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I taught myself to drive late at night. After my parents were asleep, I’d slip the VW Rabbit into neutral and coast it down the driveway.
No lights. No sound.
Just the dark road and the hum in my chest.
That’s how it felt inside, too.
Clutch and release, no headlights.
On weekends, if a friend slept over, I’d take the car and head for a neighboring town with steep hills and crooked intersections. Perfect for jumping. I learned to hit the turns fast, feel the tires lose grip.
That half-second when the car floated.
No traction.
No control.
But for a moment, it felt like flying.
It was reckless. Stupid. But it lit something in me. A thrill that tasted like freedom, with a trace of destruction on the edge.
I didn’t know it then, but I was chasing the edge of something that had no name. Older than I was. Deeper than I could reach.
The farther I drove, the more alive I felt.
Not safe. Not grounded. But electric.
Like the numbness had split open and something was finally moving.
Then came the call.
Late that fall, I was at a friend’s house when the phone rang. My mom’s voice trembled.
“Tom, the police just called. Did you almost kill someone? You need to get home. Now.”
It had happened weeks earlier.
A dark road. A man on a bicycle coming toward us on the shoulder.
Didn’t give him enough room.
He veered off.
And I kept driving.
I hadn’t thought about it much since.
But now it crashed back—hard and real.
A black fog filled my chest. My stomach turned. The weight of everything—the man on the bicycle, the torn lawns, the quiet trust I’d shattered—folded in on itself.
I panicked. Ran to the bathroom. Opened the medicine cabinet. Grabbed a bottle of aspirin. Swallowed handfuls before I even knew what I was doing.
Then I looked in the mirror. Tears. A pale face. Some part of me surfaced—just enough to say no.
I wretched it all back up. Wiped my face. Took a breath. And walked home.
The next day, I was arrested. My parents drove me to the precinct. I said nothing. We hired an attorney. I worked the next summer to repay what I could. The charges were dropped to misdemeanors, later expunged.
I didn’t get my permit that year. Or the next. Part of me knew the abyss was reaching out. Something in me still wanted to fall.
When Barry saw the crushed oil pan and warped suspension, he didn’t yell. He just stopped talking to me. For months.
I didn’t blame him.
Barry, like his father before him, didn't know how to reach me. And I had made it harder. I shoplifted. I stole the car. I vandalized neighbors' homes. I raged against anything that threatened control.
Barry met it all with force.
Raised voice.
Ultimatums.
Military academy threats.
One month, as punishment for my room, I was made to live in the basement.
I deserved it.
Deep down, I knew I did.
The dark shame hung in the musty air.
This is where I deserved to live.
Not in a real room.
Just stained concrete.
Winter laundry above me.
A makeshift clothesline sagging with damp clothes.
The stained jailhouse mattress—dirty grey stripes tattooing the length of it.
My new home.
It was the fall of 1985. Hurricane Gloria had just torn through Long Island. The night before, Barry and I had been outside in hundred-mile-per-hour winds, tying trees back from collapsing into the house. Into my bedroom.
Now the family sat around the dinner table by candlelight. Everyone's nerves were frayed. Barry said something sharp to my sister. I don't remember the words, but I remember the feeling.
Injustice.
Hypocrisy.
Then rage bellowed up from the darkest part of me.
I erupted. Stood up, fists raised, defiant. "Fuck you. This ends now."
He turned and walked away.
I was angry, yes. But I would never call him my stepfather. That would make him something less. And he wasn't. He was my dad.
And I loved him.
Even if we didn't know how to find each other.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please share them in the comments below — your voice adds to the conversation and helps other readers discover The Hollow Bell.
I apologize for saying in an earlier chapter that I thought you didn’t have a Dad. When I think back on childhood, I realize there’s a lot of mothers I remember but not fathers (with some exceptions of course). Maybe because the mothers tended to be around or more visible to me as a child in the neighborhood.
Great storytelling! So much going on that I didn’t know about.