DIVISION FROM TURMOIL

JUSTIN HOUSE

“Happy Birthday dear Justin, Happy Birthday to you” This was sung asynchronously throughout a trailer in a trailer park, Redhills, on the east side of Gallup, New Mexico, in the month of February. It was dark outside of the trailer that was lighted with various lights, this included lamps, stove lights, light from the TV, and the roof lights from all of the rooms in the trailer.

I was waiting for this annoying ass song to be over with so I’m allowed to hurry up and blow out the candles. As I did that, the crowd around me cheered and clapped, and I wished I was with my mom. But I alas was stuck with the family I honestly couldn’t care less about, and a dad I could care less about. After that ordeal, I made my way back to my seat by the table to wait till the party was over, and I could get one day left in my visit with my dad over and done with. “Hey Justin, want to open your presents now?” my dad asked me loudly since the whole trailer was pretty loud. He walked up to me with birthday cards most likely holding up to $10 at most. “Sure…” I said in a monotone voice that I used then I was around him. He then handed me the birthday cards and went to get the other presents and he came back with a total of five other presents. As I’m about to open a letter, he stopped me. “Hey let’s do those last, so you can read them out loud to every- one” he said seemingly calm, and I put it down. And as I put it down he handed me a present that was pretty heavy. It read “From: Dad. To: Son.” Once I tore through the wrapping, I saw the box for the PlayStation 2. I was stunned mainly because I always wanted a con- sole since I played on one at my dad’s mistress apartment, and her son let me play some truck game on his GameCube. For the very first time I was actually happy being around my dad since I started the visit thing with him when I was 3 years old. And I couldn’t believe it, that was one of the best gifts I have ever gotten on my birthday was one not from my mom but from my dad. And after a couple more weeks, my opinion of going with my dad had a huge change. I was actually somewhat looking forward to my visits with him. But it wasn’t because I wanted to spend time with him or anything, but I really wanted to play on my PlayStation 2. I think he knew this since he wouldn’t allow me to take it back with me to my mom’s. He never really bought me games until later on, and so I would have to get games I could play from the Blockbuster in between McDonalds and Burger King on the east side of town. “Hey did you pick a game yet?” my dad asked while holding a DVD of a movie that he was going to watch for the night. We were at Blockbuster and that was a thing we started to do after I got my PlayStation 2. I was looking in the PlayStation section for a game to play for the weekend with my dad. I ended up getting Marvel Ultimate Alliance. “Yeah I decided to get this game again,” I said walking him to the counter. “Dang you’re getting that again?” my dad joked. “Yeah,” I said in a monotone voice as I put the game box on the counter for the cashier to scan, and put it into a bag. The reason I liked that game and my sudden change of heart for going on visits with my dad was mainly because I had something to keep my mind off him, and the reason that helped was because my mom told about what he did to her. So I had to spend a weekend with the man who did horrible things to my mom, and that would piss off any kid who loved his mom. And before I had the PlayStation, I would have more time to realize what he did, and even worse being near him. Playing the game was a way for me to relieve that stress. This was backed up by the fact that a lot of people use video games to deal with any sort of stress whether physically or mentally had positive effects from playing video games. With all that in mind, it’s no real surprise that I got more and more okay with visiting my dad. But also the fact that this would play into another part in my life that would involve another console that would help me in a similar way.

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Two years later, my mom, sister, and I moved to Gallup from Farmington, and let’s just say that it was pretty chaotic time in our lives. Reaching from the fact that my grandmother was dying and that was the reason we moved here to take care of her, but also the problems we were having with my sister’s dad who wouldn’t stop harassing us, and my overall struggle with moving here; and this added with the new problems with moving here, like bullies. And it was a time in which I needed a way to escape from all that stuff happening at the time. This isn’t a new thing since a lot of people have been using games to help them escape from reality they find stressful and from feeling a lack of control in their own lives. In that time period, I desperately needed something to take my mind off things and my dad still wouldn’t let me take my PlayStation 2 to my mom’s despite living 10 minutes away as opposed to 2 hours. “Damn there are a lot of people here!” my mom said shocked at the crowd of people at Walmart. Her eyes expressed weariness, anger, and frustration. Because of all the people, the traffic slowed down even more, and while her face looked stoic, she also looked bored and tired. “I mean it is the first of the month” I said sarcastically. After living in Gallup for about a month, we knew that the Walmart here was always packed on the first of the month. And as I was drifting into thought, I heard my mom’s voice.

“Learn how to fucking drive, piece of shit!” she yelled with venom as she honked her horn at the other driver. Her face now no longer stoic but full of emotion; mainly anger.

We would then find a parking spot around the east side of Walmart near the entrance and were walking in. Inside wasn’t as bad compared to outside judging by the way my mom reacted to it earlier. As we were walking to the electronics section of Walmart, I had this rising feeling of enticement I hadn’t felt since I first heard we were coming to Gallup and seeing how that’s been going, that feeling also raised my wariness. And what I was thinking about was that I was getting a new console, to only having the PlayStation 2 to getting another one not too long ago for my birthday. We then entered the electronics section, and my mom was looking for a worker to help us get the console we were getting and then she found one. “Hey do mind showing us where the Xbox 360 is at?” my mom asked kindly, a complete contrast from her voice earlier. “Sure it’s right over here”, the worker said heading toward the back of the electronics section by the portable heaters in the home section. It was behind a glass case to help prevent people from stealing it. “Could you also help us find the games ‘Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3’?” my mom asked trying to read the note she made earlier before we left to Walmart. “It’s just on the next aisle”, he said roughly trying to get the console out of its glass prison. We then headed to the game section, and I got the games that I wanted. I decided to get Halo CE, Halo 2, and Halo 330. The reason for that is because I kept hearing kids at my school talking about how “Halo was the shit!” and since I didn’t really know most of the other games at that point for the Xbox, I got those 3 games. After all that, I can safely say that the Xbox 360 really helped me when I was having trouble since moving here to Gallup. It was difficult for all of us, but for me it was the fact that I really didn’t know why we moved here. I mean, I knew why but not why? We moved here. But my Xbox wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Much like I mentioned before, the positive escape was all well and good but it can also be a harmful negative escape, and it’s backed by the fact that people who play games for long periods of time and think that video games are better than reality can think that caring or doing work in the real world is not worth it, and also start to show signs of getting addicted to video games. That would lead into me using it to escape problems in the real world only to walking into a new one. In fact, it was most likely the biggest problem I ever had when it came to playing games. “I’m taking away your Xbox for a semester till you get you’re freaking grades up!” my mom said with venom as we were heading back home after coming to a meeting with my teachers and her discussing my inability to turn in homework. And thus lowering my grades overall. In the article, “Video Games May Affect Your Kid’s grades, New Studies Find, But It’s Not As Bad As You Think”, Vanessa Taylor states that “Intensive computer gaming did have a negative impacts on grades… However, that impact was so small it’s practically insignificant. “Children could play up to eight hours a day with very small academic effects…” And with all that in mind playing games wasn’t the problem but the amount that I played, which was well over eight hours. In fact back then I would play up to 12 hours a day except for weekdays since my mom forced me to go to sleep around 9. Even then I would lie to my mom about homework just to play my Xbox. And that continued to feed my obsession more. I just sat there pissed about this whole shitty situation I was in, and I couldn’t believe this. The ride home was the most I have ever felt tension in a while and as we got closer and closer to home I could hear a ticking bomb that would be my mom about to yell at me about something else. And so I just looked out the window and hoped she didn’t even though I know she will. As we pulled into the parking lot, I was getting ready to get out of the car and head inside until I heard my mom plainly say “No you’re not heading inside we’re waiting for your father to get here!” I didn’t want to deal with her shit anymore, so I just sat back and waited for him to show up, and after a couple of the most awkward minutes of my life went by, he finally shows up. We then get out of the car, and walked up to his blue Nissan truck he’s had since the 70s. “So what’s the problem Justin?” he said coldly staring me down as was my mom. “I don’t know…” I said quietly trying to find something to look at, so I didn’t have to look at either of them. “What do you mean you don’t know?” he said again coldly “We’re going to take away that damn game till you get your act straight.”

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I just stood there and took it, hoping that I could get this shitty situation over and done with. And thankfully it was over fairly quickly since my dad said he had to leave early to get back to work. I won’t lie when I was finally able to head to my room. I was pretty fucking pissed. But the experience was good for me in the long run since I did have at the time an addiction to video games, and that could have been caused by me wanting to escape. It’s backed up by the fact that my want to continue to escape reality from the move from Farmington to Gallup and all the problems that caused for my family and I. But also the amount that I played too much was a factor into how I became addicted to video games. And so I just became too dependent on it to care about the outside world aside from video games. Since then, I was able to get my grades up and have had only passing grades since. Later on in the year, I finally got my Xbox back with decent grades, which were a lot better than they were before. I would still play games over eight hours on the weekends, but on the weekdays I only played after I got my homework done with first. Also the fact that at the time there were really no games that I wanted to play at the time. After we were done at Blockbuster, my dad and I decided to head back to his moms house, since he was currently having problems with his mistress. But I didn’t really mind, since I felt weird spending the weekend with the women my dad cheated on my mom with. And as we were getting set up for the night at my grandmother’s house, my dad asked if I wanted to watch the movie he picked. I said no. As I was getting my PlayStation 2 ready to play the game that I picked. My dad asked me a question that caught me off guard, “When did you start to like visiting me all of sudden? “I don’t know, I guess I just got used to it” I said standoffish hoping it would kill this conversation. “Yeah I remember you always screaming and crying whenever I picked you up from your mom” he said calmly as he was taking off his shoes. I was shocked again by what he said that I wasn’t as emotional about going on these visits as I was before, but the thing was that I didn’t really know why that was. “Yeah, I guess I don’t mind coming here as much” I really didn’t know how to respond to what he just said because I didn’t know why. Was it because of the game, or maybe I just started to gain a bond with my dad. That could be because he got me a PlayStation. “Well I’m glad, because I didn’t like hearing you crying and screaming, and I want you to know that I love you” my dad said quietly. And I just sat there looking at him with an expression I don’t know how to describe, and I didn’t know how to react at all. “Well I got to help your grandmother with dinner, so enjoy your game” he said walking out of our room closing the door behind him, and heading to the kitchen. I don’t know what I’m feeling because of what he did to my mom, but I was happy at the same time because it was the first time I heard him say it to me in private. After a couple of seconds, I composed myself and started playing the game. As I was playing, these feelings of hate and annoyance washed away. I was finally able to play after waiting all day to. But deep within I’m happy to have to have heard those words from my dad.