Christmas Eve with a Twist

It was Christmas holiday's again and I was on my way up north for the three hour journey to visit my father. I was bored listening to music on the train just waiting for the time to just pass by. Arriving at Central, I walked up the stairs to check the television screens for the next train north again to Burpengary. I felt like nothing could slip me out of this boredom because of how many times I'd made this train trip before, not only to visit my father and brother but to visit old friends from where I used to go to school in Morayfield and Burpengary Primary School friends. Even the music I was listening to didn't feel fresh any more, like it had been around for a few decades, yet surely enough I arrived in Burpengary two and a half hours later. I called my father to see who was picking me up and it was my brother and his friend. This friend of his was always by his side; at school, even though he left during grade nine, work and home. They were and still are inseperable. The pair picked me up from the train station we chatted for a bit and then they rabbled on about cars and work like I wasn't there as per usual. I was used to it by now and tried my best to listen through the loud radio but to no avail. Noticably they picked me up in my father's car again; I knew this meant he'd lost his license again. He once told me "I'm too drunk to walk so I'll drive." I never got in the car with him when he was like this, the pub or tavern we were at was never far from home so I would just walk. It always made me wonder how someone, anyone, could be so careless. It was about a thiry minute trip to Toorbul and when I got there they'd moved house again. This was the third time they had moved in the same suburb. My father was living with his girlfriend, her son, my brother and my brother's friend. I stayed there for about a week and more happened in that time then I thought it ever possible in such a small town. The house was now literally only twenty metres from the pub and corner store. I wondered if it was even plausible to get a house any closer to it. I was still on the whole against drinking trip when I was around my father so he thought better of me and so he didn't make any comments to pressure me into over stepping my morals. We were sitting in having a quiet red rooster dinner on the second night there when his girlfriend's son said he was going down to the park for a drink with some friends. Per usual my brother made some snide comment about his social life with jail bait when he had no excuse himself if I had made a similar comment to him. I didn't bother. I just sat there in silence most of the time asking about what they had been up to or what was going on in their life. When my brother responded obnociously he just denoted the town we were in telling me nothing interesting goes on here, yet after that night I thought that was a complete lie. Dad had a beer in his hand when I saw him first. He was working on his old sixties shovel harley, until his girlfriend walked in with dinner. This man was the kind of man who wouldn't cook for himself, clean or do anything other than the stereotypical "manly" chores like mowing. His girlfriend joked and told him if he wanted food to get up and get it for himself but he always snubbed the idea completely and told her "there's a steak and eggs in every can." When those words came out she generally gave up on the arguement and even got up to get him dinner. She knew he wouldn't eat if she didn't get the food for him, even though it was takeaways and all he had to do was get up and put the food on a plate. We sat around just watching television that night until about nine o'clock when her son burst through the back door and told us some guy king hit him from behind down at the park. My brother didn't even stop to listen to the rest of what happened. He was up and out of his seat like a rocket on launch day. His ADHD. kicked in and he was running as fast as his legs could carry him down to the park across from the corner store. By the time the rest of us had listened to my father's girlfriend's son's story we were all jogging down to the park to see what my brother had found out. There were ten or so kids standing around him while my brother held this one sixteen year old kid up by the scruff of his neck. I was surprised he could even do that. He was a scrawny, skin and bones, kind of guy but somehow when his ADHD kicked in it was like he had super strength. He was raging at this point like an unstoppable beast, he cared for my Dad's girlfriends son and this was his way of showing it. I kept quiet and conceeded as always.At the time my father started questioning them. They weren't telling us anything, only giving us bogas answers, of use because they simply didn't want to get involved or have the rain pouring down on them. Since he was king hit from behind he didn't even know his attacker. Surprisingly enough being such a big guy, six foot tall, chubby but full of muscle, he went down with one hit. I ended up being forced by conciousness, of being left alone, to go with them in the car searching for this kid. I knew if I didn't go with them it would mean I didn't care and they were now part of the family. Supporting family when thing's like this happen is everything to them. It's just not the kind of support that was necessary, I thought. The first thing I would have done if I wasn't with them would have been to call the cpolice. My brother was wanted by the police and always hid when they rocked up. He was lucky one time they came looking for him when they were in the middle of moving house. My father answered the door and he was at the new house moving furniture inside. He told them he wasn't there and said nothing else. I was only told about this later that night when my father's girlfriend called the police. We were driving around pointlessly searching. We were searching for someone and we didn't even know what he looked like. Managing to get more infomation out of a startled sixteen year old, we found the house of whom he thought had attacked him. My brother walked up to the edge of the road and started yelling profanities and taunting them to come out. When he did this everyone in the backyard scattered, obvious enough to prove their guilt. Five minutes later he realized he wasn't getting anywhere and my father showed up with his girlfriend and her brother and son. I was leaning against my brother's friends car watching it unfold, thinking and contemplating but completely relaxed with the situation, while my father walked onto their property and knocked on the door and calmy told them loud enough for the people inside the house to hear that he just wanted to know who hit his girlfriend's son. They denied all presence and responsibilty to the attack even after the son said he had spotted the guy who hit him in their backyard yet he wasn't entirely sure. My father knew this was pointless and just told us all to go home. No-one in the house felt comfortable in their seats that night. My father and his girlfriend's brother sat out on the front porch for most of the night drinking steadily while I sat on the edge of the porch listening and making the occasional comment on what they were saying. Every so often the conversation would skip back to this evening's events and then change topic again. The brother then spotted a kid slowly walking, trying to be stealthy, hiding behind a power pole. He had something hidden behind his back and at this stage we couldn't tell what it was. As soon as he was spotted word was spread quietly through the house and it was like awakening a lion, you just don't want to do it, everyone was out front of the house within seconds weapons of choice in hand. I didn't even know there were weapons in the house. I was shocked for some reason, even though I shouldn't have been. My father walked quietly and alone with the rest of the family including myself about twenty metres behind him in the shadows as not to be seen. The kid would have been on drugs or something because he didn't notice a man as brightly white skinned as my Dad walking right up to him. He started asking him why he was here, what was he doing and what was he hiding behind his back. Logically all of us knew it wasn't a gun just because of his age and who he hung around. Nothing slips past word of mouth in a small out of the way town. Dad just walked closer and closer to the pole, he attempted to jump out and hit him as soon as he got close enough but his hand was grabbed nearly instantly and stripped of a tiny hard-wood bat. He was picked up and put on the ground and held there. He continued to be questioned but wouldn't answer because he was afraid for his life. My brother was amped up now and started yelling at him aswell and threatening him. Soon after he started abusing the kid about ten more people walked out from behind a fence over a hundred metres up the road. Meanwhile my father just let the kid go. Not before taking his new little wooden bat. They started throwing objects and hurling insults to no affect on my father, since he just walked back to the porch and sipped his beer, my brother kept throwing the insults and profanities right back. I didn't think there was much point to all this so I just sat back and watched. It was the girlfriend's turn to speak on behalf of her son and she told them off for what they had started and they all kept on denying it. It took a while, knowing they wouldn't do anything, she started walking closer and closer to them and as she did they back up. No-one fought with this woman when she was mad. No-one. She ended up getting them to leave without anymore damage done. She then walked back inside the house and called the police. Being so far away from civilization meant the police took about an hour to get there and when they arrived my brother was no where to be seen. I couldn't even find him. His friend just waited in his room and hid anything they could be convicted for having in the house. She answered all the questions and told them what had happened and led them to the opposing family's house. The police came back one last time about half an hour later to tell us what we should have done in the future. The police knew full well it wouldn't be done but they were obligated to tell us. She then sent my brother's friend to look for him. None of us would have had any idea where he ran to but he even didn't know. He came back very late that night went into his room and slept. In that time we were all sitting on the front porch waiting, watching and talking. The son was back under the hammer about what he knew and was being pryed for more infomation that he didn't have or couldn't remember. That was my seventeenth Christmas Eve with the family...The next day felt like everything was forgotten during not even eight hours sleep. There were presents to be given and chocolates to be eaten. My brother and I spent Christmas morning opening presents and sitting in front of the television watching day time programming and eating chocolate. Since it was Christmas there was not much on other than Christmas shows, Christian shows or bad Christmas movies. At about eleven we all gathered into the car and headed to the girlfriends parent's place. It took us another thirty minute drive into Morayfield from Toorbul but it was worth it. At first I felt out of place not knowing any of the people around me but I soon settled in and was laughing at conversation and enjoying myself. I was still feeling a little on edge about the night before so it took me a while longer then everyone else to join in. The food was mediocre and it didn't matter because I was there for my family. We spent a couple hours there meeting people and chatting with relatives of my Dad's girlfriend. The rest of the day was spent watching television until we all went down to the pub for dinner and drinks in the park with the neighbourhood. By the time it came to go home I didn't want to leave though I never said anything. I felt unsupressed here, away from stress and responsibilities and I think my father could see that. He never said anything either. We just shook hands and told me if I needed anything he was only a phone call away.