El Dorado

I got a phone call from a special lady who was very close to me a long time ago.  Her mouth was a knife, a scalpel, and she performed surgery on me.

“Honestly, I feel sorry for you.”

“What? Fuck you!? Why!?”

“Well you used to be insightful and funny and awesome, but now you exist on the dark side.”

“Whatever, I dance the line just like you do with your painting.  I peer into the void but I don’t live there.”

“No.  I go to the dark side when I’m painting but I have love in my life and I come back.  You used to do the same thing, but you have started to live on the dark side and that’s just… well… that’s sad.  Just don’t go there, just choose to not go there.  Please!?”

A bomb explodes in my heart.  She was right.  My writing has become too much, too thick, too heavy, too dark.  Without joy there is no humanity in my writing, in my life.  Writhing in my insect fear?  Even the title is Kafkaesque.  What the hell is going on with me.  I like to feel the world around me, but lately I just feel my face pressing through a noose.

June 20th, 2010.  I started my rock tumbler today.  Turning the least valued thing in the world into the most precious, even if only for me.  It all started this morning…

A light beam in my face, I splash to life.  Stumbling out of bed, my bladder is screaming.  Memories from the night start to flash into my head like some kind of CIA mind control experiment.  My fingertips hurt as I lift the lid to the toilet, I recall playing guitar for hours and hours last night.  Lauren had me play ‘Holiday Road’ about a million times on my acoustic, the song still echoes in my brain.  I start to brush my teeth, my breath smells like garlic death – I ordered a pizza from the local and completely crushed myself with it.  My head swimming, drowning, more whiskey than I can even remember was poured into it last night.  I feel sick, consider taking a shower, decide to check on the rest of my place before I do.  Yep, just as I suspected.  AC/DC had a concert in my living room last night… again.

Oh god my body is in pain.  Not good pain.  Not emotional pain, or spiritual pain, or life pain.  Just good plain old fashioned pain.  Sometimes pain is good for you.  It alerts you of danger, warns you, tells you that something isn’t right.  That’s why blood is red, and why the color red causes your heart to palpitate.  That’s the reason a woman in a red dress can take your breath away so dramatically.  It’s primal, it’s genetic, it’s in our blood.  Sometimes pain is necessary to help us get where we need to go, do what we need to do.  I don’t believe in fate or destiny or anything like that.  In my book you make your own fate.  That being said, if you are doing what you’re supposed to be doing then you will know it.  Somehow, in some way, the universe will let you know that you’re on the right path.  This, right here, right now, is not where I’m supposed to be.  I’m on the wrong path.

The night was cathartic.  Whiskey after whiskey, my god.  My sister, my own flesh and blood, was calling me a pussy for not slamming my drinks as fast as her.  It’s funny, we both drink whiskey on the rocks these days.  Genetics, possibly, although dad used to drink whiskey.  I found the giant bottle he had stashed at the bottom of his sleeping bag when I was looking for his old combat boots one day in high school.  He was in the den, “working”.  By working I mean he was sitting there staring at the computer screen, he had this screen saver where little marbles would drop down from the top of the screen, bouncing off pegs and crap as the fell, until they piled up at the bottom of the screen.  He would watch marble after marble until the entire screen was filled up.  He sat there for hours and hours and hours, zen-like, doing nothing, staring at that screen.  God knows what was going through his brain, our family was counting on him to pull his shit together and make shit happen.  He never did.  Alcoholism.  He was a product of alcoholism.  A product of emotional abuse.  The source of emotional abuse.  His wrathful words haunt me even now.

My sister and I both struggle against the memories of dad being a tyrannical loser.  She, always striving, a driven careerwoman, never quitting a job even when it becomes unhealthy.  Me, almost the same way.  Two jobs, a business, always looking for something more to do, another pot to put on the stove even if there aren’t any burners open.  We are hyper achievers simply because we do not want to end up like dad.  Failure and unfulfilled potential, that is his legacy.  Unbelievably intelligent, but so painfully flawed.  His advice was always amazing, his example disastrous.  “Just keep doing the right thing, son, and good things will happen.” I did it dad, why didn’t you?  I will never allow myself to fail, the child in me still sees him failing and the promise to never become that man burns white hot at my core.

I was already completely faced, I did my best to keep up.  She was emotional – we had been drunkenly psychoanalyzing our parents all night.  Talking about childhood memories is like a trip to the cemetery at night.  Wandering through the tombstones, each one a marker for joy and pain.  Finding the one we were looking for, digging up the dead body, shining our flashlights on it.  Trying to figure out the cause of death while recalling the myriad memories and experiences.

It’s funny.  He was always so big in my mind, my father that is.  He had smaller feet than me.  I tried to fit into his old Viet-Nam combat boots but by the time I finally worked up the guts in high school they didn’t fit me.  Not even close.  The pictures I saw of him when he was my age.  Angry, big, tough-looking.  He played football at Lafayette.  He fought in Viet-Nam.  I never got to walk a mile in his shoes, and I wanted to so fucking bad.

I can’t stop thinking about my mistakes sometimes.  All my fucking mistakes.  Piled up like dead bodies, and I’m trapped underneath.  Is that how he feels?  He was so controlling.  He always tried to be the best – maybe not be the best, but appear to be the best.  What am I talking about, the guy was amazing.  Emotional, insightful, endlessly intelligent, but he was always trying to win the conversation and not just have it.  He programmed that into me.  Now I can’t lose anything.

I talked to him today.  I love him.  It was father’s day, another bullshit Hallmark holiday, but I wanted to tell him that I love him.  He’s my fucking father for Christ’s sake.

“Hellooow?”

He always sounds so confused when he answers the phone, like he was completely asleep on the couch, drunk and passed out, and the phone ringing somehow rattled his whole world.  He was always jumpy.  Hardcore PTSD for the Nam.

“Hey dad, it’s me, happy father’s day!”

“Oh, hi son! It’s so good to hear your voice.  I’ve been really wanting to talk to you.  How is everything going?”

I feel like a piece of shit.  I haven’t talked to him in a good 8 months.  Not since I just broke up with my girlfriend.  I’ve been avoiding him.  I can’t stand it, seeing him in ruins.  He was so enormous, so powerful, but now he’s just a broken old man.  Sixty eight years old, and I feel weathered at thirty four, god fucking damn.

I catch him up on all my hundreds of jobs and crap.  He’s still unemployed, still going to AA, still the same flawed man I remembered – just older now.

“Hey pop, how was that pancake breakfast this morning?”

“Oh, hey, yeah.  (he is definitely starting to slow down with age) It was OK, I went to visit a lady friend of mine.”

“Cool man, you dating some new foxy lady now dad?”

“Oh no son, we used to date but now were just really good friends.  I went by her church just to say hi but ended up making pancakes and getting involved.”

“Whoa, awesome.  I slept in this morning then drove to the top of this big hill down here is San Diego with all these antennas on top of it.  I couldn’t get to the top because there was a gate with padlocks but I’m going back next weekend with a bolt cutter to go up there.  I had to go meet with my friend Dave to get HF radios before the revolution happens.”

“Oh, remember when I used to wake you and Lauren up early on the weekends and we would go hike to the top of hills around Dana Point and watch the sunrise?  Boy, we used to have so much fun.  Those times were really great.”

“Yeah dad, I do remember that.  That was pretty cool.  I used to love going on adventures with you.”

“So how is your sister doing?”

“Oh she’s doing great!  She just quit her job in L.A., her boss was a total asshole and she finally told them all to shove it up their ass.  She’s moving to New York City to go for it in the big apple.”

“Oh wow, that’s amazing.  I am so proud of her.  She is such an amazing woman.  I still haven’t talked to her.  I sent her some emails, does she still have that same email? I don’t know if she’s ever going to talk to me again.”

“Well dad, our family totally blew up.  There is still a lot of pain and rough edges from all that.  Those emails you sent only made her more angry.  I never read them but she said they were totally selfish, talked all about your pain, were all about you.  You need to understand that you hurt her very deeply man.”

“Son, all I said was that I was sorry, I love her, and that I’m not that person any more, I’ve changed.”

“Look dad, you were a tyrant when we were growing up.  Mom and Lauren and I had to get everything perfect in the house, I mean clean everything and put on our nice clothes and wash our goddamn hands before you got home so that you wouldn’t blow up.  But dude it was never good enough and you would smash the kitchen table or stab yourself with a fork when you got angry.  You would cry out ‘what’s wrong with me!?’ and rage against invisible demons.  Mom said that the traffic got you really frustrated, but bro it was emotional abuse.  I don’t want to come down on you, it’s father’s day, I love you dad, but you need to understand that the pain of my childhood has helped me get places I couldn’t go without it, but I’m not going to thank you for that.  You hurt me, you hurt all of us.  I don’t think you wanted to, but brother that shit happened.  What the fuck!?  My success in life is not because of that pain you caused, but despite it.”

“Look, I’m sorry son, I love you very much.  I want to come down to San Diego and see you.  Maybe we can just meet for coffee, just tell me when you can meet.  I really want to meet with you.”

“I don’t know dad, I’m pretty busy with everything, I’ll call you OK?”

“Um, OK, I’ll talk to you then.  I love you very much son.”

“Goodbye dad.”

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