I shouldn’t be droning like this. I’ve never let myself get this down before. I’ve always found a way to pick myself up and make a joke out of my problems. So what happened? Why is it so much harder this time?
It’s not like I haven’t been through hardship. I was practically born into it in South Boston. I’m talking about a rough neighborhood with touch, ridged, blue-collar people whose sense of humor was as limited as their income bracket. My parents sure fit the mold. My dad busted his ass on the docks for 60 hours a week while my mom had been bussing tables at restaurants since she was 17. It was not a fun environment. Our house had more leaks in it than an incontinent dog and the only entertainment my folks would splurge on was a small TV with basic cable. It’s the last place you would expect a career class clown to emerge.
I guess it’s just how I learned to cope. When you’ve got so little growing up, you have to find a way to compensate. A sense of humor ended up working for me. I remember how when I was young, my parents would always come home tired and exhausted. They looked so miserable and being the only one not toiling away for paychecks, I took it upon myself to make them smile. I would walk into the living room with a cooking pot on my head, swim trunks on my arms, and a towel as a cape and claim I flew in from the planet Chocolaton-Five and was looking to gather all the chocolate ice cream in the galaxy. They got a real kick out of it. I wasn’t always the funniest kid, but I did get them to smile. From there, the whole jokester persona stuck.
It didn’t always go over well. I remember this time I went a little overboard with my act once. I grabbed my dad’s tools, put on my mom’s apron, and pretended to be a firefighter. It was cute at first until I tripped, bumped into the kitchen table, and knocked some of our less-than-fancy dishes onto the floor so they broke into a million pieces. To say I got yelled at would not do justice to the permanent hearing damage I probably inferred. I know now I went a little too far with that joke. It may even count as a sign of things to come with Lorna.
Bobby cringed at the many indicators that should have been obvious with Lorna. He pulled the pillow off his face and let it fall to his side. With his arms and legs now lazily draping off the couch, he let out an embittered sigh. The sorrow was becoming too much and frustration was setting in. This wasn’t right. It couldn’t be.
“Pull yourself together, Drake! The hell is wrong with you?” Bobby groaned to himself.
He wasn’t supposed to be like this. He refused to let it get him down. His missteps with Lorna couldn’t be the same as the mishaps of his past. The real Bobby Drake knew how to rise above those and move forward.
While my focus is on completing Supreme Reflections, I'm also getting ready to make a major announcement for a very special event for the X-men Supreme fanfiction series. Every so often, Marvel Comics will take time from continuing their epic stories to do one-shots that help add depth and history to their universe. Well the X-men Supreme fanfiction series is no different. I don't plan on following the events of this series in a completely linear fashion. I want to explore the entire history that I've set up in this unique brand of X-men. Now that I have two volumes of fanfiction under my belt, I'm ready to explore that history. I hope others are willing to explore it as well! So stay tuned for some big announcements. If you have any questions or comments in the meantime, feel free to contact me at any time. Until then, take care and best wishes! Excelsior!
Jack
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