Monday, March 12, 2012

Leaving a Mark

At the coffee shop, I burned my tongue on Nick's tea latte.  It left a mark.  When we got home, Nick dropped his tea latte on the carpet.  He tried to say it wasn't his fault. That also left a mark.  I managed not to yell at him.  Then the cat puked on the carpet.   We're having a good night here.

Plus, I'm playing Words With Friends with about four of my friends and I'm only clearly better at it one of them.  I really have to work with the rest.  One friend throws me down and I have to yell 'Uncle!'  She uses words like 'quaich.'  Really?  What the hell are you doing when you quaich?  Sounds pretty earthy and maybe you shouldn't do it in public.  Maybe this game is good for my brain though.  I now know that a quaich is a shallow drinking cup that is usually made of wood.  Yet I can't imagine myself actually using a word like this.  Can you pass me that quaich of wine, please?

Now Teddy is licking the carpet. Oh, and I forgot.  I pinched my finger in my new can opener this morning.  It left a mark.  I blame it all on waking up at 5:30 am on Spring Forward Monday.  When you are done reading, you too can blame your attitude about all of this on Spring Forward Monday.

So rather than trying to find bits of meaning among the chaff of my life, I'm going to tell you a little more about my dad.  See, I'd been trying to write what I remembered about him.  I liked doing it.  Some of what I remember is funny, like that he was so exacting when he laid the tiles in the shower that they were too close and fell out or when I asked him why the sky was blue just to annoy him and he explained it to me, in detail.  Some of my memories are very sad.  I will tell you about my experience with chemotherapy.  Someday.  I'll probably have to tell you about watching him die too.  Someday. 

One day, I was talking to Mike about my dilemmas with regard to my dad's stories and he said, "You know what's wrong, don't you?  You know what's missing?"

"No," I said, all innocence. 

"You haven't put in the real parts, the parts about when he was distant and angry.  You haven't made him real yet."

Oh man. 

Then, I couldn't write about my dad for a long time.  See, in my memory, this man is still Daddy.   I heard my sister call him that once, and I realized that it isn't surprising that I haven't grown up when it concerns him.  Kids are good at seeing reality.  They just don't want to.  So, here's my attempt at seeing reality.

My dad was disappointed in his children.  That didn't blend very well with the fact that he wanted to control his environment.  Even good kids aren't very good for that kind of need.  Dinner was supposed to be ready at 5:15 pm when he walked in the door from work.  He was angry with my mother when it wasn't.  My dinner-making habits with Todd would drive him nuts!  We eat between 5:30 and 8:00 pm.  I wonder if my dad had glucose-intolerance, but I'll never know.  I do know that he got into moods during which I couldn't even breathe right around him.  Does that sound familiar?  If I could solve that problem, maybe I could figure out how to be more patient with Nick.  I see where the story 'Jekyll and Hyde' comes from.  My dad had Jekyll and Hyde tendencies.  He was all too human, all too real.

I know that my dad was disappointed that I wasn't a boy.  He tried so hard to teach electronics to my brother.  They worked on Heathkit projects together, building at radio, a smoke detector, and even a television.  My dad would have loved having a boy like Mike.  Mike is a natural engineer and learned how to work on his car and how to build things from simple experience.  His dad didn't teach him. 

Unfortunately for my dad, his engineering lessons made my brother sullen and angry.  He wanted to be outside in the woods.  He wanted to identify tracks in the mud, understand the geology and hydrology of the area which was pockmarked with sink holes, and watch the way trees grow leaves. 

My dad tried to teach my brother how to fix a car too, but somehow that boy would disappear whenever it was time for my dad to get into his work clothes.  Daddy had an old T-shirt with a big black spot on the front.  I used to tell him he had 'a big belly button.'  That made him laugh so I said it again.  My mother had tried to get that stain out of the shirt, but I'm glad she couldn't.  I think the appearance of that T-shirt caused my brother to disappear into the woods behind the house because he wasn't in that scene with us.  I'd follow my dad through the kitchen and out to the garage.  While he worked, I sat on the cold concrete step and petted my dog, Kelly.  She loved when I came out there because she wasn't allowed in the house.  My mother's rules.

I'd murmur sweet words to Kelly and chatter to my dad while he was on his back under the Chrysler New Yorker.  I got up and stood front of the car with its hood up and asked him how a car worked.  He answered while he worked, describing the battery, the fan belt, the spark plugs, the carburetor, and the pistons.  He described each part from under the car and I pointed at it, knowing not to touch, and asked if it was the round one or the one with the little red knob on it.  Eventually, I'd figure out which part he meant and then he'd tell me what it did to make the car work.  That was how I learned the different parts of a car engine and what they did.  The pistons were my favorite because he told me that every time the spark plug would spark, there was a little bomb that blew up inside the piston.  Now that was cool!

It was a nice conversation until he said, "I wish your brother would take an interest in these things."

It wasn't much later, probably his lame attempt to make me feel better, that my dad said "If you were a boy, I'd teach you how to fix a car."  By then, I was back on the cold step, petting Kelly.  She knew that she was a great consolation to me and looked up at me as though she knew exactly what was being said and why it hurt. 

"Get me a Phillips head, would you?" Daddy said after a lull.

"What's a Phillips head?" I asked, imagining something with a nerdy round knob attached to the top.  Daddy was starting to get angry, I could tell, so I kept the extra part quiet.  I asked only what I needed to ask in order to comply.  Maybe it was the number of times he'd used the word 'dammit' in the last few minutes.  He tried to describe what he wanted and I got a screw driver out of his red tool box.  I was happy it was a screw driver and not a wrench.  I think I was only seven or eight when we had this conversation. 

"No, not that one.  A Phillips head," he said as if repeating it would make it more clear to me.  It seemed like I handed him twenty screw drivers before I finally got it right.  By then, I wanted to disappear the way my brother had.  It wasn't nice there any more, even with Kelly at my side.  I wasn't my brother and I had no idea which tool was which because no one had taught me.

I felt sorry for abandoning my dad, but I found a way to wait until he was quiet and then I walked silently outside into the sunshine.  Kelly walked outside with me. 

Thank you for listening, jb

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