The Ways That Boys Come to Know Their Fathers
He walked down the steps of his old home, his childhood bedroom in sight, and found himself face to face with a ghost. The ghost would not let him move any further: not towards his bedroom, nor into his wounded memory. So he stood looking — just looking — at the crumpled blossom of nostalgia that sat there on his old bed.
Looking around, there were no remnants of childhood giggles dancing about these halls. No, they had long been stamped over with the hollowed-out tune of a Natty Light cracking open — tssCH; tssCH; tssCH — on the hour. Those glistening lights hung upon each of the evergreen trees that his mother put up every Christmas? His mind had forgotten them, so that it could make room for memorizing the exact angle of the refrigerator light as it beamed into the dark family-room when he would steal out those beers of his dad’s back in the 80s. Enough 24 packs cycled through that old fridge, his old man would never even realize he was missing a few, he figured.
These are the ways that boys come to know their fathers.
Try as he might, contorting his face, he can hardly picture the hand that bought those beers or put food on the table; but he surely can make out that face and its bulldog-wrinkles. Hardened with time and life’s complications, they are clear as day.
He remembered the way his dad’s hunch-back voice always carried heavy gravel with it in a slurred step: a trembling deep timbre, ensuring that any sweet-repressed-nothings would be incomprehensible if they were to one day escape from his mouth in a whisper.
He smiled towards the ground; then, broke towards the ceiling. He always was the best decipherer of this language of a father that seemed like gibberish to the rest of the world. But, he never could quite crack the code; never could solve every problem.
Daring to venture through the bedroom doorway, he let his eyes steal a peek at what lay on the bed. Letters — he counted ten, twenty, all of them — sat in a cardboard box. Each one of their envelopes had been torn open. Had he ever read them?
This son drove six hours round-trip every week for a year to watch a man grow skinny. Each time, he handed a letter off to his strong soldier, withering away.
Maybe next week he’ll mention them. Maybe next week
after we talk about the Caps game, he’ll want to grab Ledo’s. Maybe next week
he’ll be more comfortable talking about Vietnam. Maybe next week,
he’ll tell me the name of his best friend that he lost there. Maybe next week,
he’ll ask about my two daughters, about my happiness now. Next week
he won’t look so bad. Next week,
we’ll talk.
Until we can’t talk anymore.
Until the fog in this forest has lost his voice entirely. Next week
The call came. And the boy broke: heartbreak from an unknown place. Deep feeling forced his legs up from the cracked plastic lawn chair he sat in. On autopilot, he reached for his eldest daughter, and crumbled his face into her shoulder. There they stood for moments, finding some semblance of warmth in this icy concrete garage, all quieted of spirit.
What is left now, but questions? Questions about the last Caps game, and about Vietnam; about friends about children; about happiness? Did he read a single one of those letters? Did feel the chicken-scratched words the same way the tears staining the hospital waiting room seats did? Did he cry any tears too? Or did he tuck them all away into his bulldog wrinkles?
What is left now for a boy to be nostalgic for? What is left now, but hollow nights and a familiar tssCH; tssCH; tssCH on the hour?
© Callie Ingwersen 2020
