Honkey Tonk Woman(1.1)

Honkey Tonk Woman by Draco Drella 25Aug02
Draco@washingtonweb.co.uk

O.K. For your fourteenth birthday you asked for a bike and you ended up
with a menstrual cycle.
Six years ago you thought you were in clover. After an anxious time
when you were half of a single parent family you were snug in the bosom
of a classic nuclear unit and you had it made.

Then trauma. Suddenly there is an intruder. Joseph arrives. O.K. So you
liked playing with dolls anyway and after a year or two you find that
he even has some sort of a personality and on a good day it is not so
bad having him around. The ''Rents' insist on giving him lots of
attention, that rightly belongs to you, but, really, he is not so
bad.

But then look at what happens ! The ''Rents' don't seem to have noticed
that you are older and have stopped playing with dolls. This is the
only charitable conclusion, because they have brought home from the
hospital a replacement daughter.

Were you not enough ? It seems you weren't because they are giving all
their attention to the newer pukey, shitty model that is just straight
out of the showroom. You say:
"Happy Christmas, I've just been sick."
And they say:
"Sure, pass that diaper please. Doesn't the new baby look cute when she
dribbles ?"
And the only way to get them to notice you at all is to do something
wrong. But then you begin to make a scientific discovery. You realise
that this "Unconditional Love" that all the ''Rents' in the soap operas
display actually contains small print. It is all so unconditional as
long as you get good grades in school and that you conform to the
"Angel Image" that they seem to expect of you.

So let us review.
1 Menstrual cycles which are driving you mad.
2 A need to gain increased acceptance from people your age.
3 A mixture of fascination and horror at boys.
4 Being replaced by a younger woman.
5 The new awareness of the small print in the parental love.

But this is not enough. You are expected to start in a place called
"High School" which you understand is populated by drug crazed gun
wielding black men who steal your lunch money at the drop of a
flicknife.

So suicide seems like the only sensible thing to do, right now. You
wonder why, you didn't think of it before. You decide to mention this
to your mother, since that "Honkey", who you call father, is so bloody
hostile at the moment. Before you manage to get the subject worked into
the conversation she tells you that she has cancer.

OK she doesn't say she is dying. She tells you that everything is going
to be so damned "Hunky Dory" and that you will all look back at these
times and laugh, but you know better.

So your mother is possibly going to die and leave you in the care of
the aforementioned "Honkey" who isn't even an American. He knows
absolutely nothing about what it is like for you and he is likely to
take you away to another continent where it rains continuously and
people speak with strange accents and call you a "Chinky".

Another review is called for. The previous five problems still applybut
now we have some additions to make to the list.

6 You are about to be thrown at the mercy of 'High School"
7 Your mother has cancer.
8 The 'Honkey', you call "Dad" has less sympathy than ever.
9 &; 10 Do we even need a 9 and 10.

And then when you are trying to enjoy a game of "Tomb Raider" to take
your mind off your problems for ten minutes you are told to go to
bed.

After all. You can see it unspoken in his eyes and he might as well say
it:
"You haven't got the worries that we are going through."