Optimistic Nihilism

by David Landers

  There’s more. I was deathly afraid of blood, always having a fit if I saw any coming out of me, in any capacity. Drops, even. More dramatically, I was terrified of anything that resembled a medical procedure. But just like I had never really been cut or never nearly drowned, I never really suffered any medical invasions, only vaccinations and such. One of my earliest memories is of my dad, a doctor, and several nurses wrestling with me so that I could get some kind of shot in my butt. I was screaming bloody murder, seriously, like it was the end of the world. I also have the vaguest memory of problems getting my polio vaccine. Yes, that’s the one where there isn’t even a shot to take: All you had to do was eat a sugar cube. I remember waiting in line for that, and I remember being afraid, but I don’t remember anyone trying to comfort me. I certainly don’t recall anyone explaining that there was no shot. Who knows, maybe they did and I just didn’t believe them (which would be interesting in itself). My clearest memory of the whole ordeal is that some time afterwards I was told that I was “the only kid who cried” there.

  Most of the emotional dysfunction at home would probably best be characterized as emotional neglect, but sometimes it felt more like emotional abuse. I vividly recall one evening, ten years old, when my dad and I were watching our gigantic, full-of-mysterious-tubes television and Burnt Offerings came on. It’s this creepy horror movie starring Karen Black and Oliver Reed about a family staying in a haunted house, à la The Amityville Horror. It was so fucking scary; I was too young to be watching it.

  One scene was particularly frightening, in which Oliver Reed—who was somehow quite imposing by default, somehow reminiscent of my own dad—momentarily became possessed by a house spirit and attempted to drown his son in the pool. It probably didn’t help that the boy, played by Lee Montgomery, was named David. I became overcome with fear in a way that I had not experienced exactly before or since, and I just started to weep, lying there on the living room shag.

  Unsure of what was happening and what to do, I slowly looked up to my dad as he sat in his Scary Dad Loungy Chair. His reaction to my panic was precisely antithetical to what I needed—perhaps more than ever before in my life. When he realized I was crying and groveling for help, he appeared frustrated, maybe even mad. At the very least, he was quite inconvenienced and disappointed. He responded by saying one thing, while kinda shaking his head and sighing: “You’re such a pussy.”

  I did what I could: I retreated, at least emotionally. Physically, I just continued to lie there, watching that movie and soaking in the trauma. I remember feeling deeply unsettled by the whole experience, like something broke, something that wasn’t going to be easy to fix.

  Perhaps adding to the confusion and disorientation of it all, I never felt bitter toward my dad for how he treated me—just detached, estranged. Maybe I wasn’t bitter because I always knew that it wasn’t his fault, just like my mother’s distance from me wasn’t her fault, either. For Dad, there was something about a physically abusive stepfather, a “drunk” who used to hit my sweet Granny, maybe even in front of my dad. And something about my dad threatening to kill him if he didn’t stop. That’s really about all I know, except maybe his stepdad died young (from alcoholism, maybe cirrhosis?).

  Regardless of how forgiving I am to my father, incidents like the Burnt Offerings one messed me up, setting me up for others, like the Stratego calamity. Someone had given me the Milton Bradley board game for my birthday or Christmas when I was still a preteen. I hadn’t planned to actually play the game with anyone, preferring to just tinker informally, alone, with the board and all the neat little parts that came with it. I opened it all up and was strangely captivated by the orderly rows of the 80-something game pieces, half red, half blue, all bright and laced with gold pictures of bombs, flags, and various soldiers. In my excitement, I dumped the pieces out onto the floor. But as I began to study them more closely, it struck me that I would never be able to put them back in the holder exactly the way they had come because I had not studied them carefully enough while housed. Inexplicably, I became so upset at this that I began hitting myself in the face with my fists. I didn’t hurt myself badly; I don’t recall bleeding or leaving any marks. But I hated myself for screwing that up forever. I knew it could never be returned to the peculiar order in which it came, and I knew I couldn’t tell anybody about my distress because they wouldn’t understand and couldn’t help anyway. If I was a pussy for crying at a horror movie or at a polio vaccine, what on Earth would be the meaning of this?

  As far as physical contact goes, most of it in my family growing up had been what most psychologists today would call violent, that is, my dad whuppin’ me and/or my brother real good. I can’t say I never did anything wrong, but these spankings were clearly excessive. At least I know that now. At the time, I was relatively confused about them.

  It would often start with Dad lecturing me about some transgression, usually a pretty mild one. Mischief, or a lie, not exactly a little white one, but neither a big black one. This would snowball, sometimes all on its own, without any input from me whatsoever. His blood pressure would rise, face turning red, veins growing on his forehead. He’d start yelling at me and then something would click, the decision to strike. He’d say something like, “I tell you what, I’m gonna tan your hide. C’mere to me …”

  He’d approach me in what felt like a charge and I’d crumble to the floor in fear. I’d start bawling before my dad even touched me, because he was so big and scary looking and I knew what was about to happen. When I was younger I’d literally beg, “DADDY! PLEASE DON’T!” He’d grab me by the arm, and hold me up, and strike my ass with his gigantic open hand, seemingly as hard as he could, but he would always deny that afterwards. I couldn’t manage a strike-count, but it often seemed to go on until he got tired, but I’m supposing it would be around 10 strikes that simply felt like forever. Sometimes, he’d use a belt. I have vague memories of having to pull my pants down to get ready for some of those. Sometimes, me and brother would both get spankings, and for some reason I was usually second. This added a whole new layer of trauma to the whole experience, having to watch my brother get his, waiting for mine. Sometimes I’d have this ridiculously irrational hope that I would somehow be granted amnesty by the time he was done with my brother. My brother was older and tougher than me, so he would require more work before he threw in the towel and started crying. I can remember seeing the moments when my brother succumbed, the transition between angry defiance and pitiful, painful subjugation.

  I can’t deny it: I clearly was the “pussy” of the two, screaming bloody murder during mine. My mom told me once afterwards that if I didn’t stop hollering so much the neighbors were gonna hear. She seemed somewhat confused about my wailing, implying—whether she meant to or not—that my spankings weren’t so bad and that I was overreacting. More routinely, dad would invalidate the experience by apologizing afterwards and stating the clichés, such as “I do this because I love you” and “This hurts me more than it does you.” But it was hard to feel the love in that beating, and equally difficult to see how it could have hurt him more than me. He would also explain how he didn’t hit me as hard as he could. Reflecting on this today, I don’t think that’s true. I think he deceived himself into believing that he had been pulling punches because he was unconsciously aware, deep down, that he had lost control and he felt bad about it.

  A couple of times, Dad would hug me after a spanking, which, outside of the context of the beating I just took, would have appeared sincere. But, given the context, it felt remarkably inappropriate. It’s difficult to find the right word, but I want to call it obscene. Touching me like that, following a beating like that, had the slightest tinge of what I imagine sexual abuse must feel like. I never felt invested in those hugs. I just wanted them to be over, just like the spankings before them. On top of it all, I also recall feeling confused and guilty about those feelings: How can a son reject his dad’s best hug, regardless of the context? And those really wer
e his best hugs; I don’t recall being hugged much otherwise throughout my life. I don’t think me and my mom hugged until I was 21, visiting from college, and I initiated those.

  Once, after me and my brother had been spanked for arguing (seriously, we hadn’t been physically fighting, although I think we had said some hateful things that my dad overheard), my dad made us hug. I love my brother, and love hugging him today, but there was something obscene about this order as well. We had just been infuriated at each other, for which we had then been physically overwhelmed and hit by Dad, and now we were being forced to embrace each other. I remember we were both in our pajamas, as this had all transpired at the breakfast table. Both of our pajamas were more like veils, very thin because they were cheap to begin with and were now old and worn; we might as well had been naked. To this day, I still remember how confused I felt hugging him, like on some level I really did care for my brother and was sorry, but the way I was literally being forced to show it was perverse.

  In any event, my spankings largely spoiled any chance of me and my father having a meaningful relationship. Outside of confusion, my most salient reaction was anger. I remember thinking that you’ll be sorry. I hated you, at times, and wanted to physically harm you, and definitely would have, if I had had the capacity. That’s probably not what you were after.

  Anyway, the hatred always dissipated, but a compelling disinterest always endured, akin to the taste aversion that comes after a vicious bout of food poisoning. And just like a taste aversion, it can last a long time, forever even.

  All that said, I honestly don’t feel like I hold a grudge today. This part of my book is not about getting revenge on my dad, that’s for sure. In fact, I’ve been tormented at times over how or even whether to publish all of this, because I feel sorry for him. I’m only doing it to vent a little of my own pain, to spend some time on the anti-corporal punishment soapbox, and—for the sake of the rest of this book—to show that having God in one’s home doesn’t necessarily guarantee a good home. Spankings sure didn’t help my relationship with Him, either. I also felt anger towards God after a good whuppin’, so much so that on a couple of occasions I broke down again once I was alone, shooting my finger to the Heavens, yelling “FUCK YOU!” to God, tears flowing down my face. I fantasized about taking my anger out on His House, vandalizing the sign out front so that instead of reading “First Assembly of God,” it would say “First Ass of doG” or simply “FAG.”

  I finally did experience healthy human contact when I was about twelve or thirteen years old, at Christian summer camp. Camp was unexpectedly fun that year. I spent a lot of time on the miniature golf course, where I had become a force with which to be reckoned. That was also the first time in my life that I realized that there’s something worthwhile about playing horseshoes. I never liked competitive games so much, win or lose, but horseshoes really resonated well with me, and still does.

  In the evenings, following dinner, there were more serious, church-like events. As with regular church back home, I went somewhat begrudgingly, but I don’t think much more than anyone else. Sure, I’d rather have been back on the putt-putt course or chunking horseshoes, but I also had enough faith and conviction to not gripe too much on the way to the chapel.

  One night’s meeting was particularly serious and momentous, a younger person’s version of what often went down at Big Church on Sunday evenings back in Dallas. As my father and other major church figures would often remark, “the Holy Spirit descended” on us, so much so that it eventually became clear there would be no sermon—only worshipping. We were getting down that night, praising the Lord full throttle.

  It never felt creepy. No one ever whipped out a snake and started dancing with it or anything like that. Instead, we were just singing songs and holding our hands up, like you see on television advertisements for gospel albums. However, this was less dramatic. There was no soft-filter lens on the camera; everything was acutely distinct. The ambiance was generally pleasant, but there was also a sense of something awesome in the air. It was so serious, no laughing matter. I can’t fathom someone being irreverent at a time like that, not even George Carlin, if he had been there.

  After some time, in a relative lull, the leader of the event asked if anyone in the audience was ready to come forward and be saved. Until that moment I had assumed I was already saved because I had believed in Christ all my life and always prayed to Him so well. However, it became as clear as anything had ever become clear before that I had actually been lacking something, and that this was my Time. It would be some kind of unpardonable sin to pass it up. I might as well have been standing in the open door of a crashing, burning airplane, parachute on, helmet, goggles, the works. Gotta jump, buddy!

  Scared to death but knowing what I had to do, I abandoned my inconspicuous seat among the pews and headed down to the altar, joining the handful of other folks who hadn’t dawdled as much as I had. With increasing confidence, I got down on my knees and put my hands back in the air, but higher this time.

  It felt like I was on a stage, the volume of everyone’s worshipping around me and the overall intensity of the experience now blaring. I was still scared and not sure where it was all headed, but it felt big, wherever it was. Along with the fear was a seemingly inconsistent sense of security, because I was hardly in control: Something else, something bigger than me, was guiding me through those peculiar motions. It was scary, but right, in the cosmic sense. I was at the center of the entire universe.

  Then, I felt someone next to me. It was Patsy, my mother’s oldest friend from all the way back from her high school; she was a chaperone. Right away, I could tell she knew exactly what was happening inside me, but she still asked, “Are you ready to receive the Lord?” I nodded. With a reassuring authority, clearly from experience, she knelt down beside me, to my left, and put her right hand on my shoulder, and that’s when all Heaven broke loose.

  Magic went into me from her hand; I felt something electric, but calm and soothing. I exploded into tears, hands in the air the whole time, feeling some of the most profound emotions I ever had in my entire life. Something was touching my hands, too—that whole gesture finally made perfect sense to me. You surrender, and then you are touched; He holds you. I knew that I was Forgiven, all was well, and I was finally Saved, for real. It all made such wonderful sense, profoundly, unambiguously. That was the hardest I had ever cried, outside of being spanked. The popular hymn would resonate for some time to come:

  Shackled by a heavy burden,

  ‘Neath a load of guilt and shame.

  Then the hand of Jesus touched me,

  And now I am no longer the same.

  He touched me; Oh, He touched me,

  And oh the joy that floods my soul!

  Something happened and now I know,

  He touched me and made me whole.1

  Indeed, my relationship with God had suddenly matured and reached new heights. I was no longer a painting of a kid in his pajamas praying at the side of his bed. I was now the real thing, like the grown-ups of whom I used to be in awe. I could raise my own hands in grown-up church now, and was even qualified to “testify,” if the Holy Spirit ever moved me as such. If nothing else, I’m going to Heaven. Praise him.

  Patsy must have told my parents about what happened, because shortly after camp was over and I returned home my dad approached me to talk about it. I remember it pretty clearly, him saying, so seriously, “I hear you were filled with the Holy Spirit.” I was kinda shy about it, like I wanted to keep it private, just like everything else. But I was apparently in the club now, wise. It was exciting, but also a little frightening, as the bar of responsibility had been raised higher. There was no turning back.

  It took years—decades, even—before I realized that it wasn’t a spirit that had touched me that evening. It was just Patsy.

  Enthused by my experience at camp, I became determined to read the entire Bible, to become a serious student and realize my newfound status as an
adult Christian. I picked up my New American Standard version one day and started reading from The Beginning.

  Inconceivably, however, in the wake of my salvation, I immediately found the Bible disorienting and frustrating. Don’t jump ahead: I don’t recall doubting during that fledgling period, but I clearly recall feeling quite confused right off the bat.

  Not far past the front cover, God tells Adam not to eat from the “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil … for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.”2 Further down the same page, however, Satan assures Eve that she won’t really die, but instead her eyes will be opened, like God’s, so that she can appreciate the difference between good and evil, as implied by the tantalizing tree’s name. And the damnedest thing happens: She doesn’t die that day as God promised, but instead her eyes are opened, as Satan predicted! What an unfathomably bizarre way to begin the Bible: God doesn’t tell the truth, but Satan does? I can tell this isn’t going to be easy. One doesn’t simply read the Bible—it’s work! Or maybe art, which I’ve never been too good at.

  I’m being too rigid. Perhaps a “day” is not to be taken literally: Perhaps Eve would die later, in a God-day, which could be years. That makes some sense, as it fits with the notion that the earth also wasn’t created in six “days,” as we now know via science. This is tricky, though, because a “day” was defined in Genesis 1, with the sun going up and down, which sounds like the same “day” of today. But maybe the issue is not about time at all. Maybe when God said, “you shall surely die,” he meant it figuratively, like it’s your innocence that will perish. Or maybe he wasn’t being figurative at all: Maybe He just changed his mind about killing Eve.