Painless (41 page)

I hugged him back, but after a second, I said, “All right, Dad. I think you’re going to break something.” He seemed even stronger than when he’d hugged me in court at my trial. And he looked even healthier.

He released me, “Are you getting soft on me?”

“Yeah, as if,” I quipped. “But I think you’ve been hitting the weights again. Am I right?”

“I have,” he smiled.

Man, I don’t think I’d seen my dad this happy since before my mom left. But something told me this was all an act and the second we walked inside the dungeon, the truth would come out.

“Samantha!” my dad said. “So good to see you again!” My dad went in for a hug, but I think he saw that Samantha was a little overwhelmed, so he patted her gently on the shoulder. “Come inside, you two. Can I get you something to drink?”

I almost said, “Something without alcohol?” but I bit my tongue. Since I was old enough to know better, my dad’s drinking had driven me nuts. I’d always given him shit about it in the past. Who was the asshole now?
 

“Sure,” Samantha said. “I’m pretty thirsty.”

We walked into the huge entry hall with the big spiral staircase. The chandelier overhead was the size of the Eiffel Tower if it were made of crystal and hanging from my dad’s ceiling. Everything in the room was so damn bright and white.

What happened to the dungeon?

We walked down a marble hallway to the big kitchen. It was clean too. No booze bottles anywhere. My dad opened the Sub Zero. No bottles of vodka. Just bottled water, fruit juice, and milk.

“What can I get you two?” Dad asked.

“I’ll take a water,” Samantha smiled.

“What she’s having,” I said.

My dad uncapped the waters and poured them into clean glasses from the cupboard.

“Dad,” I asked, “what did you do, dip this place in a bottle of bleach?”

He chuckled as he poured the second water. “No, that much bleach would’ve burned a hole in the ozone layer,” he chuckled. “I’ve got a maid coming in five days a week. She’s got elbow grease to spare.”

“Five days a week?” Samantha marveled. “How much are you paying her?”

My dad frowned but smiled. “You really want to know?”

“Err, I mean,” Samantha stammered, “I need to find a job. I used to work at a convenience store but that didn’t work out.”

“A convenience store?” my dad gawked. “That sounds terrible.”

“It was,” Samantha groaned. “But maybe being a maid would be better. I wouldn’t have jerky customers coming in all day long. Anyway, I just wondered what a maid gets paid.”

“I pay the maid well. I hired her from an agency. I can give you their number and put in a good word for you. Maybe they can find you some work.”

“Really?”

“Sure. But I imagine most maids work during the day,” Dad said. “Don’t you have classes at SDU?”

“Yeah,” Samantha sighed.

“Well maybe the agency has some of those maids who clean office buildings at night. I’ll look into it.”

“Could you?” Samantha asked hopefully.

“Definitely,” he said. “Hey, I’ve got something I want you to see, son.”

“I’m all eyes,” I quipped.

My dad smirked at me and nodded. “Funny. You know, Samantha, this boy of mine is quite the character.”

“You’re telling me,” she smiled as we walked through the house.

He had so many rooms and hallways it was like walking through a museum. For the first time in years, there were paintings everywhere hanging from all the walls.

“Man,” I said, “there’s a shitload of paintings in here. It’s starting to look like the Sistine Chapel.”

“Is this all your art, Mr. Manos?” Samantha asked.

“Call me Nikolos,” Dad smiled. “Some of the paintings are mine, others are from fellow artists. I always like to trade paintings with artists I respect.”

Sam joked sarcastically, “Is that why I don’t see any of Christos’ paintings?”
 

“Whoa!” Dad laughed, “she has a tongue, doesn’t she!”

I sort of expected that to rub me the wrong way, but Samantha said it with such affection, it was obvious she didn’t mean it harshly. And my dad had no idea what I’d been going through lately. At least I hadn’t told him. Maybe my grandad had? It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to bring it up.

“So what did you want to show us?” I asked.

“In here,” Dad said as we entered a huge room at the back of the house.

Light poured in from outside. The room was walled in by glass. It was white and clean and inviting. Things were organized, unlike the constant mess he’d worked in back in the day when he was doing abstract, even before the drinking had started. In those days, the studio had been messy but exciting and flamboyant. The perfect setting for an “Artiste’s Studio.”
 

This studio was calm and thoughtful. No raucous bullshit. All the painting supplies were racked and organized. Canvases were lined up in neat rows. Any supplies not in use were neatly arranged or put away in drawers. Yet it had this inviting feeling, like I wanted to dive in and start painting right here myself. It was the perfect balance halfway between a disaster area and an antiseptic surgical theater.

I noticed dozens of glass bottles containing dry pigment of every color in the rainbow resting along a counter top. “Are you mixing your own oils?” I marveled. Nobody mixed their own paint. It was such a pain in the ass. I ordered mine online.

“Yeah,” Dad answered. “I got tired of having to reorder everything. Besides, it connects me to the work more if I mix the paint from scratch myself. The old masters like Rembrandt had to make their own paint. Why shouldn’t I? Anyway, it’s my own personal protest against all the modernization in the world. Everything is too detached nowadays. I know a guy who gets his ultramarine pigment straight from the lapis lazuli mines in Afghanistan. That guy has some hair raising stories about buying pigment, let me tell you.”

“I can’t even imagine,” Samantha said. She looked like a kid at a campfire listening to mythical tales about gods and monsters.

Dad continued, “I’m thinking about flying over with him to Afghanistan the next time he goes, just to see the mines and thank the guys who are breaking their backs digging up rocks so I can paint in a cush studio.”

“Warn me in advance if you do,” I said. “I’ll come with you.”

“You’d go to Afghanistan?” Samantha asked in disbelief. “Isn’t that super dangerous?”

“Imagine the stories you’d bring back,” I said.

My dad said, “Samantha, you should come with us.”

“Oh, I couldn’t afford it,” Samantha said, “Besides, I’ve never done anything like that. I don’t know if I could, even if I had the money.”

“Sure you could,” my dad said.

I winked at Samantha, “Now you know where I get my sense of adventure,
agápi mou
.”

“That’s an understatement,” she chuckled.

I glanced around the studio, feeling like a kid in a candy store. That was when I noticed the paintings on all the easels were portraits. My dad hadn’t painted portraits since before I was born.

I walked over to one of the easels. “Holy shit. This is grandad.”

“Yeah,” my dad said. “He’s been sitting for me the last several weekends.”

“This is where grandad has been coming?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

The painting was amazing.

Samantha walked over to look at it. “Oh my god, that’s Spiridon!” She reached out to touch the painting. “I mean, that’s him! It looks like he’s standing behind the picture frame.”

She wasn’t kidding. I’d always known my dad was fucking unreal when it came to painting realism. I got all choked up. Who had stolen my alcoholic dad and replaced him with the heroic guy standing beside me?

If my mom could only see him now. She’d flip. This version of my dad was the man she’d married, not the one she’d left.

I asked, “Do you guys mind if I use the bathroom?”

“You remember where it is?” my dad said.

“Considering there’s like, what eight?” I said.

“Ten,” dad chuckled.

“Ten,” I nodded, “I’m sure I’ll find one or two before I piss myself.”

Samantha and my dad laughed and continued talking as I walked out of the room. The second I turned the corner, tears were dripping down my face.

Mom
.

I missed my mom like fucking crazy.

She never would’ve left the man standing twenty feet behind me and split our family apart.

I wept silently as I made my way to the closest guest bathroom. I locked the door behind me, put the lid down on the toilet seat, and dropped on top so I could bawl silent tears as I clenched the sides of my head in agony.

Sadness tore me apart.

Mom
.

I missed her so much.

Why couldn’t she have stayed?

I hitched and sobbed in silence for another twenty minutes.

===

“Did you fall in?” my dad asked me as I returned from the bathroom.

“Almost,” I joked liked I was kick back happy. “If it wasn’t for the rescue crew that lowered the rope ladder down from the helicopter, I would’ve been a goner.”

My dad chuckled.

“I thought maybe you were constipated,” Samantha blurted, then clapped a hand over her mouth.

“I like this girl,” Nikolos grinned.

“Me too,” I said to him. “She cuts straight to the point. But yeah,” I said sarcastically, “after the rescue crew pulled me out, they got the guys with the oil drilling rig to bore down into my ass until the turd came out. I had my butt cheeks up in the air when the thing blew. You should’ve seen it. Brown rain.”

“That is foul,” Samantha grimaced and stuck her tongue out.

“Hey,” I chuckled, “you brought up the constipation.”

“And you ran with it across the finish line,” she smiled.

“If these jokes get any dirtier,” my dad laughed, “I’m going to have to go get my hip waders. I’m already up to my knees in shit jokes.”

Samantha cackled with laughter.

We spent the next two hours in the studio trading jokes like old pals and talking art. I could tell Samantha was having a blast.

“Anybody want dinner?” my dad suggested as the sun was going down for its nightly nap.

“What’s on the menu at Chateaux Manos?” Samantha joked, making the S in Manos silent, like it was French.

“We’re going out,” Dad said.

“What, is it the chef’s night off?” Samantha said sarcastically. She was totally comfortable with my Dad after only a few hours.

“It is,” he said. “I
could
stir something up in the kitchen, but I was thinking of going out.”

“I hope you have someplace fancy in mind,” Samantha said.

“I was thinking ‘berto’s,” Dad said.

“As in Roberto’s?” Samantha said.

“Of course as in Roberto’s,” he laughed. “What other ‘berto’s could I mean?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “Alberto’s or maybe Rigoberto’s, or Tio Alberto’s or Filiburto’s?”

“Wow,” I chuckled, “you’re really turning into a local San Diegan,
agápi mou
.”

She nodded proudly.

“That’s all well and good,” Dad said, “but we all know Roberto’s is still the best.”

We climbed into my Camaro and I drove the three of us to the Roberto’s in Encinitas.

My dad ordered for everyone while Samantha and I grabbed the salsa bottles and napkins and found a table outside.

“Okay,” Samantha said, “your dad is like totally awesome.” She was grinning from ear to ear. “Why have you been hiding him from me all this time?”

After spending several hours with my dad, seeing the studio, and touring his house, it had become clear it wasn’t an act. He’d literally transformed himself since my last visit. “This is the new and improved Nikolos Manos. Remember I told you about his drinking?”

“Yeah?”

“He is a changed man. I haven’t seen him like this since years ago.”

“Well, he’s awesome now, that’s for sure.”

“True that,” I smiled.

“How awesome is it that he’s like a billionaire, and he wants to have cheap Mexican food for dinner?”

“He’s not a billionaire, but he is epic awesome,” I grinned.

My dad carried two trays with carne asada burritos outside a few minutes later. “I got chips and extra guac for everyone,” he smiled as he set the trays down on the colorful mosaic table top.

We chowed down on our grub.

“So,” Dad glanced at me and said, “your grandad tells me you’ve been having a little trouble with your new paintings?”

With my mouth still full of delicious carne asada, I mumbled, “Fucking kill me now.” It came out like I thought it was funny, and my dad chuckled. But inside, everything tightened up. Now that my dad had thrown away the booze and turned into a tea totaling ass kicking painter, I couldn’t tell him about my downhill slide. It would kill him.

Sam flashed me a quick look. She knew the score, but I knew she wouldn’t talk.

“What’s been giving you grief?” my dad asked.

In the past, I would’ve dodged the question. My dad had had so many problems of his own, we never had time to talk about mine. But he had opened the door. By the look in his eyes, he wanted to know. Where to begin? Fuck it. I was going balls deep on the ass fucking that my painting had been giving me lately. “Did you hear that Stanford Wentworth came by the studio?”

“
The
Stanford Wentworth?” Dad marveled. “I didn’t realize you’d gotten famous so quick.”

“More like infamous. Wentworth hated my new shit.”

“Bullshit,” my dad spat. “I saw your work at the solo show. It was beautiful.”

“Wait till you see my new stuff,” I grinned cockily. I knew I’d made substantial progress since doing those old paintings. “Technically, my new shit’s way better. Anyway, Wentworth hated them.”

“Then he’s an idiot,” my dad chuckled around the food in his mouth.

Talking about Wentworth should’ve sent me searching for a fifth of bourbon. It would have yesterday. But the stress I had around the topic of Wentworth had up and vanished.

As lame as it sounded, I think it was because of the simple fact I was sitting across from my dad like not a day had gone by since things were still good with him and Mom, when we were still a happy family. The happiest ever. I’d felt those good feelings coming back throughout the day today. Well, half back, which was fucking awesome because half of the greatest family unit on the planet seemed pretty incredible to me. Plus, I had Samantha.