't smell as bad. She hid it in shampoo bottles and even in the hot water bottle she kept in the closet. For months, Daddy didn't have any idea about it, then she started getting sloppy about hiding it, and he would find half empty glasses of orange or cranberry juice. He'd taste it and know what she'd put in there.

"When he complained, she screamed about how hard her life was, taking care of an infant and a small child. Of course, she always brought up money problmes, and then he'd accuse her of wasting what little we did have, and the cycle would start all over again. She's say she drank to stay sane, and he's say if she was sane, he didn't know what crazy meant anymore.

"I'd come home from school, and find Ronnie in dirty diapers. I could tell from the rashes on his legs and bottom, that he'd been like that all day long. That, of couse, made him scream and cry more, which drove her to the bottle more. She got so that she could sleep right through his wailing. I guess she passed out rather than slept. I'd find her like that everywhere, in the kichen, in the bathroom, sometimes on the floor of her bedroom."

"She should've been locked up." Magnet said.

I stared at him for a long moment, then looked at the window at the bright sunlight. Maybe Magnet was right, but it still hurt to hear someone else say it. There were alot of worse things in this life that could, and maybe would happen to me, but hating my Momma seemed to be at the top of that list.