Tales From the Frontline- The Sins of the Father

My father was a handsome, dynamic man. He was funny, charming, and so incredibly smart, even though he only had a ninth grade education. At 15 he left home and got a job as a welders assistant. He could fix and build anything. Over his life he worked his way up to being one of the top in his field. He was an artist, he could draw, made beautiful wrought iron as a hobby, he played the trumpet and loved to dance. The thing I still remember most when I think of my father, were his hands, they were beautiful and strong, a working man’s hands. Until I was eight years old I always called him my Buddy, not dad or daddy.

When he drank he was dark, cruel, manipulative and psychologically violent. I believe he committed heinous transgressions to members of my family but those are not my stories to tell, I am simply observing my own relationship with him, and how this has shaped me.

His own upbringing was marked by violence and loss. His father was abusive, his mother died when my father was a teen. He left home very young and from what I can remember did not have close relationships with his two younger siblings. I am sure there were many bleak stories he kept buried in his own tortured soul.

My father was gone much of the time for his job, he would be away for weeks at pipeline camps working to provide for us. When he was home my parents would party a lot. I remember often falling asleep to the sounds of drunken revelry, and waking in the morning to find the basement littered with cups, over filled ash trays and empty bottles.

I looked forward to when he’d come home. We’d spend days together out in the garage, building things and sorting tools. He would take me with him on his errands- I found out later that my Mother made him take me with him, in the effort to stop him from drinking. I wonder if she knew how much time I spent in the parking lot of the legion while he went into have just ‘one’.

When I was eight it changed. He was home more, and drinking more. He wasn’t so ‘fun’ anymore. He would disappear for days at a time, when he was home he was angry. They argued a lot. They drank a lot. My Mother tried to keep me sheltered from this. She told me that when his friends were over to always keep myself covered up and stay out of their way. It confused me a little. This was my dad, my Buddy….. It is harder to recall the innocent, happy and good childhood memories. There are vivid and ugly memories that rise to the surface, much easier to recall.

-My father and some of his friends drinking in the kitchen, me doing my best to be invisible to be able to walk through the kitchen. “Hey Deed, come and sit on your old man’s lap.”

“No Dad, it’s ok…”

“I said come and sit on my lap. You don’t want to let my friends think you hate me, do you?” I tried to position myself on his lap, he thought he had covered my ears, but he did not. He says to his friends, “If she sits here too long, I’ll have to weld the legs on the chair, she’s so fat.” I was eight. I was a big kid, but in looking back at pictures I was not morbidly obese, (that came later). I was devastated, I tried to get away but he wouldn’t let me go. I had to yank my wrist out of his hands. I locked my self in my room. My Buddy, my dad had cut me down infront of his friends, and thought it funny.

-The first time my Mother was hospitalized, I was told that it was for a ‘slipped disc’ in her back. Something that was pretty simple to fix and she would be home really soon. When my dad came back from taking her to the hospital, he got drunk. He proceeded to tell me (I was nine), that she was going to die. This was the first time I remember him telling me he was going to commit suicide, and take me with him. I locked myself in the bathroom until he passed out.

-Coming in from playing, my Mom was resting, as she frequently needed too. I went to find my dad instead. He was in the garage, the large door was closed on this warm day, and he only had the work bench lights on. I went in the little side door, as I stepped through, he closed the door behind me. That wa the first time he held his shotgun on me. I maybe was nine or ten at the time. He was drunk, crying, talking about how he believed his father killed his mother. That he was evil, his blood line was tainted. he would do the right thing and take us both out. I have no idea how long we were in there. I remember seeing police outside, my Mother must have called them. I remember trying to stay very calm. I kept telling him I loved him, if he put the gun away I would make him soup in the house. I kept repeating it. It would end with him weeping, and if I waited for the right time, I could walk away. This drama was repeated a few more times over the next couple of years, until my Mother could finally get a restraining order against him and remove him from the house. From that point until my mid-teens my father would alternate between needless legal cruelty against my sisters and I and having me followed and watched.

-My Mother tried to divorce him before she died. She wanted to be able to give my sisters and I more financial independence away from him. He contested so much, to run out the clock. She was unable to obtain a divorce before she died. He kicked us out of the house almost immediately after she died.

-I did not see or directly speak to him from the last six months before my Mother died until I was fifteen. By having his friends follow me, he knew most of my goings on. I got very good at spotting them, and i got very good at hiding in plain sight.

-I tried to be a better daughter and build a relationship with him when I was fifteen. He was, after all, the only parent I had. He had decided to let me have a party in the house where I had grown up. It was a pretty epic party by the standards of the time. Until he showed up drunk. For some reason, I never did find out about, his two front teeth were missing. He proceeded to be the cool dad for pouring shots for my friends, and regaling them with a very convincing tale of how I was the one that had knocked his teeth out. Encouraging my male friends to ‘keep me in line’, because I was awful. This was the nature of our relationship.

The string on the pendulum finally snapped when I was twenty. I had been homeless for a few weeks, some intermittent time on the street but mostly staying with friends where I could. I was pregnant. I wanted to get my life in to a better place. I went to my father as a last resort. He had decided the best thing he could do was to buy a mobile home, I could live in it, pay the bills and some rent. He would live in it with me for the six months out of the year when he was here. I would be on my own, the other six when he went south. It was the best decision in a bleak situation.

I struggled. I had not yet decided what I was doing with the child inside me. I was just twenty, working a minimum wage kitchen job, living in a mobile home. One long, overly warm May day, I was walking up the road from the bus to my trailer. I was feeling more unsettled, tired and I was still not sure on what to do with the child inside me. I looked up toward my my place, on the small front deck, sat my father in his jeans and white teeshirt, drinking a beer, cleaning his hunting gun. I placed my hand on my belly, I made a promise to my baby and to myself that we would not be stuck here, this was not and will not be our lives.

Eight months later I had gotten a much better job, retail at a record store, the money was decent. For once I was dating a really nice guy. Someone kind, quiet and gentle. Someone who seemed to just like being with me. I managed to keep my ‘ugly’ under wraps. I was careful in my words and reactions. It was peaceful, fun, safe, ‘normal.’ A few months into dating, my father was set to return from the south. They were now going to meet for the first time. I begged my father not to drink anything other than beer. (It is amazing to me how certain alcohols create different behaviours. For the most part my father drinking beer was mostly ok. If given rye or whiskey he was evil.) It did not go well. My dad drank whiskey, locked my boyfriend’s bike in the shed and would not give it back when he wanted to leave. I had to steal the keys to the lock, and get him the hell out of there. Subsequent contact rarely went well. If my boyfriend called while I was not home he would be told I was out whoring around. I was trash. Alternately, my boyfriend was also told he was not good enough to date me. And so it went. I was counting the days until my father was leaving for the US.

One night I called my boyfriend from the bar, seeing if he wanted to come and meet me and a few work friends I was with. I was told to go home. I was told that he had stopped by my place earlier to see if I was home, (This was before cel phones) and my father seemed unwell and I should just go home. He whispered into the phone, “He shaved off half of his moustash.”

“What?! What do you mean half?” I was a little drunk, but I could feel a small pit forming in my stomach.

“The left half was just gone. I think you should go home.”

“Oh shit, here we go. My dad does this when he’s about to go off the rails. It’s his warning sign. I’ll call you later.” My monsters started stirring. I had not been good enough or obedient enough daughter. I now had to play saviour. There was also a huge part of me that went numb, as I was also preparing for the end of my relationship. I mean who the hell would want to get involved with this sick dance. As I made my way home I kept thinking of each time this feeling would come. We had not had a full blow out like this in years. I had been mindful of keeping the bathroom and bedroom door locked while he was home and drinking. There had been fights about his drinking. I would regularity call the police to pick him up from driving drunk. This minute was taking me back to the moment, of that feeling of the garage door being closed behind me. He only had half his moustache then too. Being that I was drunk too, was not going to improve current matters.

As soon as I walked into the house I knew exactly what was up. There was not a sound. All the lights were on. The gun was on the counter. An almost empty two-six of whiskey was sitting beside it. My father was sitting at the cheap kitchen table, it had ugly green plastic placemats on the fake white woodgrain. On the table was a full ashtray, my dad’s cigarette rolling machine and tobacco. He was smoking and had a rye in his hand. “I see you stopped whoring around long enough to come home.”

“Hello to you too dad.” I lit a cigarette.

“Your boyfriend stopped by, I told him you were out whoring at the bar. If you don’t keep your legs closed you are going to end up knocked up again.”

I felt dead inside, a dark calm, “I am not doing this anymore. I see what you’re doing, I am not playing this game. You have done this to me since I was a child.”

The fight began to rage from there. The vile that poured from him was harsh. The anger, depression and added aggression of the booze. Something snapped inside me. Years of rage burst out. “How dare you make me do this again. I am your daughter, I am not a whore, I have done everything I could. Suicide threat again? Fuck you! I don’t give a fuck anymore. I will lay out plastic, I will even load the fucking gun. Just do it or shut up about it. But do me a favour, try to not make too much of a mess, I will have to resell.”

“How dare you! You selfish little bitch. You should have never created life. It was supposed to stop at you. We are poison.You don’t care about me. I am your father and you treat me this way. You’re just like your mother. Used me for what she could get. Never acted like a proper wife.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?! Fuck you father (I spit this at him, full of hatred.) You are the reason she died. You killed her. If you had not been so awful she could have lived longer. I know why your other kids hate you. I am done, this is the last time.”

There was much screaming and threats. Slammed doors and broken glass punctuated me walking out. I left that night. I never saw him again. I called him once, about five years later. (9/11), I had started school, I was still with the man I had been dating then. I wanted to tell him I was happy and we were doing well. All he said was that he had no money for me, and he hung up.

Ten years later, at a dinner with an old childhood friend I was informed that my dad had died a few years earlier. The person who told me, said they had no further details, other than they found it odd that none of his kids were listed in the obituary the pipe fitters union published. It did not make me sad. I had lost my father a long time before.

This relationship created many monsters and triggers but it definitely had a hand in the “need” department. I feel that both my parents had pinned hopes of a new and better life on me, that is what I initially represented. I had failed in my job. In the eyes of my father I was nothing better than a whore, who did not make things better, only took from him. I needed to be kept in my place, understand who’s wants and needs came first. I was not worthy of value. I had to keep working harder to be the right person, the perfect daughter, what he needed. An impossible and inappropriate task. I will aim to fix things, take care of and keep the peace to the point that I cost myself my peace of mind, pieces of self.

It also created a rebel streak in me that will burn shit down if you try to tell me what to do. ‘Don’t cut my hair? Buh-bye locks. Think you actually get a say in what I do? Fuck you and fuck no!- Until once in a while I trip up my own monsters, I will rebel, and then probably apologize for doing so.

It also helped to create an ability to read people. A very good ability to negotiate. When I am using these skills wisely, it can be helpful, diplomatic and empathetic. When I am not, I can be manipulative, intense and unlikable.