Everything about my car was maniacally unsatisfying to him. My father and mother had recently separated. Their marriage was like the big bang. Not meant to last longer than an instance. The first sixteen years of my life had been a 51 minute short film at some offbeat film festival. The usher was now blinding me with his unnecessary and I’m sure, empowering, flashlight, pushing me out into what is now existence.
Whenever I visited my dad, I would pick him up in my broken-down Toyota with the chipped red paint and the seat belts that pulled themselves on. When I slammed the door, the seat belts would not simply beep; they would choke themselves onto you. As if my mother’s voice could be heard through the crappy stereo system saying, “Drive safely dear.” The passenger side would jam as if to say aggressively, “Do whatever you want Howard.” My father’s mustache twitched as if not only conscious of this presence, but dependent on this hateful relationship. What were they if not only defined by what they weren’t? The car was borrowed from my mother, with remnants of her, the sierra club sticker on the rear window. And the shoes I drove with were my father’s old sneakers, but you’d be crazy not to believe that I was the one driving. This was mine.
When I got home, I reveled in the awkward silence my mother couldn’t help but create. For the first few weeks since their separation, my mother would ask 6-10 motherly questions, all with the form of “how was it?”, but reworded slightly. At a certain point, both of us got tired of the charade. Visits to my father are starting to feel more and more like infidelity.
The routine became simple.
Come home.
Shower.
Don’t discuss it.
Move on.
“Can I be excused?” was a phrase I had become increasingly comfortable with. Excusing myself from their fights, from the silence, from everything. The answer I received had not changed since the introduction of that fine selection of words into my life. They would both pause, nearly choking one another, and say the same thing. “Of course dear.” With that same fake look of concern they had rehearsed so many times for one another.
I lit a cigarette in bed. My mother hated it when I smoked in the apartment. I watched the end of the cigarette glow red and fiery. I took a puff and exhaled it. The smoke ascended to the yellow stained ceiling. The smoke caressed the silhouettes and shapes the water damage created. The kind of fantasy kids would get from watching clouds, I would get from water stains. Charming.
The shapes and forms melted off my hand effortlessly. It was as if there was a way for me. As if my hands didn’t spend the whole day “ring-ing up” customers. I hate that phrase. With that cigarette held between my middle and index finger, it was as if I’d never done anything else. My little piece of happiness stuck between the most offensive and most significant fingers on my hand; my middle finger, and my ring finger. What I said and who I belonged to. Imagine that. Lying there, watching the smoke move, I’d never felt more real.
“Will you stop smoking inside? I’m god damn sick of the smell!” Once again. Saved by the freaking bell. I smudged my cigarette in a “Jesus Loves Me” ash tray I made out of cheap shop rite brand clay in the fourth grade. I was so young and stupid. Jesus loves me. Bullshit. I turned out the light and lay in the dark.
