I have two fathers. Well, three, if you count the Big Guy upstairs; He and I aren’t on speaking terms these days. One of them I can’t really talk about because I don’t really know him. That’s my biological father; I’ll refer to him as Bio-Dad. I only know that he’s Spanish, and that he was the love of my mother’s life. The other is my name-father. We’ll call him Dad from now on.
So Dad…
He was a fairly simple man. He drove a truck most of his life, doing deliveries, until he had a back injury (don’t we all!) and then he was assigned desk work at the trucking company. As far as I remember, he made good money, and there was no wanting. He was actually pretty generous to us kids when it came to holidays and birthdays. The child support was a different issues, but I think that was part of the war between him and Mom. He was Italian, as far as I recall the family was Northern Italy; he wasn’t all that tall, and smoked like a chimney. For as little time that I spent with him, I can actually remember how he looked, sounded, and smelled.
He and Mom divorced fairly early on; I think I was probably still in the single digits for age. I’d like to say about 3 or 4. He wasn’t all that upstanding in his youth. He was a thief early on, knocking off trucks, go figure. But he wasn’t a very good thief… he kept getting caught. I can’t really respect him as a thief. This, of course, lead to the divorce but moreso, my mother never wanted to marry him. She was forced to by my grandmother; and no one stood up to my grandmother. I don’t think he was all that happy about it either. So they did eventually divorce, which lead to my mother being partially disowned and on her own, and the war between those two began, with myself and my siblings stuck right in the middle.
As I said, he was pretty lax with the child support. I remember my mother arguing with him about it and getting the lawyers involved all the time. There was an amusing story that she used to tell about it, all proud as she would be. It goes like this…
He was behind on child support and the lawyers were having a hard time getting him to pay up. So she drove out to where he worked. Now, Dad loved his cars. He doted on them, cared for them, and spent a lot of money on upkeep of his cars, some of which were classics. She shows up at the truck depot, and he’s on shift, as the watchman. She gets out and sees him sitting smugly (she said) in the office, overlooking the lot, arms crossed, almost daring her. It’s at this point that his eyes grow wide when he sees her pull out my grandfather’s Samurai sword from under the car seat. She marches over to Dad’s Cadillac and pulls on the leather rooftop. Then she lets loose with the sword, slashing the roof and the rest of car, particularlly the tires. When Dad comes out to confront her, she grabs him by the throat, putting the sword up to his throat and saying to him, “You’re going to give me every red cent you owe me, right here, right now, or I’m gonna cut off your head and spit down your throat!” Apparently it worked because he pulled out a wad of bills and started counting.
Amusing, yes. True, I couldn’t say, but knowing her, probably so! I do remember my grandfather’s sword, although what happened to it after he passed, is anyone’s guess.
Child support, one of his flaws. I hate to say that he was a bit of a coward too. We’ll get to that. Another was that he used us as weapons in their war, although both of them are guilty of that. Otherwise, he was just a man, blue collar and making it.
Why do I say maybe he wasn’t that bad of a dad?
I’ve been remembering, that’s why. I started to have memories of things he did, which I always knew were there. I never hated him. I never had any negative feelings toward the man, even though he never understood me until the end. I did love him, yet I never mourned him.
I’ve been remembering his cars. In particular, I remember a green Cadillac. He liked to do circles in parking lots with us kids in there, top down, hooting and hollaring. There were days he’d pick us up and we’d just drive. Or he’d take us to Old Chicago. In fact, it was a weekend with Dad that we went to Old Chicago and as we left, we could see a tornado heading toward it. There were a good many weekends he didn’t bother picking us up, which pissed off Mom. She would tell stories of us chasing after his car. I don’t recall that, but I do remember standing at the curb as he drove off without us. I don’t know what that was all about.
I remember three of his houses. One was yellow and on Sunnyside. He lived there with Sara and her children, our other brother and sister, Roy Lee and Tammy. I absolutely loved them. Sara was the sweetest country lady, while Roy and Tammy were great with us. I even remember that Dad attempted to cut my hair one weekend and managed to mangle it, also cutting my ear pretty deeply. Mom went ape when she saw it. At least he tried. We used to watch Disney at night on Saturdays. During the afternoon, it was often cheesy horror flicks, and some good oldies. A special treat for us was going out for White Castle hamburgers but usually it was good home cooking with Sara. I remember he was happy with her.
The second house I can remember was on Addison, a white house. He and Sara lived next door to a lovely German couple, older man and lady. Carl and Nina I think they were called. Carl was an ironworker and I remember he made this beautiful iron gate, beautifully intricate. I remember I attempted to duplicate it with paperclips and solder as a tribute to his work. That didn’t come out so good. We lived with him for the summertimes in this house. I remember that I used to tape songs off the radio during the top 40 shows. My sister and Tammy would watch General Hospital, and this was during the Luke and Laura storyline.
The third house, where it all came to an end for me, was on Odell Avenue. It was in this house that he lived with the evil-stepmother, the one who brought it all down on my head. She too had two children, a boy and girl, both of whom I tried to get along with but never liked. And I hated her at first sight. I always felt she was taking advantage of Dad, but he wouldn’t listen. I didn’t live in this house for very long, maybe a month or two. You see, he came to us kids and said that he’d like for us to live with him, and we could have a wonderful life. At the time I was the rebellious one and I was the sucker to took him up on the offer. Had it been him and Sara, I think things would have been fine. But it was a disaster from the beginning.
My evil-stepmother went snooping in my things and found a letter that I’d written to a friend of mine, explaining the abuse that I’d endured from my great-uncle and describing my desires to be with men. This is how my father found out I was gay. So… evil hag found the letter in my dresser and called Dad about it. I get home from school and she tells me to go up to my room and stay there. I’m none the wiser about what’s going on and confused why I’m being sent to my room. I call my sister at Mom’s house and tell her this is going on, but evil hag is listening in and tells me to get off the phone. Dad comes home and tells me to get in the van. I go in the van, and while I’m sitting there, Dad is packing my bag.
He takes me to a shopping center parking lot where he asks for an explanation of the letter. I tell him that I was just venting anger but that I was molested by my great uncle and that I was attracted to guys. So instead of supporting me, perhaps even being angry that my great uncle had taken liberties with a 10 year old child, he told threw me out.
We didn’t speak for easily 20 years plus.
When my siblings let me know that he was dying of prostate cancer is when I got involved once more. I was heading home from work on Christmas eve, stuck in a snowstorm and traffic on the Kennedy Expressway. I remember that I was approaching the turn off for where he lived. I had his address from my sister. While crawling along, the debate went on in my head whether I should see him or not. He had pushed me away after all and made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want me in his life. He had his new son, my step-brother. So the anger rose in me and I crossed 3 lanes of traffic in a heartbeat, exiting at the street I needed and pissing off numerous other drivers. I hurried along as best I could in the snow and parked outside his house. I got out, went up and rang the bell, ready for anything. It could be quite a confrontation or maybe not.
The door was opened by my father.
He looked suprised to see me standing there in the snow. I greeting him respectfully and took in his stunned expression. Before he could say anything, I said to him:
“Look, I know you’ve got prostate cancer and I’m here to help. Today isn’t the day to talk since it’s Christmas Even and you’re probably getting ready to visit grandma. So why don’t you get in touch with my sister and she’ll arrange our sit down.”
He nodded and said it was good to see me. I smiled and told him the same. But I could hear my step-mother screaming from the top of the stairs to close the door on me. He didn’t. We stood there for a few minutes and then I wished him a Merry Christmas and left.
It was quite a few months later that we sat down in a neighborhood restaurant called Stages and talked, with my sister there as mediator. He told me that I was different than he expected me to be. I cocked my head to the side and asked him what was he expecting? He said that I wasn’t in a dress, or weird, or talking like this (with a lisp). I just rolled my eyes behind my glasses and told him that I wasn’t any different than I was before except now he knows that I like guys. I told him that I still work on cars, I still like watching sports, and that I don’t have a a single pair of high heels in my wardrobe. I really should have shown up in a camisol or something.
The meeting went well, and we reconciled. But the next time I saw him, he’d already started slipping away. He was admitted to the hospital and the cancer spread to every vital organ. My step-mother was clearly upset, since none of the family had been informed of this progression. When we queried the specialist and hospital administrators, they said that he was on so much morphine, he wouldn’t have understood when they told him during his reviews. We mentioned that our uncle, his brother, went to all the reviews and should have been told. They had no answer for that. So we arranged to have him at home with hospice.
And when he finally passed, it was the passing of a regular man who tried hard to understand the world around him. Even my mother, at the end, let go of her anger towards him. I can’t ever say that I hated the man. I never even disliked him. He was never really there for me to hate or dislike. I can say that I had love for him, as a son does and should. And I liked him well enough. He wasn’t perfect, by any means.
What human is?
wildcatleeds
I keep ya guessing
WildcatLeeds 