I Love You and I'm Leaving You Anyway

by Tracy McMillan

  “I noticed that,” Freddie says. “All those Hollywood stars on TV are just…there’s nothing to them.” He looks me over one more time. He has reached a verdict. “Well,” he declares, “you need to gain ten pounds.” The gavel drops. “I don’t like my women skinny anymore,” my dad says, casting a quick glance around the room. He’s obviously looking for something he does like. And of course he finds it. After all, he’s a guy in prison, and it makes sense that a prison visiting room would be filled with women who have what guys in prison are looking for.

  My dad gives a slight tilt of his head in the direction of a bottle blonde in her late twenties who is by no means fat but who could definitely survive the next Minnesota winter at around half her current calorie intake. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he says to me while smiling at her. She smiles back.

  “Oh yeah? Well, you used to like skinny,” I protest. I find it amusing and ironic that my dad is detailing how his taste in women has changed over the past fifteen years. Fifteen years he has spent in prison. “What happened?”

  “I guess I changed,” he says.

  I’m reminded now that this is the type of conversation one ends up having with my dad, even when one is his daughter. It feels a little like we’re perusing that Hot or Not website together—the one where a picture flashes on the screen and you click either “hot” or “not,” at which time that picture disappears and is replaced by a photo of another candidate for hotness. Or notness.

  So, so much about my life with men is starting to make sense.

  ALL TOTALED, THE VISIT lasts about four hours, and we don’t waste a minute of it. We play half a game of Monopoly, take another trip to the vending machines, and go outside where there’s a little play area for the kids. We get our pictures taken (for a fee, a trustee inmate takes the photos and sends them to you a few weeks later), and my dad and I talk about some grown-up things while Sam wanders off to watch a Disney movie in the kid area.

  Later, there’s a group of three boys running around the visiting room. They look like they’re having a pretty good time. Sam is usually great at making pals with other kids, so I encourage him to tag along. “Do you want to go play with those guys, Sam? They look like they’re about your age.”

  “No, thanks,” he says in his laconic way.

  “Yeah. I get it,” I say after a second glance. “Those boys’ dads are in here. You’re here because of your granddad. It’s a whole different thing.” Sam’s been safely tucked away in the middle class all this time; and by comparison, those kids are street.

  By the final hour, Sam and my dad are engaged in some major granddad-grandson bonding, culminating with blackjack lessons. My dad plays the dealer.

  Thwack!

  “Seventeen!” Freddie tosses a card down with a stylish flip of the wrist, a technique you know he must have perfected back in the day. He makes a big show of not taking another card. “I’m gonna have to hold on that bad boy. What do you want to do, son?”

  It’s Sam’s turn now. “Hit me,” he says in his cute little white-boy voice. My dad does the showy wrist-flick again, to Sam’s delight. A king materializes on top of his eight.

  “Eighteen!” Sam crows. “Woot-woot! You lose.” He could not be more excited. I think to myself that this is a long way from checkers or whatever he plays with his other grandpa. The one who is a Presbyterian minister.

  My dad holds his hand out. “Gimme five,” he says. There’s a lot of grandfatherly pride going on here. The boy is clearly bringing some skills to the game. Sam slaps my dad’s hand, palm to palm. My dad then teaches him a couple of little fancy handshake moves. “Go like this,” he says, making a fist and pounding it on top of Sam’s. “Then like this,” he says, pounding Sam’s on top of his.

  It’s pretty damn adorable and, if you don’t pay attention to the surroundings, seriously Norman Rockwell.

  Too soon, the visit’s over. My dad stands up and says it’s time to go. “Well, baby. You drive safe now.” He wipes his nose with his ever-present Kleenex. His allergies kicked up today. I’d forgotten he even had allergies. Maybe he just got allergies instead of getting emotional.

  “Okay,” I say. I give him a hug. “You take care of yourself.”

  “I will,” he says. “I’ll be out of here soon. Hopefully in the first part of the new year.”

  I don’t pay attention to these things. “That would be great,” I say, knowing it will never happen.

  I notice that my dad is a bit distracted—it’s the only sign that maybe this good-bye is affecting him. I, too, am braced against a feeling. It’s not that I’m going to cry or anything. I just don’t want Freddie to feel any worse than he already does that he’s going back to his cell and we are going to continue on about our lives.

  Freddie pulls Sam toward him and gives him a hug. “Come here, son. You be sweet for your mom, now. You’re a good boy. You keep up the good work in school.”

  Sam hugs him. I think he had a good time getting to know Grandpa. We wave good-bye as we walk through the doors to the parking lot. My dad waves for a moment, then turns and heads through the inmates’ door.

  Back to whatever is behind it.

  LATER, ON THE DRIVE BACK to Minneapolis, I ask Sam what he thought of his granddad.

  “He was nice, I guess.”

  “He is nice, isn’t he?” I agree. “He’s always been like that. Sometimes I forget how nice he is. What was your favorite part of the visit?”

  “Playing blackjack,” he says impishly. Great. My dad taught my kid how to gamble. “And I liked the candy machines.”

  I’m flushed with this weird feeling. A feeling of shared experience with my son—I liked the candy machines, too, when I was little—and the closeness to my dad. At fortysomething, I can see that my dad was a good dad—he was just a good dad from “in there.” He never gave up on me, never let me go. A lot of prison guys would have, and sooner rather than later. Freddie’s kind of stellar, when you think about it.

  I know this is why I stayed away from him for so long. I didn’t want to feel close. There’s been a safety in being alone, in being separate. No one can hurt me there. As long as I have a wall between me and Daddy, I have a wall between me and everyone, and especially between me and men.

  I’m overcome with a sense of having let go of something really heavy. Something I’ve been carrying an awfully long time.

  SIX MONTHS LATER, I’m on my way to work. I stop off for coffee at my usual place, the Casbah Café on Sunset Boulevard, just like I do every day before heading to the writers’ room of the television show I’m now writing on. It’s a cop drama set in 1973, so I feel right at home, even though of the eight writers on the show, only three of us actually remember 1973. Everyone else was in diapers. Or ovaries.

  The phone rings, and the familiar “Unknown Caller” pops up on the caller ID. It must be my dad.

  “Hello?”

  “This call is from a federal prison. You will not be charged for this call…”

  I wait for Automated Prison Recording Barbie to finish her spiel, then I press “5,” just like I’m supposed to. This time, I talk first.

  “Hi!” I sound chipper because I am. I’m happier to talk to my dad these days. So much tension has evaporated since our visit. And when I don’t feel like talking to him, I just don’t pick up the phone. Which may not be how Freddie wants it, but it’s more honest, and in the end, I think we’re closer for it.

  “Hey, baby! How you doin’?”

  “Good. I’m on my way to work. Getting my coffee.”

  “Well, I’m not going to keep you long,” he says. “I just wanted to let you know that I got the information on that pilot program, and I put in my application.”

  He’s talking about a law that passed recently, called the Second Chance Act. It’s a big, long, complicated law, but in it, there’s a provision for senior-citizen offenders. If they’ve done more than two-thirds of their sentence, they can apply to serve out the rest of their
time in home detention. My dad’s been talking about it since it was in Congress.

  “Cool,” I say. Then I wait for him to say something else.

  “It looks like it will take some time to process my application, but I think it should come through by September 2010.” He’s excited, obviously. “Seventeen years, man. That’s a long time. I’m ready to come home.”

  And just where, exactly, is home?

  “I’m going to stay with your aunt Mavis.” That’s my Michigan aunt. I’ve only met her once, in 1975. But right this second, she’s my favorite person in the whole world. “I’ve got to get a job and stay put for at least a year. To show that I can stay employed. But after I’ve been working a certain length of time, I can get Social Security benefits.”

  My dad prattles on about getting a job at age seventy-five and meeting the requirements of the pilot program, but I’m not really listening. I’m thinking over the fact that he just said he’s getting out of prison but he’s not coming here. Good. Because I only just got used to being close to him in prison. I’m not ready yet to be close to him out of it.

  “That sounds good,” I say. I know I sound a little bit vacant, and thankfully, my dad’s not calling me on it. He doesn’t even seem to notice.

  “After a year, then we can talk more about what happens next,” he reassures me. He knows I have mixed feelings about him just barreling into my life. I like my life. It’s orderly. Plus, I have my son to think about. My dad’s going to need to prove that he can stay away from crime. I don’t think old age alone is going to do it.

  “Oh, and have you been in touch with Cadillac?” My godfather, the actor.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Well, can you get me his new number? Because I’m going to need a girlfriend, and I think he can help me out with that.”

  This gets a reaction out of me. “You do not need a girlfriend!” I say.

  “After seventeen years? I’m going to need a girlfriend.” He laughs, but he’s only half joking. “Have a good day at work. And give my love to Sam.”

  “I will.”

  “You be sweet, now. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  We hang up. I get out of the car and head for the café. On my way inside I marvel at the fact that I’m not even thinking about a man. I’m not trying to find one. I’m not trying to lose one.

  Which makes me think it’s official: I no longer have daddy issues.

  Seventeen

  I Love You, Totally and Completely

  I’M IN LOVE WITH GWYNETH NOW. Okay, maybe “in love” is a bit too strong a phrase, but since I’ve gotten back from the prison, I am experiencing her in a whole new way. Instead of feeling taunted by her flawless life like I once was, I’ve decided to turn Gwyneth into my own personal walking, talking, blogging, Pilates-practicing totem of the Beloved Daughter. In the same way Native American tribes might tap into, say, wolf energy for strength and freedom and wisdom, she is someone who helps me visualize what it looks like to know you deserve every good thing life has to offer.

  In other words, Gwyneth is my spirit animal.

  Seeing my dad again has set me free in other ways, too. Since our last visit, I’ve come to accept that I’ll never be able to go back and change history, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing I can do to transform my past. As the bumper sticker says, it’s never too late to have a good childhood. The thing is, having a “good” childhood at this stage of the game is not about somehow managing to get now what I wanted then. It’s about being now what I wanted then. I have to be the parent I wish I’d had, because you keep what you give away. And I know just where to start, too, thanks to Gwyneth.

  I am taking my kid to Paris.

  WE ARE TRAIPSING DOWN the Champs-Elysées. Me and Sam. It’s nighttime, five days before Christmas. The boulevard is jammed with people, and all the trees are festooned with pale blue lights. Behind us is the Arc de Triomphe; ahead, the Eiffel Tower, lit the color of navy blue chiffon. Paris is, as promised, magical.

  My kid is begging to go to McDonald’s.

  “Please, Mom? Please!”

  “Sam, we are not going to McDonald’s,” I say. “We’re in Paris.”

  “Pleeeeezzzzzz…”

  I am pretty clear that we would be fulfilling the most basic of all clichés about American tourists if, on our very first night in Paris, we eat a Happy Meal. I like to think I don’t do clichés.

  I manage to hustle Sam past the first McDonald’s. And the Burger King. But then, when we come to another McDonald’s, Sam asks me again. “Mom, please?”

  And then I remember. This trip is for him.

  A QUARTER POUNDER in France is called a Burger Royale. It is very, very tasty.

  TEN DAYS LATER, we are on an Italian train. I am in the window seat on one side. Sam is in the other one across from me. From time to time I look up and see him, this perfect, beautiful, soulful creature sitting across from me, and I am way more human than I was the moment before.

  Both of us are listening to our iPods, earphones on, our heads bobbing up and down to our personal sound tracks. Clearly, Sam is loving his song as much as I am loving mine, which makes me wonder what he is listening to. I pick the ear bud out of my right ear and give him a little slap on the knee.

  “Sam,” I say, leaning in.

  He pulls the earphone off his left ear and leans forward. “What?”

  “Which of us do you think is rocking out harder right now?”

  He half smiles. Sam loves a head-to-head competition. It’s the gamer in him. “I don’t know. What are you listening to?”

  I show him the screen on my iPod. A ruby-lipped Mick Jagger stares out from the cover of Black and Blue. “Middle-period Stones,” I say. “‘Fool to Cry.’” Pretty rockin’, if you ask me.

  “I’m listening to Metallica,” he says with a spin, knowing he’s got me beat. “There’s no way you could ever win!”

  “Nice,” I say humbly. He’s right, of course. What band rocks harder than Metallica?

  We are on our way back to Paris after a wonderful and ridiculously expensive side trip to Venice. Returning has proven to be a challenge, though, thanks to the Italian train website that led me to believe there were tickets on the direct route to Paris when there most definitely were not, at least not until the week after next. Our only option, the train clerk not-so-kindly informed me, is to go to Bologna, wait three hours in the station there, catch a train to Bern, Switzerland, wait two hours, and then catch another train back to Paris. The whole thing is going to take eighteen hours. The direct route would have been eight.

  But how can I mind? Because the train is rumbling down the tracks, and I am riding it with someone who is rocking out to Metallica while kicking ass in his video game.

  “I’m pwning, Mom,” Sam says. That’s “winning” in video-game speak. He pumps his victorious little fist and grins at me. “Yesss! Woot-woot!”

  I’m riding with someone I will always love.

  IT’S NEVER BEEN MORE EVIDENT than now: my boy has taught me every single useful thing I know about men. Until my son came along, my view of men was essentially self-centered: I looked at them with my self in mind. And that self wanted the men in my life to talk more, emote more, chill out, stop trying to fix everything, and never ever want to have sex with any other woman ever again. Not to mention be devastatingly handsome, buy me a house, and have a job lucrative enough to allow me to retire immediately.

  But being the mother of a baby “guy” revealed certain things to me that have changed the way I relate to men. For the better. I could write a whole book about this, and maybe someday I will. In the meantime, here are my top three epiphanies:

  1. BOYS ARE DIFFERENT THAN GIRLS

  Believe it or not, this one came as a shock. Growing up in the 1970s, I held it to be self-evident that girls can do anything boys can do—because we are the same. We’re not. Duh. This led me to want my boyfriends to be more like me, because, it went wi
thout saying, my talking, feeling, relating way of being in the world was just…preferable!

  After watching a whole group of kids grow from babies to preteens, I have decided that boys and girls have likenesses—in the same way, say, peanut butter and chocolate have similarities. They’re not so different in texture or shape, and they can substitute for each other some of the time. (Who doesn’t like chocolate spread on bread? On the other hand, who wants to drink hot peanut butter?) But when it comes right down to it, one’s a bean that grows on a tree, and one’s a legume that grows in the ground. Big difference. Trying to turn one into the other (which is what I’m always trying to do) is a waste of time compared to devising artful combinations of the two, which can get you, like, peanut butter cups.

  My baby group proved the differences to me forever. When we first started the group, the kids were all infants—none older than nine or ten months. What I noticed right away was that (and obviously, these are just my wildly unscientific observations) the boys seemed slightly less “cooked” than the girls. Their little nervous systems were like bad cell phones—constantly dropping calls. They had a harder time sleeping, wanted (needed?) to nurse more often, and had to move around all the time. My baby boy was the most serene when he was actually sitting or lying on my body, when he was able to index his heartbeat, skin temperature, and energetic force field to mine. I provided all his food and calmed him down when he got all ferklempt.

  Doesn’t sound all that much different from a husband.

  Then, as the children grew, I noticed the boys liked trucks and playing superhero. The girls liked dolls and playing princess. Obviously there were exceptions, but it’s amazing that none of my girl-mom friends discovered that they could get an hour of peace by taking little Ruby to a construction site to watch the diggers scoop up dirt over here and drop it in piles over there.