My dad was a giant brown acrylic sweater that never had a
collar or cuffs. I wore that sweater to bicycle across town to go to work-study
jobs, I wore it while I guarded at the ice rink, the knit partially blocking
the air and wind, keeping me from being chilled but letting me breathe.
My mother was a 30' section of fallen giant oak in the woods
across the street from the house, hovering 18" from the ground the entire
17 years I lived there, a rich, rusty red with nubbles of light green lichens
over it, with tiny flecks of red. The log would stop us, for a time, keeping us
from straying further into the woods, where there were patches of poison ivy,
old farmer’s dumps full of broken glass, snakes, possibly-rabid raccoons, and
occasionally people out to grab us. Like a giant welping bitch it lay there,
allowing us to climb all over it and nestle in its great forks. Yet, I could
not go back to the house dirty, so I mustn't.
It has come to me that the notion of a thing, of a person,
is something you observe and internalize, and carry with you. My dad the
sweater, my mother the log, give me comfort, soothed me from upset, propped me
up, kept me warm.
My dad approached us the way a child would approach a litter
of puppies. He wanted us to amuse him, seduce him, make him laugh. Or he wanted
to do something to get my mother's goat. One was as good as another, or maybe
he had a favorite, I dunno, but it seems he thought we were interchangeable.
maybe like a collection of purses, if he had carried a purse. I realized, late
in the game, that he really didn't know which one I was. I'm not saying he
suffered a mental decline. He was always vague on this. I wasted an incredible
amount of precious time trying to get him to like me.
So, I think, prompted by some church program, my dad wanted
to set things to rights with me, so he sends me an unsigned typed paragraph,
suggesting we should meet in any place of my choosing and hammer things out,
once and for all -- him an' me in an iron cage, NO HOLDS BARRED!!! Just to
sweeten it, he said he'd pay for my therapist to come, if I wanted.
So I call him up on the phone and get to talking. I mean,
the thing about meeting face-to-face is he's going to try to touch me, or bully
me in several other ways he's accustomed to. So I tell him every time I talk to
him I feel like I'm being erased. He says nothing. I talk about several things
I've put up with from him. He says nothing at first, then acts like I'm really
complaining about my mother, and tut-tuts me like he's on my side. A few more
items, despite the failure ... and he's rhythmically saying "yeah, yeah,
yeah," not in time to what I'm saying, but like he's having a seizure or
is masturbating. I tell him I'm hanging up, and do so. I suppose he thinks I am
rude.
My dad always acted like some other dad should have already
told me something, and he was just reminding me what a bad dad that other dad
was compared to him, like, this imaginary other dad should have told me what a
Rube Goldberg machine was. Then my dad would come up to me and say "Like a
Rube Goldberg machine, ah? AH?" and clock me on the arm, Bam! And I was
supposed to laugh, and express recognition; or misbehave, and not.
