I slowly entered the master bedroom and came around the corner to the master bath to look up at my father shaving his beard in the mirror. With my innocent 9-year-old voice I asked, “Daddy, will you play with ball with me?”
He replied, “No” and kept on shaving. The sharp clicking sound of his razor on the porcelain sink made me jump. “Daddy, what if I was a boy, would you play with me then?”
He replied, “No” and kept shaving. I was beginning to get angry and wanted to know why. He saw the frustration in my leaning eyebrows and said, “I didn’t want any kids. It doesn’t matter if you’re a girl, I just don’t want to play with kids. I don’t like kids.”
That moment burned into my brain like a newborn calf getting branded on a cattle ranch. I wanted to forget, but felt I never would. That moment my own father told me he didn’t like his own child would continue to haunt me indefinitely.
His gifts for my birthday and holidays meant nothing. They were empty promises of a father’s love. Even the skateboard I begged for…the Lucero I had seen with my friends at the mall skate shop. I had saved up half the cost and asked my dad to help me pay for it. He said no, of course. Then the holiday season came and he surprised me with a skateboard. Only, this skateboard was the worst! It was plastic and neon orange and said NASH ® across the top. How embarrassing. These were the skateboards for kindergarteners. My father didn’t know anything.
I was eager to see what my friends had gotten for gifts and slid on my tattered white, well now brown, vans and headed outside to play. I was not grateful for his orange plastic board wanna-be gift and knew I’d keep saving for the new deck with purple grip tape. After all, that was my favorite color.
The coul-de-sac was alive with the elders of the corner. My best friend was two years older, a neighbor and an only child. So we always hung out and since I was miss goodie two shoes, her mom always let her go places with me and my mom to get her out of restriction.
There were two boys that lived at the end of the street. Her and I had crushes on them, but they were just friends we had known for years. Then there was 8 to 10 boys and girls, all within a few years of our age that would hang out. We’d roller skate, skateboard, ride bikes and walk to the corner store for soda, ice cream, candy and gum. It was a typical sub-urban neighborhood of the late 80’s. Full of rainbow tie die shirts and jelly shoes.
I emerged from the courtyard and entered the street scene full of my neighborhood gang. At first sight of the kinder orange plastic toy, the twin boys visiting from down the street began to wail with laughter. They always picked on me. I used to get into karate chopping fights with them. These prepubescent brawls of flying hands and fists were met with quick reflexes and blocks to avoid getting slapped or punched in the face. The fights always started because they just didn’t belong on our end of the block and I was the biggest of our group so the fight was unavoidable. They slap me, I’d slap them and then they stayed and hung out with us and picked on the chubby tall girl, me, the entire time. I was pretty quick with my blocks and was now able to slap them first, winning the challenge daily and they’d have to go back to their own end of the block if I said so. It was at least 8 houses down and gave me the silence I deserved instead of listening to them call me their favorite nickname all afternoon: Earthquake.
Those stupid twins! I was so upset she threw the board in the bushes. Her long-time best friend, a boy from down the street stepped up and said, I’ll buy it from you for my little brother. Thrilled with the idea I could get my dream board faster, I blurted “how much?” and the deal was done. A crisp $20 bill was now in my hands and I was rid of that stupid plastic orange peel forever. Now I had enough to get my board and didn’t need to involve my dad.
Now see, I lived only a mile from the mall and my mom would walk with me all the time. The only problem was…it was a holiday and dad was home. That meant mom couldn’t go anywhere. Either way, I had the money and knew my mom would go with her during the week after school. Their apartment was in the center of a fourplex. It was downstairs and the front door was below the stone and iron stairwell to the 2nd floor apartment. It was like a cave and I hated all the cobwebs that would collect overnight. It was always so dark in their courtyard and knowing dad was home, I dreaded going in even more since I wasn’t coming home with the gift from him.
I reached for the screen door slowly, hoping dad had fallen asleep after his lunchtime beers. No luck, he immediately noticed I didn’t have my kinder toy dumb orange board and started yelling. I stormed to my room and just kept saying I sold it. He grabbed her upper arm and spun me around before Icould reach my room at the end of the hall.
“Where’s the board I gave you for Christmas?”
“I sold it”
“You what?”
“I already told you a thousand times, I didn’t want it”
Within a blink of my left eye, I saw his left arm start coming up to cross my right. Unfortunately, my reflexes were too fast because of my daily altercations with the twins, I made a fist and punched him in the upper arm the same time his hand hit my cheek. Uh-oh.
He was so in shock, he just stopped and stared at me. I didn’t know what was about to happen. My mom was in the kitchen, I could hear the TV in the background from the other end of the hall. It was slow motion as if no one else was there and we just had a showdown. He didn’t say a word. He just turned and entered his bedroom and shut the door. Great! Now I’ve done it. What’s he doing…getting a belt? NO! He’s never laid a finger on me to harm me. I don’t even remember getting spanked as a baby. This is bad, this is so bad. should I tell mom? I just went to my bed and sat down in disbelief. My cheek hurt a little bit but I don’t think it’s red at all because it doesn’t sting like when the twins hit me.
The rest of the night I didn’t see my dad. Mom called me to dinner and said he wasn’t feeling well. The next morning the house was calmer than usual. I didn’t hear the shower, dad wasn’t cooking breakfast like he always did for me on the weekends. I always slept with my door open and I just waited to hear the master bedroom open. Just then, it did.
My dad quietly stepped out of the room and into the hallway carrying a small black gym bag. I jumped up to see where he was going. He placed the bag at the front door, turned around and gave me a hug. With a slow, unnaturally raspy voice he said softly, “I’m heading out.”
That was it. He opened and shut the front door and I heard the screen door slam as he left. My mom was still in the bedroom. I wasn’t sure where Dad was going, how long he’d be gone, or if mom even knew he left. I went back to my room and just waited. And waited. And waited.
Eventually, my mom came out and sat down with me. She explained that my dad left for good. That he wouldn’t be coming back and that it was just her and me now. I couldn’t help but have that sinking feeling it was my fault. I had hit him. Why did I sell the stupid kinder board. He bought it for me and I was so selfish I sold it. Then I had to just go and hit him. Stupid twins! If I didn’t have to defend myself all the time from those stupid bully brats, maybe my dad would still be here. I can’t tell her. I can’t tell her that I hit him. She’ll kill me. I’ve destroyed our family and now my dad is gone and it’s all my fault.