Holy shitballs, do you know what My Fucking Father just said on the phone to me today? My uncle's still at home recuperating, and My Fucking Father told me to go over there today and, not see how he's doing, but find out if he can come back to work. This is obviously fucked up because he doesn't really give a shit about his kid brother's health unless it pertains to lightening his workload at the store. What was even more bothersome, yet typical of My Fucking Father's behavior, is he wants me to visit instead of calling him his goddamn self. I bring it up and he says: "You going over there is easier." Oh, by far it is.
But the most juvenile, hateful thing that really pushes my buttons was one of the things he was saying while complaining to me about my uncle. He has stuff to do, he says -- and "I'm doing all of these things for you!"
For me? For me??? Listen, asshole, if that's too much goddamn work, don't do it for me or us. No, I don't want you being so "nice" about doing it if it's too hard for you. And I certainly don't want you to do it if you think you have to tell us that you're nice. Please, take a rest. Relax. Chill, Father, chill. And while you're at it, stop yelling at me. Stop throwing my shit away. And stop acting like we owe you anything. Because we didn't ask you to remodel homes. If this is the rearrangment you set up, where you close on your properties (real estate, by the way, is a pain in the ass, and I did not ask you to do that shit, let alone do that shit for me) in exchange for some angst you're entitled to lay on us, don't bother. Please don't fuckin' bother. Because you're not getting anywhere because of it. Whine all you want, you baby, you do this on your own.
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I wished against logic that he wouldn't be like this so quickly. And yet My Fucking Father represents a problem that never goes away and never is manageable.
What I mean is, last night during dinner Mother said: "Close the doors and open the air conditioning, otherwise Father will get mad." And that's it. When he's away he's never really away. He dominates most of our thinking, most of my thinking, and I hate that about him, and myself. We're always walking on eggshells to please him, or more importantly, to not make him mad. I really don't want to give a fuck, but I'm in no position to be financially independent, so I tell myself in my head that I need to compromise in order to keep the peace. That sounds reasonable in other families, but for some reason that feels like giving in in this one.
That angered me. The fact that I let him throw my magazines away still angered me. So I was in no mood to talk to him last night when I picked him up at the airport. Then again, I usually don't talk to him when I pick him up at the airport.
His flight was delayed by 15 minutes, but there was a potential detour on the highway. I went out the same times as I usually do in case the detour actually did affect my path to the airport. It didn't, so I spent my time looking for this cell phone lot, a space of free parking where you're supposed to go and wait instead of waiting by the side of the airport. Found it, tilited the driver's seat of my parent's minivan, and waited.
Five minutes later, he called. I figure it always takes him another five minutes to get curbside -- for some reason, this is a small terminal -- so I listened to the end of the BBC World Service's "The World Today" before heading out. Saw him waiting. Was he waiting long? A part of me said, "Should've been here sooner!" Another part said, "Serves him right!" Somebody help me.
My Father didn't yell at me for driving up; he could've suspected that I wasn't at the airport at all, like I said, but I guess he figured I drove up from the other end, or maybe he didn't care. Anyway, he got in, said thank you -- see, when you take me on guilt trips my whole life because you think you're entitled to them, these thank you's mean nothing to me -- and I tried to begin our silence.
But there was this damn condo he went out to Vegas for, and I had this urge to say it because, well, that's the whole reason he went out there this weekend. Luckily in the interests of piercing the silence we enveloped the car a little too much, he started on, of all things, the weather down there:
"Really hot down there."
"Yeah, I heard 110."
"118."
"Oh."
"The condo looks pretty good!"
"Really?"
"Yeah. We might even buy the condo in the corner instead."
"OK."
"$100,000 more."
"$100,000?"
And that was the end of our conversation until we got home and told him that noodles are ready to be eaten.
What he didn't know was that the part of me who just wanted to take him home and be done with this chore won this internal battle raging inside me. Because there was another person inside me who wanted to pick a fight with My Fucking Father. This one was going to argue with him, show him up, bring up all the Entertainment Weeklys he threw away except the one last week which he saved due to his quick thinking, and the comment Mother made about turning on the AC so as not to make him mad. This was nighttime and there was no one driving with us. I easily could've punched him in the face, or driven us off the road. Would that stop your bitching, Father?! Do you see that everything's worse now that you're back? Fucker.
And now he acted like a bitch about complaining when Uncle's coming back to work, a part of me regrets that I didn't get us into an accident. Anything to stop this goddamn nonsense.
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