Your dad does.
You never know, when you arrive on a Friday night, if you’re going to get Hyper-Fun Dad or My-Life-Is-Over Dad, and nothing you do seems to make a difference.
At first with Bernadette, you try to pretend nothing is wrong, but it doesn’t work—she notices.
“It could be his apartment,” she says one sticky Friday afternoon when you’re on the subway going downtown to Dad’s.
“What d’you mean?”
“Well, no offense, but...”
“Yeah...?”
“The place is ugly.”
“Ha. True. You think it—”
“Bums him out, yeah.”
“I don’t think he can afford to move, Bee.”
“Hello, budding artist? I’m not talking about moving.”
***
Dad is totally agreeable and even lets you paint your bedroom walls purple with silver moons and stars, in honor of Prince.
On Saturday morning, while Bernadette covers the kitchen walls in Sunlight Yellow, you prepare to begin your first mural. Dad is hanging out watching you while he waits for the first coat of Romanov Red in his bedroom to dry.
“So you’re big in art class,” he says. “I didn’t know that.”
“I don’t know about big.” You shrug. “I just like it.”
“Well, Bernadette says you’re big. Big as in talented.”
“I just look good compared to everyone else because they all took it to have an easy pass, Bee included.”
You pick up a medium-size brush and step back from the wall. What kind of scene would cheer up Dad when he’s here by himself?
“Does your mother know?”
“About art class?”
Would a baseball field look good? Hm. No.
“No. About me being, uh, a little bummed out sometimes.”
“What? No. No, I don’t talk to her about you.”
“Oh. Okay, good.”
“Besides,” you say, “you’re okay. Managing a bar is tough. You just get tired, stressed out. Right? I mean, everybody gets stressed out.”
“Does she?”
“Who?” you say, like you don’t know he means Mom.
If you say Mom is having a hard time, then you’d be lying. If you say she’s doing well, it makes him jealous, bitter, sends him down. Because the battle rages on still. Under the thin crust of civility is all kinds of bad shit. Mom baits Dad with her vocabulary, her education, and her success. Somehow everything she achieves takes something from Dad—she knows it, he knows it, she rubs it in.
Dad strikes back with his puppy-dog eyes, his handsome smile, the carefree pose. And he hurts her with you—with the fact that you love him. Why he uses this, how he knows it works, is a mystery, but it makes her crazy. As if your love is a possession, a weapon, a reproach.
Your mom doesn’t want you to love your dad. He rubs it in that you do. Their war continues past the marriage, past the divorce, past any logic that you can see. And you hang out in no-man’s-land, your white flag tattered and shot through.
You ignore Dad’s question and decide to paint a beach.
By Sunday morning, there is blue sky, the sun, waves lapping at the shoreline and pale, pale sand. It’s not bad, but you decide to add Dad, or a hint of him, to the scene.
“Dad?” you call out.
“Yeah?” he replies from the kitchen where he’s helping Bernadette with the trim.
“Come in here, I need you to model your legs.”
He laughs as he comes in. “If I had a dime for every woman who—”
“Ew, don’t say it.”
“Kidding, kidding.”
You add Dad’s legs and feet, plus the bottom of a lounge chair, low on the wall, so it looks like he’s there on the beach. As an afterthought, you add your own legs, in the chair next to his. And then…maybe some girls in bikinis? He’d love that, but no, too gross.
You’ll call it, On the Beach with Dad.
You take a few steps back to get perspective.
Oh oh. The beach and water look fine, but the legs on the chairs? They look like stumps in striped boxes growing out of the sand.
Yikes. On the Beach with Severed Legs is more like it. You could add Mom’s legs in there too and call it Family of Legs.
And then there could be the corresponding mural: The Legless.
Family without Legs.
Ha.
Walking on Stumps While Your Feet Relax at the Beach.
Shiver.
You’re getting creepy in your old age.
“Let me see it,” Bernadette says, and comes to stand beside you.
She tries not to, but she starts to giggle, and then it becomes a roar, and then Dad runs in and looks and laughs until he has to sit down on the floor.
“I’m going to paint over it!” you shout over the cackles, snorts and slapping of legs.
“Don’t you dare.” Dad says. “That thing’ll crack me up every time I look at it.”
And that’s as good a reason to paint as any.
***
Bernadette comes back with you two weeks later. On the subway, you lug a large duffel bag containing the fabulous curtains you sewed together in Home Ick. They have palm trees on them.
Dad’s not home yet, so you let yourselves in, put the curtains up, and admire your work.
Then there’s a knock at the door.
“Dad? You forget your keys?” you call out as you walk to the door.
It’s not Dad on the other side of the door, but his landlord, Chuck.
“Hi, Chuck, what’s up?”
“Sorry, kid, but I saw ya comin’ in and I gotta tell ya, yer dad’s not gonna be home tonight, likely.”
“Why not?”
“He’s, uh...” He shuffles his feet and rubs a hand across his comb-over.
“He’s what?”
“He’s in jail, kid.”
The doorframe spins, but you grab onto it.
“Hey, nothin’ serious,” Chuck says, “just another drunken disorderly. He was causin’ a disruption.”
Bernadette comes to stand beside you and puts a hand on your arm.
“Where is he?” she asks.
“I told ya, in the slammer. Since this afternoon. Look, he tried to take a p—to urinate in the damned lobby. Can’t have that kinda behavior, so I called the cops.”
“Oh my God. Where...We have to...”
“What. Station. Did they. Take. Him. To!” Bernadette says.
Chuck tells her. She closes the door in his face.
“You okay?” she says.
“Shit.”
Not okay, not okay, NOT OKAY!
“My dad can’t be in jail.”
“I know. Let’s go get him.”
“Bee, you don’t have to come.”
“Shut the fuck up,” she says. “Let’s go.”
***
I collapse into a chair in a downtown coffee shop and wait for my head to stop spinning.
Bernadette slides in across from me. “Thanks for playing hooky,” she says. “Sorry things got out of hand.”
I let Bernadette convince me to attend a gay rights rally this afternoon. When she called, I was in my studio staring into space, disturbed by memories of my encounter with Erik and more disturbed that it happened on the heals of an evening with Hugo. A few hundred screaming people suddenly seemed a paltry challenge compared to sorting out my personal life.
But it was a bad idea. Bernadette and I got separated and I was nearly trampled to death by the right-wing zealots who were all hot to equate homosexuals with pedophiles, polygamists and people who fuck sheep. Bernadette found me, grabbed me by the arm and hauled me out, but by then I was so freaked I thought my head would burst open.
“Hey, no problem,” I say and take a sip of my steamed milk. No more caffeine for me today. Maybe a lobotomy. “I like a near-death experience every few days. Keeps me sharp.”
“Ha,” she says. “Seriously, thanks. I know you get a littl
e wiggy in crowds.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“So, how are you?” she asks. “What’s new?”
This is usually a ridiculous question and we both know it, but she keeps asking. Today though, I wouldn’t know where to start. Erik is an impossible subject and I’m not ready to talk about Hugo.
“Same old,” I say. “Changing the world one rectangle at a time. You? What about that woman you met?”
Bernadette is about to reply when something or someone behind me catches her eye.
“Holy cow,” she whispers.
“What?”
“Turn around slowly, and tell me who that is, standing in front of the biscotti.”
I try to act casual, and do as she says. Oh my God. I turn back.
“Is it who I think it is?” Bernadette says. “Is it Faith English?”
“I think so,” I say, and slide down lower in my chair.
“How do I look?” she asks, and starts putting on lipstick.
“What? You’re not going to...”
“Are you kidding? I’ve been hoping to run into Faith English since, well, since high school. How’s my hair?”
“Fine, but Bee—”
She gets up, yanks her sweater down.
“I’m going in,” she says. “Wish me luck.”
I don’t.
Chapter 10
The subway makes that awful screeching sound and you don’t even cover your ears.
“Have you ever seen a jail?” you ask Bernadette.
“Only on TV,” she says.
“Same here.”
At the station, after sending you from one person to another, they finally say you can see Dad, but that he can’t get out unless you post bail.
Bail!
It seems like a lot of money just for getting drunk and trying to take a pee. You and Bernadette empty your wallets, but between you, you’ve only got fifteen dollars.
“Well, here’s my case for a bigger allowance,” you say, and Bernadette covers her mouth to hide her laughter.
“You’re insane,” she says.
“Can you blame me?”
She says she’ll wait, and soon you are walking in. Doors are opened before you then locked behind you as you pass. Under the disinfectant are the smells of sweat, cigarette smoke, and urine. Gross.
Cold, cold concrete everywhere and Dad cries when he sees you.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he says, “I’m so sorry. Promise me you’ll forget this ever happened.”
“I’ll try.”
“Please?”
All these moments adults expect to wash over you without effect—such bullshit.
“Sure, Dad, I promise.”
No big deal, just another day when you see your father surrounded by criminals, unable to cope with anything, including leaving his dick in his pants until he can get to a bathroom.
“It’s not my fault I couldn’t find it,” he says.
“Find what?”
“The can, I couldn’t—”
Ew, ew, ew!
“Shh, that’s okay, Dad.”
“Please don’t tell your mother,” he says, and looks at you with those big eyes.
“Of course not.”
He shakes his head back and forth and whines. He’s still drunk, obviously, and a pathetic sight.
“So, Dad, I don’t have enough money for bail and I don’t know how else to get you out.”
“It’s okay, I called a friend and she’s coming in the morning,” he says. “They’ll probably drop the charges anyway, but I have to wait ‘til tomorrow.”
“But...will you be okay here?”
“Sure, sure. You go to Bernadette’s house for the rest of the weekend, all right?”
“Okay.”
His face crumples and he grips your hand in his.
“I’m sorry, I’m a bad father. I’m a terrible father.”
“No you’re not, you’re fine.”
Lots of fathers get hauled into jail for being drunk in the middle of the afternoon. Don’t worry about it.
A guard comes to tell you your time is up.
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you too, Dad.”
“Don’t ever stop. Please don’t ever stop.”
As if you could.
It might be easier if you could. In fact, it might be better not to have parents at all. The thought feels like a stab in the belly. Shame on you.
You walk back to the waiting room and Bernadette. There is a grapefruit-sized lump in your throat and you try to swallow it as she gets up to ask how he is.
“Tanked. Pathetic,” you say. “As expected.”
“And you?”
“Well, it’s nine o’clock on a Friday night and other teenagers are watching a movie, going to a party, or grounded and doing their homework. And I’m here.”
“Yeah,” she says, and puts an arm around your shoulders and squeezes.
You are stretched, singed, raw.
“I feel old,” you say.
“I know,” she says.
Bernadette’s family is great, but you don’t relish explaining why you’re showing up there late Friday night when you’re supposed to be at Dad’s. Back in his living room, about to repack and leave for her house, Bernadette seems to read your mind.
“Why don’t we just stay here?”
You nod. “There’s vodka in the freezer.”
She grins. “Right on.”
It’s a good night to get tanked.
Bernadette is wise and sweet and knows not to pry, knows you’re not a fan of “letting it all out.” Letting it all out is bullshit. You can cry and scream and let it out, but it will still not BE out.
Vodka and orange juice. Cigarettes.
You stick your legs through the balcony railings and swing your bare feet. Bernadette blows smoke rings and you look up at the sky.
“No stars,” you say.
“City’s too bright,” she says. “Something about...I dunno, they told us in science class, didn’t they?”
“Dunno. Doesn’t fucking matter.”
“Nope, doesn’t.”
Your blood is sluggish as it moves through your body. You feel a slow, achy thrum in your legs as they swing. You down the last of your glass.
Bernadette eases down onto her back and you join her.
Things are starting to spin.
“Whoa,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“Well, at least we got a good grade on the curtains,” she says.
“Waste of fabric,” you say.
“Nah.”
“We should’ve done prison stripes instead,” you say, and laugh even though it’s all starting to hurt again. “And instead of a beach mural, I should’ve done graffiti.”
Bernadette snorts.
You need more alcohol, because it’s not working anymore. It’s worn off.
“Come on,” you say, and get up.
Inside, your eyes land on a paint can. “BEE!”
“Shh, not so loud,” she says, and leans on the wall. “What?”
“I think there’s still some...what’s that color?” You point.
“Purple.”
“Yeah, still some purple.”
It’s funny, it’ll be so funny, fucking hilarious.
You pry the lid open and find a brush. Bernadette wobbles along beside you. You dip the brush in.
“Wait,” she says, “you’re not actually… Don’t wreck your mural, Mar, that’s not—”
“Shh, don’t worry,” you say, and walk carefully toward the front door.
“Okay,” she says, and tips then catches herself.
“Lush,” you say.
“You should talk, chicky.”
On the wall beside the door, you paint:
And then, a few feet farther: →
And again, down the hallway: →
“Ooohh,” Bernadette says.
On the bathroom door:
→ TOILET ←
Ha, ha, ha, fucking ha.
And then...in the bathroom...above the toilet...
GET OUT OF JAIL FREE!
(piss in your own toilet)
Excellent.
You are standing with the brush in hand and you are laughing. Bernadette isn’t.
“What? It’s so awesome!”
“Yeah, but maybe too...too much?” she says.
But “much” comes out sounding like “mush” and that’s funny, too. And funny is good, funny is great because you would rather laugh than cry.
“It is definitely too mush,” you say. “That’s the point. It’s all too fucking mush. Musshhh. Muh-muh-muh-mmmuuuussshhh.”
She just looks at you.
Another laugh bubbles up, but it comes out sounding like a shriek. Too loud. Too loud and everything is a bit...
“Fuzzy brain,” you say. “Fuzzy.”
“Me too,” she says.
“Fuck it all anyway. T’s’all too musshhh. But I’m fine, fine, fine, always fine. My job to be fine. Too mush to be fine, but I am FINE!”
“Shh, shh, I know.”
All fine, except…except for the mush.
The mush, which is
too
fucking
MUCH.
Paint can and brush waver on the cracked toilet seat.
Shitfuckdamn...
Eyes crying, nose running, both traitors.
Nose and eyes damned traitors.
Well, then, let the traitors drip. Let them run and drip right out. Bernadette is here and also…also dripping from the eyes and nose.
“Hang on,” she says. “Just hang on to me.”
And you do.
***
Someone must be hammering nails into your skull.
You blink, then hear the sound of a key in the door.
Owwwwww.
You hear a moan and turn carefully, and see Bernadette on the floor next to the couch.
“Oh my God,” she says.
“Shit! He’s home.” You sit up on the couch and blink your eyes.
Dad enters with a woman in short shorts and frosted blonde hair. She sees you first, puts a hand on his arm. “Henry?”
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