The smell of black shoe polish gets me every time. Or the sight of a man in
uniform, BDU’s tucked into shining black boots, crew-cut and clean shaven,
proud to be serving their country and their President. I can remember once,
he and my mother zipped into his flight suit, just to see if they could.
And then, it seemed two weeks later, we were flying home and he was staying
in Germany. He stayed two more years, until the Army sent him home. But
things would never be the same.
Maybe it had been to long, he had missed too much. Maybe too many
substances had cleared his brain of his love for us. Maybe the thought of
my mother remarrying, of his children having a new family was too much.
Maybe he felt inadequate. Maybe he was inadequate. I never knew, because
he wasn’t ever around. He never talked about it when he was. Calls from my
grandparents instead, “maybe your dad will be there” and he never was. He
couldn’t make it, he didn’t have time, he had to work, or no word at all,
just a palpable absence.
No one to pick fights at dinner. No embarrassing, awkward silences where
the only thing he could think to say was how beautiful my brother and I had
gotten. No one to make me feel like home either. Alcohol and cigarettes
overpowering my memories of cologne and coffee that would always remind me
of my childhood. My adolescent anger associating him with negatives,
overwhelming what I loved. A deep-tissue bruise forming, growing, invisible
to the eye but tender to the touch. His signature giving me away at 16.
What right did he have to me anyway? Adding a new name to myself, yet still
incomplete.
When you stop needing something, you’ll get it. When you stop looking for
what is lost, you find it’s right under your nose. You’ll always manage to
get exactly what you no longer want. And he suddenly wanted me again.
Seeing him now at Christmas, New Years, Labor Day, Father’s Day, birthdays.
Hearing his voice on the phone, knowing he had somehow changed. Was it
because we no longer depended on him? That he was now absolved of
responsibility, so he could let himself be close?
New balancing of the odors of tequila and smoke and his cologne and tanned
skin. Does the short hair make him more like my Dad? Through rebelling
against all the Army wouldn’t let him do. Has he kicked the drugs? He
wasn’t there when I was born, he was training to be a soldier, to support
his family on barely a high-school diploma. He wasn’t there when I grew up,
he was testing the other end of the spectrum. What does it mean if I still
try to spite him by cutting my own hair? He grasps me tightly as I leave,
telling me he’s thought about me everyday, and that he’s proud of his
beautiful, accomplished daughter. Finally, being proud of me for more than
being an exemplary combination of genes, his and hers. Knowing what to say,
not just filling the time with amazement.
Turning 21 and being inside my father’s house for the first time in 10
years. Seeing our similarities as I see him in the kitchen, his kitchen,
his world. So many years spent on neutral ground, my grandparents, or a
quick visit to drop off Christmas presents. He loves to be in control, to
be in charge, to have them listening to him. Flashes of the father I knew
when I loved him. Flashes of myself being enamored of the power. On the
mantle, for all to see, and finally for me to understand, the photo of a
three year old with brown curls, before her brother or her first day or
school, or her parents divorce or her realization of her self, with blue
footie pajamas smudged with shoe polish. Beaming with pride because she has
helped make those boots gleam. Shiny, new and clean, though they have been
scratched and scuffed, hurt and worn, they are going out proudly to face the
world again.