There were trees outside the window that looked like giants with big groping hands reaching for me when the light was low and the wind blew strong.
I can’t pull images of the furniture, except for a recliner that had seen better days. I wasn’t allowed to sit in it. Leona said it belonged to her resident ghosts, not that I understood right away. Eventually, the reference became clear, in recollections of framed photos that hung on every wall— a series featuring a mustached man and a curly-haired blond toddler, even younger than I. Turned out Leona’s husband and child had died in a train derailment a couple of years before. She didn’t like to talk about them, and enough time had passed that loneliness made her ripe fruit for Dad to pluck. I don’t know what drove us to finally leave, but his injuries had healed, and we went in her dead husband’s car.
Over the Years
We’ve probably switched
cars three dozen times.
One way Dad made a few
extra bucks was by selling
a car for more than he’d
invested in it, then finding another “deal” he could fix, drive, and dispose of again.
He’s an ace mechanic. Once, I asked him how he knew
so much about engine repair.
Pops taught me the basics, he explained. And I took auto shop in high school. I might’ve dropped out and made my living the way I’m making it now, but the army wanted to see a diploma.
That’s about as much as he
ever told me about his teen years. He doesn’t talk much about his time in the service, either, but oh, the alcohol-induced stories I’ve heard about the ins and outs of helicopter rotor repair!
All that thinking about cars brings me back to why I can’t have one. That has to change.
But It Won’t Today
This birthday is just about
over, no car for me, and what the hell was I thinking? I’ll have to find my own way to autonomy.
But then, I always understood that, didn’t I? We bump into the driveway, safe and sound despite Dad’s compromised state.
“The sleigh knows the way,”
I say out loud, “so Santa, please don’t sweat it.” The sentiment floats up from out of the depths, disturbing Dad, who throws
the gearshift into park, turns off the ignition. He turns to look at me. What did you just say?
I repeat the sentence while
trying to discern what’s got him so riled up. “I have no idea where it came from. Do you?”
He sits in silent contemplation, as if searching for the right thing to say, but ultimately comes back with, Nope, never heard it before.
My Gut Reaction
To his answer is one word: bullshit.
I’m dying to respond with that single word exactly: Bullshit.
Except that word requires all caps: BULLSHIT.
No, more effectively, rapid all-cap fire: BULLSHIT
BULLSHIT
BULLSHIT
But that’s my gut, not my brain, and my brain is where my own bullshit
comes from, at least, according to Dad.
I Don’t Dare
Vocalize that, of course, and not because of bad language. Dad doesn’t appreciate my pushing back on anything. If he utters it, I’m supposed to believe every word.
Sometimes I think he
wants to own my brain, manage it, housekeep it, scrub it until it’s polished to a contemplation-free sheen, then reprogram every single opinion.
At times I feel he’d like to keep me in a box, tied up with a pretty bow, and truthfully, existing stuffed in a cube would be easier than mustering the will to shake down the invisible walls, break free from my history, go in search of the woman I want to become, with or without Dad’s blessing.
Oh, who am I kidding?
Forget the damn “with.”
Dad Will Never
Willingly let me go. Never encourage me to grow up and detach myself
from his greedy grasp. No, I’ll have to wrest myself away forcibly.
But then what? It’s not like I’ve got a whole lot of options. Graduating high school is goal number one,
and I’ve still got a way to go. I can barely consider what’s beyond that
horizon. Placid ocean? Tsunami? Icebergs?
I can’t imagine life without my dad in control. He’s definitely an overbearing admiral, but what if I’m the kind of captain who can’t avoid sideswiping the glacier and sinking the ship? Oh, look. Here I go again. Whenever I converse with myself I talk a great game, but when I take a firm mental stand, eventually I chicken out.
I really need to quit that. Dependency isn’t only self-defeating. It’s self-perpetuating.
As Dad and I Go Inside
That silly Santa sentence keeps knocking on the door to a corridor in my brain I can never quite access. I swear I’ll unlock the portal one day. Dad asks about TV, but I’m tired and it’s approaching late, and algebra comes with a test tomorrow.
I take a quick shower, brush my teeth, don my pj’s, and climb into bed with my math notes, not that they’ll do me much good. Math and I have agreed
to disagree. The only reason I care at all is I have to keep up my grades so I can play basketball. The main problem
is, with all the school I missed growing up, I never got the basics down very well.