ocean view (and responsibility)

when a public figure dies, regardless of the reach of their renown, what responsibility does the family have to report their passing? everyone handles death in different ways, but if you knew that your parent, let’s say, had a “fan base”, even if you, as their child, were unfamiliar with the reach and depth of such a base, wouldn’t you feel a certain responsibility to let those other, non-family members know of your parent’s death, either through a published obituary or a notice on their website?

you, whether mate lover brother cousin, may have no idea how deep the ties of friendship run with those outside your own relationship with the deceased. i don’t know what the relationship may have been with the one person i’m speaking about with their children, but the silence from their family makes me sad.

o pioneers!

gpoyw: the “o pioneer” version.

sometimes even an only child who was used to dealing with adults all of the time refused to enjoy their company.

location: at the ranch of the woman in the middle, whose first name i believe was florence, but i forget the connection she had with my grandparents–grandpa ralph to the left and unidentified woman to the right–in the foothills of the tetons, somewhere between cody and sheridan, wyoming.

did i mention that there were snakes, no running water, an outhouse, electricity just recently introduced, but she still cooked on a wood-burning stove and if ralph lauren had been there the interior of her log cabin home would have inspired his entire ‘chaps’ line of home furnishings for decades?  i didn’t?  well, i should have.

homesteaders, go figure.  the land was nearly free, it was beautiful in its own way, this then the time that even the lowliest could dream big (no longer, amirite?)

 

on decoration (a work of fiction)

this is the hardest part of my mother’s life for me to imagine.  not only is it literally foreign [living in post-war germany], but it is also that time in her marriage to my father when her life seems ill-defined to me, a cipher of its reality, a sleight-of-hand illusion, a card trick.  there are details that are facts, of course:  their mutual infatuation with each other (photographically confirmed), their army courtship, their time together (and apart), his parents (but not her past, at least not at first).  it is a time where she is nearly formed in my mind, so close to a complete picture of her character, only her distant past is more real than this time (she would rarely speak of this time of her life and when she did, he did not play a part in any of the scenarios or if he did it was because it was unavoidable.  we would sit on the sofa when i was young and dig through our box of photographs; i would ask “who is that?” and “what were you doing then?” or “i like the way you wore your hair,” and “that’s a silly photo!”  she would answer my questions, but she never discussed his character or what went wrong — or for that matter — what went right.  she was a model of evasiveness, on the run from the truth, at least the truth as it applied to me, dodging in and out of the traffic of my questions as efficiently as a stunt driver.)

the problem as you will by now have divined is that i know nothing of my father’s character.  there are bits and pieces, a couple of deep memories of his touch and his brusque manner, but they are so thin a layer of understanding that it is a theatrical scrim (back lit) dropped down in front of the mise-en-scène of this time, movement and form indistinct but noticeable and frustratingly close, a dream ballet, your subconscious, the truth tantalizingly close.  and then there is the matter of us not being tied by blood;  if i had half of him coursing through my veins i might be able to look in the mirror and see what he might have been (and what i might be.  this blood tie is debatable–perhaps only in my mind, as i long for some connection, somewhere, perhaps as all adopted children do–there are those who seek out the truth while the chance of their blood parents being alive is still a possibility, that is not me however, and now i am left with only my imagination–and yours.)

but now.   i conjure their love for each other (before he put her in the collapsible, wheeled cabinet with the stars and fringe and draped a velvet cloth over it, willing her to disappear.)  he, a decorated warrior, she a new recruit (with a past–played by ann sheridan in the movie) and older than him by a decade, a life already lived, if not well, at least she carried the experience of relationships with her and he did not.  (i should ask now the question that has followed this story, the story that i know; when did the abuse start?)  her enlistment perhaps the act of a desperate woman with no future and the hope that this action would change her luck (with men certainly, but also with her life.)

it is possible that i am lingering (actually loitering, slouched against a brick wall at the corner of not-knowing and wrong-way, a cigarette dangling from a pouty lip, hands shoved deep into the pockets of my jeans, just the slightest note of defiant fear wafting around my head like smoke), perhaps even dissembling, and that i have no business at this intersection and it is beginning to show, even to you, that i am at a loss for, for, for words to describe what i have no knowledge of and cannot even summon up the courage to admit it to myself.   and that it is because i have more questions that i have answers.  this is not a fairy tale in spite of the fact that that is exactly how i imagine it:  the dark brooding prince, with his dashing demeanor, gallant and handsome vs. (and it is exactly that, the versus, that defines this story, making it less a work of fiction and more like the truth) the damsel-in-distress, beautiful, sweet, begging to be saved.  and is love, is infatuation, not unlike a fight?  all of that history from both sides coming together, fueled by passion/lust — the domination of and sublimation to, the top and the bottom, the actually act of making love an assault on the castle keep, battering, battering, with its ultimate victory, its ultimate defeat.

it is true they made a life together and it is true that they loved each other in their own ways; it is also true that they made room for another life, an act of generosity so great, that in spite of their lives not fitting together still counts for something, a plus on both their scorecards.  even that though does not make the fiction of their life any clearer, or more easily understood and shared.   like the photo that accompanies this story, it is a room decorated, but without a sign of life.

it’s the orchid, you *^&%@#!

it seemed so simple.  a perfect idea with the perfect image to illustrate the point. what could go wrong, you might ask yourself.   and i’m not talking about myself in the third person, i’m actually talking about you.   yes, you.  sitting there in the comfort of your ________ or at the local __________ where the wireless is free and the ________ are beautiful/handsome or both.  you may even be at your local public ______, but that seems a stretch, perhaps too last century and possibly a little creepy anymore, besides who do you know that actually takes advantage of the knowledge available at the ________.  It’s been at least 20 years for me since i was inside one and then i rarely had any conversation with the _________ because i knew what i was after and how to use the dewey decimal system (god, do you remember?)  although i can conjure up the smell of old _____ and waxed linoleum and the quiet scratch of the ladder as it moved along its support system–the children’s area carpeted and all of the furniture scaled down to pint-size–which you wanted to go sit in as an adult, because, well just because, but the actual reason is that for one minute it would be comforting to be a child again and not have anxieties beating on the door of your adulthood (or do they pound?  mine come in a variety pack–like those individual servings of cereal that your mother used to buy–the cornflakes always the last to go because they didn’t have the sugar punch the others did. mea culpa the mixed metaphor btw.)

but instead, here you are as i said, in the comfort of your underwear (admit it) and if not that then, the comfort of somewhere else where all of the world’s knowledge (or so you’ve been told) is at your fingertips, which reminds me, when was the last time you actually got your hands dirty with dirt?  and had to use that odd little rasp that swings out from your nail clipper to clean underneath the nails and got a good whiff of loam up your nose or pollen from a faded rose as the petals, at your touch, dropped away from the stamen, one, two, three.  (that is still a question.)  that is just one example, there are so many others:  touch, listen, see, feel, smell (food, music, sex, art, skin, theater, words you have written, the touch of your lover’s hand in yours).

use it or lose it.   after all, it is the scariest of all admonitions, is it not? (that question is for both you and i.)  and then there is the keyboard that is the obstacle (albeit a necessary one).  do i cop out here and say, “what i’m saying is get out, experience life”, which seems too easy , too trite and not truly addressing what the problem, as i see it, is.  (was there a problem?  oh yes, it was where were the words going to come from?) and it’s not like i haven’t addressed this subject before and yet they do, don’t they?   show up eventually.  sometimes unintentionally, sometimes with purpose, the brother that never quite fit into the groove of the family, the wanderer who shows up on your doorstep, “hi, i was passing through and thought i’d drop by and say hello and see the kids,” and you open your arms and take him in.

visitations (lives of the saints)

“o, the sisters of mercy they are not departed or gone.  they were waiting for me when i thought that i could not go on.  and they brought me their comfort, and later they brought me this song.  o, i hope you run into them, you who have been traveling so long.” –leonard cohen

part 1

they always drove into town in the pickup with the camper shell from their home in south dakota or missouri, making the journey seem like a vacation, taking their time, stopping (as we always did when i was young) at roadside attractions, deciding on the spur of the moment to take this two-lane road or that one instead of the interstate, just to say they had done it, “it looked interesting,” she would tell me later, going into the details of this farm or that small town they had ‘discovered’ on their way to somewhere else, her fourth husband a willing participant in her explorations and whims.

they would visit friends, a collection of people she gathered wherever she went, a true talent and one i cannot say i fully understood at the time, the making of friends wherever, whenever.  i try now to remember if that ability was because she was a good listener or if it was her simple, pleasant manner, maybe it was an undefinable trait, or maybe it was just her nature that led people to her.  however she managed it, she had friends scattered around the midwest;  columbine and lilac, peony and rose.  when did she find time to maintain such a flower garden?

when i was growing up i didn’t pay attention to the subtleties of my mother’s maturity, her adult abilities and worldly navigational devices and tools, but perhaps i have been most influenced by them or by the lack of them and have only come to realize what they were when i reached a certain cognizant age (somewhere between 2_ and death, or perhaps in the never world of my subconscious) and when i find myself employing a skill set i had no idea i possessed.  i wish i could spell out for you what those subtleties are (other than the obvious petty lying one engages to keep the social wheels greased), their details, their lattice work on which your friendships flourish.

the first time they came to chicago to visit me, was it 1975 or ’76?, i can’t recall, and there is no mention of it in my journal from the time; i do know it was summer and chicago was a-shimmer with heat and humidity, but somehow perfect while they were there (or maybe it was its awful hot, sticky self, the weather is unimportant to this story, i was just hoping i could set a mood for you in order that you might appreciate more of what i’m about to share with you.)

have i mentioned that my mother would cast her spell over my friends so that they would also become her friends?  o yes, months later after they had been introduced, this one or that one would casually say something to this effect (and to my horror), “i was speaking with evelyn the other day and we were talking about you.  o, don’t worry, it wasn’t anything negative, but you know how she is…”  and i, on the other end of this particular telephone conversation, blushing, my pulse racing.   i would try to figure out how and when they found the quiet moment of their, most likely, one and only meeting, to secretly exchange phone numbers, neither of them so much as breaking a sweat in their collusion.   this habit of acquiring my closest friends as hers was one she began when i left for college and kept until she died, not unlike her pack of marlboros on the telephone table next to her chair in the living room, taking one out and carefully lighting it with a decorative flame and then that exhalation; i can hear it now, they must have too.

part 2

so.  plans are made, destination and arrival time plotted and soon (too quickly) here they are, standing in the lobby of 2___ n. pine grove, pushing the buzzer for r. patrick, apt. 1114, suitcases in hand, a bit of american gothic done up in polyester (“it travels better”) and smelling of the road, my mother a bit wind-tossed and my step-father solicitous as always of her every need, although her independence might have put off a less secure man, he seemed not to pay any attention to it and i think that may have been part of his appeal to her, this final love of her life (after me.)

this is the summer that i was sporting a collection of straw borsalinos accompanied by fringed silk scarves tossed gaily, yes you read that right, tossed gaily (in case you thought your eyes were deceiving you the first time) over one or the other of my bony shoulders.   you might ask the author at this point how open he was about his sexuality with his mother and step-father and he would say, “it’s none of your business.”  that is how it was handled in our family.  (if you’ve been following any of these family history jaunts i’ve been indulging myself in this past days/weeks/months/years, you may have discovered that at one point in my life i had two mommies, that too was never discussed.)

they settled comfortably in my studio apartment, sleeping in the bedroom alcove with me on the little off-white curved boudoir sofa i’d rescued from a second-hand store in uptown (lawrence & clark-ish) where it was wilting from disuse, hiding in a corner.  i’d swathed it in watered georgette, patterned in blue and green hues from a sari shop in the same neighborhood, covering the blemishes it had been wearing for years before i came to own it.   at least i’d start out on it, but it was so small and kidney-shaped that i ended up sleeping on the floor instead (he shrugged).

we took the 151 bus down to the near north and walked over to arnie’s for lunch one day and ate spinach salad and steak tartare (“why would you eat spinach raw,” asked my stepfather, my mother delighting in the alfalfa sprouts crowning hers, possibly making a little mooing noise under her breath to my horror–and secret delight.)

that evening we dined with my dearest friend (bff before there was such a thing), jimmy, in his apartment in the same building.    he had a 100 candles lit, reflecting the shimmering lights of the city below, the warmth of the light magnified by one mirrored wall, his palm trees and exotic plants making it a tropical night in the middle of chicago.  jimmy was an adept.  adept as in magical-thinking, fantasy-producing, another world/universe-living, brilliant human consumed by the darkest undercurrent (the river styx) and for a few years my off- and on-again gay mentor and guide to the world.  under his tutelage my culture quotient shot way up, i shed some of the country ‘gosh’ ness and instead acquired a big city ‘fuck’ ness.  what i chose to take with me has stood me well these many years.

my mother was fascinated by him and he by her and they soon had their heads together on his living room couch while step-father and i fiddled and twirled our wine glasses and idly watched them.  she would parry and he would feint; he would joust and she would side-step as elegantly as a show horse, so subtle was their mutual admiration and interest in each other that, to the untrained eye, you would have thought they had known each other for years.  at some point in the evening they exchanged phone numbers (see paragraph 5 above.)

wisely, jimmy continued to pour wine into their glasses, so that when it came time to lead them back to my apartment after dinner there was no objection to his and my heading out to the bars for a little late night revelry.

part 3

i’ve always been partial to the hindu concept of life:  a spiraling thread of history through which your life dissects, your past may be someone else’s future, their now your long ago.    but it is that spiraling (do you always think of the word ‘spiraling’ as a downward movement?  i think most of us do, but i often like to contemplate it laying on its side or moving up instead of down.   it is the same with its shape, a funnel your first thought with its wide top and narrow bottom, but i see it as particularly regular in shape, as wide at the top as it is at the bottom–or equal from side to side), that will now come into play.  we have moved from that idyllic summer of ’7_ and it is now close to the end of a decade and i have called out to them.

j.w. had a country girl’s charm with a big city woman’s body, all legs, ass and breasts cooing sweet nothings to men twice her age ’til they’d be wiping the drool off their chins with a paper cocktail napkin already wet with their sloppy beer.   she and i worked together at arnie’s, she in the bar, me on the floor, and we had an immediate connection.  as with most of us there, the restaurant job was ‘temporary’ until our real job came along.  she a potter, me a _________ (the blank is intentional, i had no idea what i wanted to be.  all i knew is that i did not want to be working in a restaurant another day.)  she lived in the pilsen east artist community at 18th street and halsted and after my first visit to her loft i was ready to move down there and lead la vie bohème, she mimi, me rodolphe (beats his chest).

instead of this [imagined] love affair (whether it was with her or not) it fast became a downward spiral of drugs, drink and wantonness (not because of her, or maybe it was) and when i finally pulled myself up out of the <insert your favorite word here to describe the depths of despair i was feeling at the time> i made up my mind to make something happen (even if it did not come true, as it didn’t, and as is often the case with the irresolute–you know who you are–there were more hard days ahead), i set out to change my life.

there was a party.   a going-away party where everything in the house was for sale. we (i had a roommate, more on that at another time, it is too hard to write about the living right now.  i’ve started to address this time in some written form or the other over the last several months and have failed each time –failed as far as i am the judge of what works and what doesn’t when speaking of the living–we shall see if i am able to move past that in the future as it is an important part, a key actually, to this story, both before this tale and afterward, and yet it does not matter now as i relate to you these visitations), sold everything including the refrigerator that belonged to the landlord (we replaced it) during this night of manic revelry; hundreds of people came through and by morning, the place was stripped bare (bare-ish, i ended up staying on by myself for several months afterward, not everyone took with them what they bought and never mentioned that they hadn’t gotten what they paid for.  it still makes me giggle with elfin delight that the party was so good that paying for something was like the fee for enjoying yourself, whether you took home your purchase or not.  there was never an ounce of recrimination from any attendee.  another “oh, well,” he sighed.)

part 4

and finally.  it’s not the final ‘final’ just so you know.  i don’t want to get your hopes up that this will be the end of it, you’re just going to have to soldier on here for a bit more as i dredge this pond bottom for all of the memory that’s been laying there gathering algae and scum (and the occasional dead frog).   focus, rp, focus.  i called them and said, “i’ve got a job lined up in phoenix and i’m going to move in few weeks, don’t want to take a lot with me, will you come and get the important stuff?” and she, “why, honey, of course, we will.”  and being the deus ex machina that they were, days later the pick-up with the camper shell (why were they always silver-y blue?) is parked in front of 7__ w. 18th st.

it is summer again in chicago and this time i’m not living on the lake.  instead i’m down in a neighborhood that has seen many better days, the streets are dusty, two doors down from me live a pair of hookers (as sweet as pie, btw) and the neighborhood abuts little mexico city, so named, well, you figure it out.   the artist inhabitants are a motley crew, a little wild-eyed, gypsy fortune-telling, handsome and beautiful, exotic birds really and i loved each of them, but that’s definitely an aside.  it’s not that my mother didn’t know where i was living, i shared as much as i thought necessary and i’d been down to see them several times over the intervening years–the important thing is that they had seen me, they had to know that it was not good, but they looked past it, not wanting to bring up something that they had no control over.  is that the mark of a good parent of an adult child or the telling point of one who was not?  i only ask the question now as i am writing this as it did not cross my mind that they were there with anything but love in their caring hearts.

“does this make me look like an artist or a kook?” she asked me as she sported the lamp shade on her head, standing on the sidewalk just down from my space (it’s the tan one in the light with the two big windows) and so the photo above, the one that i had been searching so desperately for so many weeks and it turned up on the shelf in the closet in the 2nd bedroom in an album, “yeah, didn’t you know that’s where it was?” said m. with the nonchalance of an olympic slalom skier or a secret agent.

the night before the photo, i’d taken them on the halsted bus up to greek town for a night out.  we ate at roditys where i was a regular and the staff poured on the charm and the wine and by the time we left a couple of hours later, she and my step-dad were as lit as i was.  we  stopped at the belly dancing place a few doors down for a night cap and somewhere between there and here (the tinkling of the silver jewelry adorning the dancer and the buzz of the crowd) i realized that my mother could pretty much handle anything that life threw at her.    no matter where she was she fit in.  instead of kilroy was here, it was evelyn was here, and don’t forget it; but do remember to call me, okay?  you’ve got the number.

what i remember (memorial day)

the military, in one way or another, was always the drumbeat keeping time in my family when i was growing up.  the year i turned 18 was the last year of the draft, and although my mother had suggested i enlist (career opportunities! great retirement package–should you survive left unsaid, but there was never a period at the end of that sentence–as there is in this one.)  my draft number was in the 300s (whew!), and off to college i went.

the author's mother enlists in the women's army corps 1950

my mother enlisted in the women’s army corps in 1950 after the demise of her second marriage to wyoming rancher, bill russell (i think it’s interesting that she’s noted as ‘miss’ evelyn h. russell), following a tradition set by her uncle (maynard high served in the navy in wwII and her half-brother, ralph jr., who had been in the navy after wwII.  what i want to know is why two land-locked men from wyoming joined the navy, but i digress.)

after basic training, she was posted to fort sheridan as a telephone operator (a previous life choice, better left for another time) where she met my father, a sargeant in the army.  (is this boring yet, this litany of where’s and when’s and who’s?  why should you care, you might be asking yourself about now, about robert’s mother’s military service, but to know this is to understand a little bit more about me–and after all, it is about me, i mean the blog is called ‘robert patrick’ for a reason.)

enlisting may have been the smartest thing my mother ever did for herself.  it got her away from the expectations of her family and put her, eventually, in a position to take control of her own destiny–as much as one is allowed to do that–but, she was able, after a time, to make her own decisions about how she led her life and with whom.

there is only a brief time in our life together when the military did not impact our lives, but so short as to be inconsequential.   after she and i moved to rapid city, she soon found a job at ellsworth air force base, where she worked for the next 17 years.   as it turns out, she was quite the object of desire among many an enlisted man (and some officers, too) at ellsworth, but one made a point of dogged pursuit and eventually proposed (she accepted!) and they lived happily ever after (well, mostly, her protracted duel with cancer a possible deterrent to their mutual happiness.)

he, (first name roy.  roy was the middle name of my father.  a coincidence?  i think not.) a life long enlister:  enlisted in the army and served in germany at the end of wwII, discharged from the army and enlisted in the marines and served in korea, discharged from the marines and enlisted in the air force and served two tours of vietnam, finally ending up at ellsworth and falling in love with my mother.  i’ll say this:  you would have never known he was or had been in the service; he was the gentlest and kindest man who loved my mother i had ever met.

did i mention that my grandfather on my father’s side had been in the army and served in europe during wwI where he suffered a head wound (part of his skull was blown away by shrapnel and had been replaced with a metal plate–a constant source of amazement for his grandchildren, “grandpa, may i touch the plate in your head?”  and he, as quiet and pleasant an individual you’d ever hope to meet, a barber with his own shop in south springfield, illinois, that he could walk to from home, it was literally around the corner, never complained — that we heard — and he would say, “touch it right here and you can feel the edge of it,” taking our small hands and placing them just so on the side of his bald head.   grandpa smoked a pipe and wore bow ties and if i ever find a picture of him to show you, you’ll think he stepped right out of grover’s corners or spoon river or possibly a norman rockwell painting for the cover of LIFE magazine.)

hollywood, u.s.a. feb. 14/44, chalk & graphite on paper by m.w. baxter

so.  when m. showed me this drawing yesterday at the long beach flea market i knew we had to have it.  look at his face and you’ll see the sadness, the sense of loss, and the world-weariness that emanates from his eyes and the set of his jaw, this young man drawn by someone (was it a dollar portrait on olvera street?) toward the end of the war.  there is a loneliness in his face (home-sickness, perhaps?) that fills me with sadness and compassion.

have i told you that i read the military obituaries that are posted each sunday in the l.a. times?  they move me so, these young lives cut short, their wives, husbands, children set loose from their love (i do want to believe that there is love lost, in spite of my own experience with a father in the military.)  it is the folly of man, is it not, that allows our youth to fight old men’s battles?  how else to explain their resolve to destroy these futures?  yes, i admire those who fight for us and yes, i rue their loss; losses that seem monumental to those who survive and inconsequential to those who prompt them.   there must be a better way.

i cling to these (a child’s memories)

“Just one way, you do get back home. You have a boy or a girl of your own and now and then you remember, and you know how they feel, and it’s almost the same as if you were your own self again, as young as you could remember.” –James Agee, “A Death in the Family”

part one

when i was told by the youngest sissie that he had died i thought that nothing had changed; he had passed from my life so long ago that any memories i think i have of our time together cannot be retrieved without the assistance of photographs.   she and i rarely speak on the phone, our adulthood separating us from the day-to-day minutiae of our ordinary lives; she said, “they found him about a week after he had actually died, sitting in his recliner,” (left unsaid:  with the tv on, an empty can of budweiser on a rickety metal tv tray next to a brown & orange plaid la-z boy; bloated with death & gas & probably putrid, no make that definitely putrid.)

this is the kind of story (the discovery of his death) that is usually found on the second page of the second section of your local newspaper, the part that covers goings-on around the towns in your area, a headline such as this: local man found dead in apartment and it would go on to describe how the discovery was made (the building super investigating a ‘suspicious’ smell), a quick quote from a neighbor, “he kept to himself, i don’t recall seeing anyone visit him,” a brief bio provided by a vietnam vet at the local vfw (a snapshot of your local vfw:  wood paneling, folding tables, the smell of bad coffee, beer & cigarettes, men unshaven, war stories–the same ones–told again and again, and the loose ends of their lives).  his family (a second wife, three children –maybe it was two, regardless, i have step-brothers & -sisters that i met only once — i can’t even remember their names it was so long ago and so briefly),  from what i was told, didn’t really care that much.   an end to a life passes by with little fanfare (except for the prurient) and there were no tears (perhaps of relief, but now i am being unnecessarily cruel.)

no rest for the wicked, würzberg, germany

my only adult memory of him is exactly what you might expect from someone not involved in your life:  he, stiff & uncomfortable, dominant (“you’ve got five minutes to shit, shower & save,” this the day of his father’s funeral & he was marshaling the troops–his 2nd family, me, and grandma.  wisely, the sissies–two sisters, my cousins, his nieces–stayed in a hotel.)  i was there for two days and left the evening after the funeral (he carried grandpa’s ashes in the trunk to the veteran’s cemetery against the wishes of the rest of us –  grandpa should have rode in the car with us, his last car trip instead of in the trunk, alone–should i say “like an afterthought?”  But he was insistent, our pleas falling tears in the parking lot of the church, a chill February wind underlining our despair.)

i was 21, he 48; in my mind i believed there would be a spark of recognition, an innate bond that time could not have diminished, some little thing that would say, “father,” “son.”   today i do not believe i yearned for that, but i do believe that i held out some hope; who doesn’t want their father to acknowledge them as their child (and to take them in their fatherly arms and comfort them, even after such a long time, this particular eternity?)  there may have been flashes of an imagined childhood with a father even.  (that particular construct is difficult for me to imagine actually happened in my head at 21.  i was, after all, an out gay man, making my way through school and with a job and living on my own.  i had not thought of him on a conscious level for, well, forever.  an introspective look at my past would have taken a back seat to the current events of my life.)

on the ride to the train station that evening, he, at the wheel, turned to me and said, “do you have any questions for me?”  (which was more of a statement than a questioin.  i, sitting uncomfortably next to him, thinking only of the escape that was just down the road for me, asked, “why did you and mom get divorced?”  his reply: “there are some things, son, that are between a man and a woman and not to be discussed with others.”

and that was it.  i think now i should have held onto that “son” as an admission of his failure as a father and perhaps his reaching for some commonality between us, but i was put out that he asked for a question then muffed it, not even any prevarication or stutter, just the implication, a brick wall enclosing him from the possibility of love, the subtext “off limits–i won’t open up my life like that.”  me sitting there staring out the window and at the reflection of my angry face in the window, a rebuke to his absence and his refusal (or inability) to be what i wanted.

tickle me, würzberg, germany

our life together.   recently when i was having my yearly eye exam, the doctor said to me, “were you hit in the eye when you were a very young child?  that might account for the mark on your retina.”  from the photographic evidence i was a happy child (except for my first hair cut at a barbershop, but really, that’s to be expected); there was never any discussion of abuse, but the terms of the divorce were severe–no contact, no mail, no telephone calls, never to be seen again.  and i spent several summers at his parent’s house and there were never any ‘unexpected’ visits; he vanished as if a magician had pulled the fringed drapery off of the empty cabinet where only moments before he had been hiding.

my mother collected mothers-in-law & this one was no different.  even my father’s sister and her daughters (and their father) all played a part in my young life.  but it was not until he had taken his mother into his house as she reached her dotage, that he was discussed among us (this after my mother had died).  there were tales of elder abuse from my aunt — his sister — (and even from my grandmother, somewhere there are the sad letters i would receive from her, detailing her decline and unhappiness and his cruel behavior.)  but, and this is true, everyone was afraid of  him and nothing ever happened to ease her suffering until she died.   it is hard to conceive that all of her love was wasted on a son like that; this loving, generous, hard-working woman and her delicate, sad husband — how could my father have been who he was coming as he did from such a home?

even when queried by me, my mother would talk about our life in germany & then the boat across the atlantic (me, just three,  in a harness with a leash so i would not dive overboard on a childish whim) and our time at fort carson outside of colorado springs and back to fort sheridan north of chicago, but she would do all of that reminiscing without once mentioning my father.  the only shared memory where he figures prominently was the day they were picking cherries from a tree in the backyard of our home in highland park and he on a ladder showing off and she, “lee get down from there before you fall and break your fool neck,”  i on the lawn watching them bicker/banter back and forth.  seems true enough today to reach out and touch them both.  that life together.  but that is one of only two shining memories of him that i have of my own, the rest are just prompted from these photographs.

mr. & mrs. lee patrick with their son, robert, würzberg, germany

there are facts of course, many a matter of public record:  his birthday, his name, his service in the army (3 tours of vietnam, a bronze star), their marriage (i have the license, she ten years his senior) and their adoption of a little boy before he was born, but the facts mean nothing, they are nothing but the wire hanger on which this empty suit hangs.   they were a striking couple, i see that in the photographs i have of them before their marriage (their courtship in the service–my mother in the army as well–and a charming photo of her sitting on the grass in the yard of her future in-laws her head in a floral aunt jemima scarf her skirt arrayed around her with an 8 x 10 framed photo of lee & written below in the photograph’s margin in my grandmother’s hand, “for the birds.”)  that seemed like love to me.  love before i arrived.

what changed?  this and other questions plague me still.  those who might know all dead now.  i grab at ideas (for one, that the ‘house-maid’, my birth mother, her occupation was listed on my german birth certificate, and this father were paramours and i am his son, but that theory vehemently denied by all concerned, except, of course, my mother who would just change the subject when i brought it up.  why the evasion, mother?)  she did kid me on occasion, “your father was a hick from appalachia with a pimple on his nose and shoes two sizes too big for his bony feet.”  which would send me (depending on my mood) either into paroxysms of laughter or an embarrassment so deep my knees would blush.

the other, should you need the prompt, is abuse.  whether vocal or physical, either to my mother or to myself, my gut tells me there were some mean times chez nous.   this is only a feeling, a gut reaction based on the rest of his life and the relationships the rest of the family had to him (the fear of crossing him the most prominent and the scariest, to me.)  but yet.  when i look at these photos of me with him, how could i think anything but love existed between the two of us? and perhaps that is enough.  but it is not nor can it be, because there is more.

horsey-back ride at the sissies' home, akron, ohio

what changed?  if this life alone had been lived with us what would have changed?  what is it like to have a father?  how does that fact change your life?  would that change your character?  i have a hard time imagining this part of my fantasy life, the presence of a male authority figure the rarest of dreams & they never are finished, & sadly there is no difference.   i think there should be a difference.  not that i would have been a different person, my essence is natural to me, although when you look at how i was raised you might be inclined to raise a glass to the concept of nurture influencing the character of a person.

and of course, i was influenced by all of the women in my life, there is no doubt that i was, but, but, but what if?  what if i had had a man around, to teach me to dribble a basketball, or catch a baseball, or for that matter to even enjoy sports?  what if there had been a man around to talk to about sex & love & relationships after i had become a stranger to my mother (puberty.)  that secret talk that a father has with his son (they do, don’t they?  in this fantasia they do.) what else do fathers give their children?  do you know?  all i can imagine i needed to be an adult i learned from my mother.  it was enough.

but from what i have gleaned over the years, like children do; listening, but not, absorbing without prejudice the rumblings of adults & years later those words bubbling up to the surface (not for everyone, i am sure, but for me they are words painted in the faintest of colors on a scrim at the back of the stage, so subtly lit that you must just let them be & that is how you discern their meaning, more a sense of their meaning, an emotional association with vowels and consonants, grammar), it would not have been a loving relationship between he and i.  no, what i see (the sense, this psychic retrieval) is a life of discord; my being who i am in contradiction to his idea of what i should be.   and that he died alone, his last family unconcerned about his well-being, his whereabouts, his life (how not to be trite here) only drives home, confirms my suspicions, that looking back, that other memory, that it would not have been good for the two of us.

which, of course, depresses me.  me, so eager to have that bond, that relationship, but only now, not then, because, and this is the truth, i never gave him room in my head as a child.  i was never teased or shunned for not having a father (or for having two mothers, one the perfect substitute for a father), and any questions as to why there wasn’t a man in our lives, the answers, however they may have been formed, accepted as fact and not as an aberration by my childhood friends (god knows what their parents thought about it all, it being the time of perfect family models (the Cleavers, etc.)

the nuclear family (white gloves version)

there is the one other memory, one that is mine alone as i have never shared it.   i’ve been reading lately about how, as we grow older, our memories of our early childhood disappear very rapidly and that usually by the ages of 10 or 12 (or younger) those memories of when you were a baby, a toddler, a young child, have vanished.  and it is then that you start your memory bank for use later on as you grow older.

so i believe this is my earliest memory:  he has taken me with him to the army base where he is stationed (fort carson? possibly because of the sensory truths that have stayed with me), i am possibly three years old (or not much older, this event just before their divorce) and he is showing me off to his buddies.   have you ever been around a bunch of young men in the army?  that part is more of a feeling.  this part is true:  he lifts me up onto a tank with its engine running (the intent to take me in it for a spin around the barrack’s yard/parking lot, wherever tanks are on an army base) and he clambers up after me and lifts me up again onto the turret.  he slips down into the tank and reaches over the edge of the turret and lifts me up and we drop down into the tank (down there it is all man sweat, motor oil and that peculiar dirt smell that i always associate with the army.)  i wail.  i struggle for breath, i squirm and scream and slobber, tears racing down my face, hot & claustrophobic in this small space with my father–a rejection.  for both of us.

he carries me back up the inside of the turret & lifts me (still in full wail) out of the tank and sets me down outside of the hatch.  his buddies staring, their looks a mixture of disbelief, amusement and embarrassment (i imagine now), because he was furious with me, his anger stiffening his back, his voice a sharp rebuke to my behavior (i don’t believe he hit me.)

part two

to understand what this memory has meant to me we must now jump ahead in our story eleven years:  i am 14 and in the full bloom of puberty (awkward–clothes refusing to fit– and horny, passionate and aloof, too eager to please, in reality, a mess) and i am spending the summer with mary (my real father) in colorado springs not too far from fort carson.   besides going to church, a southern baptist brimstone & fire church with elmer gantry’s stunt double as a preacher (was elmer gantry enough of a description or would you prefer: a floppy mop of auburn hair brylcreemed into a pompadour, ruddy complected, heavy beard (a twice a day shaver), big barrel chest and like his wife a hugger?)   and his wife all bosom and talcum powder, forever grabbing you into a hug “bless you, child”ing you until you thought you’d faint from those great ham hocks of wobbly fat arms locked tight around your middle–well, at least my middle–your breathing erratic (and ever so slightly erotic, in spite of your inclinations, for there were definitely inclinations).

preacher man, wife and a confused 14 year old

i am volunteering at the church, helping with kid’s summer camp, but the pressure is on from mary to be contributing to my savings with a job.  she decides (as she always did, dominant as she was, a foghorn voice and a laugh that always shot out of her, pellets of sharp guttural guffaws, so distinct you could identify her location even if you couldn’t see her) that i will be cleaning apartments in her complex, filled as it with military and base personnel.   i post a card on the bulletin board in the common area and a day later i get my first call (and as it turns out, my only one.)

the mother, son and father (disguised as a woman)

it’s a lieutenant stationed at fort carson;  i meet with him that evening and he tells me that he’s never home, always out on maneuvers, but could i just clean up after him.  we set a price and a schedule, he gives me a key and that’s that.  (except, of course, the that  is that i have fallen madly in love with him.)   days later and i’ve let myself into his apartment and his smell overwhelms me.  it’s in the bathroom, it’s in the living room (he doesn’t use the kitchen), and it’s definitely in the bedroom.   it is the smell i remember from my father and the tank, motor oil, male sweat and the red dirt of the plain at the base of the rocky mountains.

the dirt rings the bathtub, caked on the sides and all i can do is sit there on the edge of the tub and fantasize about him naked, me washing him after field maneuvers.  i wander from the bathroom without cleaning it (although i did rub my fingers over the ring of dirt in the bath and held them close to my nose, a strong intake of breath) into the bedroom where the bedsheets are in a knot at the bottom of the bed, pillows on the floor, which i pick up and place back on the bed and promptly lay down on my back, hands clasped behind my head, dizzy from all the blood fleeing to my crotch.

i do not fantasize about having sex with him, that would be too much of a leap of faith in my imagination at the time, but i do imagine playing house with him–whatever that would entail–perhaps a cocktail waiting for him when he comes back from the base at night, dinner in the oven, me in an apron, cleaned up and expectant, catering to his whims (only years later would those be of a sexual nature), taking his boots off, rubbing his feet and inhaling that scent–that red dirt, motor oil and man sweat.

after cleaning his apartment i would go back to mary’s and draw a bath and soak until the pads of my fingers shriveled into those little prune faces and masturbate, maybe twice while i had the apartment to myself, but still behind the closed door of the bathroom, my eyes squeezed shut and the images of the men in my life flicking by–my lieutenant, the preacher and my father from that day in the tank, when he held me in his arms while i wailed, with the smell of the earth all around us and the noise of the engine drowning out his love.

study in red & blue (a portrait of the author’s mother)

there were no plans for me to continue my life without her after she died. there were no birthday/christmas/graduation gifts stored for me in an undisclosed rent-a-locker (a la “the big c”) to be discovered upon her death & opened one at a time on the appropriate dates just as if she were still with me (but not, what forethought that implies & who, really, thinks that far ahead when the pain of death is so much at the forefront of your own day-to-day existence?)    she did not leave a book of directions, “what every young man should know after the death of his mother” that would have clearly led me out of the darkness left by her absence (the unlit corner of a caravaggio painting.)   there was just nothing.

nothing is the wrong word, because i, like many before me, tend to assign & ascribe so much to the word nothing that it becomes something.  to describe a void is to fill it, is it not?  i feel this way, i feel that way, i understand it to be, how could it not be this or this or this.  it is a relentless onslaught of words & ideas & thoughts & paragraphs & syllables that somehow make nothing something.

i reject that.  there was something.   the day of her funeral (for which it appears she is preparing in this professional portrait, but more on that later,) her husband, her half-brother, her step-daughter, her neighbors all appeared to me to be reflections in a dutch convex mirror used by vermeer to reflect the trappings of a middle-class life.  their faces squeeze in at the outer edges of my vision & bloom/loom large as they come to squeeze my hand, my shoulder, offer a word of encouragement, sadness, “she was a wonderful woman, sister, lover, friend, robert, i/we/they/ will miss her greatly.  how are you doing?”, they offered in different fonts & sizes (it all seemed to be box translated at the bottom of my vision, this mirror, this screen on which the words they were saying — muted by my anguish — lips moving, no sound issuing.)

there was the smell of uncomfortable clothes (polyester & other synthetics chafing necks, unbuttoned at the waist because of a beer belly or too much canned food) about the funeral home, making the viewing & the service overheated & sickly perfumed (who sent white lilies & how did they find them in this backwater, hillbilly pimple on the ass of missouri?)   have you noticed how those who offer their condolences invade the space of the bereaved?  they lean in as if you were an idiot child who needed every word said slowly, a period after each breath & that breath a reflection of their bad habits, covered with the lingerie of listerine & cherry-scented skin cream, the men & their cheap cologne not strong enough to hide the smell of cow dung they brought in on the heel of their cowboy boots, fresh out of the cab of their pick-up truck.

& all the while your grief is swirling around you, the ultimate acid trip (without the liberation) its dark dark dark road literally coming up to meet each of your steps to the casket & there she lays, composed as she requested, dressed in red & carefully made-up, just a bit too much rouge & not enough of how you want to remember her & someone, some stranger puts his arms around you to steady your bereavement, a wail at the wall (was it out loud or did i only hear it inside my head?), because they thought you were going to faint & you may have,  as it is difficult to reconstruct this time, this moment, this debauch of her aliveness.

i could not stand there & look for another moment & another stranger (but perhaps it was my uncle, a stranger then as well) turned me away & took my elbow & pushed me through the deep end of the pool of sadness, that rippling of color & sound & smell pulling back around me & to the out-of-doors where i could at last regain my equilibrium (but for a moment,) & gulped for air, a drowning man, just barely saved from dying himself.

i was squeezed into the cab of my step-father’s pick-up, he driving (his own face a study in grays & melancholy & loss) & my uncle on the other side as we made the 20 mile drive from the funeral parlor to the cemetery in vienna (where no one lived, but it was the most beautiful, best-tended local graveyard & one she & he had selected — see, there was some preparation after-all, it just did not concern me.) & then to be outside, & to listen to another stranger & then that thunk of the first shovelful of dirt to hit the casket & that was then that it ended for me.  i begged to be driven back to their home where i could lay down & not have to interact & to sleep away this dream of death.

this photo then, taken in 1963, a professional portrait composed at our home in rapid city, a foreshadow of how she looked the day she died.  it has never been how i remember my mother, leached as it is of her life, but it is how i remember her death.

wurzburg (ghost of christmas past)

wurzburg, germany, christmas 1954.  i am nearly two years old & it appears that i am the new year being ushered in or the steam heat in the apartment is out of control & everyone else not pictured is in their underwear too (my preferred version.)   what strikes me about this photo is how much of my character is on display; the tilt of the head, the smile (pasted on for the camera, had i been screaming just before the bulb went off, we’ll never know); the provocative dishabille, the hand on the chest’s handle as if i might fall off at any moment or like the pony of my dreams it might gallop away with me astride.

& the tree off the floor, as if i were a pet that needed minding (not a cat, though, a table a cat’s domain as much as the floor,) you know it’s partly that & partly to make it fill the space & look like a proper tree & not as if it were the top lopped off a taller, more graciously proportioned one.  if you’ve ever been to our home for the holidays (when we were still decorating a tree,) it’s possible that you may have seen many of the ornaments that are adorning this pagan fetish.  my mother carefully wrapped each glass bauble & sparkle & the birds with the horse hair feather tails in toilet paper (a ritual that has endured for as long as i can remember.)

what i wish i could retrieve (besides the parsing of the image) are the actual memories of this time (or at least i think i would like that, it’s hard to say whether or not i would be prepared or willing to relive those times were it possible to dredge them up from the sandy bottom of my temporal lobe.)  what would i learn?  it appears that i was loved & taken care of (please note the perfectly parted hair); i am not underfed, my eyes sparkle with the glint of the tinsel on the tree, but those are all outward signs of love & are now the only clues i have left to the actual events that passed for life in post-war germany for american soldiers & their families.

but here in this photo we are in the mid-point of my parent’s marriage; is it the apex or the nadir?   will there be moments, such as this one, where the love between them glimmers with the spirit of their first love/lust?  my mother was 10 years older than my father & they both made a decision to bring me into their family (a rescue, if ever there were one — how thankful i still am these many years later.)  that was a gift, was it not?  an irrevocable gift, wrapped in love, tied off with the bow of family (however imperfect or small) tightly knotted at the top.

rituals (& holidays & friends & blog posts)

it started off innocently enough.  a blog about culture & art & things i like.  over the years it’s evolved & now interspersed with all that art-y stuff are memories & obsessions & things i like (oops, i’ve said that twice now, but i do like writing about things i like — 3 times, but who’s counting?  seems it’s me.)  i’m not like some people i know who blog as regularly as a swiss watch keeps time (let’s say daily & i admit to some jealousy of their habits,) but i’m me & i write & post photos as it suits me.

every morning for the past 10 years, i’ve gotten up at 5:15 a.m. (almost always, even without the alarm.)  i pour a cup of coffee & check on m., who recently has taken to falling asleep on the couch in the den when he can’t sleep, with the t.v. on quietly in the background & joey curled up at his feet on guard duty.  soft snoring (yeah, right!) an accompaniment to the weather report on channel _.

after a few sips of coffee & quick check-ins with all of my social media outlets, i gather up billy & joey & take them for their morning walk.  the morning walk habit is one of the great pleasures of my life.  sometimes the sun is coming up & other times it is still dark outside (as i’ve noted in this blog on occasion); today the sun was up & there was the blue pacific ocean with its layer of cotton candy sunrise sky laying on top of it, a gift of beauty if ever there were one.

the dogs show great patience with me at this time of day–if i have the camera with all i have to say is ‘wait’ & they do & i snap a photo of ocean or the sun or the palm trees that dot our hilltop aerie, brushes painting the sky.

this morning, not unlike any other morning (except its freaking cold, low 40s! i know, i know, but it’s cold for us,) there was a brilliant sun greeting the dogs & i as we made our way up the driveway to the street.   & as you can see the sun sparkled & shimmered as it got caught in the fronds of the mexican palm trees; the sky, an indescribable blue (but i’ll try: cerulean, teal, delft, aquamarine, seafoam — that’s usually used to describe the color green, but i’ll make an exception in this case — the blue of a vein laying just under the skin of the back of your hand.)

growing up there were rituals (& holidays) as well, but none that so clearly defined the day as the walks i have taken with the dogs these past 10 years.  we (my mother & i) usually ended up at my uncle’s house (her half-brother) or we drove all the way to gillette to have thanksgiving with my grand-parents (her mother & step-father); rarely did the event take place in our home.    sometimes my mother would revolt & insist that we stay home & if family wanted to join us they could, but that happened maybe once & it’s not because my mother couldn’t cook (she could & well, i might add,) but because we didn’t have much (except each other) & if the expense of hosting could be shouldered by those more fortunate than we (except we had more love in our house, you could tell even if you were my cousin.)

day must end (that rotating earth thing always gets in the way) & another dog walk inevitably occurs after the sun has departed our world & is busy illuminating points west (but east, you know.)  these evening walks take a more circuitous route than the morning one, in that we traverse the full circle of our neighborhood.  my feeling, actually my understanding (from what i hear) is that the dogs look forward to & prefer this longer meander around & around, there are new palm trees (see above) that gather at night as if there were a regularly scheduled meeting (p.a., palms anonymous…) to hash out their feelings & work through their issues.

& on this walk, this more leisurely stroll, i too have the opportunity to reflect on the day, the past, the future & consider my options, or the roadblocks (my own & those of others) & talk with the dogs (they are such decent listeners, truly, deeply listening, listening that i only hope to achieve in my own life) & somehow their acquiescence to my voice, my problems, & my joy make this walk the one that (well, i’d like to say has the most meaning for me, but then i think of the morning walk in much the same way, instead, let’s declare it a draw, shall we?)

& if i think of one thing (any thing, really,) then i may think of you as well.  for that is how the mind works, all those synapses connecting disparate parts of our lives & thoughts & deeds & at night, at night there is the chance that a connection with you (each of you, friends now or future friends,) will strengthen & grow & light my way.