A Tapless Shoulder (33 page)

I couldn’t
stand still any longer and turned straight into someone walking by.
I apologized, and then cursed quietly at the ground. I felt an itch
shuttling back and forth in my legs. I thought I was going to have
to sprint far from that spot and them to get rid of it. I stopped
myself to see if there were words in my head that maybe my movement
had kept from settling. There was nothing, just images like flash
cards; strangers, tiled floor, mannequins, Katie, Dad, Nate,
Candy’s boobs.

I ran my hand
down my forehead and attempted to pull my eyebrows together, “I
don’t know what to say,” I said in the process. “I just, like, holy
shit, Dad, of course I would love nothing more than to sleep in,
hell,”

“
You’d love
to sleep in hell?” I heard Nate ask from somewhere behind
me.

It was either
find someone to step on so I could kick Nate in the face or ignore
him. I chose the latter and continued. , “
I would love
to
hang out with you, drink beer and watch hockey, look at Candy
–
I love you,
Katie
… maybe I’d figure out
why Nate is a big fucking…” I drew a deep breath and exhaled. “Dad,
I’m really very sorry I haven’t been there more for you. Katie, I’m
very sorry I’ve been so impatient and explosive. Nate…” I sighed.
“Candy, I’m sorry too, you know that, and I’m glad we talked today
too. Dad… I don’t know; I feel like I’m faltering at every step.
I’ve been trying to hold it all in as if there’ll be a better time
to let it all out. Now I don’t know if anyone’s happy or if that
time will ever come.”

My dad was
looking at me like I had thrown a bunch of spatulas in the air and
yelled rice. Everyone else stood solemnly by, their mouths tightly
shut, except Nate; his was wide open. I didn’t know what else to
say so I didn’t say anything. It was someone else’s
turn.

“
I know,” my dad said calmly, and on cue, “I’m very proud of
you. You have no idea how much I want everything to work out so
damn wonderfully for Katie, you, and those beautiful boys of yours.
It will too, you’ll see. We’re right here, aren’t we? And I’m very
sorry you think I’m not happy. I’m getting there, and you would
know that if you would talk to me about it. How do you think I can
feel better about anything when you look at me expecting me not to
be? I feel like I might let you down if I were ever to say to you
that I felt
good
or, even worse, that I felt great.
Listen, I love you, but you’re smarter than this. That’s why I
wanted to give the ground you walk on
some jump
,” he
did a weird thing with his hands, signifying the ground jumping,
maybe. It looked ridiculous and made me laugh.

He was silent
now and mirrored my stillness the way only a father could. I
watched him without saying anything more and enjoyed the silence. I
took a deep breath, one noticeable to both of us. “The worst part
of all this,” I said calmly, “is that I’m going to
be you
; you’re like an ancient version of me, aren’t you? I
really don’t want to be in this place with my kids one day.
Well,
I’m sure I’ll take them
shopping
, but, you know what
I mean, don’t you, old me? What am I saying – of course you do.” He
and I both laughed, everyone else shook their heads. I wanted to
point at them and keep laughing.

My dad stood
at my side with his hand on my shoulder; apparently that
was
how we hugged. He was smiling like it was everyone’s
birthday. I really liked that. I had spent a lot of my life looking
at that smile; sharing it, greeting it, wrecking it, making
it.

It struck me
how much I wished my mom was standing beside him then, too. I felt
like I could almost see her, like at any moment she would step
forward and they would be standing together again, just like my
best memory of them. His eyes seemed to say he knew this, maybe
they were trying to say she was. He took his hand back when I
turned to speak, “Every time I think of her I have something else
to say to her.” The words surprised even me. “I feel like, in my
head,” I continued, figuring if the words were there I must have
had a point, “I’m always trying to piece her together from memory.
It just – I always feel so guilty that she’s not just
there
. But it’s like I have to do that or have
nothing.”

“
Oh son,” he said, something he’d never done, “it has taken
me a long time to realize the only way to live without her is to
live as best as I can. Standing still and staring behind us isn’t
going to put her beside us. If we want her with us we need to move
forward. It’s only fair to us, everyone around us, and her… and
that’s where she will find us. She deserves the beauty found in
life, not memory. And she doesn’t want to see us miserable; she
wants to see us at our happiest.” He paused and looked at me
curiously. “Do you know what I mean?” Whenever I asked that same
question it was just something to say. It was such a good question
when he asked it now. I nodded; I did know. “I can finally happily
welcome the little things that remind me of your mother, rather
than be upset by them,” he added with an expression that pierced me
deeply, “I miss her very much, but in no way is she missing from my
life. She was an experience in our lives, for a very long time,
that doesn’t stop being a part of us; she’s in everything we do.
You have to get past guilt, that’s not fair to yourself. What does
memory have to do with this moment now? Memory is just a
sentimental destiny for time.” He smirked, knowing I’d have liked
that, and then he continued, “You’ll always end up feeling guilty
because no matter what you remember; it’ll never be enough and that
failure will just keep hurting.” As he continued, I wondered how
long he’d been preparing to tell me all this. “Remembering doesn’t
do anyone
or anything
justice. Your mother, God bless her,
is watching over you and no matter how we remember her; she’s going
to think we’re doing it wrong.” We all laughed and held onto that
warm moment, and held her there with us too. He winked at me.
“We’ll be reminded of her best by living our lives as well as we’re
able to, you’ll see.” He smiled at me bravely.

I looked at
Katie, even she was amazed at the statements coming from the man
who we had, more than once, heard say, hey watch how fast I can
drink this. Without looking at me, she asked, “So I take it you got
your penchant for writing from your dad?”

I hadn’t
thought of it before. “I guess,” I answered, “I mean, I knew I got
my
penmanship
from him, well: from him when he was
a child.”

She nodded in
agreement. She had seen it. My dad chuckled gently; acting like it
wasn’t out of character at all for him. “Usually the best advice
you can give someone is just saying out loud what they already
know.”

“
Okay, now
you’re just showing off,” I said and attempted a chuckle of my
own.

Something was
pulling at me, something seemingly cerebral and from just outside
the edge of reason. I looked at Nate, thinking it was maybe him. He
smiled at me, and seemed like a different person – they all did. I
wondered what new illness this would turn out to be. I smiled at
Katie as warmly as I could. She was wiping tears from her
cheeks.

My dad leaned
into my line of sight, “We all have to actually
live
in
order to remember your beautiful mother, and not only live, but
live life right in order to remember her right. Life was meant to
have purpose, and that can’t disappear because someone in our life
happens to
physically
.”

I’d never
heard him speak so clearly. Maybe I’d never needed to listen so
badly. It amazed me. “How can you be the madman that you’ve
been
and
this brilliant, here and now, like, I don’t… I
think… I know… you’re right,” I confided in him quietly.

He smiled. I
tried to smile back, but my watery eyes got in the way. I wiped at
them but they got so much worse. I tried again to speak and again
couldn’t; my chest buckled against the effort. I was choking with
sobs and had stupid broken eyes.

“
You’ve so
much sense in you, so much compassion and, most importantly, you
have your mother’s heart.”

“
I don’t…
have… her heart… I have… all… her damn… tears.”

He smiled,
“Yeah,” he agreed, “but, hey,” he said softly, having remembered
something, “what did you tell Ding Ding when she died?”

My body still
wanted to shudder when I inhaled deeply, but slowly I grew quiet
and calm. I looked at him pensively; his face was patient and
reassuring. “That she was gone, gone into the universe.” Each word
I let go struggled in the silence and I wanted immediately to
retrieve it. I looked at my dad, then Katie, and then back at my
dad. I remembered telling Ding Ding that, and then how much harder
it was to explain to him that she wasn’t coming back, that she was
gone forever. I felt Katie’s hand against my back. Nate and Candy
were smiling at me, proudly, and I didn’t know if I knew why. It
felt like the very thread of attention that ran from them to me was
holding me up, and had I blinked I’d have surely gone over. I
wasn’t sure if it was effort or courage I needed to turn my head
from them to face my dad again, but once I did, everything in me
seemed to change, like so many loose lids had just been
tightened.

There was
something alive and at work in his eyes as he spoke, “And what
did
he
say about that; about her being gone into the
universe?”

“
That she was
magical,” I said each word very carefully, like anyone of them
could have fallen apart had they been too close to
another.

“
I think it’s in you; you just have to gather it again and
keep it in mind. Listen to me, eh, maybe I should do some writing
of my own,” he gave me a gentle poke in the shoulder. “I think then
you need to keep that in mind, and put what you want to say into
your actions; actions that go back into the world, actions that
give way to the magic in life. We need to maintain our dignity in
the unknown. Don’t you want to walk proudly, fearlessly, through a
world like that? God, we seem to be so sure about so many things,
but every certainty we have narrows our vision. We’re too quick to
throw possibility away. You need to let it be wide open. I remember
when it was wide open.” There was an excitement in his voice that
sent me somewhere memorable and brought me back before I could
recognize it. I felt nearly dizzy, but not in a bad way and was
calm given the circumstances. My head even felt like less of a
mess. It was like confusion finally said,
Fuck it, I am totally filing this stuff.
Just like that, it was done and
there was some sort of order again.

I shook my
head. I wanted to laugh about everything, but just didn’t have it
in me yet. I knew I’d have the strength and energy another time and
would make up for it then. “God, we’re all so stupid drunk, eh,” I
said, and suddenly found I had it in me to laugh quite
loudly.

My chest
tightened. My eyes were filled with tears again, and before I even
knew something was wrong I began to cry like it was the best thing
to do at that moment. Things were crumbling inside me and I was
happy to let them. It felt good to let them. My dad was smiling at
me with such a warm, knowing look. I shook my head. I thought he
might be crazy. I feared maybe I was, but I let it drop away like
the thought hadn’t been mine to begin with. The voice in my head
began stuttering but I didn’t let it continue. My inner dialogue
always had me retreating, talking my life away from the moment,
distracting me, but I was tired of retreating, I was tired of the
circles, I wanted to finally face this. I needed to. I wanted
to
be
myself
. I had to finally let
myself be sad just so I could realize how happy I was. I could feel
it in my heart. I had been walking this emotional edge for too
long, diving in on both sides. I was hugging my dad before I even
knew I wanted to, and he hugged me tightly back. It was there now:
the best thing for me, something I understood without having the
right words.

“
So you realize what that sounds like: telling me lies to
get me to believe in magic?” I asked. Right away my dad began
motioning for me to
do
something
, I wasn’t sure. He looked to be fanning his throat,
but I didn’t understand his drunken charades. “Kill the engine,
kill you? Kill everyone? I don’t, what does that…
just speak with your
face
.” I looked at Katie; she
shrugged. I was about to ask Nate, but then Candy’s face said it
all. Something was very wrong and it was with her. I only knew I
was puzzled and missing pieces.

She looked
angry, and before I could say anything more, she said very sharply,
“No, go on, say it, you were going to say something:
something about
God
.”

“
Whoa,” I said somewhat mystified by the explosion that was
trying to consume me, “
easy
, okay; use
your
female
voice; I was talking about
Santa
. You have no idea the lengths this man,” I pointed to my
dad, “and my mom went to trying to convince me Santa was real. One
year they stuck a piece of red fabric to the corner of the
fireplace to make it look like the big guy got caught on it, which
I was instead devastated over, I mean, all I saw was that he’d
wrecked his magic suit
at our
house
. Then, I think it might
have been the next year, we went out by the airport at night where
one of my dad’s friends flew a loop in his airplane on cue, and it
had a dotted line of red lights along it. They told me it was Santa
in his sleigh. Man, I remember getting in so much trouble because I
yelled ‘Holy shit.’” On remembering that, I laughed and shook my
head. “I didn’t really know what it meant but I knew when to use
it.”