The Making of a Boy

Last I remember, I was on the mans porch. I was cleaning up a couple pop cans that my girl and I were using as ash trays before we headed out. I was going to throw them in the garbage outside thinking that the well to do man would not want to have a cigarette butt smell fume across his lovely home in the recycling bin. He stopped me, and offered up a kind lesson on the value of a dollar, being in Michigan where the bottle deposit was 10 cents that adds up over time. It was as if this man was trying to be my father, giving his two cents in on life in a caring and loving manner, it was strange. Truth be told, I had given up on the father son relationship years ago. I would go through the motions well enough, arrive and listen to what was not enough about me and lap it up like a dog finding water in the desert. I would leave feeling miserable, and I can only presume that he got left with a poor excuse for a son to justify his misery, I always took the bait. But today, today this man was different.

I don't know if I was who I was then because of a genuine lack of self confidence or just as a symbolic smack to that mans face. I had already run from life three different times, with circumstances that would drag me back into the vicinity of the father, and a fourth one was in the works. I was an alcoholic with with a wild child girl friend that had no problem manipulating and emasculating me in private or public, in weird retrospect, I probably thought that was what true love was at the time, shown to me by the man himself. I was a man who truely hated himself, and I do not know if I was just reflecting him in some obscure fashion or if I was just plain fucked, but I definitely wore my scars on the outside.

Yes, today was different, I do not remember what was said after the fatherly guidance on pop cans and money. I know we were saying goodbye, he might have mentioned something about love, I don't know, the emotions of this situation were too shaky. I was shaky being an alcoholic, he was shaky with emotion that he has never tried to convey to me in his life, and I was not receptive because this man was the man who taught me that all the heavier emotions were wrong, that you bury them, bury them deep, even love. I would not accept the change in this mans demeanor. He went in for the hug anyway, the bravest I ever saw him, he was trembling down to the bones, scared, we were two feral children hugging.

All I know is, that I left that day, and shortly after I went on my fourth escapade of running away from myself. The girl and I were headed west, where we could be free. The $300 van ended up crapping out on us in Alberquerque NM. We ended up staying with a lady about 10 years older than us, who was fighting her own demons, her own father, her own addictions, that I could not see were mine. I told no one where I was, I did not want to exist on that plane anymore. But one day, that day, the phone rang and it was for me. Before I even put the phone to me ear, I was balling, something told me on the end of that line, was the mans demise. News, the news that my father had did the deed, the deed that I could not do for him. He took his own life. He dragged me back one last time.

I bought a farm house, close to home. It was cheap, it was old, it was empty and cold, it was falling apart. Of course it seemed perfect, because that is exactly how I felt on the inside. Isolated, in the middle of nowhere, I wrestled with that man, trying to drink him under the table, trying to take him to the brink so maybe the one inside would give up as well. This was to no avail. I made the Father darker, I made him more powerful then he ever was alive. Father cleaned me up on the outside, but Father still rode me with a heavy stick on the inside. I started to walk the path of the father, diligently robotically, taking on challenge that I did not even want to accomplish and shelving any real dreams, for I was not good enough for them. Taking on the robotic worlds dream of what "happiness" was. I walked it, I graduated from university with an engineering degree. I have made it to a place that is socially acceptable in my fathers eyes, I buried the seed, and I felt horrible.

That day, during the awkward hug that I am sure was felt around the world, I killed my father as he was giving me the last and best fatherly advice he ever gave me. During the tremors between the father and son embracing a message was sent, a message that is only being received now, he told me to "let him go".

I have begun honoring this final message from my father, it hurts, it's scary, but I am finally becoming a real live boy. And for this, I owe him my life. Thanks Dad. I will always love you. Goodbye.