The (un)importance of Parents
written by: Derrick R. Lafayette
By unnatural means, I watched a wax figurine come into natural life. The wrinkles on his black suit flattened. His arms went akimbo. I couldn’t recognize the face, but it gave the poise of a political figure, prestigious and dangerous. His eyes were as blue as January, with a receding hairline that was autumn brown. His face was a bit sunken around the cheeks, and as he turned to me, breaking all laws of the universe, the annoying click-clack of old cameras invaded my ears.
“Where are your parents, Axel?” The inanimate-turned-animated figure questioned.
“They were just here,” I did a quick surveillance to verify my conclusion. “But I don’t see them now.”
A family of four whizzed by. Cheap trucker hats pressed above their matted hair, brought from the gift shop for ten dollars each. The adults conveniently ignored my existence, as their youngest daughter barked the word ‘Hi’ over and over. She was trying to put context to her dialogue. I wish I could remember that infant stage. Except it’s overshadowed by my makers arguing over who must observe me for several hours or who loves me more.
“Are you hiding in your mind again, Axel?” The wax figure began to harden. His milky skin converted to aged bone.
“I only remember failures. So maybe I am running. I mean, hiding. Or I’m crazy? Is that what this is?” I interlocked my fingers.
“Or lonesome?”
“Aren’t all prepubescents lonely? Or am I the lucky one?” I realized my mouth wasn’t moving.
My imaginary friend abandoned me. Silence crept where the conversation ceased. I peered around at the Civil War exhibit. A winter’s night was approaching from beyond the large windows. I resumed my search for a medium-height woman with curly black hair, wearing an orange blouse and tightly fitted jeans. She often smelled like lavender. On special occasions, when my father was out of town, she’d change her scent to something feral. A dapper man would be summoned to my door. I’d stare at him from behind the glass and would receive a slap to the back of my head for not turning the knob.
Back to my mission. I circled the Confederate lounge, judging the flag for its lack of creativity. For a war-ready slave nation, they should’ve copied Mozambique. The AK-47 on the left side would’ve sufficed. But none of that mattered because the man I was hunting for, the short man wearing a baseball cap and chestnut tweed jacket, vanished. Navy blue sweatpants to finish the outfit, along with bifocals. He was a standout. Father could never dress.
Instead, I faced the crushing waves of emotional and physical abandonment crashing on the shores of my heart. It wasn’t the first time. I’m a lifelong member at that beach. Perhaps they were too lazy to go through the adoption process. Which was easier, to give away or to obtain?
I jetted to the bathroom. Inside the stall, I patted my pockets, devastated by how empty they were. No cellphone. Mother took it during an argument. Something about the complex discipline intertwined with a made bed. A chance to get an early victory before the day runs you over. All I had to my name was a lighter I stole from the gift shop, which had Robert E. Lee’s face on it.
A cry was building up to escape, but it got lodged in my throat. I walked to the bathroom mirror and muttered words of defeat.
“They forgot me.”
“Fools don’t forget, they ignore.” The mirror version of me had a sterner voice. Experienced.
“I’m intelligent enough to fabricate this conversation with the source of my mind. Yet, naive enough to believe that parents are necessary,” I wiped a smudge off the glass to see my reflection clearly.
“Find a new family. There are plenty of them around. Convince them. Or, take out the ‘vince’ and con them.”
“We’re not to do that anymore. All it did was leave Father in handcuffs, and Mother sprouting lies with teary-eyed expressions, warning about the dangers of youth, drugs, premarital sex, and so forth.”
“They didn’t give you anything. Except for that.”
“Except for what?”
“The ability to lie.” The mirror version of me evaporated when a freakishly tall man barged in.
He smelled like circus peanuts before the skin was removed. Barely able to release his fly, I overheard him muttering Russian obscenities while peeing loudly in the stall.
“He’s a mark. Mark him,” the reflection said internally, with no visual representation at all.
How should I approach? I thought to myself. I’m American. We had a cold war once. Should I regale him with old war stories regurgitated from history class? I should be dynamic, I concluded. The moment the toilet flushed, I bombarded him with the truth.
“My name is Axel Williams. I am twelve and five-eighths. My IQ teeters about one-fifty. I know over twenty limericks, and I’m a staunch keeper of secrets. My parents are drug addicts who seemingly have left me here unattended. I haven’t had a meal or snack in two hours. I wish to be a part of your family. If you’ll have me. Momentarily, until my parents are found.”
I wanted to bow, but my back remained straight.
“Say what, kid?” The freakishly tall Russian studied his eyeballs in the mirror and neglected to wash his hands. He unscrewed the bottom of a pendant that dangled in the center of a silver necklace worn on his neck. A few taps on the counter. A snowlike substance stretched, then molded into a straight line. A snort. A wipe of the nose. “What you say? Your parents are what? Addicted to what drugs?”
“Uh, the drugs…that you like. Yes. The snow that occupies your pendant. Feed me, then return me, and they will reward you. Enough snow to run a slalom.”
I wished it were the first time I’d bargained with a stranger in the bathroom.
“Ok.”
“Wait, what? Really? You don’t need more convincing or a long sob story? I have chapters of those.”
“Let’s go look for your parents. I wouldn’t want to be left alone without my parents at your age.”
“Right. I could be kidnapped.”
“Exactly,” the tall Russian screwed the pendant back into place.
I hesitated and took a long breath. “You are real, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know my nickname?”
“Scooter?”
“Damnit.”
That was my sleeper cell code to prevent hallucinations. I rubbed my eyes in the empty bathroom, terrified.
“The museum will be closing in three hours,” a speaker above my head blared.
I cheered. I didn’t make that up. At least, I hoped not. Oddly, I always squinted more when under sensitive damage. Neurotransmitters were firing incorrectly, nowhere near the flight, fight, or freeze response. Mother would say in those moments that I didn’t know myself, which was a simpleton answer from an intoxicated mind. Father would try to chime in, but the ingested chemicals turned his words to glass that shattered upon leaving his lips—more sound than sentences. No knowledge was to be gained. My body begged me to sit, but I forced myself to stand up and weep. A misdirected source of pride landed between my eyes. Hence, I squin…
So, as I wandered into the most populated area, like a lost puppy, many kept inquiring. Did you lose your glasses? I played into it brilliantly. A middle-aged hand, Patek Phillipe wrapped around his wrist, held my wrist to keep me from falling. I transformed into Emil Jannings, the first winner of the Best Actor award at the Oscars.
“I’m not sure if you have two left feet, or if you’re trying too hard. The fall was very safe. Knees and elbows bent, tucking the chin. I observed you practicing it before entering the center. I won’t tell anyone. I practiced bumping into strangers to steal phones and wallets from their inner jacket pockets. Nowadays, no one uses those pockets anymore. I wonder if they still sew them inside,” the middle-aged man said with guile.
He had a warm face. Round eyes, a goatee sprinkled with gray hairs, and a disarming smile. His charisma was a sword. I felt threatened by it. In response, I leaned further into my lie, makeup over the scars.
“Who said that? I can’t make out your face. I’m nearsighted,” I added a cough for sympathy. Maybe he’d think I have the plague.
“That’s farsighted, and you know the difference,” the man’s tone commanded an end to my one-man show.
Defcon levels were rising. I was unsure of any rebuttal. Nothing in my lexicon prepared me for this. I’d never met anyone who reminded me of myself. A future me. One who succumbed to the quicksand of traumatic life and entered an oasis on the other side. In a panic, I placed his hand on my cheek.
“What’s my nickname?” I questioned loudly. A scene formed around us.
He dealt with hesitation gracefully and placed his other hand to cup my face. The sincerity unlocked a gate inside me. My cry finally arrived, covered in mucus and discordant sounds. I could no longer hide anything.
“My name is Axel Williams, I’m twelve, and I know limericks. I can tell you one. There was an old man with a beard…” All the words were broken when spoken.
“Shh, I’m Linus Sharp. I’m forty and three-fourths. Single. Unfortunately, not divorced. Just plain single. I’m an engineer. I enjoy chess, politics, and, on occasion, oysters, and right now I believe I’ve found someone who needs my help.”
“Are you real?”
I never sounded so desperate in my life.
“What do you think?”
“Please be real.”
Linus turned to face the audience. “Do I look real to you?”
All the people around nodded. Some clapped, not sure if we were putting on a performance piece from an old play. Linus plucked me on the forehead hard enough for me to feel it.
“That feel real?” He continued.
Not long after the sting of his middle-aged finger wore off, a malady occurred. Both double doors of the entrance swung open as if obeying commands, and in walked my makers. Fiercely removed from the plane of reality, walking on imagined asteroids. Stumbling over the air, clutching to invisible beams, shaking the hands of ghosts. My soul felt tethered, but drastically and dramatically, I clenched Linus’ hand. My stranger turned savior. I did my best to avoid contact, but Linus immediately knew of the impending conflict.
“I don’t know what’s worse. When you find out you’re having a baby, when the kid first starts walking, or when they start saying ‘No’. All the mystique is gone,” my father pinched the bridge of his nose briefly. “The only connection you have is their face. That speck of DNA makes an eyebrow just like the one on your head. A jawline. Simple shit.”
“There’s only good for the man,” my mother lurched in behind him, scouring the land, sniffing to locate my scent, or sniffing for other reasons. “Nothing happens to you, except the yearning desire to penetrate a woman who just pushed out an entire human being. A life portal, and all you want to do is get pleasure from it. All you want to do is forget I’m here when I have an actual voice. So shut up and find Axel.”
They moved in sync, like when they entered the honeymoon phase. A common goal. I attempted to flee, but Linus became an immovable object.
“Do you want me to speak with them, Axel?”
“If you like talking to moving walls, then yes. But you won’t get any logic out of them.”
“Or into them, I suppose,” Linus observed them longer.
“How do you want to play this? I’ll follow your lead,” Linus purposely took me into another exhibit nearby that focused on the Reconstruction period.
“I have an idea. We’ll get them under the ether.”
Father walked into the gift shop, eyes wide as oceans.
“If I were him, I’d be in here stealing all this shit,” Father stared at the teenage cashier, counting the pimples on her cheeks. “Hypothetically.”
Mother kept sniffing like a bloodhound. Determined to locate her spawn through naturalistic means. “What’s the penalty for losing a kid? Is it worse when it’s your own?”
“It’s easier on the woman. Although if they detect drugs in your system. Axel’s coming to live with me.”
“He’d be in a group home within a month, stuck with you. Or in the street somewhere. I have an idea.”
“Do you?” Father jester too loudly. “Another brilliant one? Like, let’s do a line while Axel’s watching the video. The line that turned into an 8 ball? That turned into leaving to get more. As if the traffic wasn’t bad enough, but the mental gymnastics we shared, convincing ourselves that our little genius would be ok? We are the scum of the earth. I accept it. I confess. Some people weren’t meant to be parents.”
Mother fished into her purse and retrieved a picture of me from three years ago. She shoved the image into the cashier’s face. On the back of it was a man’s number who went by the moniker ‘BDE’. “Have you seen this boy?”
The teenage cashier shook her head. “Not sure to be honest. He looks like every other boy in here,” she turned her eyes back to her cell phone.
“Look again?” Mother persisted, shoving the picture closer to the cashier’s face.
A scoff. A roll of the eyes. Teenage angst manifesting in her posture, the cashier took the picture and turned it around. “Have you seen this boy?” She said obnoxiously.
“This is a waste of time. The museum isn’t that big,” Father interjected, grinding his teeth and clenching his jaw. “We just have to think how Axel would think.”
Confident in my newfound partner, I scurried to the second floor of the wing. The bird’s-eye view was worthy of Lee Harvey Oswald, and all around me were relics from the First Battle of the Marne. The plan was malleable between us. All he had to do was invoke empathy.
Linus approached my parents, civilian-like, hands out of pockets, non-threatening.
“I saw the boy you’re looking for,” Linus breathed into his watch and rubbed it on his sweater. “He’s dead.”
“What kind of dead?” Father asked, noticing the watch more than the question.
“There’s only one kind of dead,” Mother exclaimed. “How would you know, you never even saw the picture?”
“I saw a boy leave here not too long ago. Headed towards the highway.”
“That could’ve been any boy,” Mother persisted.
“A boy with no parents,” Linus pressed on.
“He might’ve been meeting them outside,” Father pondered.
“A boy named Axel.”
They paused momentarily. The high in their brains hiccupped some logic that forced them to stand still—a tiny taste of sobriety.
“What’s his nickname?” Father asked slyly.
“Yes, Axel. We’re looking for a boy named Axel. We’re his parents, and we need to take him home,” Mother stood closer to Linus, hoping to exude intimidation and sexuality. Instead, she gave off a low-vibrational mosquito-bite vibe. Irritating, positioned in a place hard to scratch. “So where is he? And who are you? Is he putting you up to this? He’s done this before. He’s used strangers against us. Some con he’s trying to pull. Axel isn’t good at lying. I know. I raised him.”
“Plus, you lie all the time,” Father added.
“I’m going to adopt him,” Linus said boldly.
Another weeping. My tears skated down over the banister, splashing on the lower deck. Unable to contain the joy, it began pouring out of my ears as well, cascading onto the on-goers. A few of them were prepared, deploying umbrellas, donning wetsuits, and grabbing a canoe. Frantic with embarrassment, I hurried down the way, slowed by the rising tide, drowning my socks. There was no escape. Garbage, loose change, and hidden items under rugs and cabinets began to surface in the water.
My parents, now soaked below the knee, continued their argument, unencumbered by the natural disaster I created.
“How much?” Father inquired. “How much is his love worth to you?”
“You make it sound like poetic slavery when you say it like that,” Linus retorted.
“We can’t sell Axel. Just tell us where he is,” Mother jumped in.
“What does it matter? You left him here. He’s an ornament to you. Not a human. Release him to me,” Linus continued.
“Ok, ok, since you’re not going to name your price. I’m going to name my price,” Father noticed the tide approaching his quads. “One hundred million dollars.”
A person was freestyle swimming past me as I struggled to keep my feet on the ground. She proceeded to a station, where a phone was above the water. She dialed a few numbers and yelled into it. Moments later, I overheard a fire truck’s siren in the background. The woman then stood on the edge of the station, peering down over the banister onto the lower floor, gauging how much room she would have if she jumped. She was wearing a black swimsuit, and goggles appeared to form around her head.
I wanted to scream. The words refused to arrive. She twisted in the sky, forming a perfect reverse dive, descending below. I walked to the edge to get a good look at her landing, but couldn’t help spotting something else. Verdant scales broke the surface first, followed by a reptilian tail. A congregation penetrated the museum. Saltwater fiends, the smallest one was thirteen feet. I saw all eighty of its teeth when it stretched its neck to make a landing for the diving woman. Gracefully, she fit right inside the alligator’s powerful jaws without hitting anything on the way in.
The fire truck drove through the double doors at the entrance. The loud noise frightened those nearby. A portion of the rising tide was lowered, allowing water to leak out through the doors. My parents, along with Linus, were now arguing from the neck up, waving their arms and legs to stay above water.
“Done! I’ll send you the one hundred million in two weeks. Wire transfer. Do we have a deal?” Linus gulped a few handfuls of water.
“I don’t have a bank account. Cash…cash only,” Father’s head went under during his statement.
Mother’s blouse poofed out and became an orange floating device. “Will you promise to take care of him?”
“You have my word,” Linus replied.
“Where do you li—” Father’s question was cut off when he descended below the surface.
They all did. Unable to stop the disaster from within, I watched as those in canoes paddled onward to save them. Unfortunately, they were then mauled by the congregation of alligators, who snapped the canoe in half trying to secure a meal. The firefighters rushed in with the hose. However, when they turned it on, it began sucking in the water instead of expelling it.
A powerful force with an infinite limit. Five of them, all holding the magical tool together, braced themselves for the alligators being sucked inside. I’d forgotten about the lighter I stole from the gift shop. Unexpectedly, it was in my hand, being pulled by the hose’s suction. I held onto it. Fighting back made things worse, as I was lifted into the air and rapidly moved toward the entrance of the hose. Swallowed whole into endless darkness, watching the alligators circle my feet.
My eyes opened.
“That feel real?”
I heard Linus repeat it. Reality. He noticed the dismay on my face. I owned a brain too big for my skull. I kept my stare fixed on the entrance. Obsessed with the double doors, waiting, I balled my fist until my nails were burrowing into my palms. My makers were never coming back. Linus’ hand landed on my shoulder. I put my hand over his.
“It’s ok,” he said.
I breathed deeply. “I know. My nickname is Scooter.”
The End
- The (un)importance of Parents - June 16, 2026
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