Stephen Chbosky - The Perks of Being a Wallflower

"I'm sorry. Okay? I mean it. Can'mon. Stop crying."

My sister was crying so hard, it was scary. Then, my dad turned to my sister. Again, he didn't say a word. He just snapped his fingers to distract her from crying. She looked at him. She was confused at first because he wasn't giving her a warm look. But then, she looked down and shrugged and turned to my brother.

"I'm sorry I said what I said about Kelly. She sounds nice."

Then, my dad turned to my mom. And my mom turned to us.

"Your father and I don't want any more fighting. Especially in the family's house. Understood?"

My mom and dad make a real team sometimes. It's amazing to watch. My brother and sister both nodded and looked down. Then, my dad turned to me.

"Charlie?"

from

"Yes, sir?"

It is important to say "sir" at these moments. And if they ever call you by your first-middle-last name, you better watch out. I'm telling you.

"Charlie, I would like you to drive the rest of the way to my mother's house."

Everyone in the car knew that this was probably the worst idea my dad ever had in his whole life. But no one argued. He got out of the car in the middle of the road. He got in the backseat between my brother and sister. I climbed in the front seat, stalled the car twice, and put on my seat belt. I drove the rest of the way. I haven't sweat that much since I played sports, and it was cold out.

My dad's family is kind of like my mom's family. My brother once said it was like the same cousins with different names. The big difference is my grandma. I love my grandma. Everyone loves my grandma. She was waiting for us in the driveway as she always did. She always knew when someone was coming.

"Is Charlie driving now?"

"He turned sixteen yesterday."

"Oh."

My grandma is very old, and she doesn't remember things a lot, but she bakes the most delicious cookies. When I was very little, we had my mom's mom, who always had candy, and my dad's mom, who always had cookies. My mom told me that when I was little, I called them "Candy Grandma" and "Cookies Grandma." I also called pizza crust "pizza bones." I don't know why I'm telling you this.

It's like my very first memory, which I guess is the first time I was aware that I was alive. My mom and my Aunt Helen took me to the zoo. I think I was three. I don't remember that part. Anyway, we were watching these two cows. A mother cow and its baby calf. And they didn't have a lot of room to walk around. Anyway, the baby calf was standing right underneath its mother, just kind of walking around, and the mother cow took a "dump" on the baby calf's head. I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever seen in the whole world, and I laughed about it for three hours. At first, my mom and Aunt Helen kind of laughed, too, because they were happy that I was laughing. Supposedly, I didn't talk hardly at all when I was a little kid, and whenever I seemed normal, they were happy. But into the third hour, they were trying to make me stop laughing, but it only made me laugh harder. I don't think it was really three hours, but it seemed like a long time. I still think about it every now and then. It seems like a rather "auspicious" beginning.

After hugs and handshakes, we went into my grandma's house, and the whole dad-side-of-the-family was there. Great Uncle Phil with his fake teeth and my aunt Rebecca, who is my dad's sister. Mom told us that Aunt Rebecca just got divorced again, so we shouldn't mention anything. All I could think about was the cookies, but Grandma didn't make them this year because of her bad hip.

We all sat down and watched television instead, and my cousins and my brother talked about football. And my Great Uncle Phil drank. And we ate dinner. And I had to sit at the little kids' table because there are more cousins on my dad's side of the family.

Little kids talk about the strangest things. They really do.

After dinner is when we watched It's a Wonderful Life, and I started feeling more and more sad. As I was walking up the stairs to my dad's old room, and I was looking at the old photographs, I started thinking that there was a time when these weren't memories. That someone actually took that photograph, and the people in the photograph had just eaten lunch or something.

My grandma's first husband died in Korea. My dad and my aunt Rebecca were very young. And my grandma moved with her two kids to live with her brother, my great uncle Phil.

Finally, after a few years, my grandma was feeling very sad because she had these two little kids, and she was tired from waitressing all the time. So, one day, she was working at this diner where she worked, and this truck driver asked her on a date. My grandma was very very pretty in that old photograph kind of way. They dated for a while. And finally they got married. He turned out to be a terrible person. He hit my dad all the time. And he hit my aunt Rebecca all the time. And he really hit my grandma. All the time. And my grandma really couldn't do anything about it, I guess, because it went on for seven years.

It ended finally when my great uncle Phil saw bruises on my aunt Rebecca and finally got the truth out of my grandma. Then, he got a few of his friends together from the factory. And they found my grandma's second husband in a bar. And they beat him up really bad. My great uncle Phil loves to tell the story when my grandma isn't around. The story keeps changing, but the main point is still the same. The guy died four days later in the hospital.

I still don't know how my great uncle Phil missed going to jail for doing what he did. I asked my dad once, and he said that the people that lived around his neighborhood understood that some things had nothing to do with the police. He said that if someone touched your sister or your mother, they paid the price, and everyone looked the other way.

It's just too bad that it went on for seven years because my aunt Rebecca went through the same kind of husbands. My aunt Rebecca had it different, though, because neighborhoods change. My great uncle Phil was too old, and my dad left his hometown. She had to get restraining orders instead.

I think about what my three cousins, who are Aunt Rebecca's children, will turn out like. One girl and two boys. I get sad, too, because I think that the one girl will probably end up like my aunt Rebecca, and the one boy will probably end up like his dad. The other boy might end up like my dad because he can really play sports, and he had a different dad than his brother or sister. My dad talks to him a lot and teaches him how to throw and hit a baseball. I used to get jealous about this when I was a little kid, but I don't anymore. Because my brother said that my cousin is the only one in his family who has ad chance. He needs my dad. I guess I understand that now.

My dad's old room is very much the way he left it, except more faded. There is a globe on a desk that has been spun a lot. And there are old posters of baseball players. And old press clippings of my dad winning the big game when he was a sophomore. I don't know why, but I really understood why my dad had to leave this house. When he knew my grandma would never find another man because she was through trusting and would never look for anything else because she didn't know how. And when he saw his sister start bringing home younger versions of their stepfather to date. He just couldn't stay.

I laid down on his old bed, and I looked through the window at this tree that was probably a lot shorter when my dad looked at it. And I could feel what he felt on the night when he realized that if he didn't leave, it would never be his life. It would be theirs. At least that's how he's put it. Maybe that's why my dad's side of the family watches the same movie every year. It makes sense enough. I should probably mention that my dad never cries at the ending.