He sweetened his coffee, the liquid in the mug rising in displacement at the same rate that realization was dawning in my amped brain. Across from me sat the man who, I believed, had shaped my life more by his absence than by his presence, a man who I strived so badly to be better than while I simultaneously yearned for his affection, a man who had just left rehab to get high and eat waffles with his son. He placed the sugar back on the table and pushed it toward me. “Your turn, Bub.”
I doctored my coffee once more, cigarette in one hand, spoon in the other. Out of habit, I placed the sugar right where its fallen comrade had been perched earlier. After a confirmatory sip, I took the cigarette’s final drag, stubbed it out, and looked into Dad’s expectant, albeit bloodshot eyes.
“So where in the hell did you get weed?” It seemed a logical enough place to start the conversation, though I’m sure the question sounded accusatory. A grasping of hands and shedding of tears event this was not, nor would I have liked it to be; our life and relationship had always been more Ricki Lake, less Oprah Winfrey, and it would take stronger substances than coffee and cigarettes for me to get all weepy. For me, weed worked like Botox for my brain, and Dad looked at me with as much concern as his marijuana-influenced facial muscles could muster.
“I understand you may be upset that I am not completely sober, Bub, but, I assure you, I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol in one hundred and eighty-nine days.” His delivery struck me as packaged — so practiced that it could have been typed and distributed to every rehab patient walking out the front door. It reminded me of the customer service training videos I was forced to watch upon my hiring at Domino’s one summer;
I understand that receiving pepperoni on your pizza when you were expecting sausage could be upsetting, Mr. Jones. Please give me the chance to make things right for you. You’re welcome to keep this pizza free of charge.
My stoned, sausage pizza of a father had upset me. I was expecting a sober and clearheaded patriarch, and I doubted the rehab nurses could redeliver the father I’d ordered in thirty minutes or less. Dad wasn’t a pizza or a product or anything else I could have tailored to my liking. Nor was I for him. Who orders a first-born child with extra gay and a double helping of introversion? The realization next struck me that, if he had practiced that statement, then at least he had put some thought into our meeting and my feelings. All things considered, I read this as a positive step.
“Dad, it’s okay, really.”
His cup held between both hands on the table, he leaned forward, steam dancing upward through the hairs of his beard.
“Are you sure, Bub? I’d hate for our first attempt at fixing things to be soured by feelings of mistrust.” He maintained eye contact as he lifted the cup to his lips, formed them into a small circle, and blew gently across the caramel liquid.
I was stunned. I blinked twice, like a paralyzed accident victim communicating to nurses that, yes, I wanted to be fed more ice chips. “Sounds like someone paid attention in group therapy.”
Years ago, when Dad’s drinking was new, JoLynn had scheduled a weekly family therapy session for herself, Uncle Joe, Dad, and me. Ash was so young at the time that she spent the sessions crawling around the therapist’s office in her diapers, mimicking her aunt’s tears. Though Dad had agreed to the sessions, his attendance was sporadic, and even then he was wasted when he showed up. The few cooperative words that left his mouth during these meetings were in response to Ash, who had recently perfected asking adorably, “Up?” with her arms raised toward him. Everyone’s sullen mood lifted briefly. Her innocence was a respite from the room’s heavy atmosphere, and it would last until Ash squirmed her way out of his arms and back to the floor, like a light dimming slowly from bright to black.
Under the yellow, fluorescent glow of grease and nicotine stained bulbs, I watched Dad’s face perform that same, slow wilt as he sat across from me.
”Yes, Stephen, I did.”
My full first name exited his mouth and slapped me, stinging my sense of superiority and knocking me off my pretentious horse. My jaw slacked, and I opened my mouth. All that escaped was a cough, a wordless puff of air passing through unprepared vocal chords. I swallowed. My throat stung, and I became aware of how my breath must have smelled.
“Dad. I — I’m sorry, I didn’t —“
“No, no, no,” he interrupted, “I am the one who owes the apologies here, Bub, not you.” He shook his head to the left on not, right on you, the motion underlining, emboldening, and italicizing his words.
“No, Dad, I’ve been a total dickhead.”
He cut me off again, his voice rising, though not angrily. “I’m the dickhead, Bub. I’ve been a dickhead almost your entire life,” he exclaimed, a politician on a soapbox selling his truths.
“Here’s your steak and eggs, Mr. Dickhead,” said the waitress as she placed the oblong plate of calories in the middle of the table. With her free hand, she relocated the sugar to a less perilous spot. Our conversation had narrowed our world to the booth, like blinders on a horse. We both looked up at her, wearing expressions that — despite our ages, Dad’s downers, and my uppers — conveyed an undeniable familial resemblance. Her smile, showing an array of teeth and gaps, broadened, and she winked. “Mr. Sugarbreaker, you change your mind yet? Hungry?”
We had broken tableware and occupied her booth for an extended period, so I figured the least I could do was order some food and leave a decent tip. I placed my order as Dad cut into his steak, his appetite supplanting his manners. I took a slice of his toast, an unsolicited act to which he didn’t object.
We had tried to declare our dickheadedness to one another, a moment that represented the pinnacle of our entire relationship’s emotional honesty. It was quite the breakthrough.
“Dad,” I began as I bit the triangle of toast, “I do owe you an apology.”
He looked up but voiced no opposition as I tried to gather my thoughts.
I’m sorry that I didn’t believe you’d stop drinking. I’m sorry that I talk to you like you’re stupid. I’m sorry that a small part of me wished you wouldn’t have shown up today. I’m sorry that I remind Ash daily of everything you ever did, or worse, everything you didn’t do. I’m sorry Mom died so long ago and left you broken. I’m sorry I’m embarrassed by you. I’m sorry I’ve never shown you any empathy, only selfish expectation. I’m sorry for everything.
The bite of toast miraculously passed the lump that had formed in my throat. My emotions — hope, regret, self-pity and anticipation, relief, nervousness, joy, disappointment — swirled together, stirred and blended until they, like countless cups of cream-and-sugar-adulterated coffee, became something altogether different. I was submerged in them like a spoon.
“I’m sorry I gave up on you,” I said, though my voice was so low I wondered if Dad had heard me. Gingerly, as if to prevent disrupting the moment, he placed his utensils on his plate. Leaning to his left, he reached into the back pocket of his jeans and retrieved an envelope. Folded in half, it was unopened yet well worn.
“I’m sorry I gave you so many reasons to, Bub,” he said and passed the envelope over his half-finished steak. Briefly the thought of its containing a check made out to Bub Rayburn in reparation for years of parental absence crossed my mind, with “for being a dickhead” written in the memo line. The envelope he held between his thumb and forefinger resembled a key being turned, and he rotated his wrist as if to communicate the offering’s innocence and sincerity.
“What’s that?”
“It sure ain’t money, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Please.” I rolled my eyes and feigned self-respect. I took the envelope from him and unfolded it. No stamp, no return address, just Bub written in a shaky hand in the middle of the tattered, white rectangle. He was the only adult I knew who formed a capital B with a curlicue at the top, like an elementary school child might do.
I tore open the envelope at one end, like one opens a sugar packet, and slid out a single sheet of paper. I noticed how bright and crisp it was compared to the envelope, and its creases were so fixed that, if not held taut, it would fold back into itself. The same shaky handwriting traversed the page, climbing over pleats and dipping through valleys. It was a standard apology letter, yet the contrast between Dad’s own words and the template that had obviously been provided by the facility was clear; not only were his littered with misspellings and plagued by misusage, but the pen strokes used to form them appeared more deliberate. The postscript read:
P.S. I am sorry I never agnolleged you said you was gay. I dont give a shit if you are Bub. I love you Bub and I made you as prefect as I could.
The ink, thick and dark blue, had spread slightly wider, as if the words were written at a slower pace and with a heavier hand. The letters stood equidistant from one another, with more perpendicularly crossed Ts and fewer careless gaps, like those of a child whose Ritalin had kicked in halfway through his book report. I read the postscript for a third time, its sentimentality struggling for prominence from behind poor structure.
I took a deep breath. My body and brain vibrated as I exhaled, causing the top left corner of the crisp paper to flutter in its wake. The dateline quivered, as if waving to grasp my attention.
November 10, 2002. Dad had written first.
Skyler D. Williams 