My Name Isn’t Rufus
A “Catcher in the Rye” type young adult novel
DEDICATED TO: Now that I’m sixteen, I’m sorting out my life and separating the important stuff from the crap. My second mother used to say that if you tripped back through the years you’d realize that a lot of catastrophes that frazzled the grey stuff between your ears weren’t as bad as you remembered. And some that you got blamed for weren’t your fault. She had this idea that you couldnʼt solve new problems if you havenʼt faced old ones still hanging around. That doesnʼt compute for me. If I added my past problems to the ones Iʼve got now, Iʼd be in a strait jacket. But if sheʼs right about old ones hanging on, that could explain the senseless things I still do today. So Iʼve decided to confront my troubles, examine them one by one, then dump them one by one. Who needs them hanging on? What I did last year, even a couple of months ago, is history. I was another person then. Itʼs time I looked at myself today without getting rattled at the things my earlier self did.
My second mother was deep into psychology stuff. She used it on everybody, including my dad. It didnʼt work on him, so she gave up, which caused me to doubt her. Still I have to admit itʼs unfair to judge by Dad. His mind was usually too occupied to get through to. He could look me in the eyeballs real interested, tap his front tooth with his finger like he was weighing each word, then nod in agreement. Had I had the smarts to catch on earlier, it wouldn’t have bothered me so much the times he didn’t coach me in softball or take me to the games. I had bragged to everybody about going, then had to make up a story about why I didn’t. The fact is, Dad was thinking of something else when he made promises. He didn’t know he made them. It cracks me up thinking about it.
So, here I am, desperate enough to give this retrospecting business a shot before turning myself over to Jesus—which wouldn’t be cool considering all the money that was spent on my Bar Mitzvah. Buy the Ebook
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