younger still.
my father got robbed while drunk, and hit in the head with something that left him in the hospital.
today, i am a kid again and re-stepping these steps.
My mom, having already brought him home from the hospital, asks me into their room to see him. i am afraid.
he's sitting up in their big fancy bed with his head wrapped in white bandages. my mom brings me closer to him. there's a shade of purple under one of his eyes, the other one is red.
i ask my mom what happened. she tells me someone hit him in the head. this is a suitably censored version that wouldn't share its complete truths until later on in my life. i begin to cry.
in this moment he reaches behind the pillows and brings out two harmonicas. one was an adult harmonica and one was a smaller version of that one. he hands the small one to me and tells me what it is.
he plays a few notes through his and i stare at mine.
As i sit here writing this i don't really remember what happened next, or even what was said between us. and i don't remember where that harmonica ended up.
i do know that that little harmonica was one of the few things my father ever gave me like that.
and i lost it, like kids do to things that fathers give them in special times.
my father got his ass kicked in some back alley for god knows what and when he came home he had two harmonicas with him. one for me and one for him.
had he gotten them before?
were they an after thought born from the fear of losing his life, alone in some alley?
i never found out the reason for the gift, but i never forgot it either. it replays in my mind over and over until the grooves wear out and only part of it is discernible anymore.
when i was a teenager, many years later, i was out with a girl one night at the seal beach pier. we held hands and i stared off into the water in the breeze. it must have been summer. i remember talking about my father, and that harmonica he gave me all those years ago.
that night i received my first kiss from that girl, after talking about my father all night.
I've seen my father from behind the glass in a jail. i've seen him drunk and listening to sad bastard music in the living room by himself, crying and telling me that "men don't cry". i have listened as he taught me valuable things about life. and i have listened as my mother told me the stories of his drinking and spousal abuse. but i have always held an undying allegiance to my father.
my father, being the ass that he was, has never stopped me from doing anything that i wanted in life.
but he has never supported me either.
after my mother and father had gotten divorced, my dad came back to the house one day.
i remember it being awkward and slightly uncomfortable. but as he was leaving, i stumbled out the door to the house where he no longer belonged and stammered "h-hey....m-maybe we can go get donuts sometime."
the man turns to his twenty-four-year-old son with a slight nostalgia and welling up in his eyes, and tells me that all i have to do is call him and we'll go wherever i want.
when no ones around, i sit in my room and write things like this while crying and remembering the times i wish we had.
my mother has since told me that he regrets his actions and misses his family. i reply to her that it's too damn bad.
it's hard to miss something you never had.
(click image to see original size)
