Father

By Jan Gray

My father’s hands are grotesque. He suffers from psoriasis, a chronic skin disease that covers his massive, thick hands with scaly reddish patches that periodically flake off, sending tiny pieces of dead skin sailing to the ground. In addition, his fingers are permanently stained a dull yellow from years of chain smoking. The thought of those swollen, discolored, scaly hands touching me, whether it be out of love or anger, sends chills up my spine.

By nature, he is a disorderly, unkempt person. The numerous cigarette burns, food stains, and ashes on his clothes show how little he cares about his appearance. He has a dreadful habit of running his hands through his greasy hair and scratching his scalp, causing dandruff to drift downward onto his bulky shoulders. He is grossly overweight and his pullover shirts never quite cover his protruding paunch. When he eats, he shovels the food into his mouth as if he hasn’t eaten for days, bread crumbs and food scraps settling in his untrimmed beard.

Last year, he abruptly left town. Naturally, his apartment was a shambles, and I offered to clean it so that my mother wouldn’t have to pay the cleaning fee. I arrived early in the morning anticipating a couple hours of vacuuming and dusting and scrubbing. The newspapers and magazines were strewn throughout the living room; moldy and rotten food covered the kitchen counter; cigarette butts and ashes were everywhere. The pungent aroma of stale beer seemed to fill the entire apartment.

As I made my way through the debris toward the bedroom, I tried to deny that the man who lived here was my father. The bedroom was even worse than the front rooms, with cigarette burns in the carpet and empty bottles, dirty dishes, and smelly laundry scattered everywhere. Looking around his bedroom, I recalled an incident that had occurred only a few months before in my bedroom.

I was calling home to tell my mother I would be eating dinner at a girlfriend’s house. To my surprise, my father answered the phone. I was taken aback to hear his voice because my parents had been divorced for some time and he was seldom at our house. In fact, I didn’t even see him very often.

            “Hello?” he answered in his deep, scratchy voice.

            “Oh, umm, hi Dad. Is Mom home?”

            “What can I do for you?” he asked, sounding a bit too cheerful.

            “Well, I just wanted to ask Mom if I could stay for dinner here.”

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea, dear.” I could sense an abrupt change in the tone of his voice. “Your room is a mess, and if you’re not home in ten minutes to straighten it up, I’ll really give you something to clean.” Click.

Pedaling home as fast as I could, I had a distinct image of my enraged father. I could see his face redden, his body begin to tremble slightly, and his hands gesture nervously in the air. Though he was not prone to physical violence and always appeared calm on the outside, I knew he was really seething inside. The incessant motion of those hands was all too vivid to me as I neared home.

My heart was racing as I turned the knob to the front door and headed for my bedroom. When I opened my bedroom door, I stopped in horror. The dresser drawers were pulled out, and clothes were scattered across the floor. Everything on top of the dresser—a perfume tray, a couple of baskets of hair clips and earrings, and an assortment of pictures—had been strewn about. The dresser itself was tilted on its side, supported by the bedframe. As I stepped in and closed the door behind me, tears welled up in my eyes. I hated my father so much at that moment. Who the hell did he think he was to waltz into my life every few months like this?

I was slowly piecing my room together when he knocked on the door. I choked back the tears, wanting to show as little emotion as possible, and quietly murmured, “Come in.” He stood in the doorway, one hand leaning against the door jamb, a cigarette dangling from the other, flicking ashes on the carpet, very smug in his handling of the situation.

“I want you to know I did this for your own good. I think it’s time you started taking a little responsibility around this house. Now, to show you there are no hard feelings, I’ll help you set the dresser back up.”

“No thank you,” I said quietly, on the verge of tears again. “I’d rather do it myself. Please, just leave me alone!”

He gave me one last look that seemed to say, “I offered. I’m the good guy. If you refuse, that’s your problem.” Then he turned and walked away. I was stunned at how he could be so violent one moment and so nonchalant the next.

As I sat in his bedroom reflecting on what he had done to my room, I felt the utmost disgust for this man. There seemed to be no hope he would break his filthy habits. I could come in and clean his room, but only he could clean up the mess he had made of his life. But I felt pity for him, too. After all, he is my father—am I not supposed to feel some responsibility for him and to love and honor him?