Back to Table of Contents

Stevan Allred
Only Rock 'n' Roll

I survived the Mohawk. I survived the homemade tattoo and the pierced lip. I survived Marilyn Manson and the year my son refused to go to school. I survived the nights he never came home.

He’s seventeen now, and wears bondage pants with ripped-out knees over long johns with ripped-out knees over long johns with knees. His hair is buzzed off short, and it’s the light-brown-to-blond color he was born with, nothing you’d notice in a crowd. He has an X tattooed between the thumb and forefinger of one hand, and it’s got that jailhouse look, but it’s small, just a series of blue dots his ex-girlfriend put there to match the ones she tattooed on herself. At least he didn’t get it in jail.

He still lives at home. When I count the days until he turns eighteen, it’s because I am afraid he will leave. I used to count them because I wanted him gone.

Arcadio was named for a character in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, but everyone calls him Cado. He’s a sexually active, pot-smoking high-school dropout who likes to sleep until noon. I’m still looking for a bumper sticker that says “My Kid Aced the GED Test.” We went to a therapist together for a few sessions, and the therapist’s favorite line, delivered to me with deadpan British irony, was “You must be very proud.” I white-knuckled the years from eleven to sixteen. The only thing that got us through was rock ’n’ roll…

Excerpted from I Wanna Be Sedated: 30 Writers on Parenting Teenagers Copyright 2005 by Stevan Allred