Page 56 - The Woven Tale Press Vol. IV #10

Hello or Goodbye
Only a few dubious facts and genuine memories tears from eyes as weak as my mother’s.
concerning my father remain in my possession. According to my mother, he was an amateur golfer who broke several course records across the Southeast, from the Carolinas to Florida, and I imagine him striding across emerald green fair- ways, his club like a scythe sweeping over per- fectly trimmed blades of grass. Having received
According to the documents, my father naturally disputed my mother’s claims of domestic vio- lence, but he did get arrested multiple times for cocaine possession. His mother—my paternal grandmother—disputed the court’s decision to give her full custody, and after the divorce was settled she paid a lawyer to take my mother to court; the lawyer’s opening argument was that she was even worse than my father. Of course, there were pages missing in the record here;
a scholarship, he was on his way to golfing pro- fessionally when—with that same extravagant singlemindedness—he became addicted to co- caine. My mother left him shortly after my birth, and shortly after my fourth birthday, he lost all visitation rights. I never saw him again.
it was clear something else was suppressed, though my mother denied this—all quite natu- rally. Regardless, the case was dismissed when
He threw us through a wall, my mother told me it was discovered my father had been arrested when I was still very young, his addiction having yet again—this time mid trial—and in addition, driven him to terrific bouts of violence, as well escaped from a minimum-security prison. Just as gambling. While you were still in my belly, she like that, he lost any chance of custody. insisted. Naturally, this thought terrified me, but
even at a young age I could sense my mother was not entirely to be trusted in such matters. We moved a lot when I was a kid, from state to state, but she always feared my father was lurking near- by somewhere, that he would show up and lure me away from her, imparting to me forever his great compulsion for the hazard. She often cried when I was young, coming to me for reassurance. Often, when I hated my mother in the purity of my childhood, I wished my father would show up and snatch me away from her—but of course he never did.
To supplement this scant record and my moth- er’s dubious testimony, my own memories pro- vide a few fully realized moments. In one, I am sitting on my father’s stomach as he lies in bed and smiles down at me. In this memory, I am running my fingers through the dark curls on his chest, marveling that he has hair there since my mother and I do not. I am maybe three-and-a- half years old.
Around the age of twelve, I implored her to show me the divorce and court records chronicling their split and the subsequent custody hear- ings. She relented, in tears as usual, and I read the documents carefully, alone in my bedroom while she whispered outside on the phone. As you might expect, I only declared my rights to these documents and demanded them to hurt her, so in all likelihood I was not prepared for the enormity of the knowledge thereby of- fered—yet also curiously denied. I too cried
In the second memory, I’m in a mobile home with my father and some Asian woman—maybe Japanese or Korean—only my father leaves almost at once so I’m alone with this strange person. This room we are in is very hot, and this woman does not pay any attention to me, merely sitting on a couch smoking cigarettes and watch- ing television. But really, I don’t mind, and I
keep myself occupied playing with a Super Man action figure. I’m wary of this foreign-looking woman because I instinctively understand my mother despises her, but the Super Man action- figure is incredible—totally awesome!—and I weave it up and down in the air. Wishing my dad will return soon, I make Super Man soar up in
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