SOCIAL INVENTIONS: HALLUCINOGENIC STEPFATHER

This is my house…

Actually, it’s the house I grew up in, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof.

And this is where I grew up: Bricktown, New Jersey, ten minutes away from Seaside Heights, New Jersey’s version of the South of France. And this is the story of my hallucinogenic stepfather.

Somewhere between my second and third stepfathers I had another stepfather: In fact, my favorite stepfather. I don’t really remember that much about the one before or after him, mostly just that they were there, but him I remember distinctly.

When I turned eight he took me to Great Adventure…. Two weeks later we went to a Yankees game. In fact, his youngest daughter was my first love…. Okay, maybe love is an overstatement…. She was my first kiss.

We were in the living room watching TV. We had special permission to stay up late on Tuesday nights to watch the Dukes of Hazzard. Right after those Duke boys got themselves in another fine mess and the show went into commercial she grabbed my arm, pulled me toward her and kissed me. Nothing big or anything, but there it was, my first kiss.

But back to the stepfather…. I don’t remember his name or anything, though I do remember at least that much about all my other stepfathers, but I liked him. I’m not going to say he was perfect or anything, he was just a generic guy I guess, but he was nice. He didn’t yell at me, sometimes we did stuff, you know… he was my step-dad.

So… over the years I obviously had my suspicions about him. I couldn’t remember his name, I could never find any pictures of him, but I always put off asking anyone in my family about him…. At least until I was twenty-two and was living with my girlfriend. She finally got me to ask my mother about him.

That is the day he changed, though I guess not that much really. Of course my mother had no idea what I was talking about, but he didn’t stop being my step-dad. He just moved a few syllables to the right and became my hallucinogenic stepfather. I still remember going to Great Adventure with him on my birthday and his daughter being the deliverer of my first kiss, and I still love the Dukes of Hazzard.

So he doesn’t exist. Big deal. I’m not so sure that evidentiary existence is a prerequisite for being family these days anyway. Hell… I’m a retroactive bastard too while were at it…. But that is a story for another day. For now I am going to grab another cup of coffee and see what else I can remember about him.

*Elements of the story have been altered, though it is primarily factual.