The old, beat-up SUV rumbled beneath us, only on to keep the air conditioning on our faces in the still parking lot. The radio was humming out some indie tune, a woman’s gentle, jazzy voice. My legs were stretched out on the dashboard as I relaxed in my seat, and my dad was leaning towards the window, cracked open just enough to let out the smoke from his thousandth cigarette of the day. We were having a conversation, gentle, harmless. I said something about the weather, he muttered something about missing NASCAR. We both joked about how long my brother was taking to do his written licence test. It was easy, not forced for the first time in forever. We were having a good time.
“I used to drive a race car,” he said.
“I know, dad.”
“I used to go hangliding too, and parachuting. One time, the pilot let me take us up. He wouldn’t let me land it, though.”
“Why not?” I’d heard the story a thousand times. It was like a rehearsed conversation.
“Because once we got up high enough, we jumped! Parachuted down and landed in the middle of a field.”
“That’s awesome, dad. You really had fun when you were younger.” We both knew I meant it in more ways than one.
“Yeah. I used to be able to do it for hours. One time, after my band did a gig, I went to the back with a woman. Didn’t come back until morning. When my friends finally found me, they asked what I’d been doing. ‘What do you think?’ I said. And you know what they said?”
“What, dad?”
“‘For all this time?’ Well, yeah! The trick is to start with older women.” I started to fidget. Picked up my can of no-name pop, put it down. Watched myself lace my fingers together. “My first time was with an older woman. They’re patient. They’ll teach you. Then I got good, and well… Then I got famous for the singing. Women threw themselves at me. You know about my fan club, right?” Sure I did. All old women with sweaters that had his name on it.
“Blue hairs, you called them?” I asked. I already knew.
“That’s right! All of them old, thinning white hair. A bunch of blue hairs in blue sweaters with my name. I hit number one in Canada, you know.”
“I know. ‘I Never Figured On This’, 1981. A real accomplishment.” I wasn’t lying here. My dad really was famous for a while. Nobody remembered him anymore, but sometimes I listened to his old records when I missed him – the real him.
“That’s right.” We sat in silence for a while. This time, he was the one who fiddled. Changed the radio station to a talk show that made us both laugh. My brother had been in the testing centre for over two hours. I’d taken half an hour to do mine.
The conversation continued. Dad lit up another smoke, I finished off my chips and pop, and we talked about television and life and his side of the family. He criticized my mom, I ignored his faults for a while, and it felt right. It felt right to be able to talk to my dad. My mom kicked him out when I was seven, and he hadn’t really been close to us since. Sure, he came every other weekend for a couple of hours, but it was all shallow talk. NASCAR, what movies we’d like to see, that sort of thing. More recently, all he talked about was taste. The radiation and chemo had knocked out his taste buds, and he hadn’t tasted anything for about two years. And I hadn’t heard anything but complaints about it for about as long. We just never had real conversations. We rarely ever talked on the phone. Sometimes he called at night, and you could tell he was drunk. He’d slur his words, repeat himself, reaffirm his love for his children. Over and over again. But today was perfect. He was being perfect.
And I didn’t know what to do with that. I’d been silently mad at him all day. I wanted to be mad at him. I wanted to go home and complain to my friends about how creepy he was and make up excuses not to see him anymore. But here I was, having a good time. How did that compare?
He’d come that morning like any other, started chatting with me and my brother. The three of us are never really inhibited with each other. Between their Asperger’s and my general awkwardness (possibly attributed to being raised around the two of them), nothing was out of bounds. We talked about showers and shaving and nosepicking and hot chicks and every possible thing that wasn’t acceptable in the general public. The problem was that I did have boundaries. They were hard to reach, but my dad reached them that day.
“Any man,” he was saying, “who sees a nice pair of boobs and doesn’t check them out is just sick.” My brother nodded in agreement. “I mean, take Kinnery for example. I check her out all the time.” He turned to me. I tried not to look disturbed, but I was suddenly very self-conscious. “I mean, you have a very nice body. You have a nice figure, really great boobs. It doesn’t mean I want to fondle them, but they’re very nice.”
Great. Just what I wanted to hear from my father. The same father who I couldn’t stay with overnight. It wasn’t a coincidence. Last time, he’d touched my chest. Granted, I was nine and didn’t really have one, and he was seriously drunk, but even though he slurred out, “Now honey, that was an accident, you know I’d never do anything like that to you,” I never really could believe him. Then there was my uncle’s fiftieth birthday party. My dad got so drunk he offered to sleep with his 20-something niece, and then offered to come down and sleep with my cousin and I (we were both eleven or so). He offered me an alcoholic drink and ended up passing out in the corner. I was embarrassed by my dad, and not the way most kids are. I wasn’t embarrassed because he hugged me in front of my friends, or wore stupid clothes. I was embarrassed because I was always scared he would hit on my friends, or get drunk. The latter was probably irrational – he never drinks before 9:00 at night – but the thought still scared me enough that I wouldn’t let any of my friends meet him.
Yeah, it had been a weird moment. But here I was, enjoying myself with the same guy. Well, the same body. He really is like two different guys. Sometimes, he’s the alcoholic – creepy, annoying, disgusting. I would cross the street if I saw him coming and didn’t know who he was. But sometimes, he was his old self, the self I never met, the self that died with his fiancée before I was born. The self that sang and drove race cars and jumped out of planes. That’s the one I loved, even in the small glimpses I got of him. That one is the soul. That’s the one I love.
I probably should have said something. Told him how much he made me uncomfortable, told him that I missed the real him when he was like that.
But instead, I spent a nice day with him waiting for my brother (who finally did pass his test, after two tries), and went home. And that night, I listened to his records, and tried to connect with the dad I loved.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Enough
Clinging to his mother's purse, Owen sat down, defeated. His feet were sore from running, he was out of breath, and Chicago was an hour's drive away. That wouldn't have seemed so far, if he'd had a ride. He could feel a rock digging into his ass cheek, and he began to cry behind his designer glasses. Looking down, he noticed that the black nail polish on his left thumb was chipped. Perfect.
He had to admit, it was already more glamorous than his previous life. At least he could wear a dress now. Back at the forlorn, isolated house, with his asshole father, he couldn't even wear heels or a cute hat. One time his father caught him with one of his mother's old purses, and had beat Owen until he couldn't even stand. His father then spent four goddamn hours scrubbing Owen's fingerprints off of the purse, sobbing and apologizing to no one in particular. Owen was 16 at the time, and thought he was tough enough to finally face his old man.
"She's dead," he said coldly from the door of the bathroom, leaning on the door-frame with one hand on his hip. "She doesn't care if I use her purse, she's DEAD. She has been for years and it's time you fucking realized it."
That was the night he ended up at the hospital. Three broken ribs, a punctured lung, and bruises from head to toe.
The hospital psychologist asked him privately if his father was telling the truth about how Owen fell down the stairs. It was his choice. He could get out, change his life. But he just confirmed his father's story and went home.
The bathroom in that ever-alone house was dark, the light casting a dirty yellow glow over the sad tiles, raw from years of being scrubbed too hard. Maybe that was why Owen's father cleaned it so much; the light made it seem like it was never really clean. This was where Owen usually found him, lying drunk on the floor, a dark stain on the perfect tile, a bleach-saturated sponge clasped desperately in his hand. He almost pitied his father. This was where he usually beat Owen, for criticizing his cleaning or drinking, or for getting a fingerprint on the mirror.
Only semi-conscious, his father began to whisper. "Unclean," he choked out, "You're unclean."
Owen had many small rebellions throughout the years. One such day, at 18, half a year before he left, he had gone further than he ever imaged. After his father told him he couldn't leave the house again for a week, Owen went out and stomped through a muddy field, ran into the house with his now destroyed sneakers, and stomped around the small bathroom triumphantly.
He'd woken up in the shower aching, hot water pouring down from the shower head onto his broken body, to see his father scrubbing the last of Owen's blood off the floor, crying in his usual drunken state, repeating the word 'sorry' like a mantra. Owen didn't even remember his father coming into the room, didn't remember the first blow.
This was how his life worked. An unreliable series of vignettes, memories only as he recalled them, no strings to connect the images and impressions shaped in his mind. The first of these images was like an old photograph with stains and rips and bad lighting: a single image of his mother looking down at him.
His father always said she was no better than him, a filthy blue collar worker, stripping on the side to fund a drug addiction. Owen never really believed him, though. In his mind, she was an angel, the most beautiful woman to have ever walked the earth (although in pictures he later saw, he realized he was just romanticizing; she was quite average looking. Another false memory). As a child, he always dreamed she would swoop down from heaven and carry him away. That was back when he still believed in heaven, in God, in angels, in his mother. But he gave up on all of that years ago.
Having planned to leave for months, Owen woke up that morning with a clear conviction. Today would be the day; it was finally time to leave. While his father was drinking in front of the television, Owen stole his family's only picture of his mother. It was a simple picture, a smiling woman waving to a camera with red mittens and hot breath clouding her face. She was wearing skates, standing on the middle of a frozen pond, her cheeks pink and her hair messy from the cold wind. She looked so alive, so young. She couldn't have been more than twenty five. Immortalized in a simple wooden frame, she was like an idol, silently worshipped by two lonely men in a forgotten trailer an hour outside of town. Tucking the photograph into one of her old purses, and slipping on her favourite old pair of shoes, Owen felt closer to his mother than he had been in years.
After his father passed out drunk, Owen prepared to take off. He wrote a short note -- "Goodbye" -- and packed two outfits and a toothbrush into a backpack. Purse in hand, backpack slung over his shoulders, he made to leave. Something tugged at him though, something he couldn't explain. He quietly turned around and walked over to his father. Stroking his thinning grey hair, Owen gave him a sympathetic kiss on the forehead.
He took a deep breath, blinked away a few tears, and whispered, "I love you. I really do." He then ran out of the house, ran until his shoes hurt his feet and he couldn't see the trailer in the distance, and then sat down on the dirt. He cried until he fell asleep.
He couldn't tell how long he'd been there, only that the sun was down when he woke. He wasn't sure what had shaken him out of his sleep, until he saw a pick-up truck in the distance, driving down the usually abandoned dirt road. Owen immediately stood up and stuck out his thumb like he'd seen in movies. As the truck approached, he felt a nervous twinge in the pit of his stomach. He'd never done anything like this before, never really lived outside of his father.
The truck slowed, and a handsome man of about thirty rolled down the window.
"You looking for a ride?" he asked politely, a Southern twinge lacing his smooth voice. Owen just nodded, and walked around to the other side.
"Where are you headed? And why in God's name are you dressed like a woman?"
"Chicago. And because I like to dress this way." Owen looked up. "Do you have a problem with that?"
"No, sorry. Didn't mean to offend. I'm just not exactly used to the look. Name's Alex."
"Owen."
The rest of the ride was more or less silent. Owen let his arm hang lazily out the window, catching the air between his fingers, while his driver tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, slowly chewing some day-old gum. Owen couldn't help but feel that the scene was classic, like something from the movies he'd so earnestly tried to believe could be real.
Optimism pays off, he thought with the slightest grin.
He couldn't help but feel nervous, though. The further they drove, the closer to his dreams he got, the more he felt that he was just making himself lost. He didn't know how to exist outside of a victim's life. He had always defined himself as a victim, and his father as his oppressor. This was their relationship to one another, and to society. Now, kicking up dust behind the tires, a beat-up blue truck was carrying him forward, away from that life, towards the life that always seemed just out of reach. He was scared that life wouldn't be what he was hoping for, and terrified that it would be. He was hanging in the balance, one foot in and one foot out, lost somewhere in the infinite no-man's land that hung between reality and fantasy. He was circling among the stars, with nothing to push off of, no idea of how to get direction. His worst fear of all was that once he arrived, he wouldn't come crashing down to earth, but would remain in the uncertainty forever, never really living life in the moment. Always looking behind him, always looking ahead.
With a lurch (the truck stalled), he woke up. He'd fallen asleep again, his head sore where it was resting against the car door. Looking up through the darkness, Chicago was clearly visible. It was bright and awake, though the voice on the radio was telling him it was a chilly midnight. Sure, it was no NYC, but it was alive, and that was enough. He was finally on his own. They had arrived.
As he thanked his driver and stepped out onto a downtown sidewalk, he knew that everything would be okay. He walked down the sidewalk alone, swinging his hips just so, tossing his hair and feeling fabulous. He no longer felt unpure, no longer the tarnished, abhorred creature he had been before. He was just another face, just another wildly glamorous face in a city that didn't give a damn. And somehow, that was freeing.
He settled down in a dark, inconspicuous alley, and zipped open the backpack. Pulling out a warm but still deliciously adorable sweater, he sighed contentedly. He wrapped himself in the sweater, tucked his purse and his bag under his head, and fell asleep beside a trash can.
He didn’t know where he’d go in the morning. He didn’t know where he’d live, work, eat. But he knew he was free, sleeping on the cement. It was as much as he'd ever dared to dream. And it was enough.
He had to admit, it was already more glamorous than his previous life. At least he could wear a dress now. Back at the forlorn, isolated house, with his asshole father, he couldn't even wear heels or a cute hat. One time his father caught him with one of his mother's old purses, and had beat Owen until he couldn't even stand. His father then spent four goddamn hours scrubbing Owen's fingerprints off of the purse, sobbing and apologizing to no one in particular. Owen was 16 at the time, and thought he was tough enough to finally face his old man.
"She's dead," he said coldly from the door of the bathroom, leaning on the door-frame with one hand on his hip. "She doesn't care if I use her purse, she's DEAD. She has been for years and it's time you fucking realized it."
That was the night he ended up at the hospital. Three broken ribs, a punctured lung, and bruises from head to toe.
The hospital psychologist asked him privately if his father was telling the truth about how Owen fell down the stairs. It was his choice. He could get out, change his life. But he just confirmed his father's story and went home.
The bathroom in that ever-alone house was dark, the light casting a dirty yellow glow over the sad tiles, raw from years of being scrubbed too hard. Maybe that was why Owen's father cleaned it so much; the light made it seem like it was never really clean. This was where Owen usually found him, lying drunk on the floor, a dark stain on the perfect tile, a bleach-saturated sponge clasped desperately in his hand. He almost pitied his father. This was where he usually beat Owen, for criticizing his cleaning or drinking, or for getting a fingerprint on the mirror.
Only semi-conscious, his father began to whisper. "Unclean," he choked out, "You're unclean."
Owen had many small rebellions throughout the years. One such day, at 18, half a year before he left, he had gone further than he ever imaged. After his father told him he couldn't leave the house again for a week, Owen went out and stomped through a muddy field, ran into the house with his now destroyed sneakers, and stomped around the small bathroom triumphantly.
He'd woken up in the shower aching, hot water pouring down from the shower head onto his broken body, to see his father scrubbing the last of Owen's blood off the floor, crying in his usual drunken state, repeating the word 'sorry' like a mantra. Owen didn't even remember his father coming into the room, didn't remember the first blow.
This was how his life worked. An unreliable series of vignettes, memories only as he recalled them, no strings to connect the images and impressions shaped in his mind. The first of these images was like an old photograph with stains and rips and bad lighting: a single image of his mother looking down at him.
His father always said she was no better than him, a filthy blue collar worker, stripping on the side to fund a drug addiction. Owen never really believed him, though. In his mind, she was an angel, the most beautiful woman to have ever walked the earth (although in pictures he later saw, he realized he was just romanticizing; she was quite average looking. Another false memory). As a child, he always dreamed she would swoop down from heaven and carry him away. That was back when he still believed in heaven, in God, in angels, in his mother. But he gave up on all of that years ago.
Having planned to leave for months, Owen woke up that morning with a clear conviction. Today would be the day; it was finally time to leave. While his father was drinking in front of the television, Owen stole his family's only picture of his mother. It was a simple picture, a smiling woman waving to a camera with red mittens and hot breath clouding her face. She was wearing skates, standing on the middle of a frozen pond, her cheeks pink and her hair messy from the cold wind. She looked so alive, so young. She couldn't have been more than twenty five. Immortalized in a simple wooden frame, she was like an idol, silently worshipped by two lonely men in a forgotten trailer an hour outside of town. Tucking the photograph into one of her old purses, and slipping on her favourite old pair of shoes, Owen felt closer to his mother than he had been in years.
After his father passed out drunk, Owen prepared to take off. He wrote a short note -- "Goodbye" -- and packed two outfits and a toothbrush into a backpack. Purse in hand, backpack slung over his shoulders, he made to leave. Something tugged at him though, something he couldn't explain. He quietly turned around and walked over to his father. Stroking his thinning grey hair, Owen gave him a sympathetic kiss on the forehead.
He took a deep breath, blinked away a few tears, and whispered, "I love you. I really do." He then ran out of the house, ran until his shoes hurt his feet and he couldn't see the trailer in the distance, and then sat down on the dirt. He cried until he fell asleep.
He couldn't tell how long he'd been there, only that the sun was down when he woke. He wasn't sure what had shaken him out of his sleep, until he saw a pick-up truck in the distance, driving down the usually abandoned dirt road. Owen immediately stood up and stuck out his thumb like he'd seen in movies. As the truck approached, he felt a nervous twinge in the pit of his stomach. He'd never done anything like this before, never really lived outside of his father.
The truck slowed, and a handsome man of about thirty rolled down the window.
"You looking for a ride?" he asked politely, a Southern twinge lacing his smooth voice. Owen just nodded, and walked around to the other side.
"Where are you headed? And why in God's name are you dressed like a woman?"
"Chicago. And because I like to dress this way." Owen looked up. "Do you have a problem with that?"
"No, sorry. Didn't mean to offend. I'm just not exactly used to the look. Name's Alex."
"Owen."
The rest of the ride was more or less silent. Owen let his arm hang lazily out the window, catching the air between his fingers, while his driver tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, slowly chewing some day-old gum. Owen couldn't help but feel that the scene was classic, like something from the movies he'd so earnestly tried to believe could be real.
Optimism pays off, he thought with the slightest grin.
He couldn't help but feel nervous, though. The further they drove, the closer to his dreams he got, the more he felt that he was just making himself lost. He didn't know how to exist outside of a victim's life. He had always defined himself as a victim, and his father as his oppressor. This was their relationship to one another, and to society. Now, kicking up dust behind the tires, a beat-up blue truck was carrying him forward, away from that life, towards the life that always seemed just out of reach. He was scared that life wouldn't be what he was hoping for, and terrified that it would be. He was hanging in the balance, one foot in and one foot out, lost somewhere in the infinite no-man's land that hung between reality and fantasy. He was circling among the stars, with nothing to push off of, no idea of how to get direction. His worst fear of all was that once he arrived, he wouldn't come crashing down to earth, but would remain in the uncertainty forever, never really living life in the moment. Always looking behind him, always looking ahead.
With a lurch (the truck stalled), he woke up. He'd fallen asleep again, his head sore where it was resting against the car door. Looking up through the darkness, Chicago was clearly visible. It was bright and awake, though the voice on the radio was telling him it was a chilly midnight. Sure, it was no NYC, but it was alive, and that was enough. He was finally on his own. They had arrived.
As he thanked his driver and stepped out onto a downtown sidewalk, he knew that everything would be okay. He walked down the sidewalk alone, swinging his hips just so, tossing his hair and feeling fabulous. He no longer felt unpure, no longer the tarnished, abhorred creature he had been before. He was just another face, just another wildly glamorous face in a city that didn't give a damn. And somehow, that was freeing.
He settled down in a dark, inconspicuous alley, and zipped open the backpack. Pulling out a warm but still deliciously adorable sweater, he sighed contentedly. He wrapped himself in the sweater, tucked his purse and his bag under his head, and fell asleep beside a trash can.
He didn’t know where he’d go in the morning. He didn’t know where he’d live, work, eat. But he knew he was free, sleeping on the cement. It was as much as he'd ever dared to dream. And it was enough.
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