The Dad Joke

Vol. 2, Issue 18

My father had a wild unpredictable temper that would never pop-off the same way. Sometimes he'd glower and yell. Sometimes he'd just go silent for days and go to bed without a sound, just walk right around me like a piece of ugly furniture. Growing up he appeared to be the size of a linebacker and his foot-stomps got heavier when he became agitated. He wasn't that physically abusive, more of a finger-jabber, neck-pincher and arm-puller, but his anger suffocated. Sometimes I still hear his voice in my head screaming "HAVE CONFIDENCE!" in precisely the way that would shatter the little bit I had.

His temper didn't just stay at home, either. He was always quick to ask for a manager or threaten repercussions for the slightest inconvenience at a restaurant, or the bank, or the hardware store. One time I saw him almost get into a fist fight at Baskin Robbins after he yelled at two loafing teens behind the counter. Another customer intervened and said he'd punch my dad in the mouth if he ever spoke to him that way. "Try it," my dad said. The man stayed quiet.

One time I blew a tee-ball league game when I overthrew a ball to first base. I knew I'd sailed it and my stomach collapsed as the first baseman desperately tossed his glove in the air to try to knock it down, but it was no use. I pathetically held my glove to my chest as I stood there and waited for all the runners to score. I could not hold back my tears so the coach consoled me. The rest of the team ignored me.

I don't remember if my father was at the game or not, back then he was an inconsistent spectator on weekends depending on his tee-time or his hangover. When I got home he pulled me into my bedroom and unloaded. "If you ever cry on the field again I'm gonna come out there, pull your pants down, and beat ya."

There was another moment that still creeps up on me every day or two, also sports-related. This time basketball. I was about 13 and it was a practice in mid-January after a big snowstorm. My mom usually drove me because he was usually at work, or else I'd get a ride with my friend's parents. The gym we went to had a chalky gray concrete floor and a dome-shaped ceiling so everything echoed comically loud. The entrance had this big heavy door with a lousy spring-hinge that would slam so hard the cheap aluminum bleachers would rattle. Every parent who was a regular knew the deal with the door–open it and hold onto it as it closed to prevent the distracting sonic blast.

I got expensive Reebok hi-tops with velcro straps for Christmas that year, but I didn't wear them much because they weren't broken in yet and I thought they would squeak too much on that floor so I wore my old shabby sneakers instead. Before practice ended that night the door slammed its big WHAM and everyone turned around except for me. I knew it was him and I knew he was gonna get on me about the shoes.

Practice ended and he didn't speak to any of the other parents. We rushed out the door, and as soon as we got out to Second Street Pike he rolled down the window and told me to take my sneakers off. He threw one out the window, then the other. We got home and I walked up the icy driveway in socks. I got a ride home from one of my friend's parents the next week and as we turned on to Second Street Pike, I saw one of my snow-covered sneakers on some other family's front yard.

****

I became a dad for the third time last week and just like with my first two, these old awful memories darken the happier new ones. I study our new son, all frog-boned and wonky-eyed, the same way I did with our other son and daughter, and once again wonder if there will ever be a day in our future where I threaten to beat him in the middle of a Little League ball field or throw his sneakers out of a moving car. I think of this and then reconsider speaking to my father ever again.

****

I read a lot of articles and books about the best way to forgive my dad. I also go to therapy and do Al-Anon recovery work to get over this shit with him. Because despite all that ugly stuff in the beginning I also still consider him my best friend.

Weird, right?

Our relationship was always frustrating and inconsistent. Sometimes we'd talk to each other every day and other times, we'd be distant for months. This didn't abate once I got sober–my shiny new brainspace made all those bad memories hurt even more.

After I got out of rehab my dad and I got into a physical altercation in his condo in Florida. I was in my 40s, he was in his 70s, but I trucked him up against his couch and we both had the same sad madness in our eyes. He's had dementia for about the past five years, but that still hasn't softened us as much as you'd think it would. A couple years ago we got into a Facetime argument and even though I understood this was his 'illness' shouting, it still sounded close enough to the guy I grew up with so I ended our conversation like this: "Old man, if you don't stop talking I will fly down to Florida and kick you until dust shoots out your ass" like we were in a crappy David Mamet play.

Six months ago he and my mother showed up at our house in LA for my daughter's birthday and he was a real asshole. He was on his phone the whole time, and when my mother asked him to get off he shouted at her "Shut up!" in that too-familiar way in front of me and his grandkids so I threatened to throw him off our back deck if he kept it up. They were scheduled to come back again for Christmas, so my mother told him to apologize to me before then, but he said I was the one with the problem so not a chance. They came anyway, but she wisely drugged him with enough sedatives to keep him quiet. I also got a prescription for some Abilify and kept it "light and polite" as my Al-Anon sponsor suggested so it was a wonderful Christmas, even though neither one of us apologized.

I could go on and on and on. This monologue could be 80 million words of hot-ass bile, a full-on Tobias Wolfe This-Boy's-Life rewrite designed to finally plunge a metaphorical broken broom handle into the hole where I think my father's heart should be.

But recently I've had this inescapable longing for him, the same one I've had for most of my life. Even though he failed me constantly, made me feel inadequate and afraid in a profound way, I won't abandon him. It's still tough to confront him about his rage. I've never learned how to properly stick up for myself without equal response.

As the dementia continues its slow sprawl, sometimes the record skips on his worst moments, his bullying rage and fear. Since I've been sober that's what I've learned about both of us–the witless flailing rage we both possess is throttled by fear. I know that because I've got this fancy new emotional toolbox and he's got the same empty one he's had forever, but it is what it is what it is what it is...

Sometimes the record skips on his sweetness, though, and he'll coo at the babies and he'll ask how I'm doing with earnestness and sincerity. And for the past year he's ended many of the conversations with the same question: "Are you writing some place, or doing something with writing again, or did I imagine that?"

He's asked that at least dozen times and I happily tell him again and again about The Small Bow because maybe one of these times it'll stick.

****

In my mind, his dementia has interrupted our reconciliation, erased the possibility for true amends. How can I ever apologize if he's not going to remember it anyway? And how can he apologize and be accountable for who he once was?

There's an article in a Buddhist magazine called Tricycle that I keep returning to called "Beyond Blame" which outlines a solution to my dilemma. It uses an anecdote from a Bruce Springsteen NPR interview where he explains how he's learned to accept his traumatic childhood and forgive his own parents with the "We take the good and leave the rest" approach. The author expands on this concept:

"This was talking about not rejecting one’s parents because they were imperfect, not trying to force them to acknowledge their shortcomings, not rejecting becoming a parent because of what was done to us, not dwelling on the scars one’s parents created, not forcing oneself to pretend that one’s parents were fine when they were not, but simply being able to take what was good while leaving behind what was not."

I love my children immeasurably, in a way that by all accounts should be enough of a motivation for me not to ever want to repeat any of my father's behaviors. I'm considerate of that, though, and that's why I still do all the Al-Anon recovery work required to make sure I can break this cycle–both with them and with my father.

Whatever bad shit he did, he's not responsible for how I drank or used drugs. As much as I'd like to blame all my own asshole behavior on him I know that's not true, at least not now, because the person he used to be isn't around anymore. The memories I'm left with can stay put and his memory can stay the same and we can both leave it. I'm still afraid to speak to him like a compassionate adult, leaving the little kid stuff behind, but I'm working on it.

My parents called a couple nights ago to check in and they wanted to see the new baby. My mother was chatty and effervescent and loving and kind, and my father was soft-spoken and sweet-minded. "Look at that pretty baby," he said. I said goodnight to my mother and my father jumped on again one more time:

"A.J. did you tell me you were writing again some place or did I imagine that?" I told him about The Small Bow again and he lit up.

"Great! Maybe you can send it over to us one time so we can see it. I'd really like to read it."

It was funny because he said that a couple nights ago while I was finishing up this essay.

Maybe this one isn’t the right one to send him. Or maybe it’s the only one he should ever see. – AJD