Page 178 of Black Flag

Between radiointerviews, press, photo shoots, wedding planning, Thanksgiving...my life had turned into a category fivecyclone. I couldn’t believe how much press and shit followed winning achampionship, it was insane and nothing like winning a track championship oreven the USAC Triple Crown. I couldn’t go anywhere these days without someonewanting an autograph or a picture or to tell me how they felt when they saw mewin. I was beginning to feel like there wasn’t nearly enough pieces of me to goaround. That’s not to say I didn’t appreciate them but I wondered where I wasin all of it.

I had no idea what dayit was half the time but Sway was there to help me. I was relieved that she wasat least by my side now. There were times when the pressure got to me and Ifelt as though I was drowning once again in the obligations but all I had to dowas take one glance into those emerald green eyes and suddenly, I could breatheagain.

Actually, that was alie, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe because I had the worst fuckingcold I’d ever had, more than likely from the lack of sleep these days. Mythroat was sore, my nose was running like a faucet and I couldn’t stopsneezing. It was disgusting. I hated sneezing and blowing my nose. I meanseriously,where does all that mucus come from?

It was utterlyrepulsive and completely unacceptable to me.

While Sway was outgetting a pedicure with Emma and Alley a few days after Thanksgiving, I decidedto go pick up Sway’s wedding band from the jewelry store in Olympia. The onlyproblem with this was that Logan was with me. He’d gotten in trouble earlier inthe day but I’m not sure what for. All I knew was that I was now stuck withhim. If there was ever a point in my life where I contemplated killing myself,it was when I was leftalonewith Logan.

Most of the day I wasmoments away from slipping him a Tylenol PM like I did to Charlie but decidedagainst it when I thought about the rules of child abuse. I was sure thatdrugging them was not okay.

These past few weeksCharlie was always yelling for no apparent reason. He yelled at unsuspectingpeople all the time but my personal favorite is when he was yelling at Logan,who usually responded with a “What the fuck is your problem?” look.

I thought about askingLogan why he was in trouble once again but when I thought about the way Charliewas acting, I realized Logan probably had no clue as to why he was in trouble.

Logan was a littlefucker the entire time, never stopped talking and I was sure that there wasactually something wrong with him. Originally, I thought he might just have anextreme case of ADD but it was more than that. I began to wonder if Andrea didsome kind a recreational drug when she was pregnant with him, it would explaina lot.

Once we got back to thehouse, he took off like a bullet out of the car,withthe wedding band.

“Logan!” I yelled afterhim. “You asshole, get back here with that!”

He wasn’t listening tome and took off down the street. Now, ordinarily, I wouldn’t have chased him,but he had the ring and more importantly, Sway’s ring.

Not only did I roll myankle twice during this pursuit, I fell into a double summersault and to mycomplete shock, ended with me right side up after another handspring. I fellback into the grass, exhausted.

Logan hovered above me,laughing, while I moaned about needing an MRI or x-rays.

After my downhillSpecial Olympics display, it’d be a miracle if I didn’t kill him ormyselfbefore Andrea returned for Hitler.

As I limped my way backto the house, with the ring and dragging Logan by the arm, I turned toward him.

“Listen you littlefucker!” I had completely lost any remaining dignity that hadn’t been lostearlier when I had barrel rolled down averypublic street. “You aregoing to act like a normal fucking human being.”

He laughed like mythreats were nothing.

I began to wonder...no that’s a lie...I knew Sway and I were in over our headswith this parenting shit. I just hoped our kid wasn’t so much of an asshole asLogan and Lucas were. Hopefully, he was more like Lane.

Once Sway returned, shelooked exhausted as she plopped down next to me on the couch.

“What happened to him?”she pointed at Logan who was duck tapped to a chair in the living room in frontof the TV.

“He wouldn’t stopmoving.” I told her with a shrug and continued to eat myLucky Charms.“So I tied him up.”

“Is he alive?” sheasked scrutinizing his upright sleeping figure.

“Yes, he’s justsleeping...I think.” I craned myneck to see his face. “Yeah, he’s breathing.”

“Is that considered childabuse?”

“No,” I shook my head.“I didn’t tape his mouth, just his hands.”

“Hmm...” she gave me a contemplative stare.“Why didn’t I think of that?”

Sway looked over at meand started laughing, as did I. The fact that Sway and I both found this so entertainingwas a perfect summation of our relationship.

Emma walked in with ashit load of bags and threw them on the floor. She too checked Logan’sbreathing and then laughed.

Having Emma planningyour wedding was slightly more enjoyable then getting your dick pierced with animpact gun. She had more energy than the energizer bunny and was in a non-stopwedding planning mode.

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