A nurse heads towards us holding a hypodermic needle and jabs the waiting-area television back to life. Random scroll of end credits – some daytime Oprah/Springer/soap opera coming up next. Naliah doesn’t change the channel, though – more like the opposite. Starts using the whole daytime TV vibe like a surgical tool to scrape out more intel on me and my dad. Yeh – I know. This ain’t even a leap, it’s more some intergalactic belly flop. Like she reckons I’ll be caught off guard or someshit. But just ask your adrenal glands: medical emergencies are when we’re at our sharpest. And, besides, I already got me a gameplan for this. Don’t even need to tell her I know she ain’t being on the level with me, that she’s blatantly working another angle here, that she can quit snooping about on behalf of the Botox man. You see, something in my daddy’s latest scare story about his fake stories must’ve had the intentioned effect: I’d decided there and then in McDonald’s how to patch the whole Botox-man-and-Naliah problem.
First, the deflection: “What the fucking fuck, Naliah? A woman we both care about is undergoing a major medical crisis here and you wanna turn it into some drama about my dad? What kind of backasswards bullshit is that?”
Naliah smiles but works hard not to say nothing.
After throwing down this deflection, I then switch to diversion. Instead of claiming I don’t know jack about my dad’s fake news stories, I’m gonna create me a story of my own. Distraction rather than denial – just like how all them dirtbag politicians do. But here’s the badass part: you know how they say the best place to hide a book is in a library? Or how the smartest place to bury a dead body is in an actual graveyard? Well, I’m gonna distract Naliah from the topic of my father by telling her all about my father. That’s right – I’ma throw her off his scent by pumping his stink straight up her nostrils. Only, we’re talking his life, not his work. I want Naliah to report back to the Botox man that I don’t give two flying shits about my father’s fake news stories, that my interest in him is purely personal, not professional – i.e. it’s private, i.e. it’s got fuck all to do with journalism. That my brain ain’t scratching at the black scabs of his bullshit blacked-out scare stories.
Here’s the problem with my plan, though: I actually know fuck all about my dad. Best I can do is roll out some recap action of some small talk we did in McDonald’s. Pro tip: don’t even bother trying to have a compelling conversation about a conversation about the weather. Or about energy tariffs. Or root vegetables. Or sports. Next thing, I’m telling Naliah how I don’t even know my dad, like some whining pustulating pussy-fart. Only time I manage to keep some cred intact is when I tell her my dad cut contact with me when I was “I dunno, like, maybe about seven or eight years old” – as opposed to the actualtruth, which is that I was seven years old, nine months and five days.
“Dillon, why are you saying all this to me?”
“Just trying to be topical. Apparently Father’s Day is coming up soon – like, sometime in the next twelve months.”
“You’re telling me these things about your dad because you can’t discuss it with Ramona – she wouldn’t understand it properly because she still doesn’t know anything about your mother.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Naliah, ain’t you bored of this already? Of my mum, I mean. It’s dull. Wanna know why cancer battles are usually just a background subplot? It’s cos long drawn-out deaths are so fucking boring they’re considered too cruel for animals. And, anyway, this has fuck all to do with my mother – my dad cut off contact with me long before she got sick.”
“Sure, but nonetheless you’re implying that he continued to keep himself cut off in spite of the fact your mum got sick.”
“But he didn’t completely cut contact with me – like I just told you, he sent me a couple of birthday cards and he foned me on Diwali once.”
There’s this payphone stuck up on the waiting-area wall like some ancientquated museum artefact. And fuck me if it ain’t the exact same payphone I once tried dialling my dad from. Must’ve been back when I was in Year Nine or Ten. I guess at some point they just stop upgrading old-school tech.
“So it wasn’t a big bust-up situation with you and your dad – it was just gradual?”
“Yup – same as it was with him and Mum. Apparently they just gradually grew apart.”
Could’ve just used my mobile to call him back then instead of the payphone. But I was worried he’d recognise the number. Or save it or delete it or rename it. Change Mum into me or me into Mum. He might’ve just changed Dhilan into Dylan.
“Look, Dillon, sometimes dads leave – there’s no need to be a pussy about it … I think that’s actually a line from Iron Man or Man of Steel. One of the superhero films.”
“I ain’t being a pussy, Naliah – you’re the one who keeps asking me about him.” And then I carry on trying to throw her off his scent by being a pussy about it. We’re now talking Maroon 5 levels of whining whingery. How, over the years, the man just gradually washed his hands of me.
“Washed his hands of you?”
“It’s a figure of speech. I don’t mean he literally washed my bodily fluids off his hands.”
I did actually ask my mum and dad which one of them “just gradually grew apart” from the other one first. They told me they both did. Standing either side of me. Both of them holding me – one hand each. Me letting go of both their hands so as not to upset one or the other. Later, Mum making me sit on her lap so she could download the detailed footnotes: “Neither of us intended to grow apart, Dhilan. Both of us were just trying to make things better. But people have different ideas of what better means. What’s best for one person isn’t always what’s best for the other person. What I called better might have been what your father called silly. What your father called better might have been what I called boring. At first when you’re married you’re not trying to make things better – you’re just busy being married. Then later, when you start trying to make things better, if you both have different ideas of what better means, then that’s when you start growing apart.”
And here’s Dad when I asked him a day or so ago as part of our ongoing death by small talk: “But you already know why your mother and I got divorced. We just grew apart. What does it matter now, anyway, Dylan? It was eleven years ago.”
“Actually, it was twelve years ago.”
“The point is, we just grew apart. I’m not even sure whether your mother ended it or if I ended it – whether she kicked me out or I walked out or whether she kicked me out while I was walking out. At certain times in my life I’d have given you one answer, and at other times I’d have given you another answer. So telling you that I don’t know is the most honest answer I can give you. We just sort of grew apart.”
And here’s one of my quick-fix therapists: “All infants and young children believe that the divorce is somehow because of them because all infants and young children still think the world revolves around them. That’s how humans develop. Very young kids just can’t compute that something is happening for reasons that are unrelated to them. That’s why these things are so traumatic. Because very young kids are still at the centre of their own little personalised bubble.”
And here’s Naliah in the hospital waiting area: “You didn’t express a preference to live with one or the other? Or try to corroborate what they told you?”
“I was seven years old. I thought custody arrangements had got something to do with custard. And, anycase, I already made a point of asking both of them, so why would I corroborate things when I’d already corroborated them – otherwise when do you stop corroborating your corroborations?”
“I was just thinking about the way it is in journalism: apparently you can only rely on two sources to stand up a story if both those sources are unrelated. If not, you need a third, separate source. And, whether they like it or not, divorced parents are still related.”
“Naliah, don’t be treating me like I’m some dumbfuck dipshit idiot. I see how you just spun this whole convo
back to my dad’s journalism. But here’s the thing: I don’t know jack shit about it. That’s cos I ain’t even interested in my father’s news stories. Okay? You can report that back word-for-wordbatim.”
Some guy sitting across from us has been eaveswatching our whole convo. I feel like I should buy him some nachos to complete his whole movie-going experience – though that’d actually be stupid seeing as his jaw has been blown off, probly in some sort of international espionage incident.
Turns out the reason Ramona’s taken so long in A&E is cos her injury is so minor. The doctor comes over, tells us that nothing is broken and nothing is torn – despite what they first thought. The doctor is a woman and let’s just say she ain’t exactly impressed when she clocks the pair of six-inch stilettos that I’ve brought along in Ramona’s night bag. Looks me square in the soul. “Is that what was responsible for this?”
“Damn right,” goes Naliah. “Oh wait – you mean in the bag? Hell no – those things are plimsolls in comparison. The shoes that did this aren’t even meant to be worn. Well, actually, tell a lie: they are meant to be worn. Just not while standing up.”
Only reason I brought this stupid pair of stilettos with me is so that Ramona wouldn’t think that I’d got preoccupied picking out her underwear or anything. That I was just being standard and only perving over her shoes.
The doc does some kinda eyeroll/side-eyes combo. Says Ramona definitely won’t be wearing “those things”, but neither will she need crutches; she’ll just need to lean on me for support.
37
HERE’S A MANUAL for sons who wake up one morning and find that they’ve morphed into sickly pus-filled pussies with daddy issues:
• After a decade or so of being estranged, don’t try too quick to become buddies.
• ‘Absent Fathers’ and ‘Abandoned Sons’ should first slide into more old-school roles – with the father firmly asserting his seniority, laying down the lines of paternal authority and just generally hogging the remote control.
• Only when you been rocking a while in these old-school roles can you then move on and do all that best-mates-buddy-movie bullshit.
• Without first installing this basic ass-whupping operating system, you’ll just get a mashup of angst/anger/anarchism.
This ain’t some download from a therapy session.
I know all this shit from asking Google.
I know this from letting Google predict what I’m gonna ask.
In fact, fuck it – maybe that’s why I been acting like such a patsy. Busting my balls to be all respectful and non-confrontational. Tongue-biting, ten-counting, allow it – as if the shitstains between us didn’t exist. Gotta be a reason for it. Ain’t like I just decided one day to be dickless.
Or maybe somehow, on some deep-down down-low, I already knew where all this bullshit with my dad was headed.
Again a McDonald’s. The office-like strip lighting. Again the plastic furniture. Dad didn’t have time for no milkshake or dead cow today. Daddy has to catch a choo-choo train.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Dylan?” His grip on my arm twisting his words into italics or someshit.
The coffee. The milkshake. The little plastic coffee stirrers. We sit at the plastic furniture. He has to free my arm so we can sit. Glossy mag and thermos flask peeping out his raincoat like swag from some lonely loser’s sex shop.
“Please just tell me, son: why the hell would you do this?”
The seats. The milkshake. The tubs of ketchup that came with the milkshake.
We sit.
Uneaten family meal on the table beside us, like we scared them all away.
“Okay, okay,” I go. “Okay.” You know that thing where you try and find the right words to say “No” but you end up saying “Okay”? That shit ain’t dicklessness or politeness – it’s cos part of you actually wants to say okay. “Just forget what I said in my email, Dad. If you really want to invest in my start-up then, okay, that’d be great. You can be my majority stakeholder.”
He looks at me like, Do you think I’m bloody stupid?
I’d turned down Dad’s offer to invest in my start-up the night before last. Kept my email short. Three sentences – though it coulda been a thesis. Matterfact, fuck it, here’s all the cocksucker crap I cut out:
Because I want a father, not a shareholder.
Head of the table, etc., not chairman of the board.
Because I’d feel like I’d been bankrolled by my daddy and therefore badly in need of a bath.
Because, just because. Because I ain’t some beige-trouser-wearing public-school ponce with foppy pubes that they probly have to perm or something just to keep it real.
Because it’s a little fucking late in the day for your fucking support.
Because Mum got really sad that Saturday you dropped me home late after taking me to Toys R Us.
The red. The yellow. The tubs of ketchup. The non-toxic colouring crayons.
“In fact, if you like, Dad, you can even be the chairman … or the senior non-exec on the board of directors … or the boss.”
The crayons that came with the tubs of ketchup.
“What bloody board of directors, Dylan? You’re just a freelance data temp. So stop all your nonsense. And you know damn well this isn’t about my offer of investment. If you don’t want my money, fine – I understand when I’m not wanted. But just explain to me, please, what the hell do you mean by feeding her all that bullshit?”
“I know it’s fucked up, Dad, but there’s a reason why I always have to bullshit and lie to Ramona …” You know them times you just find yourself fessing up? Admitting random bad deeds just for bants? Do people actually fess up to their actual fathers? Is that like a thing, or just something you see on TV? “Dad, the reason I keep shit hidden from Ramona is because …”
“Why the hell are you talking about Ramona?” he cuts me off. “You know damn fucking well that I’m referring to Naliah.”
Over the next few minutes, my dad actually does a pretty good impression of Naliah:
“I always knew there were fishy skeletons in your closet.”
“How can we believe anything you say when all this time you’ve been lying about why you’ve had no contact with Dylan?”
“How can I trust you to take care of my mum when you couldn’t even be bothered to keep in touch with your own son?”
Then Dad goes back to doing an impression of himself:
“Don’t pretend you didn’t know who she was, Dylan.”
“Oh, please, don’t insult my intelligence. As if you hadn’t worked it out weeks ago.”
“Don’t take me for a fool, Dylan. Even if you didn’t guess it, your masi or one of your other Facebook-addicted aunties must’ve long-ago told you about me and my … my companion.”
“I even asked you point blank that evening you turned up at my flat – I asked you what she’d been telling you about me. And even back then you pretended to play dumb.”
“And now apparently I’m guilty of abandoning you and washing my hands of you. Either you’re very good making up stories, son, or being in denial is just your default setting.”
This new turn of eventualities is actually pretty straight: Naliah’s basically been doing a more full-on version of what Ramona once did back when her own mum’s boyfriend was running for the role of husband. Due diligence, auditing, investigative reporting – i.e. what all good children should do for their mums. And then to give away her clammy hand. Proper old-school analogue snooping. Had been threatening to track me down for months. Dig up some deep, dark-winded secret about why my dad had less than zero contact with his son.
Again the plastic furniture. The windows. The strip lights flickering. The windows that look out into the train station.
This thing about my dad and Naliah’s mum should be a bolt from a breaking newsflash. So then why does it feel like just some standard-issue bog standardness? Just another one of them updates to my dad app – a patch to
fix our latest father–son mindfucks. Like as if all our earlier technical hitches and screen-freezes were actually moments of lucidness. Glitches of clarity.
The windows. The people, the passengers. Check them all standing on the concourse like bowling pins beneath the large information board. Staring down the lanes of train platforms. The gutters of empty tracks. Strike; Delay; Cancellation; Emergency Engineering Works – all of my all-purpose cover stories.
Dad’s got a theory. His mind is made up. Reckons I been acting outta spite and malice and malignantness cos I don’t like it that he’s “finally found a life companion” in Naliah’s mum. Tells me it ain’t fair me behaving like as if his companion is some kinda villain. Fuck knows which platform he got this from – which website or app or channel. Ain’t no need to be digital, even – stepmums are easy villains in pantomimes. Nursery rhymes, even. Daddy’s told himself the easiest story in the book.
I try hitting him with denials.
Dad sticks to his easy story.
I hit him with evidence to the contrary.
Dad sticks to his easy story.
Even hit him with random stats – all the times I ain’t dissed him or fucked up his shit even when I probly should’ve. All the times I been respectful and non-confrontational and just generally gluten-free. Tell him that he ain’t even on Facebook, meaning even my aunties couldn’t have even known.
Again, Dad doubles down, digs in, lashes out. The more counter-evidence I hit him with, more strongly he buys his own bullshit. In our Behavioural Economics module, they call this shit the Backfire Effect – happens when people feel threatened by facts that they don’t like. Also the Continued Influence Effect – the way people still believe misinformation even after it’s been corrected. Dad either carries on just excluding things that don’t fit with his easy story, or he adapts to my facts but somehow still clings onto his original conclusion: “Okay, son, so maybe you didn’t know about my partner. But clearly you were still trying to spite it.”
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