I wrote this for a project that ended-up getting modified. I didn't want it to go to waste so I hope you enjoy it.
Sin dulls the intellect, makes one stupid. As far back as I could remember, at least by age five, my mother relied on me for making decisions for her. She would frame the question, of course, but the course of action was always left to me. Not because she wished to make me a more confident decision-maker but because her judgement had become so clouded, she could no longer distinguish reality from delusion. I suppose that when my parents came together, she was the rational sort of person. She chose to continue through high school to graduation despite being pregnant and unwed. I was tended to well enough at least to maintain my health and a standard biological development during my infancy and toddler years. Likewise, for my two younger brothers.
Had she any literary skill, she would have made a worthy author. Her vice, her sin was a willful refusal to be part of this world. This world caused her pain and anguish. The noise, the clutter, the disorder. Crumbs on the floor, partially used containers, wrinkles on bedsheets, the disquiet of voices (both internal and external) that would not cease! Her respite was her fantasy, a world in her mind. And slowly, her world began to creep into the real world.
Had her fantasy been one of virtue, of loving your neighbor, of enduring willful suffering for the good of another, she would have become like the saints, but her fantasy was manufactured on adventure for the sake of excitement and one where she could punish those who tormented her. She sought communion with malevolence and invited into our lives the company of a man soon to be released from prison for perverse crimes related to the 6th and 9th commandments.
“You are going to hell,” my sorrowful and angry words of warning. At this, I had disturbed her tranquility and brought her for a moment out of her sedative fantasy and she took back the power she had previously delegated to me: “I do not love you.” Pausing for effect and slowly reiterating, she enunciated “I do not love you.” She became once again the master of her own will, forced me into her automobile and abandoned me at the doorstep of my grandparents, my father’s parents. Alone, without my brothers. I would see them again in about a year.
The following day I was reintroduced to my father. My dad, he is a partially evolved human, intelligent enough and a usually happy sort but he is also a brute, covered with hair, and possessing the physique of an ape with long, strong arms and a forward posture. This well-suited him in his career as a bouncer at a popular country-western bar. At night he created body-shaped holes in the wall and during the day he would patch them.
Dads are a different type of parent. Women, they move into the world of children, but dads, they move children into the world of men. For a year I tried out this idea of having a father. During the day, I would work with him. At night, I would stay up late, alone, thinking about this new life.
Being a dad invites judgement of others. Most of that judgement is worthless counsel but advice from your own father merits real consideration. We were poor and missing a meal was not infrequent. I slept on the floor of a closet. The rest of our home (a duplex) was empty, save for his filthy mattress that was stained by other failed attempts at becoming a father. This is not the type of home fitting for a boy. My grandfather made arrangements for an improvement, but only if my father would consent to a career that would permit him evenings at home with his boy. Shortly thereafter we moved into the vacant home of my departed great grandparents. We had a refrigerator and I had a bed. My dad secured a new job putting in landscape irrigation and I was going to be his helper. This was nice, but the most meaningful honor of that day came later that night, at a time my father would have normally been at work and when I normally would have been at home, alone.
This new house was built during the depression. It was old and had developed a moist odor after years of being vacant. I was blessed with the fortune of being given the same room my grandma possessed as a child. That night, as I lay in my new bed, imagining how my grandma would have arranged the room, I was disturbed by a noise. It was a scratching, a rapping at the outside door. I looked out: It was men, men trying to get through the door. I was afraid, frozen in place for a moment before crying out “Dad! Help! Help, Dad! Someone is trying to get in!” These words came without thought. This is uncharacteristic of me, for it is usually thought that comes without words, but I reverted to the primal instinct of a child and called out to my father for protection.
Normally he would be away but today he was home, as he would be on all future days. My words were a call to arms and without hesitation he vaulted from the shower into the hallway where he grabbed the baseball bat he strategically placed for home protection. Covered completely with lathered shampoo, primitive man emerged, dripping and ready for battle. In his right he possessed the bat, wielding it as a battle-ax. In his left, he clung to a wimpy hand towel in a half-feigned attempt to maintain some sense modesty. Catching sight of the enemy having emerged within the fortress, he galloped at full speed through the door into the open, the men fleeing but the principle invader within stride. As my dad raised his weapon, the towel came flying off and he landed a mighty swing, fracturing this man’s knee before jumping on him and pinning him to the ground. “Call the police!” I ran to a neighboring house and within a few minutes the police had arrived to the sight of my dad, naked, wet, and soapy, with his adversary pinned beneath. The police hauled away the stranger and permitted my dad to finish his shower and dress before interviewing him for his version of events.
The next day a heartfelt emotion set over me as I recalled the prior day’s events and upon finishing my own shower, I wrote in the mirror “I love you.” Later that week I met the reply, “I love you too.”
Soon thereafter our family was reunited. My mother was found to be unfit as a parent and my brothers moved in with me. For the most part, life normalized. We went to school, played backyard football, and that year I bought my dad a real shower towel for his birthday.
Submitted March 24, 2016 at 07:02AM by mbevks http://ift.tt/1XOzpSB shortstories
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