Within Close Range: The Double Date

Home from college and my dance card empty, as usual, Jean has ignored my pleas and arranged a double date with her latest boyfriend's best friend. So, I’m making my way toward the kitchen to rehydrate my bone-dry nerves before they arrive. Dad’s in the den, sitting in the swivel chair with his back to the windows, pretending to be engrossed in a book. He’s also pretending not to see me as I slow and look his way.

I know he isn’t happy about this evening. With boys ever at the heels of Chris and Mia, he takes great comfort in my being almost invariably dateless. 

But really, is he finding “The Gardener’s Dictionary,” so captivating that he can’t even look up at the sound of my way-too-high heels perilously skidding across the floor? 

Unbelievable.

And what about Mom, still hovering in the kitchen, without a purpose in sight. 

For God’s Sake! This isn’t my first date! 

I just need to keep moving, rein in those jitters, drink my water, and think happy thoughts… But how can I think happy thoughts when each step on this godforsaken brick floor - now dangerously slippery, thanks to my newly lost ability to swallow - feels like burning coals on my wish-they-were-bare feet?

In the dark of the corridor between the kitchen and the den, I can see Dad slowly swivel his chair around to face the oncoming headlights bouncing off the dimly lit walls. He’s quietly watching the car make its final turn toward the front circle. A swivel further left, he can see Jean and the two, young men get out of the car and step onto the flagstone patio just a few feet away. 

The doorbell’s ringing.

Dad’s not budging.

My stomach is lodged in my throat and I’m confident in nothing ahead, but there's no turning back now. Damn it, Jean, I have no choice but to answer the door, do I? 

I see Dad is fake reading again (that book might as well be upside down)… and still no eye contact. What the hell? 

Can’t suppress eye roll. 

(Must, however, suppress the urge to regurgitate all the fucking water I drank.) 

Take a deep breath, Anne, and turn the knob. 

Yikes. Coming out of the dark, Jean’s smile is gigantic. She needs to dial it down, though. She’s freaking me out, a bit. 

Lame handshake. What’s his name, again? Looks like he wants to be here about as much as I do - Crap!  I hear swiveling. Dad’s up and heading this way.

He’s passing… No hello. No teasing Jean. Unheard of. 

Really? Not a word? And why are you stopping at the hallway dresser and pretending to rummage for something in the top drawer? Nice sham hands, Dad. But now you’re empty-handed and hesitating. 

Whatta you got for your next move?

OUCH. Focus, Anne! Jean’s struggling to fill the mind-bendingly awkward silence. 

But I can’t take my eyes off Dad. Especially, because he’s heading this way again. Don’t look, gentlemen, those eyes are dark, brown windows into his potential fierceness. I can almost hear the growl as he passes our fidgety huddle. Keeping his fixed glare, swiveling like the chair, at both males until he disappears. 

Time to go. 

“Good Night, Parents.”

I can hear, “Have a wonderful evening,” coming from the kitchen. Not a syllable from the den.

I hope the night sky can hide my humiliation. 

Is Dad really peeking through a crack in the curtains (he just closed to hide behind)? Even from here, I can read ”She won't be marrying THAT one,” on his face.

Can’t suppress eye roll.

To Be a Tree, illustrated by Ananda DiBenedetto

Within Close Range: Rocky

There are varying stories as to how you came into our lives, but with one common theme: you came to do what you were paid to do, harm, but ended up finding a friend in Dad, and a family - who took you in like so many strays - the scarred, the scared, the loners, the cast aways, the lovable losers, whom we often snuck into our home and hearts: Oscar, Tut, Spike, Missy, Tigger, Barney, all of whom easily settled into life among a variety of other domesticated, wild and human wards which Mom quietly embraced and Dad not-so-quietly tolerated.

You were certainly one of the most colorful and memorable.

As humans go.

You didn’t stand very tall - about the same height as Dad, but stood twice as wide, heavy with muscle and hair, apart from your head, which was always shaved bald.

You moved and spoke slowly, deliberately, dutifully - except when it was just us kids around. Then you’d shadow box and dance back and forth in an imaginary ring, reciting your poems of triumph and strength, with a smile ear to ear and a hint in your eyes, if we’d chosen to see, that your words were just tales.

To camouflage the things you’d seen, the things you’d done.

Or hadn’t.

Alone in the world, raised on the streets. Third grade was as far as you went. You fought to survive, then fought on demand. Why you chose to do that with your hands…

Was it the only praise you ever got?

While the real you, the softhearted, curious, clever you, sat in your room with your best friend, Sgt. Alex, a white-haired German Shepard, making art on found canvases, drawing faces and things that I can only hope gave great comfort and meaning.

Just as each word I write.

A reason for being.

Misaligned and alone you arrived in our world and made me remember you standing there in your sleeveless white t-shirt and rolled-up blue jeans above ankle-high army boots. I can still see you leaning against a rake, on a break from yard work Dad asked you to do. Picking at the teeth that still remained with a homemade toothpick from the nearby woodpile, sipping from a giant water jug from the back of your beat-up truck  (where it looked as if you kept your life), you’d spin glorious tales of overseas battles and prize-winning bouts, heroic deeds and days of glory to a curious, young huddle who believed every word from your kind, but busted face.

I’m not sure anymore if any of them are true.

But it hardly matters.

Because you were you, a sweet, gentle soul who used your imagination and your art to color the truth of your life and the bad things you did for the sake of the dollar, for food for your dog and bread for the table - not stories for kids who marveled when you chewed glass, flexed your biceps and showed us your gold and shiny, giant red, white and blue championship belt (which I once saw you wear while you dug a post hole), while living in the greenhouse office at the edge of the bluff, at our house in Shoreacres.

Dad gave you other choices, away from the violence, a place at our table where, for a time, we gave thanks together and looked out for each other. To me, you were Ferdinand, that sweet, big bull who given the choice preferred to sniff flowers than fight in the ring.

Gone from home and home then gone and times ahead when Dad couldn’t even help himself, you quietly disappeared.

But not from my mind.

Which still sees flashes of your bright, happy drawings of people and places, from moments that mattered. The film in my head of your boxer’s stance and boxer’s dance. You with your stories of whatever glory that might hold our attention or conjure a gasp, or a laugh, and a moment to be anything that you wanted to be: the prize fighter, the daring Marine who leapt from planes, the artist, the poet, the good citizen who saved a woman and confronted a gang. 

But no matter who, the you that I knew was loyal as a dog when a friend was true, creative, imaginative, humble and compassionate, who only ever wanted to sniff flowers beneath the old cork tree.