Many sons could fill volumes with the activities they shared with their fathers. Sadly, many men couldn't fill a paragraph. My experience in this regards is akin to a small stack of enigmatic postcards stashed in the covers of a diary that hurt to write. Here are a few of those postcards.
My first father and son vignette was when we went to a pool hall in Louisiana to play a game of eight-ball when I was six years old. Not not quite tall enough to line up a proper shot, I remember being impressed by my father's patience and falling in love with Cajun music on the jukebox.
After that, I remember being summoned on a frosty Christmas morning in Baton Rouge to accompany my father for a ride in the car when I was eight years old. It was usual for the family to go on Sunday drives but to be the only passenger was unusual. I had been happily putting together a balsa wood model of a Mitsubishi Zero airplane and remember being annoyed at having to leave my work.
I wasn't told where we were going nor why. That was usual, so I just waited to see for myself. We drove for twenty minutes, whereupon we crossed a railroad track and parked down a slope that ran into a dry swamp. My father said we'd go for a walk. We walked about a hundred yards and he pulled out a pistol from his underarm holster. It was a 9×19 mm Luger Pistole Parabellum.
He chambered a round and said he was going to let me fire it. I remember being not too interested nor excited about it. It was an activity though, and I decided to give it a chance and see what it was like. While Dad was showing me how to hold the gun, a man wearing a belt holster for a large 45 cal. pistol, crossed over the railroad tracks from the same direction we had come.
His look and bearing was that of an off-duty cop and he nodded at us. Because we had no target, I asked my father what I was supposed to shoot at. He said to shoot anything I wanted to. All that I saw which seemed appropriate was an empty Styrofoam cup frozen into a puddle. I aimed and pulled the trigger. The concussion rang in my ears and a tiny hole appeared in the cup which only betrayed a slight trembling. I was disappointed with the pointless exercise.
Moreover, my hearing seemed to have been permanently damaged. My ears rang like church bells and I had to shout to hear myself speak. I fired three more rounds into the dirt and was relieved when just as quickly as we had come, Dad said we could go. After three days the ringing in my ears stopped and I decided that I didn't like loud guns.
Another time in Louisiana, I was told to get in the car and accompany my father one Saturday around 11 AM. I was ten years old and not privy to where we were going. Once out of the driveway, my father lit a joint, rolled the windows up and took a few deep puffs. Soon, the car filled with a dense cannabis cloud. I knew what it was and used my YMCA Minnow Level swim training to hold my breath for as long as possible between tiny gulps of air.
I managed to avoid inebriation and before long we arrived at his destination. It was an apartment building that I had never seen. We got out of the car and went inside. It was nicely furnished and had the shag carpets of the Seventies. He never said what it was for and I didn’t ask. There were some fat old men sitting on a couch in the living room. My father nodded to them and conducted me to the kitchen. There was a silver-flecked, turquoise coloured Formica bar like we had in our house and I sat on a tall stool. Then without a word, he went back into the living room and I lost sight of him.
A beautiful, young, brown-haired woman clad in baby-blue panties and a bra was busy making some tacos. She had a friendly voice and offered to make me a taco. I said I wasn't hungry. She asked me if I wanted a Coke but I didn't trust anything, so I asked for a glass of water and watched her fill it from the tap. Being well read, I was worried that someone might slip something in my drink.
One of the old men called out to me from the living room, “Hey Kid, come here!”
He showed me some Polaroid pictures of himself naked on the couch being fellated by a blustery blonde woman. He and the other old man snorted, laughed and bragged that the pictures had been taken just the day before.
“Now, whaddaya think of that, Spider?”
Just then the front door opened and a younger, red-haired, red-faced man came in. He was very tense, sweaty and seemed upset. He wore the same kind of shoulder holster that my father had. He unbuckled it and laid it on a lamp table. The lady in the kitchen called him into the kitchen for some tacos, which he quickly devoured. He made a comment to the old men about it being his turn in the Master Suite.
My father disappeared up some stairs without a word while I was standing by the couch. I went back to the bar-stool in the kitchen and talked to the lady about all the things I was learning in school. I went through every subject and branched out into all the books I had been reading. She listened politely and eventually propped her head on her hands and went to sleep, I think. After a while, my father came back downstairs and we left for home in silence.
I can recall no other outings with my father until I was fourteen. Meanwhile our family had moved from Baton Rouge to North Vancouver and then to Beaumont, Texas, we were in Houston, Texas and I began to hear talk of my father planning a solo holiday in Mexico. Over the course of a week, it was mentioned at the dinner table and suggested that I might get to accompany him. Having been physically and psychologically abused by him since the age of three, I never lobbied him for the dubious privilege.
I was teased by my older sister about going there a virgin and coming back a man, which species of jesting I found very distressing. I was, however, very excited at the prospect of seeing a foreign country firsthand. As the date of Dad’s departure drew nearer, his table talk turned to worrying aloud that I would cramp his style if he brought me along. That offended me and I assured him I certainly would not. After that, I made it clear that I would definitely like to go, if he would have me.
Finally, it was set that we would go. I was both elated and apprehensive. We were going in his Delta 88 and it was a smooth ride. He lit a joint and smoked it as we merged onto the freeway. He tuned the radio to a talk show. The topic happened to be physical child abuse. There was a guest being interviewed who had just written a book on the topic. Everything the man said was irrefutable and sent truth and confirmation arrows resonating deep into both of us. It began to crash my father's high, so he punched up some Led Zeppelin on the eight-track, and told me he wasn't proud of the way he had treated me as a child.
I knew there was a reason why that particular show had aired at that particular time and I told my father that it was OK. As we passed through Goliad, Bexar and the other towns on the way to the Mexican border, I told him about each place from the perspective of Texas public school history. We stopped to eat after crossing the border. I was embarrassed when my father began making idiotic gestures at the waitress and licking his lips like a bear after raiding a honeycomb.
Not far from the border, we passed an abandoned railroad siding in the chaparral that had a half dozen boxcars on it. They had all been converted to living quarters. There was a goat tied to one of the ladders and several children playing around a patch of pinto beans. A woman in a colourful moo-moo stood by the door of one boxcar and hung some clothes on her clothes line. I took the first photograph of my life, of that scene. I remember envying those people and imagined them to be poor but happy family units, far away from the wicked city.
We journeyed on into Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. We drove past a bullring and the Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma Brewery. In the underground parking lot of a large hotel, we came to light. Our room was on the second floor. It was large and by my standards, pretty fancy. We hadn't much luggage and while my father smoked a joint and looked out the window, he asked me if I would like him to bring some girls to our room.
I told him no. He said that maybe I had misunderstood him and had erroneously thought that he meant old ladies. He assured me that with only a few minutes conversation with the desk-clerk or with a taxi driver, he could obtain some young girls, even ones that were my age. I told him I wasn't interested, this time with increasing conviction in my voice. He softened his own tone and told me that it was normal to be nervous but that I needn't worry because he would show me how to do everything.
“Are you fucking nuts? Not on my watch,” said my inner voice, in an Italian accent.
I told him (in my regular voice) that there was no need, because I had accessed his Playboy magazines for six years. That flawed tuition was seasoned with Southern Baptist public school sex education, my own reading of literature and science, Bible passages, popular media and a pathetic stick-picture my mother drew after my lapsed Catholic father refused to give me The Talk, some years earlier. Her drawing was a tragic, stark Picasso and I remember being puzzled by only one aspect of the deed. I understood completely what was required but it was beyond my ken why any female would ever consent to such a thing.
Dad tried a few more tacks. I firmly told him no and that furthermore, I was waiting until I got married to have sex. He snorted and laughed until I thought he was going to choke. When he got his breath back, he looked at his watch and I sensed his analytical mind going full speed. He shaved and showered. When he was dressed, we went downstairs to the hotel restaurant.
I had my first plate of huevos rancheros and have been an avid fan ever since. We had fresh pineapple juice, gourmet coffee and hand-made tortillas. While we ate, my father wrote something on a napkin. It was the address of our hotel and our room number. Below that were the words, “Restaurant 7 PM.”
He told me that it was clear we were not compatible on this holiday, so our routine was to be thus: We would breakfast together at the restaurant and then we would go our separate ways until 7 PM. At such time, I was to meet him back at the restaurant for dinner and then we would go to our room to sleep. I was both scared and relieved.
I had some money from my busboy job at a Mexican restaurant in Houston and could hold my own in present tense Spanish. On my first foray into Monterrey, I walked for miles and miles. I saw many things familiar and many more strange. I wandered into a big produce market and went up and down the stalls gawking at all the exotic fruits and vegetables. At one table there was a man with a big moustache. He reached into a basket of tiny green things and seemed to pop some into his mouth and chew. He rolled his eyes and rubbed his stomach. He offered me some. I took two and crushed them between my teeth.
My nose ran snot, my eyes dropped fat tears and my stomach heaved as seventy thousand Scoville units from three Bird's Eye peppers worked through my system. The man was on the cement floor rolling with laughter and slapping the leg of his greasy white trousers. I stood riveted trying to focus my eyes. Two old ladies that were my grandmother's age, gave me a jar of nasty grey water, which I downed in spite of the wigglers that were swimming in it.
I staggered out of that market propelled by roars of derisive laughter. An hour later, I was going along a new street and saw an interesting Spanish carved wooden door in an adobe wall. I pushed it open and discovered a whole new world inside. There was a huge courtyard with a central fountain surrounded by covered porches running the full parameters of a city block. Darkened doorways every perforated the walls at ten foot intervals. The dwellings had no electric lights and it was getting dark.
Children stood languidly against some of the doorposts. Succumbing to the day’s events, I became disoriented and couldn't find the carved door that communicated to the street outside. I made several anxious circuits while being watched by many eyes seen and unseen. It was now twilight and I started to feel chilly, hungry and panicky. I decided to seek an adult female to ask for directions to the street.
Walking yet again past the shadowed doorways, I saw the silhouette of an old woman sitting on a striped mattress. I walked into her house and told her in Spanish that I was lost. She turned slowly around in the dim light of her hurricane lantern and faced me. I recoiled in shock. Where her right eye used to be, there was a fibrous, dun tumour like a chthonic apple hanging woefully on her hunger-drawn cheek. It wobbled in the torch-light as she gave me directions to Zaragoza Street with a crooked finger.
Thus ended my first day in Mexico. I was thirty minutes late to the restaurant and was given a reproof about the importance of being on time. We dined on shrimp so large that a person could not hold more than six. I had bought a Time magazine in Spanish and it was the same issue my father had brought from home. I read the same articles in both magazines that night before bed and discovered that they said different things for different audiences. It was my first lesson in professional journalism.
The next morning at breakfast, my father said he had secured the services of two willing young girls and asked if I had changed my mind. I told him no and went walking again. It was a lovely hot and sunny day. I chanced upon a bright busy little café and went in to get a coffee. I asked the waitress if I could take my mug outside and sit on the curb if I promised to bring it back. She said that would be fine. I wanted to sit on the curb and watch a traffic cop do his white-glove ballet in that busy intersection. He was clearly a gifted matador.
Not far away, leaning against a wall, was a very skinny man. He looked very old but really wasn't. He was just worn out. He motioned me over and asked me if I would buy him a coffee. I went back into the café for another mug. The waitress watched me give the cup to the man and she smiled at me through the big window. This is how I met Flaco.
His real name was Fulgencio and he used to be a produce truck driver into Texas. We became friendly. He was also friendly with the traffic cop and he told me that we would both be safe on that corner. It became my regular routine to spend most of my day sipping coffee with Flaco and learning many things. The waitress got to know me by name and always had two coffees ready when she saw me coming down the street. I took mine black and Flaco always dropped two Benzedrine tablets into his before drinking it.
One day, I returned to the produce market and purchased a few Bird’s Eye peppers from the mean man with the moustache. That night, I tried to trick my father with them at supper and he wouldn't fall for it. I read Mexican comic books and newspapers until bedtime. I wanted to do something to impress my father and came up with a plan. I would buy some weed for him.
It took me only a few hours to find a vendor and set up a meet. The locals sold cannabis wrapped in newspaper comics and called those rolls, cartones. The stems and seeds were all there, but the amount was many times more than you would get in Texas for the same money. I agreed to buy three cartones after negotiating a price of three dollars for each.
Flaco had educated me on a local current scam, so I knew that the vendors would attempt to set me up to get busted, collect a reward from the Federales and keep the money I had paid them. The Federales would confiscate the weed, return it to the boys to sell again and take a bribe to fix the situation for me, should I have the means.
Accordingly, I told the guy that I was from Canada, staying at a different hotel and that my father and I would be at the airport the following morning at 7:30 AM. The exchange was conducted in a playground near to where the boy lived. I felt safer there and the adults who watched us seemed happy to see a neighbour make a little money for his family.
That night I gave my father the prize and he rolled one up and smoked it in the room. He asked me how I'd done it and I told him the details. He pronounced it to be good shit and patted me on the head for being clever. The next day, as a reward for my gift, Dad decided to treat me to a day spent together doing whatever I wanted. I’d been poring over maps and wanted to go visit the next town to the South. Saltillo had figured prominently in early Texas history.
True to his word, my father drove us there. We arrived and parked the land yacht on a long hard-packed dirt street. We got out to walk up and down some wooden boardwalks. There were no cars in sight in either direction. Two rowdy men came out of a cantina, looked at us hard and stumbled up the walk. They looked like banditos in an old cowboy movie. My father grabbed my shoulder, ushered me back to the car, locked the doors and took off. I sensed for the first time that my father wasn't invincible.
Since our historical foray had been aborted, we drove back to Monterrey and I was asked what else I might enjoy. I answered without hesitation and gave him the address of the plaza de toros, the admission price and the time of the next bull fight. My father intimated that he was very much opposed to the barbaric practice, but he had given his word and off we went. We sat on a blue wooden bench in the half-full arena. Fascinated by the ancient dance, I disliked the picadores (not knowing their true purpose) but I admired, the tragic bull and the matador.
Afterwards, we walked up the only mountain I could see in the outskirts of town until the houses petered out and we were among adobe huts, goats and prickly-pear cactus. Some barefoot boys were kicking a soccer ball in the gathering gloom of evening and one of them passed the ball to my father. He passed it to me and I passed it back to the boys. I shall never forget the feeling of that one split-second of healthy play with my father and count myself fortunate to have been cognizant that it was all that was destined for us on this side of the veil.
We wandered downhill in a symphony of cricket song, returned to our hotel and ate a big supper. My father had a hot bath and I had an ice cold bath. I told him it was healthier and he told me I was crazy. The next day we checked out. We went to a store and my father bought enough cartons of cigarillos Delicados to fill the trunk. When we got to the border Dad held his hand so his Masonic ring showed on the window ledge. The guard waved us into Texas.
fin
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