Scenario:
two or 3 people are in a room talking (variant 1)
one person is in a room (variant 2) reading/listening to a piece of music/news/voice/sound
(sub-variant 2)
or
thinking out a story/idea/thought/painting/good or bad/idea
(sub-variant 3)
and
You enter the room, very rapidly, talking. Single-minded, inconsiderate, & lurchy. From thought to thought; from dream to dream; from plan to “plan”; from stillness to movement to stillness. (Stillness—usually with from one to three bodily parts in movement, catching the peripheral vision, maddeningly, of anyone around.)
Like, man, you distract alla time, man. It’s impossible to be around (near; in the same stadium with) you & not be aware of you. No talk of moodiness; no use of the o’erused adjective mercurial; it’s the inability to be alone and have private space, even for the eyes.
I’ll hand this to your mama tomorrow; if she considers it too strong, I’ll send it anyhow.
I have never been able to resist: I have never met anyone I cared about whom I didn’t try to change.
[signed]
—Himself
The letter devastated me for days. Wondering if anything in it was true, I showed the pages to my roommates. They had problems with their own fathers, but nothing of this magnitude, and were shocked by the contents. One roommate suggested I burn the letter on the beach. The other roommate assured me none of it was valid. His only complaint about me was that I stayed in my room too much, writing. They treated me with a rough sympathy, but sadness had settled into me. I felt helpless, despising myself for being so vulnerable to Dad eight years after leaving home.
By then I had the habit of preserving anything I received from my father, and I slipped the letter into a file folder and tucked it away. Rereading the pages now, I can see that it was motivated by my refusal to write a Spaceways book for him. Turning down his offer implied personal rejection. Faced with such imagined evaluation, he attacked.
Over the years I continued to try to connect with my father, but the letter lay between us, never remarked upon. Mom acted as go-between, telling me that the tension bothered Dad. I knew that no conversation with her was private, that he expected a detailed report of any communication. My response was painful to both Mom and me—I stopped talking to her about anything meaningful. I never showed her the letter or confronted Dad about it. Doing so would further difficulties that became known in the family as “the trouble.”
When my siblings called home, Dad complained about me, placing them in an uncomfortable position. They were performing their duty as he demanded, only to hear his grievances toward me instead of interest in their lives. He cast himself as the long-suffering victim of what he called my “professional rebellion.” Dad blamed me for our distance and tried for years to recruit my siblings to his side.
After he died, we all became closer. For the first time in fortythree years, the family enthusiastically gathered in Mississippi for a Thanksgiving meal.
Chapter Twenty-two
IN OXFORD, Mom fainted a couple of times and began wearing a heart monitor. I called more often, feeling a twinge of anxiety if she didn’t answer. One day I called twice in an hour and it went to voicemail. I was driving to her house when she called me back and apologized.
“I was on the phone,” she said. “I’m ordering something from Victoria’s Secret.”
“Okay, Mom.”
“What do you think of that?”
“Uh, no comment.”
She laughed. “I have to go now,” she said. “I’m watching the Reds. It’s tied in the ninth.”
“Would you like me to come watch with you?”
“Yes,” she said. “No. It’s over. That rat bastard got a hit. Goodbye.”
I returned home and began sifting through my father’s work once more. At the time of his careful filing, he wouldn’t have known that a son would search it for clues and information. The essential DNA of my father lay arrayed on pages before me. This undertaking hasn’t brought me closer to him. If anything, it’s a constant reminder that no matter who I think I am, I will always be my father’s son. I don’t know if I’m a writer because of him or in spite of him. If my life has been motivated by rebellion against my father, what have I gained through the liberty of his demise? A newfound sense of life? No. The intrinsic joy in little things? No.