Note: This is from 2012. I’m putting it up now, today, December 5th 2020, because this morning, my dad, after a long and strong run, died. This one is for you, Dad. My gratitude for being your son is as big as any sun.
The night won’t let me sleep. It loads my head with memories and regrets and deadlines. “The projector,” it says. “Did you remember to check it out for the presentation?” It flashes pictures of sunny days at the lake and my sons eating cereal and pretty girls in bikinis. It reminds me of my father’s email, and the word dementia that floated alone on the blue screen like a mean island.
I glance at the clock. It’s 3:30 AM. I wish I could forget deadlines and that email. I wish the night would release me into sleep’s kind oblivion.
***
At dawn, I wake up to feet in my face. Sometime in the night the three-year-old has wedged himself into the bed and ended upside down with his toes on my pillow an inch or two from my nose.
I’d like to tell you that this has never happened before. I’d like to tell you that my days don’t ever start with feet in my face, but the truth is, this is the second time just this week.
I move him, which makes the boy awaken and giggle and accidently kick me in the chin.
“I’m hungry, Dada,” he says in the dark.
“Uh,” I grunt.
“Can I have ice cream?”
“For breakfast? No. Absolutely not.”
“Can I have a popsicle?”
I slide out of bed and somehow step on the cat who howls and hisses as I shuffle blurry eyed and smokey headed to the bathroom. I turn on the light and notice that the cat, the dog, and the three-year-old have followed me in. The cat purrs and then meows. The dog stands and pants. My son hugs my leg.
I sigh. This grinning toddler. These needy pets. This.
“Good morning, little dude,” I say.
***
It’s 7:15 now, and we’re running late. I’m in the bathroom directing the 7-year-old and 3-year-old to wash faces and scrub teeth.
“Brush,” I say.
“Dad, when I run too hard,” the 7-year-old says and gazes at his toothbrush, “I used to get snot in my mouth.”
“You got what?” The 3-year-old hops on one leg, antifreeze green toothpaste oozing down his chin.
“I’m serious, Dad. In here.” He opens his mouth and points.
“I see. But you don’t get snot in your mouth anymore?”
“No, Dad. Not anymore. And boy am I ever glad.”
I sigh and maybe smile a little. These boys. This time. This.
“Brush,” I say.
***
This isn’t now. This is then, almost five years ago, a thick September dusk, the sky pink and purple, my father and I sitting on the deck drinking Lone Star longnecks.
“Your dad forgets things, fine old boy,” he says.
“We all do, Dad.”
“This is different, old boy, and I don’t–I really do not–want to become a burden.”
“You’re not, Dad,” I say, and he isn’t, but the truth is, what I can still barely even type, is that I understand then, that warm night, that precise instant, that my father is dying. I don’t know that it’s dementia then, but I know that something is vacating his memories. I know that the poems he memorized and the cities he visited and the people he loved and didn’t love are leaving. They have someplace else to be, I tell myself, even though I know it doesn’t work that way.
“What’s this show, old boy?” he asks as we sit in the living room.
“30 Rock, Dad.”
“30 Rock? Never heard of it.”
We’ve watched the better part of a season together, but I don’t correct him. Why would I? What good would it do?
***
This is farther back, 30 years probably. It’s July, and I’m six or maybe seven, and I’ve pulled a Miller High Life from the crisper and carried it to my father who is mowing our yard.
He grins and turns off the rattling machine.
We sit in the shade of a pine tree, my father taking full swigs, the two of us talking. What did we talk about? I wonder now. My dad hummed sometimes as we sat. I remember that. I remember that he always made the time to sit with the skinny and strange kid that was me. That’s one I carry around with me, too.
***
This isn’t now, but it’s recent, a bright and blue early spring day. My wife, my boys, and I are lined up at the start of a mile-long race for charity, and at least a hundred kids and adults stand around us with numbers pinned to their shirts.
“You go with number one, and I’ll walk with the feral toddler,” my wife says, pointing to our three-year-old, who is hopping on one leg.
To the seven-year-old I say, “Just go as fast as you want. I’ll keep up.”
The race starts, and I take off at medium intensity while the seven-year-old shoots ahead.
Before I know it, he’s a hundred yards ahead of me, in the front pack, a head shorter than any of the other runners bobbing up and down on the pavement. I maintain my pace. The boy is going out too hard, I tell myself. He’s going to blow up.
But as the minutes pass, he doesn’t. The seven-year-old is smoking the course. I push myself harder. If I’m going to catch up with him, I have to.
And then it comes to me: I’m not going to. My son is going to beat me today, and I laugh at the thought of it, running hard in white sunlight, my legs burning with lactic acid, my heart maxed out.
I’m overwhelmed as I watch that thin and determined boy run so well. I laugh and laugh. People look at me sideways as I gun past them and cackle and gasp like a lunatic and try to close the gap. Dig deep, boy, I keep thinking. Give it your all.
And he does. He crosses the line among the first runners.
“Great race,” I tell him after I wheeze and grin and finish. “How’d you run that fast?”
“Dad, I only came in like 7th place.”
“Okay, sure, but did you see those other runners? They’re all older than you. You’re crazy fast, and I’m proud. I’m always proud of you.”
A few minutes later my wife and three-year-old finish.
“The feral toddler ran the whole way,” she informs me.
“I got a medal, Dadda,” the three-year-old exclaims, beaming, jumping up and down again. I’m proud of him, too. He’s going to blast past me one of these days, just like his older brother. Maybe that’s supposed to upset me. Maybe it’s supposed to remind me that I’m getting older, that I’m slowly sliding towards my own ending. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t bring me down at all. I want my boys to be bigger, smarter, tougher, better. I want them to get the beautiful girl. I want them to win at everything.
***
This is now, today, a hazy Tuesday in August, and my father, my mother, my boys, and I are at Schlitterbahn, an enormous water park with long lines and thousands of sunburned visitors and the biggest slides I’ve ever seen.
In the afternoon, the seven-year-old who is now the eight-year-old floats away from me on a tube ride and for 10 or 15 minutes I lose him. I scan the water and swim through crowds, pissed off as much as worried. What if he goes under, I think? What if some asshole messes with him?
That same afternoon my father wanders off and gets lost. I go after him and I’m irked and almost nervous as I try to retrace his steps. It’s only later that the guilt bubbles to the surface. I won’t have many afternoons like this, I realize then. And it’s only later that I see that my father and I are switching roles, me becoming the responsible one, me making decisions, me knowing the way home.
***
The night has me again. It replays the email from my dad, and I push it out. I don’t want to linger there. Not yet anyway. My head slides ahead and slips back and time shimmers and blinks.
I remember:
My dad running behind me on my first bike in the yard, telling me to pedal, fine old boy, pedal.
Canoeing on a green Ozark river, my mom in the front, my dad steering in the back, me in between.
I remember:
The status update to my boss I forgot to send. Kicking the soccer ball with my boys at the park. Property taxes.
I remember:
My dad telling me he’s proud of me. That he’s always proud.
We carry on, it strikes me, the night as still and black as winter. My father’s straight hair. His words. My words. His love. Mine.
But we die, too.
And maybe it’s okay anyway.
Bad Chemicals 