Stories we don't talk about much

1. "Evil"

Picture this! Middle of July, 2005. Hot summer day. Small village that basically consists of 6 apartment buildings. 
The day that I'm thinking of is very special for me, because after a long time, I had been invited to a birthday party of a friend. By that time she and I (and many other friends I had originally grown up with) had been hanging out in different crowds. To make a long story as short as possible - most of the friends I grew up with kind of stopped wanting to hang out with me by the time I was a teen(ish) and then I started hanging out with the younger crowd. In my village I was the 15 or 16 year old boy running around playing games with 11 through 14 year old girls.
But anyway. We kind of drifted apart throughout the years and that's why I was really really happy to get the invite to the party. All the local "cool" teenagers were there, so I felt really accepted and wanted and happy.
The birthday girl's mother though also had decided to stick around. Something the daughter wasn't really happy about, especially as the mother wasn't completely sober either. Luckily the mother did keep to the kitchen for most of the time. Since I got along well with the mother, I spent half the day with the teens and half with the mom (yes, it was a daytime party). I can't remember exactly what me and the mom talked about that day, but I distinctly remember her asking me if I would recognize evil if looks me straight in the eye. I remember being confused why is she asking me that, but already back then I was a smart kid and I knew to say "no", because it's the truth. I remember her asking me the same question again insisting she wants a different answer. In the end I remember giving up and saying that I for sure would recognize if evil is looking me in the eye (not knowing what does she mean by "evil").
I can't remember anymore if the "party" (which was just basically a gathering at the birthday girl's house, eating salad, sweets and drinking lemonade and listening to music and just mingling) ended naturally or did the mom end the party by having enough and kicking us out or something else. But I remember running home extremely happy again, because the crowd from the party had invited me to go with them to hang out and throughout they day they had been pretty cool to me. I don't remember why exactly I needed to pop by my home, but I just remember being really really happy about getting the invite. The trip home was just a few minutes, because I was living in the neighboring apartment building. Went in, did what I needed (probably just either dropping something off or changing clothes or something quick like that). I remember running back outside and catching up with the group, who were standing in a meetup spot, two buildings away.
I can't exactly remember how long was I there or what happened before, but the moment I can remember clearly is two guys holding me down (one from each arm) and maybe somebody even trying to hold my head and then this one person trying to shave my head. They had brought this shitty electric shaver and first they tried shaving me starting from the forehead, but luckily either the shaver wasn't as sharp or the shaver just did a bad angle or whatever, they only cut off a very short peace from the front and didn't get further than maybe a centimeter or something. They tried one more time, but this time from the back, starting from behind my scull upwards. With that they succeeded to cut out about a 5 centimeter hole or something around that size. I remember screaming from the top of my lungs. I remember that no one came to the window to check what was happening (that I know/remember of). Luckily after the hole was cut out, they let me go and I ran home as fast as I could. When I was running up a hill, I remember a small group from the earlier group coming towards me, because they had gone to a nearby gas station to buy something (snacks or whatever).
I honestly don't remember what happened next that specific night. There might be a chance that I ran home crying. Mom and I weren't getting along that well back then and when she came to check what was happening, I might have said something bad to her, grabbed my "boombox" and ran across a small park, crossed a river and went to a small campsite next to a grilling place and laid down on the ground and cried like I had never cried before while some song was playing on my portable music player from whatever self-made CD I was listening to at the time.
Everybody (at least teens and people I hung out with most) knew how much I loved hair and having long hair. They weren't that long back then, but I could do a pony-tail and luckily hide the hole in the back of my head. I guess that's why they decided to do this...
I remember showing the hole in the back of my head to my co-worker who came to pick me up the following Monday...



2. "The story of my mom and dad"

As mom has told me, she and dad met at some party. He was a guitarist of the band performing. She was around 18 or 19 and he was 20 or 21. Lets say around two(ish) years from that moment I am born. Mom has told me many times that I was made with love and I was really wanted and waited (most of the times she's told me that she's been drunk, but that's beside the point).
To keep things politically correct, I'll just say that their relationship was not a healthy one. They had this on again off again type of a relationship. They were also married for a very short time, but if I remember correctly mom was pregnant when they got married and the marriage lasted for a few months or up to a year or so. From my childhood I remember living with mom most of the times more, than us living together. I also want just point out that their relationship wasn't exactly healthy due to things from both sides. Mom is a tough woman (speaking from my own negative experiences with her when she was drunk) and as mom says, so was dad. But personally speaking I remember only one incident where dad might have been no so cool (though there might have been many of those I don't remember or wasn't present for). I remember being like 4 or 5 and hiding under the living room desk, because mom and dad are screaming at each other in the kitchen. Dad came over drunk again. At some point I remember someone throwing the glass jar of a coffee machine (the dripping kind with paper filters) against one of the kitchen doors. I assume it was dad, but I don't remember for sure and will definitely not go asking mom this. 
Other than that one incident, in my life mom was the strict one with whom I was living with and dad was the one at whose place I was during the weekends and he was the one who was spoiling me (along with his mom who was living in the same hallway of the apartment building, just some floors down). If we compare my two grandmas (because I never met either of my grampas, since they had both passed before I was born) then the one from moms side is also much stricter, so I get where mom gets it from. The one from my dad's side was an incredibly generous soul and would give up her last penny to help someone in need.
Anyway, fast forward about 9 years. It's February 1999. By that time dad is working as a truck driver. His schedule is that he starts on Monday morning and drives his truck to another city about 100km away. He stays there working and staying in wherever the employer put them up to and then after their shift on Friday he'd come back home. Him, his mother and sister and other relatives were all living in a town about 5 km away from my village.
By February 1999 my dad and mom had again rekindled their relationship and dad was spending the night at our place quite often. That faithful Monday dad had again woken up next to mom, after another happy weekend at our place and drove off. That Friday, the 19th of February mom got a call - dad's gone. There had been an accident and he didn't make it. The accident had happened early Friday morning and was entirely because of dad's carelessness. No one else got hurt and I like to think that we just simply forgot himself for a second, because he was thinking about getting back to us at the end of his shift. Mom had told me at some point (I can't remember if it was after dad had left us for work that Monday or was it after he was gone) that they had a plan of him moving back in with us permanently after he gets back home that Friday...
"Fun" fact 1 - back when VHS tapes were still a thing, my dad had rented the movie Titanic before the movie had even been shown in our tiny town's cinema. I remember being at my grandma's place and him coming there asking if I'd want to come watch a movie with him and his then girlfriend about some movie about a boat sinking or something. He might be the reason I've seen it 4 times in the cinema by now (twice when it originally came out, once when it came out in 3D and last Valentine's Day when I treated myself with a ticket to go see it in 4K by myself and still cried like crazy and loved it as always) and countless of times on TV and streaming services etc. 
The story of my mom and dad might also be the reason why I personally love movies where one of the lead character dies in the end.
"Fun" fact Vol 2 - Oddly enough I do not remember the exact moment when I was told that my dad is gone, but I remember exactly the moment where I was when I was told that his mom had passed away. Some cultures have a belief that you are not allowed to enter the home of a deceased person for 40 days (can't remember if it's from the moment of the person's death or when they are actually buried). And if those beliefs are to be believed, then someone entered his flat (if I remember correctly my mom even mentioning that some small stuff were gone, like kitchen wear or what ever). But exactly 40 days after my dad died, my grandma passed away. I never got to know what was her cause of death, but for some reason she was rushed to the hospital and just never made it out again.
"Fun" fact Vol 3 - One of my many dreams is to make an autobiographical movie about my childhood. I've already settled on some key scenes and one of the main things will be the incident from the first story. I even have music picked out for that scene.
"Fun" fact Vol 4 - When mom was pregnant she said she kept on wanting a girl. She was 100% sure a girl will be born. According to her one day she was in Keskturg market place in Tallinn and a gypsy had told her she's going to have a boy. She told off the gypsy and said she was wrong. And then I was born (best from both worlds, if you ask me)... xD

Ingrid Michaelson - Keep Breathing