Six moths ago, Brooklyn was arrested.Seems she sold a tiny yellow Hello Kitty tablet to a barefoot girl in a peasant dress at an Iron and Wine concert in Atlanta.
Sometimes southern hospitality looks like felony drug possession…especially when you sell Ecstasy to an undercover cop. Shoes or no.
This weekend, Brooklyn will leave her therapeutic boarding school for a 72-hour, off-campus visit with her father. But this is no reward.
Simon divorced Brooklyn’s mother when she was in third grade. Today, her dad is a “high performing” commercial real estate developer who spends nearly 300 days a year working multi-million dollar deals in the Asia and the Middle East.
Brooklyn often cites “absent father, insane mother” as the reason she flunked out of private school, likes to steal jewelry from department stores, and eventually got busted for drugs.
Simon says his only child “has always had her mother’s disregard for authority”…that she doesn’t “appreciate how hard he works to provide for her" and that she “dresses like a hobo lady on crack.”
The shiny, full-size rental car rolls slowly into the parking lot of the fading, vacation motel. Simon steps out of the car, scans the place…frowns. Brooklyn remains in her seat. She’s not yet looked up from her book of Edgar Allen Poe short stories. Her father exhales heavily and walks towards the motel office.
This must be the place…though it looks so different a decade later…paint-chipped and faded, weeds springing from asphalt cracks, an audible buzz coming from the neon light near the door: a pot-bellied man in a sombrero, sleepy-drunk eyes, a gringo's cigarette dangling from his lips.
“Bienvenido” reads the sign.
The shattered family was here before…when Brooklyn was small, Simon and his wife still very much in love. That was when a week at the beach held the promise of a found conch…sand-crusted, smelling of salt, and twist-full of roaring sea.
Brooklyn has set down the book now. She sees her dad in the motel lobby, working things out…glad-handing the staff that is, no doubt, bewildered by the off-season arrival of this man and his wild child.
When did her dad start looking so much like…somebody’s dad? All graying and frumpy in pleated slacks…smiling way too much. Nodding. Agreeing. So damn eager to please.
She returns to Poe in a fury.
This weekend, Brooklyn will leave her therapeutic boarding school for a 72-hour, off-campus visit with her father. But this is no reward.
Simon divorced Brooklyn’s mother when she was in third grade. Today, her dad is a “high performing” commercial real estate developer who spends nearly 300 days a year working multi-million dollar deals in the Asia and the Middle East.
Brooklyn often cites “absent father, insane mother” as the reason she flunked out of private school, likes to steal jewelry from department stores, and eventually got busted for drugs.
Simon says his only child “has always had her mother’s disregard for authority”…that she doesn’t “appreciate how hard he works to provide for her" and that she “dresses like a hobo lady on crack.”
The shiny, full-size rental car rolls slowly into the parking lot of the fading, vacation motel. Simon steps out of the car, scans the place…frowns. Brooklyn remains in her seat. She’s not yet looked up from her book of Edgar Allen Poe short stories. Her father exhales heavily and walks towards the motel office.
This must be the place…though it looks so different a decade later…paint-chipped and faded, weeds springing from asphalt cracks, an audible buzz coming from the neon light near the door: a pot-bellied man in a sombrero, sleepy-drunk eyes, a gringo's cigarette dangling from his lips.
“Bienvenido” reads the sign.
The shattered family was here before…when Brooklyn was small, Simon and his wife still very much in love. That was when a week at the beach held the promise of a found conch…sand-crusted, smelling of salt, and twist-full of roaring sea.
Brooklyn has set down the book now. She sees her dad in the motel lobby, working things out…glad-handing the staff that is, no doubt, bewildered by the off-season arrival of this man and his wild child.
When did her dad start looking so much like…somebody’s dad? All graying and frumpy in pleated slacks…smiling way too much. Nodding. Agreeing. So damn eager to please.
She returns to Poe in a fury.
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