I Don't Know What to Call this One....

I came back from my trip to Cincinnati filled with memories of my dead father. Over the weekend my sister-in-law asked me some question about my dad. I told her that the only good advice he had ever given me was 1) have a firm handshake; and 2) learn to type. Other than that, he had virtually no interest in what I did. He didn't attend my softball games. He may have gone to one of my orchestra concerts. He was basically not there for me. I was the first of 5 children, and I know that for a while I was "daddy's little girl." Then, once my brothers were old enough to throw a ball around with, I was overlooked.

Upon my complaining that our father didn't respect nor like females, my brother said, "Well, maybe, but did you ever have to hold a flashlight for him for an hour while he tried to fix something on the car? Or get up at 3:00am to go fishing with him, and spend all day in a small boat, having to be completely quiet all that time?" I know what he's saying. He and my other brothers got the attention from our dad, but it was negative, unpleasant attention. No one in our house was happy with him as a father.

Growing up, he traveled a lot, and we were happy about that. Things were just more pleasant when he was not around--the house was calmer, my mom was more relaxed. Besides travelling, he was also in a lot of fishing tournaments. The good part was that he would be gone all day on a particular Saturday or Sunday. The bad part was that he would have been out in the hot sun for hours, while he drank. He was a nasty drunk. He'd come home and my mother would say, "Stay out of your father's way. He's tired and crabby." For "tired and crabby," read: DRUNK. I never knew my dad was an alcoholic when I was growing up, though. I knew that he drank, but he had a job and provided for the family, so alcoholism never entered my mind. I thought he was just mean. Well, he was mean. But he was also an alcoholic. It wasn't until I went into therapy that I began putting the pieces together: he had gotten beat up late one night...and he'd been drinking; he was in a very bad car accident...and he'd been drinking; he got in a fight with my brother...and he'd been drinking.

When I was 23, after I'd left home at age 19, I came back to Georgia for the summer to work at a poultry processing plant and save up some money. One Saturday I went to Six Flags amusement park with my brothers. Ok, here's a little background on me, if you don't know already: I have very thick, very curly hair. If I let it get too long, it's frizzy and out of control. Suffice it to say, I have problem hair. So, imagine what my hair might have looked like upon returning from a day at an amusement park, after riding rollercoasters and other thrill rides all day long. Ok, have you got that picture in mind? Let's continue. My brothers and I got home around 10pm, and my mother almost immediately told us, "Stay out of your father's way, he's in a bad mood." My brothers went to watch tv upstairs, and I was downstairs in the rec room watching tv down there. My father came down and started saying shit to me, finishing up with: "Why don't you get a haircut? You look like a n*gger." I said the one thing that I knew would piss him off the most: "I want to look like a n*gger," at which point he hauled off and slapped me so hard that my glasses went flying, and his fingernail cut me under my eye. My mother heard what had happened and came running down the stairs, trying to get in between me and my father. He tried to push her out of the way and I swore at him like I never had in my life. Finally he stopped...maybe my brothers came down and tried to break it up. All I really remember was that I got a black eye from the ordeal and I wore it proudly.

After I got back to Chicago, a package arrived for me. It was an acoustic guitar. From my father. To whom I don't recall ever mentioning any interest in a guitar. This was his pathetic fucking apology for hitting me. I never mentioned to him that I received it.

As I said at the beginning, he's dead now. He died of a head injury, alone. It may sound cruel, but I'm glad my son doesn't have to deal with this man. My boy is very sensitive, and he's all about reading, and nature, and art. He's not the athletic type at all. So, even though he's a boy, he's not my father's kind of boy; I am so very thankful that he will not have to endure the negative attention that my brothers did.