So My Fucking Father is on my case all day to make calls and send out this application for pre-approval for a loan to line up if he buys a property for this Las Vegas auction online on Sunday. I get real pissed because he's making me do this for him, thereby altering my day. I have to forego my early-evening nap just so I can download the .pdf file, but then I see it won't save what I type, so I have to print it out, have My Fucking Father sign it (alongside My Fucking Mother, who My Fucking Father says of course she has to sign, even though he has made no mention of this at all during this fucking arduous process), then fax it.
This is where he totally goes off the goddamn reservation. He wonders where in the neighborhood he can fax it. He then asks me to call my sister's best friend, who lives two houses down from us and is very busy, if she has a fax. (And of course she doesn't.) I ask My Fucking Father all these questions about why he's in such a tizzy. I even volunteer to just go and fax it for him because he seems, like he sometimes does in matters that matter only to him, that he wants this done as soon as possible. He tells me to eat.
So I eat. And I watch the football game. (Good game, too.) After 8 o'clock, though, I hear him yell from the basement, "Are you leaving?" Leaving? For what? "Are you going to fax it?" You want me to fax it now??? Why the fuck do you want me to fax it now when you told me you didn't want me to fax it before?! What the fuck is wrong with you?!?!?! I should have just started ranting, but I didn't; I did say, however, that he didn't say he wanted me to fax it. And then My Fucking Father just started yelling at me; I don't want to remember the details because they were so fucking goddamn stupid. All I know is he didn't want me to fax it, then he did want me to fax it. Asshole. Fuck You, Father.
I was all tense leaving for Kinko's, coming back, trying to act like everything's OK when I went downstairs to pick up my pops to put in the upstairs refrigerator. Passive-aggressive moment: Jangling the keys to their car, which I used to drive to Kinko's, and leaving My Fucking Father the copy of the pre-approval form with the receipt stapled on the front. I expect to be paid back for this, you prick. I tried to be strong, but as I sat back down to watch the game on the dining room TV, my heart pounded and my whole left side tingled and felt week. I was scared, and I hate it when he does that to me.
And I dreaded it when I was still watching the game, now into overtime, when I saw the lights on the foyer and footsteps getting louder up the stairs. No, it ain't My Fucking Mother, who for one night at least has gone back to exercising then retreating to bed. No, it's My Fucking Father, who again has the late-night munchies and decided to whip up some eggs. I was afraid of it, but it happened; My Fucking Father started talking to me, about what I was watching.
Now, in the past, I would've just retreated to my room the minute I heard footsteps. Later, I would've shut off the TV and left the dining room once he asked me his first question. At an even later age, I would've started fucking yelling at him: You laugh in my face and now you want to talk to me? Are you so stupid that you can't even fucking remember shit you said an hour ago?!?!?! What's wrong with you, you motherfucker?!?!?! But either because I was too goddamn tired to fight, or, as much as it pains me to say it, this was his way of trying to apologize, I did what I never thought I would do: I answered him. Tersely -- "Football's on ... it's between Pittsburgh and Tennessee ... it's 10-10 and in overtime" -- but I answered him, and without sounding annoyed or antagonistic. I even just turned the TV around so he could see it from the kitchen. And so I sat and he sat down and ate and kind of watched, and even though we didn't really talk we didn't really fight, either. And he didn't bring up the bullshit he laid on me the hour before as a way to teach me a lesson or some other patronizing line of puke. He didn't say goodbye as he left, but again, as much as it pains me to say it, the stress I felt largely evaporated after that point.
So, does that make things easier or harder when I tell him I won't be eating dinner at home the next two nights?
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