05.

Kenneth waved back towards George before continuing on his way to the front door of Chuck E cheese, he couldn't help but replay Melanie's rant about parents in his head. He tried to remember if there ever was a time when he was seven and his mother tucked him into bed, but the longer he reached into the crevasses of his mind, he murkier his memories became and made him want to crawl into a corner and hide because all he could see was himself, all alone, wandering the streets well past 11 PM with the other kids from his housing project whose parents were working the graveyard shift or more often than not, simply didn't care. Kenneth wondered where his mother was at night, especially when he woke up in the morning after sleeping on the couch waiting for her to come home, only to find that she still wasn't there. It wasn't until later that Kenneth learned his mother was actually spending most of her nights with a man that would soon become his step-dad; some rich, obnoxious lawyer that would scream to late night viewers that if you were driving without insurance and caused an accident which you subsequently got injured in then he was the one you should call, he was the man that could get you off. His arrogance and smooth talk promised Kenneth's mother, his special "waitress" at the strip club he most frequented that he would rescue her from a degrading life where you sell a cheap image to a life where you could buy the most expensive image you want. It was a true Cinderella fairy tale for an 18 year old girl who fell in love too fast, got married even faster, and was divorced by the time she was 20. Somewhere in those tow years Kenneth was conceived, but became a constant reminder to his mother that love can sometimes turn into extreme hate.