The man who tried so hard and got so little.

Putting pants on seemed like too much
of a task for this Friday evening
so going for take-out was out of the question.
Instead I resorted to a lazy bachelor dinner
reminiscent of my warehouse shipping clerk days.
The can of Progresso Chicken Noodle
and grilled cheese went down well
but there was still a high-protein element lacking.
A can of sardines seemed like a good idea
though most ordinary people would disagree;
I wasn't seeing my girlfriend later, it didn't matter
if I reeked of canned minnows and olive oil.
As I stood in the twilight coming through
the kitchen window forking chunks of salty fish
into my mouth it brought me back to another
time laden with fuzzy half-truths.
My father used to eat sardines and crackers
as a Sunday afternoon snack when I was a little kid.
Big on being like Daddy, I'd do the same.
My mother was concerned that I was the only
first-grader who would eat such a pungent food
but wouldn't even entertain the notion of a peanut butter
and jelly sandwich for some odd reason.
Back then it was easier to follow in the footsteps
of one who still commanded my respect
but as I grew older I started to see his short-comings.

One time I was taking a bath when Dad came home
with a surprise for me. His face was lit up with excitement
as he fumbled through the bag for the package he'd brought
but my clumsiness comes from somewhere.
The box fell out of the bag and the bottle of cologne
(the same kind that he wore, of course)
shattered all over the tile floor of the bathroom.
He salvaged the other half of the gift, but it was useless.
Most pre-pubescent children would have no need
for the matching deodorant that came with the cologne.
He swept up the shards of glass holding back tears
with that strained grimace that encompasses our eyes
when we try to play the tough guy.
The slivers didn't stick in my feet
but the image buried itself in my mind's eye
for whatever strange reason that we subconsciously
choose to remember what we do.

Some of his failures weren't contained to the privacy
of our home, or what became his home after my mother
and I moved out. It was my little cousin's birthday
and we were headed to the party at a reception hall
somewhere out of town. Dad had the bright idea of
wearing small Band-Aids in the same place on our faces
when we walked in and to explain to everyone
that we'd cut ourselves shaving that morning.
It was another corny joke that'd make me cringe
if I had been just a few years older than I was
but it seemed normal to me since I was a kid.
It may have almost went over well if my old man
had gotten the right date when he spoke to my uncle
on the phone about the party. We'd shown up a week early.
The unknown family celebrating their function didn't
seem to notice as we snuck back out of the door
after realizing the mistake. When we returned
the next week, tails between our legs, neither of us
donned the bandages again, at least not on our faces.

Things only got more awkward after the divorce
as they tend to do. Some heartless scumbag
in the legal profession spit forth the term 'Visitation'
and implied that it was a valid way of maintaining
a relationship with the parent that the child does not
live with on a regular basis, in most cases the father.
It was more like some sort of parole program than anything else:
two uncomfortable dinner dates per week, every other weekend
in a house haunted with memories of a happy family
and half of Summer spent kicking rocks down the road alone
in a run-down town that my mother was smart to run from.
Despite the sense of being forced to do something
and be somewhere that I didn't always want to
I kept faithful to my duty, still managing to make time
to meet the old man for dinner once a week
right on up until two years ago at the diner
when I saw him last. It was not always fun
not always tolerable as my teeth clenched at sermons
and my toes curled up in my running shoes
that never met more than a brisk walk.
Sometimes it was a cheeseburger and soda for me
and coffee and salad bar for him. Sometimes it was a kid's meal
at Friendly's for me and nothing for him, being that his job
working with multiple-handicapped and retarded people
did not pay well (I already make almost double what he does a year).
The portion of chicken fingers and fries was more suited to
a younger child with less of an appetite, but it was hard to complain
when my fading hero sat across from me skimming the newspaper
pretending not to be hungry. It got to the point where it was such
a routine that the waitress that we had every week placed our order
as soon as we walked into the building. The big selling point for him
was that my meal came with a small sundae at the end.
I always got one-and-a-half scoops of Vienna Mocha Chunk
with hot fudge, whipped cream, and a cherry. He always ate
the whipped cream and cherry off of the top as soon as it came out
while pointing out the window to distract me
but again it was hard to say anything with a clear conscience over
a starving man who also wanted something to eat.
When they demolished that Friendly's
to build a supermarket years later
I was not in the least disappointed.

He wasn't always hard up for a meal, though.
His grandfather made money in the meat-packing industry
by opening a plant when he arrived in America off the boat
from Germany. Dad used to say how good it smelled in there
when he'd gone there as a child, but Upton Sinclair's famous novel
from the Nineteenth Century suggests otherwise. I guess we're all
allowed a few skewed memories. Anyway, my grandfather opened
a prosperous bar and restaurant in the Forties that thrived
right on up through the Seventies until it was time for my father
to take over. He turned it down after seeing how it had torn
the family apart. The restaurant was sold and became
a Latin night club, but it was not forgotten.
People who grew up in Port Chester, New York
during that era still remember Vahsen's Tavern if I ask if the name
rings a bell, sometimes having to add the descriptive "down by
the train station." The pewter mug filled with pens sitting
on my dresser bears the establishment's name and some sort
of false family crest. Dad told stories of the days in his young
adulthood when his buddies from his all-male Catholic high school
football team worked as bouncers at the pub, coming in to school
bruised but triumphant some Monday mornings.
Then there was the time when someone was threatening
my grandfather in the restaurant and my dad jumped over the bar
to protect his aging father just in time to have a chair broken over
his head, coming to with a welt and his old man patting him
on the back thanking him for trying to come to the rescue.
The wrong place at the wrong time and just enough zeal to blow it.
Sound familiar? Anyone want to take a Heinie to the face?
When he asked where that scar came from I panicked for a second
before he answered for me: "A box fell on you at the warehouse?"
It was a lie I was expected to make for his sake.
If he only knew how many times I've found myself in his shoes.

But his were even tighter on me growing up
since I had to wear them constantly. My Sunday-go-to-meetin'
shoes never fit quite right, I'd rather be stomping through swamps
in my sneakers than sitting in pews waiting for the sermon
to be over. Once a month they passed around the silver trays
one with crackers cut in half, the other with shots of grape juice.
I'd hold the morsel of food and little plastic cup for what felt like
forever until the pastor said the appropriate words and we were
allowed to partake. All I ever wanted was more grape juice. Instead
I had to sit through Sunday School and hear the same stories again.
They weren't new to Dad either, but his faith had recently been
restored. When an Alcoholic becomes a Born Again be careful;
hypocritical sparks fly. Most would rather have the drunk back.
That was part of the reason for my mom leaving him.
He'd try to pay for past sins in a literal sense by tithing
one hundred fifty dollars a week, pissing away his income.
Then there was the time he went out and bought
fifty shiny new tambourines for the congregation.
I still remember standing in my sandals in the church
parking lot, squinting to keep the sun out of my eyes
as I tied red ribbons onto the white tambourines with him.
I didn't get it, I still don't.
"What are these for, Dad?" My fingers were small then, I couldn't tie
as fast. "That red ribbon is the blood of Christ, son. Keep tying."
I did, but not with any conviction in my heart. Why did I have to
atone for his sins, too? Throughout our relationship he tried to save
my soul over and over, but only turned me off with his fanaticism.
You can't be a prophet in your own land, but things might be different
if he'd let me drink his grape juice, too.




The one heroic memory I have left of him is just another farce.
I was about five or six and we were watching TV together.
It was black-and-white file footage of a high-rise district
during the Thirties or Forties. My father must have known
what was coming next, must've seen it before.
"Watch this," he said as he pointed the remote control
at the screen and pushed a button that I previously thought
did nothing. Not even a second later the skyscraper in the center
of the shot exploded and crumbled to the ground in a controlled
demolition session that I was convinced my Dad had somehow
triggered from the comfort of our couch.
I was impressed with his skill and made sure to clean my room
and mind my manners extra carefully for the next few weeks
in case he decided to point the remote control
at me and push another powerful button.

And in a way, almost twenty years later, he did:
Mute.