The Father
He is standing at the window. The old cardboard box hangs from his right hand and rests sideways against his leg. The twinkling lights of the city below, extinguishing one by one, disappearing like dwindling dreams into the darkness. “Don’t dream for too much,” he says softly to himself, like a reminder of a truth he somehow knew or had always known.
His arms, moving slowly, brushing off each item carefully, stacking papers quite carefully, placing each item into the box in its own place, carefully and neatly. The emptiness, the absence of anything — glaring — so large, so suspended.
His tie is still clean and tight. His old shoes are polished, as they always were, gleaming in the dusk. Dignity his willing servant.
He is heavy, as if weighed down by chains — chains from the streets below, his home, reaching up and wrapping themselves around him, dragging him back cascading and twirling into his inescapable past.
Injustice pounding upon his tight lips. Pain filling his dry eyes.
He is standing at the window. So large. So black now, the sun gone now. Fear, a trampling fear, reaching down, deeper down his throat and into his belly, clenching and gripping, scraping from within.
He sees his chair resting quietly beside his office desk. Then the window. Then again the chair. The window. A shiver.
Hidden from view, lurking in the corner, there is a form, a blackness, a void, a man there, the edges of his face turned upward like lightning. His eyes hold no light at all.
My father rests his hand on the chair. It feels so soft. His fingers pressing the fabric. In the box he sees a picture resting on the top of the stack.
Then, with a a directness so abrupt it nearly knocks the chair over, he turns, directly, like a soldier following his training with exactness, and leaves the room, his office, forever.
Questions float in his mind. Bills, clothing, food — all floating there. The chains feel quite heavy now. His mind is like a bin of screws drowning in oil.
Quietly, he enters the apartment, approaching the closet to conceal the box, but she is standing there, my mother, eyeing him — and the box — seeing the photos and the ornaments, a filled box. Their eyes meet for a long, long time. No words.
“Daddy!” I cry as I speed down the hallway. “Look at my new toy! It’s a remote control car! Do ya see it?” I ask, holding the car up proudly. “Mommy got it for me today!” I see my mother and father standing together, my mother’s hand holding my father’s strongly, squeezing. What is that in their faces?
My father smiles, steering his emotions like a rudder guiding a great vessel. “Wow, would you look at that!” he says. “It’s a…”
“Well you see,” I interrupt, sensing his confusion, “it was a car, but I accidentally broke the top off. It had a plastic top that shattered pretty easy. But the wheels still work! Watch!” I begin to drive the set of wheels across the carpeted floor using my hand controls.
My father regards the pathetic piece of plastic gliding below him. He thinks for a moment. “You know what? I have an idea.”
He reaches into the closet where the cardboard box has been placed and retrieves a glue gun that was generally used for my mother’s sewing activities.
“Where’s Jim?” he asks.
“Jim?”
“Yeah, you know — that old penguin figurine you’ve got.”
“Why do you want Jim?”
“Well, penguins can’t fly, but wouldn’t it be somethin’ if they could run around on a set of wheels like that?”
My eyes are shining now. My mind is racing. “Let’s do it!” I exclaim before sprinting to my room to find Jim.
Together, we place globs of hot glue from the glue gun on the rectangular chassis. Then, firmly, we press Jim on top of the glue, holding him steady until it dries.
Stepping back, we take in our creation.
“What do ya think?” my father asks.
“Wow, Jim looks pretty excited!” I say.
“Well,” he says, “I think it’s time for this penguin to fly!”
We drive the car around for a long, long while. Laughing, smiling, a brightness. Jim, standing stiffly, surely having the time of his flightless life. A memory, engraven in stone on my mind; a feeling, becoming eternal, or nearly so.
It is late now. My father tucks me into bed, like he always does. His tie is still on, though loosened now. His forehead glistens with sweat. His face relaxed, his eyes tender.
“Dad, how did you think of it?” I ask.
“What, the penguin?”
“Yeah.”
His face is kind. “I just dreamed it up, I guess.”
I close my eyes as sleep begins to set in. “You still dream things, even though you’re not little?”
He pauses, for more than a moment, considering, thinking.
“Yes,” he says. “I do.”
