Kalvin Tuskadue - The Adult Orphan

Curiously, for as far back as he can remember, Kalvin Tuskadue had parents. In fact, it seemed much of his childhood was filled with too many parents. He had a mom and a dad, but he also had a stepmom and a stepdad.

There wasn’t much Kalvin could do or say about any of this and over the years, his family grew, with both sets of parents having children of their own; two more boys on his dad’s side and three more girls and one more boy on his mother’s side. It was a blessing he was the oldest, but somewhat of a curse, as he was the only one who had his unique parents. The rest of his step and half-siblings all had at least one brother or sister of their own.

None the less, things moved on and the normal visitations schedules were kept, just like in any divorced family. Kalvin Tuskadue eventually grew up to be a semi-normal and somewhat functional adult, an adult orphan, none the less. He didn’t foresee becoming an orphan. Kalvin loved his mother and father and at times even enjoyed their spouses and would try his best to treat them all like his parents. However, over the course of his life, he grew estranged to his father. After all, how could one expect Mr. Tuskadue to pay attention to Kalvin when he now had five other children to care for – children that actually lived with him; the three kids that came with his new wife, plus the two more they had together. Kalvin, although the oldest, fell by the wayside, and in defense of his father, Kalvin, who spent most of his time at his mother’s residence, was to be primarily raised and cared for by his her.

This is where things got a little harry for Kalvin. At his mother’s house, everyone had a different last name. The two stepsisters who came with his mother’s second marriage and the two girls and one brother born of his mother and stepfather all shared the last name O’Henry. So, Kalvin was the lone Tuskadue for most of his life. Being a Tuskadue in a house full of O’Henry’s is not easy. I mean even his mother, the being who gave him life and brought him to this Earth had abandoned the Tuskadue name and heritage. Now through marriage, she must thrust a constant stream of disdain, if only to show allegiance to the new husband, toward the now unmentionable name of the man who previously used to insert his penis where now an O’Henry penis had laid claim. 

The same predicament applied to the estrangement of Kalvin and his father. His father had taken a new bride and had made new kids with the new mother. At first Kalvin’s father forced Kalvin to address his stepmother as “mom” or “mother”, and not the normally accepted first name basis most step parents were on. This being an attempt to assimilate his first born and bearer of his name into what he considered his one and only family. Kalvin’s resistance and loyalty to his mother and thus to the O’Henry family, only further pushed his father and stepmother away from him. His father’s new wife could not look at Kalvin and not see a woman with whom her husband used to love and have sex with. The mere sight of Kalvin or even the subtle mention of his name caused explosive all out fights and arguments at the Tuskadue residence; fights that seemed to almost end the marriage, and at times seemed to border on the grounds of almost ending both the lovers all together as well. Yes the sad fact was Kalvin was now the only constant reminder of the bad decisions his parents had made when decided to marry and promise to live with one another until death.

Kalvin was slowly let go from the Tuskadue family and more and more considered a stranger to the Tuskadue heritage. He was, after all, so very different from everyone around At his monther’s residence, he was the lone Tuskadue, an outsider, and at his father’s house it was as if a Chineese forgien exchange student were visiting Iceland. Over the course of a few years and the creation and application of unjust projections toward Kalvin from his parents, derived from the insecurity of divorce, re-marriage and the consequent life-time involvement with an ex due to the shared offspring, Kalvin was left alone in this world and allowed to guess where to go with his life. It was obvious to all, especially to Mr. O’Henry, Kalvin had absolutely no idea where to go or what to do. There was pity taken on the child, who more and more was, in all actuality, becoming a grown man, and if he had indeed been an O’Henry, Kalvin would have been an utter disgrace to the family name, anyway. Mr. O’Henry was grateful for that. “If I can only get the boy to go off to college,” he thought.

After Mr. Tuskadue’s new wife pulled a firearm on him in the heat of an argument, Kalvin and his father stopped talking all together. The scene, which all the young adult children present at the time witnessed, was a time when Kalvin felt he could regain some honor with his father by stepping in and defending Mr. Tuskadue against his wife, who was pointing a firearm directly at his father’s stomach.

Kalvin was so upset about the whole scene he’d divulged the information to the O’Henrys when he returned home to his mother’s. Mrs. O’Henry, in a fit of rage, confronted her ex-husband about having firearms around her children. Kalvin’s actions thus, only seemed to intensify the Tuskadue’s overall distrust toward him and it reinforced the speculative feeling Kalvin was only an O’Henry-spy, sent to gather intel in a war between Kalvin’s parents. This war had no end. Kalvin and his father didn’t speak or see each other for over a decade.

Being that a man will do almost anything to keep his source of sexual satisfaction happy, and that women are more inclined to use sex as leverage, it took a lot longer, a couple decades even, for Kalvin to grow completely estranged from his mother and her new family. This same principle is the reason his father, inversely, stopped communication with Kalvin so quickly. The women truly rule the homes, don’t they?

Well into his twenties, all of Kalvin’s grandparents had died, and even though they were all quite wealthy with land, money, stocks and property, none of the inheritance made its way into the hands of the first born Tuskadue, nor would it ever.

Somehow, when it came to the elders of both sides of his family dying off and wealth being divided, it all went away from Kalvin, or right passed him rather. His mother’s wealth and inherited property was all immediately co-owned by his stepfather and so rightfully the future inheritance of his children and his children’s children. Afterall, three of Mr. O’Henry’s children were also the spawn of Kalvin’s mother, and weren’t they more entitled to any generational wealth than Kalvin Tuskadue? And matter of fact, isn’t the dominant eldest male of the patriarchy in charge of the dissemination of this wealth. In Mr. O’Henry’s mind, it was not his responsibility to care for a child not born of his seed. He had the responsibility of five other children of his own.

But as discussed previously, there wasn’t a father to which Kalvin could turn to for any semblance of aid in the financial sector of his life. As he rounded the corner from his teens into his twenties, he found himself unbearably poor, no plans for a higher education, no skills, no prospects, nowhere to live and no one to trust.  When he sought the financial refuge of the Tuskadue estate, he was met with a bible and a bookmark to the chapter of the prodigal son, along with a sit-down-talk in front of Kalvin’s stepmother in which Mr. Tuskadue professed his undying love for his wife. He stated there was nothing anyone, especially Kalvin, could do to separate them; ever. He looked directly at his elder spawn with a feeling of repulsion, yet began to take pity on him in the face of what he was about to say.“How could I have made this person? If only I hadn’t made this person, my life would be perfect,” he thought to himself.

His wife could see his heart softening, and so spoke up to encourage Mr. Tuskadue to get to the predetermined point of this talk. He turned to Kalvin and painted a picture with his words of his wife hanging on a cliff right aside Kalvin, both about to fall to their ultimate deaths. There was only the time to save one of them. Mr. Tuskadue admitted it would be a hard choice, but without a doubt, he would let Kalvin fall and save his bride.

Kalvin got the point, and Mrs. Tuskadue followed up Kalvin’s nodding in agreement with, “So don’t you come around here asking for money again. We’ll have dinner and then you can be on your way. We are not made of fatted calves, you know.” Kalvin looked on in bewilderment and confusion. His father patted him on the back and motioned for them all the go to the dinner table. While walking down the hall from the master bedroom to the dining area Kalvin’s father spoke in almost a whisper to Kalvin, “That’s her way of telling you to read that bookmark. The bible’s a gift from her, ya know? She just wants to help you. The best for you. You’re a Tuskadue, after all, ain’t ya?” and he hit him open-handed on the small of his back with a painful slap as they all sat down to dinner.

Mr. O’Henry, on the other hand was honorable, and did actually attempt to provoke the young Tuskadue into making some proper moves with his life. Young Kalvin, with just a little aid after all, might be able to fend for himself. Mr. O’Henry did have a heart, and a concern for the wellbeing of his fellow man. He also felt pity for the boy who had found himself in the O’Henry’s care, and at times, when he could bear what he considered to be a burden of a responsibility he didn’t deserve, Mr. O’Henry felt a divine calling in his heart to help raise this Tuskadue boy. It wasn’t always just to keep his wife happy that he went out of his way at times. Mrs. O’Henry, the former Mrs. Tuskadue, felt terrible about the whole thing as well. She’d had this child with a man she could no longer tolerate on any level. She refused to be in the same room with Mr. Tuskadue and his new wife and their family. She had her reasons of course, and most would say justified reasons at that, but it didn’t make it any easier on the young Kalvin, nor on the older Kalvin, for that matter.

As Kalvin matured, he wondered at his estrangement from his father and so decided to attempt to reconnect with the Tuskadue family during his mid-twenties. Surprisingly, his father was good natured and welcoming. Kalvin was now back in his tribe, a place in this world where his name meant something. He was also the eldest Tuskadue, and in some dark corner of his mind, in a secret locked away and long forgotten place, Kalvin felt entitled to some of the respects and benefits of being the eldest son of a patriarchy, especially one so rich in military splendor and with rumors of grandiose wealth.

Kalvin fantasized about owning a small place of his own. He imagined his father finally bestowing a portion of the estate upon him. It would be a measly portion, “Just even a fraction of 1% of the estate could set me up for life. I’d never need anything else again,” Kalvin thought to himself. He wouldn’t ask for it right away, but would genuinely attempt a relationship with the Tuskadues, and he hoped, through that, he could inherit a few thousand dollars. This, of course would serve in making his life exponentially better and more secure. Kalvin dreamed of purchasing himself a small half acre and a modest home. He could almost feel the warm cozy hot air being put out by his brand-new heater. At this time, Kalvin lived in the worst part of town and, ironically, it cost him nearly equal to his rent to heat his place each month. Kalvin dreamed of owning his own small place with no leaks, no bugs, no pests, and a that it would have a nice smell. After all, 1% of the Tuskadue estate, last he’d heard, was rumored to be worth around three million dollars.

“I don’t even need that much,” Kalvin thought to himself. “$50,000 dollars would set me up for life.” Kalvin was a modest man. He never sought luxury or fine goods. He never bought expensive foods or drank at the upper-class bars. He bought all his clothes from the secondhand shops. He bought all of his food the day of, and it was a rare moment in Kalvin’s life that he ever had everything he absolutely needed at any given time. “50K is 60 times more than the 1%,” he thought to himself. “That’s not greedy or selfish, is it? Is it petty to want that? To ask my father for that?”

Kalvin was certain that his father had set aside money to send his children to college, all 5 of them. He was also certain Mr. Tuskadue had already purchased homes for each of his daughters that were valued at 10 times the $50K Kalvin desired so heartily. He was certain, at the very least, his father would help him on his way in this life. With fifty thousand dollars, Kalvin could put a small down payment on a modest home, pay for himself to get through college and receive that education which would take him into the professional world and guarantee him ‘success’ in this life. “Yes, just a small $50k would do it,” he thought.

“I’d even take it as a loan. He could loan it to me and that would keep his wife happy. Once I have my degree and my home, I can start to pay it back with my salary,” Kalvin felt hopeful.

So, for the latter part of his twenties, Kalvin went about having a relationship with all four parents again. He had his mother and father and then their two spouses. The older he got, the more the spouses felt nothing like parents. His parents’ partners were just that, and so his mother and father had new best friends and confidants, each of whom were former members of a now disjointed union that was responsible for Kalvin’s very existence. He wished at least one of the four would look on him as a child with needs. That they could see he was lost, he was alone. He had nothing and this world was barreling down on him with a force that only the adults could recognize. Kalvin knew things as an adult weren’t easy and he questioned why no one would help him. Why he seemed to be without value.

This feeling his stepparents were no long parental figures and should be looked at more like “just people” was openly encouraged at the O’Henry’s household, who now disallowed even the mentioning of the Tuskadue last name. Mr. O’Henry was ready for this foreign spawn to move on with his life and stop the juvenile thwarts to regain a position at his mother’s teat. The divisive nature of even the mere utterance of Mr. O’Henry’s wife’s first born’s last name caused terror and endless argument around their house. Mrs. O’Henry would seem to have some post-traumatic stress response that could last for weeks making everyone in the O’Henry household miserable. Funny thing, or rather the not so funny thing is Kalvin couldn’t seem to talk about anything else. Kalvin began to spiral into a mild psychosis while his mind attempted to understand, justify and accept his position in this life. His alone-ness. His hopelessness. His forced silence and censure further exacerbated this deepening psychosis and Kalvin started have out bursts of rage. He flunked out of community college, went deeper into mind numbing and mind-altering substances to attempt to dull the pain. “You really could benefit from some counseling, and I’ll pay for it,” Mrs. O’Henry offered countless times, but Kalvin just wanted to talk to her. He wanted to discuss what had happened again and get reinforcement that she was still his ally in this life. Had she wanted to discuss it with Kalvin, in respect for her husband, she could not. Kalvin was on his own.

The way his life had turned out seemed to him to be just fine though, yet he couldn’t understand why he didn’t fit in anywhere, why people weren’t glad to see him, and why he seemed, even now to get under everyone’s skin with just a simple utterance. His probing ways were an attempt to discover once and for all where things went wrong and why he was so different than everyone else. Why he couldn’t find his family and a feeling of belonging. Kalvin wished Mrs. O’Henry would sit him down and confess he was adopted. Kalvin’s heart leapt with joy at this thought. He would set out across the country to find his real and true mother, and she would love him and help him and want the best of him. She’d be proud of him. But Mrs. O’Henry was Kalvin’s biological mother – there was no other mother to find.

He sent off his DNA to be analyzed in hopes to find out that his father was not his actual father. It pained him to think his mother could have lied to them both, but the endless possibilities of have to go and meet a new biological father who was lost to him filled him with hope. A possible feeling of belonging. But even as Kalvin spit in the tube and sent if off to the analysis clinic, he knew he was his father’s son. He looked, acted and even sounded just like Mr. Tuskadue when he spoke. Of course, his results came back with the lineage he already knew.
Ssometimes Kalvin pretended that his whole life is just a long-drawn-out dream and at any moment he’d wake up and be 3 years old again living in his house with his very own mother and father. He could spend hours getting lost in this fantasy, creating a dream-like world where he could test the limits and enjoy this special place until he woke up and got back to his real life. It was utter craziness to keep this fantasy going very long, and so Kalvin was at least grateful to have both his biological parents in his life. Having them around did fill a small portion of the gaping hole in Kalvin’s soul, yet he continued on with little fantasies and even some other very big ones that helped explain his situation to him. These fantasies helped Kalvin to continue on with hope and kindness toward everyone. In his mind, he figured he’d earn a place somewhere eventually and then finally be able to rest in the security of a family and their wealth. Kalvin thought to himself, “That’s all I want. Security. A place to rest my head. A place to call my own. A place I can always be at.”

At his father’s, over the course of a few years, it was made apparent Kalvin had no place in the lineage of the Tuskadue name and would never be honored with any sort of admiration-of-the-oldest, nor receive any benefit, financial or otherwise. While looking through old photo albums at his father’s house, Kalvin noticed he’d been cut out of every single photo with scissors. He literally didn’t exist in the Tuskadue albums any longer. While plundering his father’s belongings, still ever searching for the reason and meaning behind all his troubles, he found his father’s will and when he came to his name it read: “To Kalvin Tuskadue, my oldest child. To thee I bequeeth nothing; zilch; zero; nada; nil; zip; zot because that is what you gave to me.”

As much as he dreamed and reasoned the 50K was only a small and practically unnoticeable portion of the entire wealth of the Tuskadue estate, reading these words brought a cloud of darkness over him. He envisioned the eventual death of his father and stepmother and the reading of this will…out loud…in front of others. He knew he would never show up to that meeting. He figured then and there he would not even go to his father’s funeral. “Is it because all I really want is money? Is that what I want from my father?” he thought as he stuffed the will back in the bottom drawer. “A curious place for a will,” he thought, “Maybe they wanted me to find and read it.” After all, both the Tuskadue’s and O’Henry’s were masters at the art of manipulation and subtle injury. Kalvin often wondered how much of his life and conversation with his parents was merely to steer him into their own crazed ideas about their lives and their divorce.

At Christmases and birthdays, Kalvin was given inferior, cheap and useless-un-gift-like presents. His Tuskadue siblings would simultaneously break the seals on envelopes with checks written out in increments of $5,000, from youngest to oldest. The Last Dying Will and Testament of the Tuskadue estate was paraded around at these events as well. Wealth was something to be privately celebrated among the family, or at least that’s the way the Tuskadues had always seen it. Sharing the wealth with the children and grandchildren, and the promise of a secure future, were always part of the holidays around there. Every one of the kids and their spouses selected an item from around the house they would like to inherit when Mr. Tuskadue passed on, and the item was inked to the paper-will right then and there. All the Tuskadue’s were also listed, down to the grandchildren, with little percentages by their names of how much actual capital each would be awarded from the estate. Kalvin’s name was long since removed from the will, as even the savings put aside for his education by Mr. Tuskadue was divided among the 5 youngest Tuskadue children. He had hoped to be included one of these years in this procession of wealth, but he was not. He worried he never would be, and although that did not diminish his yearning for a place in his father’s house, Kalvin was starting to understand his real place in the Tuskadue household. He was also starting to realize that possession of wealth was a requirement to be a real part of the Tuskadue tribe and he knew he would have to find it on his own or never have it.

The whole procession of the wealth was carried on in front of Kalvin to let him know exactly where he stood. Although Mrs. Tuskadue was fairly certain Kalvin had read the will during one of his plundering raids through their belongings as these little snooping sessions had been going on since as long as she had known the boy. The skill and fervor of Kalvin’s snooping sessions was of such diligence and meticulousness it further helped to convince the Tuskadue’s that Kalvin was a spy for Mr. Tuskadue’s ex-wife. But Mrs. Tuskadue was very diligent herself and just to be sure Kalvin was getting the point the ceremony happening in front of Kalvin was on orders from Mrs. Tuskadue. She still resented the mere sight of him in their house and could barely tolerate it. It was only due to years of marriage and understanding she’d allow the offspring of her husband and another woman to stand in her presence. She had grown soft over the years, but she would not see any of the estate already promised to her children going anywhere else. Running Kalvin off was the only way to be absolutely sure of this. Humans have a way of unconditionally loving their spawn.

You can imagine it only took a few years before Kalvin could not stomach being around any of the Tuskadue’s, each having their own reason for not wanting him around, even it was just simply because he hadn’t grown up with them and really wasn’t a part of the family at all. He was just some guy his father had made with another woman during some ancient time in their father’s life. His father also got the sense that Kalvin wanted something. Mr. Tuskadue asked himself, “How can a man like this live so long with nothing? Does God not wish him to be prosperous and healthy? His true deeds and actions must be dictating his station in life. You shall know a man by his fruits. What fruits has my first-born Kalvin produced? None,” and he shook his head at the utterance of that last word. Kalvin was a stain on an otherwise unblemished career and reputation of Mr. Tusdkadue.

To dampen the possibility of any attempt Kalvin had at becoming a true Tuskadue through his aunts uncles and cousins, Mr. Tuskadue disinherited his own siblings during the death of Mr. Tuskadue’s father, Kalvin’s grandfather. In a drop-down fight while splitting the assets of his now deceased parents’ estate, Mr. Tuskadue managed to get the majority and cut ties completely with the rest of his brothers and sisters. Because of this, and along with the years of not being around due to living with his mother, Kalvin had no connection with any of the other aunts, uncles or cousins in the Tuskadue family and now, never would. So, he just quit going over. He stopped contacting his father, and wouldn’t you know it, his father never tried to contact him either.

Kalvin now decided he would devote more time to what he considered to be his real family, the O’Henrys. Kalvin figured with the distraction of competing loyalties now gone, as he’d accepted his banishment from his namesake, he could more clearly and devotedly give his time and effort to the family that raised him; to the family he grew up with; his mother’s family; the O’Henry’s. He developed an interest in genealogy, but more geared toward his mother’s side. A fascination with matriarchy and maternal lineage became of great importance to Kalvin. He would carve himself a place in this world no matter what he had to go through or how strange and subverted it may seem. But with swift and repeated action he was met at every turn by Mr. O’Henry and the patriarchy. This was his family, his wife, his house, his.

Mr. O’Henry was always cordial and jolly, yet he never shied from letting Kalvin know where he stood. Over drinks one night in a soliloquy of sorts, Mr. O’Henry looks through Kalvin saying, “Ya know, we’re just spinning on this ball in the middle of nowhere. That’s it. When you’re gone, you’re gone. Poof. When I’m gone there will be nothing left. I’ll die poor. Flat broke. Cause, who cares, anyway. Right?”

So, over the years it became clearer even though Mr. O’Henry had shown affection for the boy, his motivation was to turn him quickly into a man who could start his own family and go out on his own. The Tuskadue boy had failed and changed from cute suckling grappling for position at a teat to a vampiric leech attempting to drain the very modest finances of the O’Henrys. Kalvin was also a constant reminder of the pain and torment caused to his wife by Mr. Tuskadue.

It was the overall precarious nature to Kalvin’s situation that led him to a series of ups and downs in this life. None-the-less and in the end he, himself, is the sole blame to his adult misfortune. Kalvin could do nothing but blame himself. Both families had reinforced these ideas that we create our reality, that our actions are the determining factor in what we do and what we have. Kalvin couldn’t accept this as he saw a different philosophy being applied to his other half siblings and step siblings. They were being aided at every turn. Any inkling of an interest in a possible direction of happiness was acquiesced and even supported while Kalvin was given little encouragement in any interest. He had spent so much time and energy on finding his place between his two families that he had little thought about himself. “Only I am to blame for my dumbassery,” he thought. Instead of perusing the security in this world he so badly wanted, he went about grand adventures and feats that he hoped would impress his families to bestow onto him what was rightfully his. Instead of putting his efforts into being self-sufficient, Kalvin would attempt the impossible, throwing all this resources at the task, in hopes of reclaiming position in his deranged idea of a family, and leaving himself metaphorically walking the tight rope without a net. Kalvin became a liability not only to his families, but to himself. With each feat, he was further thwarted with fits of depression and psychosis when the rewards he sought were not offered. When no one seemed to notice, and he was ever closer to his own demise.

Kalvin turned to a darker path to numb the pain of this whole misunderstanding. The drug use and alcoholism started and seemed to work. It numbed the pain Kalvin felt from a feeling he just didn’t belong anywhere. He’d overeat and binge on junk food if he wasn’t drunk or to end a good session of drinking. He would do anything to fill the empty hole. He sought out other people who felt like him. Who almost wanted to die, but a shred of dignity somewhere deep inside kept them from taking their own life. He ran with all sorts of dingy characters from the back-road-skid of suburbia. Other children raised by children, other adult orphans doing anything and loving anyone if only to stop the pain of loneliness and displacement they felt in this world. Kalvin would go anywhere and do anything. He had little money and everyone he was around also had very little of it. Kalvin learned the ways of a thief and pusher and he stayed out there in the homeless night fending for himself and numbing the pain every step of the way. It was during the moments of sobriety he’d check in with his two families to see if anyone noticed he was gone.

They were all always welcoming. Very welcoming, but he had to realize he would never be back again. That he was cast out long ago with the termination of the love of his two parents. His parents went on creating life and living what came to them and even though every attempt was made to aid in Kalvin’s development and well-being, he represents tragedy, and reminder of just how cruel and confusing life can be.

In his drunken and drugged out periods, Kalvin didn’t communicate with any of them. If he did, it was to steal a quick $100 bill he felt he rightfully deserved. He understood now that he’d wronged them all and he had to accept blame for his place in their lives. He’d been gone. He’d been drunk. He was high. While they were living their lives working the day away and building for a future, Kalvin was up all-night squandering what little resources he had on booze, drugs and a good time. While his siblings used their monies to purchase houses, and their time to develop skills and careers, Kalvin wasted his life on an academic career he couldn’t afford and then abandoned. The weight of the debt led Kalvin to seek the refuge of the bottle night after night.

Kalvin’s massive debt kept him from owning any property and obtaining the loans needed to be a true member of this society. All that money spent at the bar could have better been spent on repaying the loans for his fancy education is the way most people saw it. An education Kalvin sought for its prestige and honor and to gain acceptance and admittance into either of the possible families he was born of and not for any sense of actual knowledge and success on his own. The debt and the education only made him more of a laughingstock. He saw himself as intelligent and accomplished. None of the O’Henrys had every gone to college or received a degree. Kalvin’s attempt to make his mother proud with a degree only further proved to ostracize him from Mr. O’Henry and thus the rest of the family. The mountain of debt he incurred and now could not pay back, further proved to his wealthy father that Kalvin was literally and possibly by nature, unfit to be a Tuskadue. “Tuskadues had wealth. Tuskadues made a difference in this world,” Mr. Tuskadue alwasy said.

Kalvin’s giving up going to the military, which would have pleased his father and for a brief moment in those earlier years, could have landed him back in his rightful place as the Tuskadue first born, still weighed heavy on the conscious of Mr. Tuskadue. He had gone to the military because it was desired by the head of the patriarchy when he was a boy. Kalvin’s grandfather had insisted that Kalvin’s father enlist. “If only I’d become General Kalvin Tuskadue,” Kalvin thought to himself. Truely, even Private Tuskadue, would have quite possibly caused his father to shed a tear in a lantent homage to continuing the patriarchy.

Kalvin’s flamboyant ways and intellectual rebelliousness, combined with a know-it-all-personality and an absolute defiance for authority, with a flippant mouth and knife-like tongue, convinced Mrs. O’Henry the military would be certain death for the young Kalvin. She convinced him not to go. It was a strange way to convince a boy though, but she did it as she still loved her son, even though she had other children to care for now. She did not want Kalvin to think she’d abandoned him or that she would try to guide his life in anyway. So, Mrs. O’Henry met with the military recruiter, signed the waiver for the young 17-year-old to enter the Army early. Then, instead of telling her son directly she thought he should not go, she had her sister and husband do it for her. They convinced Kalvin school and education were the way for someone like him to have success.

What Kalvin wanted was for either of his parents to guide him and accept him. Looking back, if he could, Kalvin would have gone to the military that day, as the path through academia only lead toward the monstrous debt and a way for the O’Henry tribe to rid themselves of Kalvin once and for all. He did not see this back then, and had he joined the military back then, he’d at least have been joining a tribe that cared for him and that he could be a part of. When he thinks back on it now, he sees himself showing up to swear in, instead of copping out and working a double shift and ignoring the military option forever.

Now well into his forties, Kalvin couldn’t even join if he’d wanted to. He sits and imagines what it would have been like to have a free education, to have a G.I. Bill, to have a relationship with respect and honor from his father and cousins. He also wonders what it would be like if he were dead. Afterall, Kalvin was to swear in before the war had started. All quiet on the western front back then. So, there’s no way to really tell if fighting overseas could have ended his life altogether. Sometimes, he thinks dying in the war wouldn’t have been so bad either. He’d be gone and with some 30 years less of life, think of all the suffering Kalvin wouldn’t have caused. If Mr. O’Henry were right, what did it matter anyway? We are all just floating on this ball in the middle of nothingness. “When you're gone, you’re gone,” Kalvin thought to himself.

Even though the sinical side of Kalvin Tuskadue, who never changed his name to anything else despite always wanting to, reveled in the idea of being a dead KIA Tuskadue, with his framed portrait on the wall of his father’s house, the flag folded and unfolded once a year in remembrance of what a brave and dutiful soldier his son had been, Kalvin really did like being alive. Furthermore, he really liked himself. And to be quite frank, this is where most of Kalvin’s troubles come from. He likes himself. He enjoys being alive and he enjoys himself in this world despite what others have to say about him and despite all of the opionions of others on who he should be and how he should live. After all, his families’ suggestions about his life have always been more about maintenance.

Being an adult orphan wasn’t as bad as it feels at first. All the hurt and pain and confusion just kind of left Kalvin as he got older. He sat there in his home, a 47-year-old single man, never married with no kids, no parents, no siblings, no fortune or lineage, no name to have to carry, no responsibility to anyone but himself. His Tuskadue name now merely something he uses to pay his bills and count his money. In someways he was a child again. An orphan to this world.

With his mountain of debt, $100,000 or so, he tended to his rented apartment, thought about his financed car and all the things he’d only barely owned. All the times he’d been denied applications into the higher reaches of our society, and he thought about how alone he’d become, but how he was still happy somehow. Full of hope and wonder. What adventures lie ahead? Where would he be in another 5 years? He’d outlasted the great war, a global pandemic, civil war, and even poverty. And all for what? “Why am I here?” Kalvin thought to himself drying a plate he’d just finished washing.

He wondered how long it would take for someone to find him if he were to suddenly die, if he were to slip in the shower and hit his head or something. “It would take a while,” he finally thought, “I’d probably stink pretty bad,” Kalvin envisioned a series of weird accidental ways he might die. The worms and cockroaches and rats coming to feats on his newly decaying body lying undiscovered in the kitchen floor. The sheer aloneness he was in, meant no one would know, yet he found pleasure in finishing up the dishes. Thinking about it in this way put something into perspective for him. Kalvin had never been able to contain himself from reaching and trying to fit in with other people. This aloneness and fear of dying alone. Of rotting as a corpse with no notice or headline; not even an obituary, terrified him. He’d spent a lifetime attempting to fit into places he’d never really been welcomed at all. Just in case he was to die he wanted someone, anyone, to know. He was a pity. His efforts were spent to figure out what everyone was thinking so he could gage where he stood in the lives of so many different people. “He’s always putting everyone together,” Mrs. O’Henry said once while discussing what to do with her first-born son. 47 years of that will wear anyone out. He knew it. He was alone-alone now. his greatest fear becoming his ultimately reality. “Maybe I can still make some close friends. Maybe I can even still start a family,” Kalvin thought to himself, and he couldn’t help but feel in his mind, and his penis, the exuberance of a teenager. “Why are we still here,” he thought again, looking down at the penis hidden beneath his pants.

Having spent his youth binge drinking and doing drugs, he’d had a lot of sex. Sometimes even a possible wife on a couple of occasions, but meeting women in bars and at work didn’t seem to make it stick for Kalvin. Just like there is always another beer and bar, there’s also always another cute girl hanging out at that next bar. She’ll have a story all her own, and maybe she would be the one to understand Kalvin’s pain and abandonment issues. Maybe the next hit was the one that would make him high forever. The next kiss be the one to stick. He went on, forever filling the unfillable hole.

Kalvin never married. He’d grow bored or angry with the women who stuck around long enough to provoke him. Then there was always the next one, and the next one. Until one day, all the Tuskadue charm and good looks had faded. His great intellect worn off. He was a nobody. He could outdrink anyone in the bar, but no one would drink with him. Kalvin stayed up all night doing cocaine alone and sleeping all day. He was inaccessible, to say the least. It’s no wonder things turned out the way they did. You can’t trust a drunken womanizer who blacks-out all the time, even if they say they’ve stopped.   

So here he was, happy and poor, with nothing to offer anyone, and no one asking for anything. Kind of a pure spot. A barely hanging on to hanging on. What’s the meaning of it all? Sometimes Kalvin likes to wonder what it would have been like to have gotten married and had children. He knows what Mrs. O’Henry wanted all along from him was a grandchild. He knows his mother wishes he would have married. And why hadn’t he? What was it that stalled that process in his life? Was Kalvin infertile? Did he really always use condoms? Was he so crazed that no woman, after all these years, had forced him to have a baby with her? What was wrong with her son? “Or really, what’s wrong with the Tuskadues,” she thought.

Mrs. O’Henry thought this with more clarity than ever. She’d long since stopped being a Tuskadue, long sense devoted her life to her husband and her family. It was a shame, she thought, that Kalvin should go astray, but she didn’t feel responsible, as Kalvin was also the child of a man who she despised and thought of in the absolute lowest form. If Kalvin had children, she could have loved her grandchildren, and then maybe, loved Kalvin again. “but that’s not going to happen,” she thought.

Kalvin went about his life. Going to work and coming home. Tending to his bills and little hobbies he’d made for himself. Saying hello and goodbye to the clerks at the stores he visits with the vigor of a long lost relative. In the face of every woman he passed, Kalvin sought to meet his longing eyes with their soul mate. He longed to have a wife and children and to belong to something. He saved his money. He went to work and searched the eyes of every woman he saw. At night he’d go home, safe from worry of the circumstances ofdebauched drinking binges. He no longer worried about going to jail, no longer feared having his life taken from him, no longer feared being a burden on others. A man he’d become. A late bloomer to say the least, and no less of a disgrace, but a man, indeed. Kalvin could now afford his tombstone. His debt, significantly dwindled, he chips away a larger chunk as every year passes with the diligence of a boxer training to win back his lost honor. His savings, ever-growing with a diligent weekly deposit, so that if he were to be found accidentally dead, he’d again leave something behind. “But to who,” he thought?

How Kalvin wished to have learned to save money when he were younger. Had he saved even just one dollar of every $100 he earned, he may have found a bride and carved out a lineage and family of his own. He’d have no need for either the O’Henrys or the Tuskadues. He might possibly even have been able to be a part of both their families, had it not been for such the great need for help Kalvin burdened them with.

Mr. Tuskadue never contacted Kalvin again, except for a package Kalvin received by snail mail a few years back. It was in Mrs. Tuskadue’s handwriting and contained a box with all the photographs Mr. Tuskadue’s parents had taken of his first wedding to Kalvin’s mother. Among the wedding photos were also any other photo she must have had, or found around Tuskadue estate, that featured Kalvin or his mother. The cut-out photos from the photo album all those years ago were also included. One more final nail in the coffin to remind him he didn’t exist.

He wished maybe he would meet someone. Someone who would have his child. “Who am I kidding,” Kalvin thought, “I’m too old for any of that.” He’d usually go to bed after having a thought like that. But only after heating a warm glass of milk first.

Lying in bed he’d think back to the now meaningless parties and endless all-night shenanigans with strangers. It felt like something was being done. That they were all getting somewhere. It took Kalvin too many years to realize most of those people had already given up having a happy and normal life and were metaphorically running it into the ground, so to speak. But he also knew that, and he had to accept by trying to save them, he gave himself meaning during those years. Kalvin is lucky to have recovered from the depths of debauchery from which he journeyed, and as stated before, you just never really know about someone like that.

But being an adult orphan did have its advantages. Kalvin no longer needed Mr. O’Henry’s approval nor the fatherly devotion or financial aid of the Tuskadue estate. So, he knew in his heart Mr. O’Henry and Mr. Tuskadue were, in a way at least, slightly proud of their son, for Kalvin had made it this far without doing any real harm on anyone. “Do that which consists of no action, and order will prevail,” Kalvin Tuskadue thought to himself, and he sat there in his chair a little longer.