Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern Read Free Book Online Page B

the New York fucking Times ? Couldn’t break that big corruption story? Jesus Christ. Unbelievable.”
    After my parents discussed in private how to handle my falling grades, my dad sat me down and told me that for the next week I wasn’t allowed to leave my room, except to go to school and to the bathroom. They’d serve me my meals in my room.
    “WHAT?!” I shouted. “That’s ridiculous! Lots of kids get worse grades than I do. And it’s a progress report! It’s not even on my permanent record!”
    “Blah-blah-blah, I don’t want to fucking hear it. You’re too smart for grades like this. It means you were lazy and didn’t do shit,” my dad replied.
    “This is unbelievable! You’re putting me in prison! This is prison! For a 2.33 GPA!”
    “Oh spare me, being stuck in your bedroom is not like prison. You don’t have to worry about being gang-raped in your bedroom.”
    The subject that was dragging me down the most was math, but the next day at school I found out that I wasn’t alone. Two-thirds of the class received an F, including me. My teacher was a real tough guy, and he often told us that he wasn’t going to hold our hands. We either got it, or he’d flunk us out.
    On the first night of my imprisonment, my dad came home from work, tossed on some sweatpants, and strolled into my room.
    “Get out your math book. We’re gonna cure this case of the stupids,” he said as he sat down next to me on my bed, pointing at a stack of books underneath a pile of my dirty clothes. “Jesus, open a window, it smells like death shit in here,” he added.
    As we started to go through the book, he realized that not only did I not know how to do any of the problems, I didn’t understand the basics I needed to even tackle them.
    “They didn’t teach you this shit?” he asked.
    I told him they hadn’t, and then I told him what the teacher had said about either getting it or flunking out.
    “What? That’s bullshit. What kind of asshole says something like that? Me and this teacher are having a chat. I’m coming to your goddamned school tomorrow.”
    The next day, I sat at my desk in homeroom, terrified that at any moment my dad would show up. You know that feeling you get when you’re going up a huge climb on a roller coaster, waiting for that first big drop to come? Imagine that, but then imagine, too, that you have diarrhea. Which I happened to have that day due to a combination of queso fundido I had eaten the night before at a Mexican restaurant and the boxes of Nerds candy I’d been downing all morning. I spent periods one through three running between my classes and the bathroom, praying that my dad didn’t burst into my classroom while I was on the toilet.
    Then, during fourth period, I saw him out in the hallway being pointed to my English classroom by a janitor. He walked over and waited by the door, pacing back and forth, holding his briefcase. I slumped down in my chair. This stoner kid named Brandon leaned over to me, and pointed at my dad.
    “I bet that dude’s from the fucking FBI or some shit,” he said.
    “He’s not,” I muttered.
    When the bell rang, I walked out into the hallway, where he said, “Grab your shit. Let’s go see your teacher.”
    “Can’t we just do this after school, Dad? Why do you have to do this during school?”
    “Son, relax. I just want to chat with the man. I’m not gonna rip his head off and shit down his throat,” he said. “Unless he provokes me.”
    We walked up toward the bungalow on the outskirts of campus where my math class met. Kids were already starting to file in, and my crusty teacher was sitting in the corner behind his desk. He looked like Dustin Hoffman, if Dustin Hoffman’s skin was made of newspapers that had been left out in the sun. My dad barreled into the room and walked right up to him. I lingered in the hallway, trying not to be seen.
    “You’re the math teacher?” my dad barked.
    My math teacher looked up, annoyed.
    “I am. Can