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Chapter 9
Squatting at water’s edge, Dad cast his line into the lake and adopted his characteristic pose, kneeling in a catcher’s stance, feeding line from the Shimano open-bail reel I bought him. He could stay in one position for hours. Fishing was always serious business for my father. Of course, a cigarette dangled from his lips as he concentrated. He’s willing the fish to his bait. I don’t know if he could really do it or not, but I’m certain that he believed he could. I remember many times, as a boy, watching him, my own line sitting at the bottom of the lake-- completely ignored, while he put some sort of double-secret whammy on the trout. Sometimes, I’d try to utter something, only to have him raise his hand and stop me. Shush! You’ll scare the fish…
Truthfully, Dad usually preferred that everyone remain silent whenever he was present, unless, of course, he initiated the conversation. Then, he expected prompt attention from whomever he addressed. Funny… it didn’t seem to bother the fish if he had something to say.
Eventually, he sat his rod and reel on the ground, the rod tip balanced over a rock, his line taut so that the slightest bite would cause it to move. The brisk mountain air chilled me a little as I watched a suddenly-older representation of my father gaze across the lake, his out-of-place black suit coat unbuttoned; causing the dark tie to blow in the breeze. He looked ridiculous.
After a few minutes, he walked over to me. “That damn Jap reel is only 6-to-1 gear ratio. Plus, you can’t take the clicker off. Every time I took up the slack, it reminded me that it’s not a Garcia-Mitchell.”
“Dad, they don’t make Garcia-Mitchell’s anymore. The company split about fifteen years ago. You can buy one or the other, or both, but not a combination.”
“Well, that’s screwed up. Is Mitchell a Jew-name? I know Garcia isn’t…”
“Oh, another Jewish conspiracy, huh? That figures… those people are responsible for all the world’s ills, aren’t they… them and the blacks. Dad, tell me, please… where do you come up with this stuff? Hasn’t God or someone taught you anything since you’ve been dead? That’s just the sort of crap that I carried around for years, refusing to believe that my father was a bigot… that he just was so badly treated by people that he just hated everyone. Dad, what happened? Why were you at war with the world?”
The lines on his face had somehow become etched and deeper, giving him an older appearance. He stared off into the distance, but he did something I recognized. Cigarette between his fingers, he began scratching the back of his head with his thumb… slowly, as if it helped him focus. I’d seen him do it countless times. He didn’t look at me, but I knew this posture… this was the preamble for Mom’s Soliloquy.
“Bob, you had the greatest mother who ever lived.”
Here we go. I’d heard that exact phrase so many times it no longer had any meaning. In the old days, for the first few years after Mom died, it was the opening line in the Everyone Feel Sorry For Jimmy Blues, normally uttered when he was liquored up and about to pass out. Of course, there was no acceptable response. I truly believe I could have spoken the first line of the Hail Mary, and he’d have found a reason why I was being disrespectful to my mother. Well, today I wouldn’t allow it.
“Yea, I know… too bad I had such a dickhead for a father, huh?”
Unbelievably, he looked at me and grinned. “Still mad at me, aren’t you? You still blame me for Mom’s death.”
I could barely control my rage. My body convulsed and I began sobbing uncontrollably. “You still don’t get it, do you? Dad, if you weren’t already dead, I swear I’d kill you myself, right now. I’ve never blamed you for Mom’s death, and you damn well know it, you son of a bitch! It’s the same self-indulgent B.S. that my sisters and I have put up with for the last thirty years. Why do you think Debby became a full-blown drunk with cirrhosis of the liver? It cost me thirty-five hundred bucks to have her flown from Phoenix to Denver with a nurse, just so she could come home to die! You abandoned my sisters, Dad… when they needed you most you jumped in the bottle! I understood for the first year or so, but Dad, you died right along with her and did it standing up! How can you pretend to be a man, much less a father? You were never there for any of us.”
Simmer down... Jesus... you're going to pop an aneurysm over a dead guy!
“So... you’re an expert on grief as well as the Denver Broncos?”
A deep breath allowed me to regain my composure. I grinned and shook my head… there was no point in trying, I couldn’t hate this man.
An eighty-year-old man walked over and wrapped his arm around my shoulder. For the first time, I felt the touch of a father’s hand upon my face and thoughts and experiences of a lifetime raced through my mind. Eyes clouded with glaucoma implored me to listen. “Now you understand. Sometimes love and hate are too close to call. My guilt took me away, never again to feel the warmth of family. Don’t make the same mistake.”
Without another word, he turned and walked away. As he reached the Blazer, he opened the door and took my mother’s hand as she stepped out. She smiled at me, touched fingers to her lips and blew me a kiss. Hand in hand, they disappeared at water’s edge.
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