The ruffling and shuffling sounds of packing woke me up. I’d heard those sounds before. They were the sounds of Dad getting ready to leave.
I laid in bed, just listening to Dad walking from his bedroom to the bathroom to the kitchen to the living room. Back and forth and fast. He always walked fast, and just listening to him shook the sleepiness out of my eyes and I was wide awake.
I imagined Dad shooting up and down the apartment, stuffing things into that brown leather duffel bag he always used. I knew what was in that bag: a few changes of clothes, a cheap plastic comb or two, disposable razors, toothbrush, some Rolling Stone magazines, the Santana vinyls he always played at night when he drank tequila out of his big Six Flags Over Texas cup, which was probably going into the bag, too. Other than those things, I didn’t know what else was in the bag. But I also knew I wasn’t supposed to know what else was in the bag. And whatever that was was why Mom and Dad were fighting last night and why Dad was leaving this morning.
Still very early in the morning. The sun was just coming up. Streaks of sunlight stretched through the blinds. I looked at the light beams and I thought of the thing my teacher said about how sunlight travels millions of miles through space before it reaches earth. Watching the specks of dust float in the light, I wondered if it would be possible for humans to one day get on the sun. Or maybe that was where hell was and where you go if you’re bad. Maybe that’s why it hurts too much to look at the sun - you’re not supposed to see hell until you get there.
The sound of keys jangling snapped my attention back down to earth. I knew I shouldn’t, but I wanted to see Dad before he left. I knew it would be a while before I saw him again.
I went to the living room and just barely caught him. Dad was at the door, hand on the doorknob, brown leather duffel bag slung over his shoulder, on his way out.
“Dad?”
He looked back at me. He was surprised and smiled to hide it. I knew that smile. It was the smile he used when he was joking.
“Hey, Craig,” Dad said.
Dad put his bag down and crouched down to be eye level with me.
“I have to go away for a little while,” he said. “Me and your mom gotta take a little break from each other. You saw what happened last night. It’s the right thing to do. Can’t go on like this. I know you understand. ”
I nodded. I understood. I was a little relieved there would be a break from all the fighting. But I also didn’t want him to go.
He grabbed my shoulder and gave that smile.
“Hey, I got an idea. You should come with me,” he said, but he still had that joking smile when he said it. I remember thinking he didn’t mean it and this made my stomach hurt a little bit. I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Yeah, I know,” Dad said. “You wanna take care of your mom. As you should. You’re a good little man, unlike your old man.”
Dad put his arm around me and hugged me tight. Just one arm. He held the brown leather duffel bag with his other arm.
“Keep being good,” he said, and left.
I looked out the window to watch him go. Dad had a bounce in his step as he threw the duffel bag into the trunk and slipped a pair of sunglasses on his face. He looked cool. Then he got in the car, revved up the engine, and sped off.
After about a minute or two of staring at the empty street in front of our apartment, I went to the kitchen to make myself a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I thought about Dad for a little while. Then I thought about what it would be like to live on the sun.
The next time I saw Dad was seven years later at the Hutchins State Jail in Hutchins, Texas. I was 14, had a girlfriend, and knew how to roll a joint pretty damn good. I could cut a line, too. I was living it up. I didn’t think about outer space much anymore. No time for that bullshit. I didn’t even think about Dad very much. There wasn’t much to think about since I only got a call from him every other Christmas or whatever. But when Mom told me Dad was “back” ( in prison, of course), I guess I had to think about him.
The prison was almost two hours away from where we lived, and once you got there, it felt like another two hours just to go through all the security - the gates, the questions, fat ass guards patting you down and asking more questions, telling you to go through more gates. I felt ripped off. I had to do all this to see a guy who didn’t make any effort to see me these past seven years? I figured I’d tell Dad all this, too. Let him know I wasn’t the same little kid as before and I didn’t appreciate getting my life disrupted just for him. I was gonna really tell him what was what. But when I saw Dad, I couldn’t say that.
Dad grew old in seven years. His eyes lost their shine and his smile had no hint of joking. Everything about him was grey - not just his hair but his skin and his teeth, too, like he was covered in dust that wouldn’t come off him, just became a part of him. A dusty ass old man.
“You’re all grown up,” Dad said. We were about the same height now, which made it seem like Dad shrunk. It was more height - Dad looked weaker, walked carefully, no bounce anymore. He was fatter, too, but not in that jolly kind of way, more like he was sick and tired, so he just ate. I saw that whatever happened in the past seven years was not very good to Dad. I guess I felt a little sorry for him. I really had missed him and I wished he had been around. He wasn’t, and that pissed me off, I know, but here he was. I felt like something broken had been fixed.
For the next hour, we talked mostly about what was happening in my life. I tried to ask Dad about his life, but he just turned the convo back around on me.
“I’m not important,” he said. “I wanna hear about you. I missed you.”
So I did. I hate to admit it, but I was eager to please and I wanted him to think I was interesting. I really wanted him to be proud of me. It was weird having that feeling. It felt good, but I also felt ashamed. I didn’t want to want his approval, but I did.
Visiting time was over and, just before the guard kicked everyone out of the visitor room, Dad put his hands on my shoulders, pulled me in, and gave me a big hug. In Dad’s arms, I felt as small as I did back when he left seven years ago
“When I get out, they’re gonna send me back to Mexico,” Dad said. “But I want you to come with me. You don’t have to stay. Come only for as long as you want. But I want you to promise you’ll come out there when I go. Okay?”
I nodded. “Of course,” I said. I meant it. I didn’t say this, but I couldn’t wait,
When I got home that night, I called my girl and told her about Dad, talked about the trip he was planning. She thought it sounded really cool and said she hoped she could come along. I told her maybe, crossing my fingers as I said it. Couple days later, I went to a party and all I could talk about was Mexico - chilling on beaches, riding motorcycles, drinking tequila from big plastic cups with my Dad.
For a long time, it was pretty much all I talked about, all I thought about. When things started to get bad, that was what I thought about. When I started to fall apart, that trip held me together. I took the trip so many times in my head, even when I was losing it. Me and Dad riding into the sunset.
But he never called.
Hey, Dad. I’m celebrating my 21st birthday by sucking meth smoke through a hollowed-out Bic pen hovering over a tinfoil crevice pipe, sitting alone in my car, parked in an empty Target parking lot at 2 a.m., the time you told me I was born. As I chase these squiggly white lines floating up from the yellowish puddle in that foil, I’m thinking about how I took my first breath 21 years ago. And now, here I am. But I don’t care about that. Too late to care. This right here was what I cared about.
Why didn’t you call after you got out? Mom said you told her you were getting set up and was gonna send for me, but you never called her again. She said you’re alive. She’s still in touch with a lot of people in Matamoros. You’re around. But you didn’t call.
Look at this. I have one big hit left in the pipe. No more after this. No more money, either. Everything’s fucked now. If you called, maybe they wouldn’t be. I don’t know.
I’m taking this hit now and I fill my lungs with as much chemical smoke as possible. Hold it in tight like I love it. I do. I savor it, imagine it going everywhere in my body, giving me the ultimate high that would last me forever so that I can finally be at peace. I try to will it. Sometimes you just gotta make things happen. I like to imagine myself getting so high, I transform into some kind of enlightened being. Get shot into another realm with other people who have also reached this level of ecstasy. Everyone happy and good. I wonder if you’ve done that. Maybe I got this from you.
Shit. I see a cop car. My window is open. I need to exhale, but can’t now. Cop might see a big cloud of smoke drift out of my windows and get suspicious. Car smells obvious. I’d be fucked. I’m not afraid of doing time like you, though - I’m afraid of feening. I don’t wanna be sitting in the corner of some cell, needing a hit so bad my insides feel like a giant fish hook stabbed my gut and somebody was yanking everything out of me, laughing at me. Dad, is that you? Ha ha.
The cop car just turned the other way and drove off. Close call. I exhale now, watch the smoke waft up towards the moon.
I stopped thinking about the trip when it was clear you weren’t gonna call. But maybe I stopped more because I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it. Everyone kinda left me these last few years. Even Mom. Maybe some of it was my fault. Maybe a lot. Things would be different if you called. That was supposed to be the trip that helped me figure everything out. I never got it. You owe me.
I know where you are. I could go there right now. Matamoros is only an eight hour drive. No problem. I’ll just drive over there. Ask around. My Spanish is good enough. Donde esta mi papa? I can find you. And when I find you, I’ll say you owe me this. You owe me this fucking trip, man. You promised me.
I didn’t know anything anymore. My mind…fuck, man…my mind…I just don’t trust anything in it. Look at this pipe, Dad. Dead. Time to go. I throw it out the window and step on the gas.
I can go anywhere I want, as fast as I want. Matamoros is only eight hours away. I’ll be hurting soon, but when I get there, I’ll just swallow a bottle of tequila to pass out, tide me over to the next day, and then I’ll find you. I need to quit this shit anyway. Gonna quit it. Maybe you can help me.
I push the gas harder. Red light? Oh, you’re worried about me now? Fuck a red light. I have to get there now. I’m gonna take that trip. Ha ha. Take it. Get it? Take that trip. Yes, I am. You owe me. You promised me. Everything could have been different and better.
And now here comes the sun, coming at me big and bright, searing my eyes. But I’m not closing them. I’m keeping my eyes wide open and I’m going toward the sun as fast as I can. I push down on the gas. All the way down. As far as it goes. Light gets bigger and hotter. I melt. Everything inside me goes soft, mixes with my boiling blood. I’m a mush of everything I used to be. I’m drowning in myself. It doesn’t hurt. It feels good. I’m finally going to the sun. You better be there when I get there.
Your words perfectly convey the pure sadness of being born from tragedy.
You manage to fit a lot into a small weird count. Always quality, ray. Into the sun.