I have always had malicious thoughts about my father, and at the ripe young age of eleven, I began to act on those sinful thoughts. Whenever I would take a required trip over to his house in Staten Island, I would try and make up for the child support that he had never paid. I made up for his lack of payments with stealing some payments of my own. I didn’t actually know at the time, but sadly my earnings from my miscreant behavior barely constituted what he was supposed to pay each month.

I went about my collection in a very subversive manner. When we would arrive at his house in Staten Island, I would usually remain my mopey self and act very quiet and depressed. When he would ask if I wanted to go over to the main house, I would say no. The only reason this technique ended up working was because he cared more about his social life then his daughter’s entire life. He would leave for the main house to go chat with some other vegan bums and I would wait approximately five minutes. When the entire house became quiet, I would begin. My strategy was to take money that he didn’t necessarily know was there, although according to him he had very scanty money to begin with. Although my task was difficult, I got up off of the floor and found salvation in his small pencil case. There was probably about five dollars in change lying at the bottom of this pencil stand that he had no idea existed. It was dusty and only visible as the sun peeked through at 5pm and 5am in a little spot where the reflection of a new and shiny quarter was visible. He was rarely in his room at either of these times in the day, so I know that this was the money to take. My naïve little mind concluded that this money might be enough compensation for lifelong torture and entrapment from my father, although in reality, I was very wrong. I didn’t know this at the time, but I couldn’t find any more money so I had to think of a compromise. I looked down at the beloved little pencil stand in his room and realized that he just loved his pens almost as much as he loved socializing with the other hippy bums in the commune. I decided to take the fanciest pen. Every time I returned to his house, I became the debt collector. I had a jar of coins that I would find in his room, and I ended up giving all of the money to my mother.