Dad is drunk on the lounge, in his undies. He says he’s tired. He's always exhausted, but he doesn’t do much. His knuckles are bleeding from a punch up with his best mate. He doesn’t care about his hands or his best mate. He doesn’t give a shit about anything, really. Mum just fell through the door. She’s drunk too and really bloody angry. Mum screams a lot when her other boyfriends don’t love her enough. It’s okay, though red lipstick and wine always make her feel better. I was a scared, skinny, desperate kid. My skin felt like ants were crawling on it and my teeth hurt from being clenched together. My stomach was always doing cartwheels, I felt sick all day, every day. I couldn’t concentrate on much because I expect things to go horribly wrong and I was right to think they would because they always did. I felt it all, every flawed thought, every mischievous act, every consequence my parents dodge, and I carried. While other kids grew up in a garden of love, I wilted in a weeded field from humiliation. Lessons are easy to learn in catastrophe and chaos. Life lived with downhearted dickheads showed me who not to be. My parents were uninspiring, hurtful and self-serving, all exaggerated by endless booze and prescription drugs. To become a decent person, all I needed to do was the complete opposite of everything they did. And I did just that. If you drown in hate; you learn soon enough that love and kindness will rescue you. That’s the way things work out when your job is to keep a bunch of losers under control. It was an impossible task for a kid, much like herding seagulls: a lot of work and no chance of winning.