The heat of the summer always reminded her of her dad. He would always appear as the temperatures warmed, and by the time the leaves began to change, he was gone.
He came over that day in June, and hugged her as he wept on her shoulder. The day was warm, and the smell his cologne mixed with Pal Mal cigarettes and the rough feel of his beard against her cheek was comforting in a confusing kind of way. She was 11 years old , and smelled of summer sweat, chlorine, and Pepsi. He came to the home at Fairway Apartments that she shared with her mother and her younger brother. He told her that he had given up on finding a professorial job at one of the many local universities in here in tobacco country; the triangle area that encompasses Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. Since his divorce from her mom and his subsequent move from Richmond, he had followed her mom, who insisted on moving back home to be near her parents. He was the first person in his family to earn a college degree and escape the cycle of poverty, and had left Durham and swore he would never return. But return, he did. And he stayed for a year, to be near them, he said. He whispered to her through tears that God had led him to Dallas, Texas, to teach at the University of North Texas and Dallas Theological Seminary. This move meant she would see him sporadically, mostly at Christmas and on Summer vacations. But her dad, being the genius of the quick sell, painted a thrilling picture of what an amazing adventure this almost cross-country drive this would be. She jumped at the chance to be included in his world, and a few weeks later, they hopped into his 79’ blue Buick with no air conditioner and began their journey across the country. The heat was suffocating, at around 104 degrees, and her legs, clad in my cut-off Levi shorts, were completely stuck to the old blue vinyl of the bench seats. She took photos with her brand new One-Step Polaroid camera of the Great Smokey mountains as they passed through Tennessee, and burned with excitement of the signs warning of the possibility of falling rocks. Her dad, the music lover, told her all about Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley as they listened to Blue Suede Shoes and drove through Memphis, windows down, his cigarette smoke softly lifting up and out through the window and into the hazy, blue sky. He explained to her the difference between A hotel and a motel when they pulled up to the Motel 6, just off of I-30. He gave gave a quarter to put in the machine on the headboard of the bed to make it vibrate. The TV had only rainbow lines and a static noise since it was after midnight, so she drifted off to sleep in anticipation of tomorrow’s journey. Breakfast was Fritos and Funyuns out of the machine on the way to the car, as they set off for another 12 hours. Dallas brought them country music as the landscape changed to flat, and men in starched Wrangler jeans and cowboy hats appeared as foreign to her as actual aliens from outer space. It also brought her Taco Bueno, her dad talking to her about Mexico as she ate this sloppy thing called a burrito, swallowing it down with a Dr. Pepper. He showed her To the Galleria, one of the glamorous malls of Dallas, Texas, and had stores like Saks 5th Ave and Bloomingdales. She did not belong in this world, being a pre-teen in shorts and tee-shirts, surrounded by the glamorous women of Dallas, with their big blonde hair and long red nails. Her dad was woman-crazy, mom said, and he flirted with all of them at the cologne counters that were scattered about Macy’s, repeating the same old lines to each one, as she stood there bored and embarrassed. He slowed down only to remind her that if she didn’t start watching what she ate, she would be sorry soon. No man wanted a fat girl. He took her to Bloomingdales, and she felt like somebody as the overly made-up girl at the check-out counter handed her a “Little Brown Bag”. She rode on his excitement and energy that week, flying high on the newness of it all. He woke her up one morning at 2:00 am to go to IHOP for cheesecake. As confused as she was, she loved his spontaneity . Their week together ended the same way it had started. He leaned down and hugged her as he cried. The weight of his emotion felt like a cement block , threatening to slam her into the shiny tiled floor. She turned to get on the airplane, and the flight attendant attaching a little set of Eastern Airline wings to her t-shirt. As the “big bird”, as her dad called it, lifted up and over Dallas, she marveled at tiny houses stretched out across the board, with little blue swimming pools in each back yard. She was lifted up and out of the sadness and confusion, with her ginger ale and pretzels, if only for a few hours.
September 2015
She went to visit his grave today. She and her husband, and her 10 year old daughter. It’s in Durham, a place he wanted to never return, on a little piece of muddy earth that appears to slide down into the street. She couldn’t believe he was under her feet, and she wondered why humans devote all of this land to bury their dead. It seemed like such an odd tradition, she mused. He didn’t even want to be buried. He had confided in her , the way he often did, in his syrupy way that always seemed like bull shit, that he wanted to be cremated.
On the way home from the cemetery. we happened drove by an old pre-war apartment complex and an odd sensation came over her as She looked at up the large, wrought iron windows, that she had been there before. She was slammed with a sudden rush of memory. This was the apartment her dad lived in that year before he moved to Dallas, before they left on our trip together. One summer day years ago, it was her dad’s weekend to have her and her brother. They were together, in that living room of those old apartments with its hardwood floors and massive windows that let the sun shine in like a glowing orb, reflecting off of the shiny floors and white walls. The sparseness of the place made it seem spotlessly clean. He had an old blue sofa bed, and a big TV sitting on a tray, the kind people used to call “TV trays”, because they would pull them up to the sofa and eat their frozen dinners on them. The two siblings were fighting over the channels like two dogs fighting over a tennis ball. The next thing she knew, her dad was storming through the room, words coming from his mouth in a series that she couldn’t even comprehend. He was wearing nothing but a pair of white boxer shorts, the TV in his arms, rabbit ears wrapped in aluminum foil smashed to the floor. He called her mom, who immediately whisked the children up and out of there, terrified. She would see him several more times before he died, never knowing which dad would show.
Returning to the present, she glance into the back seat at her 11 year old daughter, and try to imagine what she would do if she saw her own dad pulI off such a dramatic feat. She couldn’t She can’t imagine her feeling any of the burden and heaviness of having to deal with the emotions put upon her by an adult. She had barely escaped that reality for her daughter. But still, he was there, alone on that little hill. All of the other tombstones were decorated with old photographs, flowers, balloons, little trinkets from loved ones, while his was lonely and bare. She became aware of the little flower attached to her car radio. It was a fake red daisy she bought at the Charlotte IKEA the week before and still had in her car. She took it out and put it on his grave. It was the best she had, and while she didn’t really want to go out of her way for him, the poor bastard needed something. She would return one more time in her life. She didn’t see the point in going back.