11/8/14
I have a son. Who seems strange to me, a stranger even. I’m afraid I’m doing everything wrong. Or maybe not enough of anything as he disappears into his bedroom without saying
goodnight. The boy doesn't ever ask for anything but I know he wants to go fishing. On the surface our relationship, if a
little awkward at times, seems relatively healthy. We talk and laugh and I pack his lunch in the morning. I’m interested in him, in what he has to say. I’m
perplexed at how sharp he is, never fully comfortable or certain that he’s just
a normal kid. I make sure he knows he is appreciated and as much as I can, that
he is loved. And... here it goes.
My father hauled miscellaneous dangerous goods from Columbus, Ohio to St. Louis, Missouri for Chief Freight Lines. His handle was "Short Ribs." Mine was "The Baseball Bandit." The languorous threat of violence that pulsated from my Mom I could predict and avoid. But it was a chore to solve for my Dad's random wrath. He split when I was in 5th grade, a little younger than the boy is now. I craved his attention and approval even more after he left and when he didn't deliver, I turned to the men that my mom began to date. It was a sickening lack of loyalty on my part, allowing strange young men to sit on the couch where my dad existed during his short stints at home, eating, snoring, catching up on General Hospital.
Weekends I spent with step-mom. The aptly named Barb was a hard and loud woman who revealed to my mom, in our front yard, her very special relationship to my father as he ducked into the passenger seat of her yellow Dodge Omni, the one with those bitchin' rear/side window louvers. Dad and I watched her straddle behind her own son to commence the ritual brushing of his waist-length dark auburn hair, which would last through an entire Bugs Bunny/Road Runner show deep into the Saturday morning lineup. Butch ate cereal while being brushed, disappearing now and then into the apartment complex to deliver tiny Ziploc cocaines.
I was a whore. And it never paid off. My solicitations earned nothing. What a lost and ridiculous boy. I waited years before I unleashed the bitterness on my mom. When we were finally alone. When she had finally rid herself of one last disappointing man, I became the monster I should have been years before.
So I take the boy fishing.
My father hauled miscellaneous dangerous goods from Columbus, Ohio to St. Louis, Missouri for Chief Freight Lines. His handle was "Short Ribs." Mine was "The Baseball Bandit." The languorous threat of violence that pulsated from my Mom I could predict and avoid. But it was a chore to solve for my Dad's random wrath. He split when I was in 5th grade, a little younger than the boy is now. I craved his attention and approval even more after he left and when he didn't deliver, I turned to the men that my mom began to date. It was a sickening lack of loyalty on my part, allowing strange young men to sit on the couch where my dad existed during his short stints at home, eating, snoring, catching up on General Hospital.
Weekends I spent with step-mom. The aptly named Barb was a hard and loud woman who revealed to my mom, in our front yard, her very special relationship to my father as he ducked into the passenger seat of her yellow Dodge Omni, the one with those bitchin' rear/side window louvers. Dad and I watched her straddle behind her own son to commence the ritual brushing of his waist-length dark auburn hair, which would last through an entire Bugs Bunny/Road Runner show deep into the Saturday morning lineup. Butch ate cereal while being brushed, disappearing now and then into the apartment complex to deliver tiny Ziploc cocaines.
I was a whore. And it never paid off. My solicitations earned nothing. What a lost and ridiculous boy. I waited years before I unleashed the bitterness on my mom. When we were finally alone. When she had finally rid herself of one last disappointing man, I became the monster I should have been years before.
So I take the boy fishing.
Nice way to show how our childhoods never leave us. I like the phrases "the aptly named Barb" and "the tension that pulsated from my mom" especially well.
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