The Father I've Never Known; Robinson Jeffers on a stamp; Adventures in LovE - part 11 LIVE!; Exclusive poem - Be Champagne: Tales From The UniversE No 28 - this newsletter from the inside of dreams
Record your dreams. (A very young author). Pic: Paradisio Publishing
Welcome and find 7,000-PLUS stories written since 2002 for The Guardian and Observer HERE
1. Adventures in LovE - out now!!!
My tale of sun-baked romance, crime, dancing, and teenagers Nancy and Joey boosting 1,000 ecstasy tablets from Lancaster’s Mr Big and punting these out and trying to flee to a Balearic isle for the rest of their lives is LIVE - 1st week FREE; 11th part AVAILABLE NOW
Cover: Paradisio Publishing
Purchase an annual subscription to my substack for £50 (10% cheaper than monthly) and receive a free autographed copy of my first novel, Night Time Cool.
2. The Father I Have Never Known
Being abandoned: underrated??? Pic: Paradisio Publishing
‘are you out there still/have you ever given a fuck????’
A dad, a father, a friend, a man to love and guide and keep you close: this is what and who i try to be to my son and daughter, 12 and 9 year old bundles of magic.
A human in all the ways the word should mean.
Moi?
My own father??
Never met him, don’t know what he looks like, have zero clue if he knows i exist, or if he does know then if he cares - that i exist.
i have zilcho knowledge about the circumstance of my entering the world.
Well, i know the bit i’ve eked out during the years.
The 1st version had him as a tramp.
The 2nd a failed writer.
The 3rd: hmm…
How does this make me feel?
Dad: are you out there? If so let’s see the colour of your $$$. Pic: Paradisio Publishing
Numb, most of the time. Like you’re supposed to feel sad, upset, abandoned, right?
In the movie of this yarn i’d be written up as bereft at the tragedy of my own dad not wanting me.
Correct?
Not, quite.
Truer, this:
Some days i wonder, precisely, how i feel.
And why i wonder this.
Clearer:
i watch my kids playing. i think of them as babes, toddlers, at different ages, and don’t want them to feel like i can at times.
They ask me sometimes about ‘your dad, dad’ - their grandfather; what else can i tell them apart from the truth???
Not all of it, though; they receive a heavily redacted version. A short story.
Certainly not the bit about the vacancy he left that allowed another messed-up man/tyrant to enter my ‘safe home’, bring me up with the pretence he was my father, then persecute me over the years for not being his son without me knowing this was why he hated me. (i found out, by accident, when around 15 years old he was not my dad. Another story.)
His persecution of me? It featured being beaten up and continually terrorised.
Nice.
Thanks for that.
My 2nd year at Lancaster Royal Grammar School when I was 12/13 is a blur of being dragged out of bed in the morning, hit about for the same trumped up misdemeanour (not being his son), then having to go to class late, lost, and wondering at the meanness that exists in the world, and how unlucky you are if it is visited upon you in your house where there is nowhere to hide from it.
Feelings are strange, right?
i can feel sad, suddenly, for no reason.
Cheesed off.
Misunderstood.
Non-understood.
Negated, forgot. Abandoned. Orphaned in the world.
The author during the years he was hit about at home. Pic: Paradisio Publishing
And, sure, you do wonder some times.
If he does know:
Does it gnaw at him that i exist and he has never seen me?
Probably not or he would have turned up one day to say ‘hi’.
Also, this:
If you are still alive and know about me, and are rich, dad, it is simple how you can make amends for leaving me alone on the planet - one more forlorn babe born naked to the universe who will leave the same way one, lost, unheralded day.
Chuck me a cool mill or 300.
You know what i mean???
Go on, you know you can’t resist.
Show me some serious love, show me the serious $$$.
