He’s kinda fucking pitiful-looking, which is weird.
I’ve seen him drunk and sober over the years. He’s got two looks. Happy, which has not been apparent in the past ten years or so, and angry. Never this. Never anything, really.
Has he been crying?
I don’t say a word. I mean what the hell am I gonna say? Hey, Dad, looking dismal. All I can do is stand here and wait, confused as hell.
Dad’s expression changes after a few minutes of this shit from that pitiful thing I mentioned to thoughtful, then to determined.
He takes a huge gulp of air and blows it out, then pushes passed me.
“She left me.”
The words cause a blip in my thought process for a heartbeat or two, then I catch up and close the door, following him into the apartment.
“No shit?”
He throws a bag down onto the couch, and sits next to it. I prefer to stand.
“Good for her.”
Frodo waltzes in from the kitchen. Dad sees the old feline and scowls down at him.
“When did you get a cat?”
The old feline hisses and arches his back at my father. Essentially confirming every thought I’ve ever had toward him.
Dad gives me a glassy-eyed look, silently asking, what the fuck did I do? To which I shrug.
“What can I say? He’s very intuitive when it comes to reading people.”
One of the reasons I’ve kept him around for so long.
“He’s a cat. He has no brain.”
“Which is more than I can say for most humans.”
Dad huffs and slumps backward onto the sofa, like a ruined tree branch might fall into a river. Heavy and nothing but dead weight.
He opens the bag up that he’s carried in with him and pulls out a Miller High Life. He opens it and stares at it. Then sets it down without taking a single sip. It reminds me of how I interact with the cigarette on occasion.
Where is that thing, anyway?
Dad doesn’t look like he’s planning on going anywhere. This makes me twitchy like a motherfucker.
Places to go, murders to solve.
I shut my eyes. I can’t think about that shit right now.
“What are you doing here, Dad?”
He frowns at the carpet. “Nowhere else to go, I suppose.”
I rub my face in frustration. “What about Nick’s? They like you there.”
He waves a hand at me. “He’s got kids. A life.”
Meaning I don’t.
You see where this shit is going, right?
And they wonder why I never make it home for get togethers.
“You can’t fucking stay here.”
He can’t. Period.
“Coulda gone to Mikey’s if he was still around. Mikey would have me.” It’s a low mumble but I hear it. I always fucking hear it.
“Seriously? You wanna go there?”
“What?” He shoots out a defensive scowl toward me.
“You can’t go one fucking day without reminding someone, anyone who’ll listen, that he’s gone. And why.”
“Better than trying to forget him altogether, eh, Jackie?”
“Don’t fucking call me that. He’s the only one who got to call me that.”
“Him and Nick.”
“Yeah, Dad, him and Nick.”
“Maybe if you knew how to control that temper of yours, he’d still be around to call you Jackie.”
“Fuck you.”
“Excuse me?” His head spins around in a circle as he tries to break bad with me. I can’t really bring myself to give a shit that Ma would probably kill me if she knew I was talking to him like this but ya know what?
This shit’s overdue.
“I said fuck you. Dad.” Were the jazz hands necessary? Maybe not, but fuck if sometimes he doesn’t bring out the drama queen in me.
“Because maybe if you hadn’t fucking intimidated the kid into doing every fucking thing you wanted him to do, he wouldn’t have followed me out that night in the first place.”
“And directly into oncoming traffic.”
Like I haven’t read myself the riot act over that a million times already.
“It was a goddamn accident.” I try repeating the words Green told me last night. The same ones Nick drills into me. They sound hollow. Empty.
’Cause it really doesn’t fucking matter if it was an accident or not.
Dad tries to let it go.
“At least, he died doing something he loved.”
“Bullshit.” I’m not so inclined to blow it off, though.
Dad shoots daggers at me. “W─what’d you just say to me?”
“Painting. Drawing. If he’d been doing shit like that, then he would’ve died doing something he loved, Dad. But the force?”
I throw him a sarcastic laugh.
“He hated it there.”
“He didn’t hate it.” The words slur out of his mouth. “He chose the life, son.”
“No, Dad. He loved you. He’d a done anything to impress you. But he hated the fucking force. And he didn’t fucking belong there.”
He points at me. “You watch your mouth.”
“Why don’t you watch your own fucking mouth, Dad. Have you even heard yourself one damn time in the entirety of any of our lives?”
He doesn’t say anything at that accusation.
“Or maybe you were too busy reliving your own glory days through us to give a damn about what any of us wanted.”