sins of the father

bambi and the knife

The boy aka kid E in Santa Barbara circa 2001. He hasn't changed a bit. If you have a manboy flying your colors and spoofing your DNA profile, raise him up right. Tell him you love him. Teach him to say yes m'am and no sir. To say bless you when somebody sneezes. To look both ways. To give up his seat on the bus. To clean up after self. To clean a bathroom for god's sake. To sit with his back to a wall in strange places. Teach him to keep his nut on a swivel. To be brave. To admit when he's wrong. To not back down when he's right. To know when he’s outnumbered. To always carry a knife.

The boy is grown now. Turned out better than I had much right to expect. His mother and I split when he was small. Four, I think. This might have made us awkward strange distant with each other but the opposite came true. For the next dozen years the boy and I spent thousands of hours in the car together driving up and down the California coast between Davis and Santa Barbara and the long howling stretch of I-40 between Memphis and Little Rock. Talking.

Teach him to build a fire. To drive a stick. To wear boots he can run fight and climb a fence in. To change a flat. To keep an umbrella and jumper cables in his car. To be a good samaritan.

The boy and I talked for thousands of hours. He didn’t have a phone or tablet til roughly 2013. Neither did I. He usually had a book or two with him and a fistful of pokemon cards but pretty soon he just started talking or I did. The kid was a talker. Never shut up sometimes. He told outrageous convoluted kid stories about middle school nonsense and playground politics. I told him about whichever book I was lost in at the time. Hell’s Half Acre when he was 9 or 10. The aborted Godspeed that half destroyed my mind when he was 13. Talked to him about world building from a very young age. Told him how I construct whole universes in my mind. Like his sister I probably told him he was a pirate. Taught him to built a fort in a motel room. How good that shit is for a lad in the long term remains to be seen.

Teach him to read a room. To read a tell. Teach him how to bluff his way out of a hole. Teach him to think like a poet and scientist at once. To carry a pen and notebook. To measure twice.

Told him about the day I’m playing Mortal Kombat with Stillwell on a sega genesis when his mom walks in zombie faded saying Kurt was dead. Kurt Cobain goddamn it. All of us watched him die slow but sure that summer burning hot it was visible as fuck cameras were all over him that year we all knew what had got of hold him then after the unplugged live show he was a comet the gen X pied piper woke us from the black then scorched our hearts and how all of my friends and I were right there hovering over the same lazy hazy self destruct button we were all 24 five six skating up on the 27 exit sign everyone one of us playing with fire dope or drink one demon or another. Told him best look sharp surf past that 27 suicide portal for junkie poets shit boy.

Teach him to use a needle and thread. Teach him how long to boil an egg. Teach him to change a diaper. Teach him how to talk to girls. Teach him to seal a wound with super glue.

Told him about Waco and the Koresh compound clusterfuck the unabomber and the white Bronco the Rodney King verdict and the proper hell to come in its wake. Told him how the night he was born I’m driving the yellow cab had the radio in the car just rolling around boulder like a ghost waiting for his mom to call the dispatcher to holler at me it’s a day or two after Jerry Garcia died I stop in to check and she says it’s time so we cruise down Pearl street slow as fog through a sea of mourning a chaotic ethereal dead head funeral procession lost kids dazed adrift in the street talking to themselves crying playing guitar pulling at their hair seemed a perfect night for my boy to come into the world. Told him stories about when I was his age. Dumb shit I did and cool stuff too. Told him about the times I zigged when I ought to have zagged. The roads less traveled and stray bullets sidestepped. The times I guessed correctly and ghosted past sure disaster.

Teach him to share the crayons. Teach him to love books. To form a hypothesis and test it. Teach him to do no harm. Teach him to make a proper grilled cheese. Teach him to slip a punch.

The boy no doubt watched me way too many times I’d say walk up and down the freeway shoulder somewhere near Vacaville chain smoking talking crazy into a shit flip phone with no signal or some middle of nowhere gas station growling into a pay phone. The boy saw me chuck at least one phone into the desert or through the wall more than once and you tell yourself yeah well he learned plenty of shit not to do too didn’t he.

Teach the boy how to be with dogs. How to talk to them. How to talk to the other humans. To form a pack wherever he goes. Teach him to always have his brother’s back. To keep another shepherd on his wing.

The boy saw me manic and saw me disappear myself into a shed. He learned his way around truck stops dodgy motels and waffle houses along 80 east by age 7. The haunted abandoned exits off 101 lost highways off the 405 this was still long before a bot voice telling you to stay left and merge right alternate route ahead. The boy and I traveled with a black shepherd named Rain ever on my heel. His stepmom too she could make a Motel 6 look like a magic campsite. The boy watched me stop and start with drink more than once. He saw me disappear myself into the Basque Hotel in north beach saw me get on the Amtrak back to Denver up to Olympia down to San Francisco to Fred’s place in the east bay next door to Hercules then West Hollywood finally come to rest in Santa Barbara and we had seven years safe there.

Teach the boy to play chess. To move the pieces in his mind before he touches the board. Teach him dinner table etiquette. Teach him to leave no trace in the wilderness.

Told him about the times I got lucky when I ought to have got killed. Told him all the dumbest shit I could remember. All the stuff not to do. Told him stories about how his mom and I met when we were 14. How stupid I was damn near stuttering the first time I really talked to her at 17 because she was so pretty I couldn’t think straight. How we found each other again at 20. How she stood by me the semester I was in the custody of the state. How we dragged each other kicking scratching near killing each other through the bitter slog of grad school. I talked about all of the life shit above. The how to be a man and don’t be an asshole shit. All the things my father taught me and his dad taught him on up the line.

Teach him the four agreements. To do unto others. To read the directions. To break rules when necessary and what the word necessary means.

The boy and I talked endless circles about comic books and science fiction anime and manga video games and music. All the artists I was obsessed with. The songs I made him listen to a thousand times. Nick Cave and the murder ballads. Elliot Smith. Trent Reznor. Talked about army guys cowboys pirates Billy the Kid Doc Holliday treasure island Blackbeard and pretty soon started talking his ear off about dark matter and 9.11 conspiracies interwoven with all the Faulkner and Shakespeare you might find in the old and new testament plus kidney thieves Twin Peaks Agent Mulder Shrodinger’s cat never not circling back to scanner darkly Ponyboy Curtis blade runner reservoir dogs Batman John Constantine ghost in the machine pokemon dragon ball z one piece Naruto red dead max Payne you dive these worlds tomb raider grand theft auto and the spiritual mechanics of the dead goku question you know regular dad and boy shit.

Teach him to look folks in the eye. To respect his elders and forebears. Teach him to believe in something. To believe in self above all.

The song that haunts me hardest is cat’s in the cradle. The silver spoon and little boy blue. The man in the moon and I’m gonna be just like you dad uh huh that’s what scares me. The version I grew up with was the Kris Kristoferson cover. The boy and I listened to the Ugly Kid Joe version a couple thousand times because it was on some mix tape I’d made and it was one of his favorites. Because he is like me. Too much like me for his mother’s liking in some regards. I tell people he’s me two point oh because so far he has a good chance to be better than me. To be wiser than me. To be a better husband than me. To be smarter about money than me. To be a writer like me but not let it break his mind.

Teach him the rules of grammar and when to ignore them. Teach him the secret to jazz and poetry is the silence. The blank space. The notes you don’t play.

The boy is just like me and just like his mom and like neither of us at once. He reads and writes like me which I reckon is half curse half blessing. He read the catcher in the rye and deliverance and to kill a mockingbird at a too young age same as me. He dove through the phineas poe trilogy and the contortionist’s handbook all the beautiful sinners and fight club less than zero neuromancer and half the books on my shelves before he had a driver’s license. The boy played Huck Finn at 14 in a theater production of Tom Sawyer in Little Rock and I was stupid proud. He listened sharp when I talked to him about drugs and drink.

Teach him to be a shepherd. To give spare change to the homeless. To be wary of the money changers in the temple.

The boy has the addict and the asshole willing to fight in him same as me. He has internal demons that don’t necessarily make sense but torment a body just the same and the best you can do is teach him how to wrestle those shadows. He paid attention and asked smart questions when I talked about heartbreak. About the black. The yellow cloud of self destruction the method writing bullshit the abyss staring back stupid jackass tragic fuckup comedy gold teardrop moments in time and their tangled connection to the art we make. The boy listened close when I told him of my relationship blunders. The pitfalls and system crashes. The collateral destruction. The black holes I walked into and the ones I created. He reminded me of my little brother in that respect. The boy made note of damage I’d done to self and others and like brother he observed much the chaos the bloodletting in my wake and tried to dodge that shit when he came along to similar forks in the road best he could.

Teach him to never leave his hat on a bed. Teach him to dig two graves if he seeks revenge. Teach him the serenity prayer. Teach him how sad stories and pain divided by the passage of time equal comedy. Teach him to hold the door. To protect his little sister. To shake hands like he means it. To hit the cut off man. Teach him the triangle offense. The give and go. To walk a mile in the shoes of another. To not look back if he’s walking through the underworld.

Regarding sins of the father and the revisiting of a thousand cuts. I have done okay for the most part. Kept him safe and taught him what I could. He got arrested for possession at 17 and bounced easy as a minor should another story there but he sharpened up. Didn’t make the same mistake again. The boy finished college quick double major philosophy English Lit worked similar jobs as me running herd on a bootcamp for teen fuckups in the desert wrote for an indie newspaper works as a cook takes jobs nearest to snowboard country and drops off grid whenever possible. Anywhere he might find outback. The places where there are still no roads no signal no cloud. I did tell him a thousand times the net is a soul trap gonna be a backlash come a time when kids remember they don’t like to be tracked 24.7 but it’s getting late in the game for the day it’s cool to have no phone at all.

Teach him not to drink alone. Teach him to smell trouble on the wind. To know when to walk away and when to run like hell. To not swing first. To not give up his tray if he’s ever locked up. To not blink. To break his own heart. Teach him to be a gentleman. To be the bad man when he needs to keep the monster from the door. To not be the monster. Teach him to forgive himself.

Two things I did to the boy when he was small come flashing at me strobe light hot at unexpected moments. Bambi and the knife. I saw Bambi in a theater when I was seven years old. This was the 1970s. There were only like three kid friendly movies released in the average year. If that many. Theaters showed reruns in those days and by the time I was eleven and the family was back in the states I’d seen to my knowledge six movies in a theater. Bambi and Fantasia. Tarzan and Jane in black & white. The original Planet of the Apes and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Jaws for fuck sake. The bulk of visual media on my hard drive at age eleven were those six films popeye the sailor bugs bunny cartoons sesame street Italian soccer and one episode of Star Trek the one where the twitchy kid Charlie gives a mean girl the stink eye and pulse shifts her through the floor plus a few episodes of Sanford and Son and that’s it. Think of what the average eleven year old has consumed already streamed direct into their frontal lobe today and have a shiver. The early scene where the apes come out of the tall grass on horseback and run down the caveman humans yeah I had a nightmare or two about that scene. The big shark oddly didn’t much trouble me. I was a good swimmer and we went to the beach a lot and I don’t know. I just didn’t have that particular phobia wired into my factory settings about the unseen dark water below and what monsters might lurk down there. I was just good at spinning up images of what lay beyond the black. I was borderline obsessed with Butch and Sundance for years which likely explains a thing or two.

Teach him the rule of threes. Teach him to stick up for the meek. To use a dictionary. Teach him to fish. To use a compass and read a map. To trust his gut. To walk on the sunny side.

But it was fucking Bambi did my head in. No doubt has something to do with the total recall and a splash of spectrum but when Bambi’s mother got shot and he’s just. running around screaming in the snow. shattered me. To say it broke my heart doesn't do justice to the burn marks papa Walt left on me and presumably two or three generations of kids who like me saw it at exactly the wrong age. Fantasia though funny enough opened door to psychedelics I reckon. At seven though with bambi and thumper in the dark you’re not quite old enough to separate film from real. Not quite young enough to let the dark shit pass over your head. Bambi broke me haunted me and stayed with me to this day so I made the boy watch it with me when he was five. Because he was going to see the fucking thing eventually and I wanted to sit there with him when it happened. And yeah it was brutal. It ripped him up same it did me and I hated it for him hated myself some but you teach him when to rip a band aid off too and to be true I don’t think it lingered with him quite the same because he was five or goddamnit you hope so.

Teach him to suffer a fool but whup a bully. To keep his hands up in a fight. To keep both hands on the wheel when talking to a cop.

The circumcision was rough. I don’t know how or when they started this trend or how they do it now but in colorado 1995 when the boy was however many months old they invited one of the parents into the cutting room to hold him down when the blade flashed and of course that parent was going to be me. If some life altering man business is going down then the father had best step up. No way his mom was going in that room and no way would I let her anyway and that image is evermore. The sound of him screaming. I can hear it like yesterday if I let myself. My hands on his little shoulders. Ten years later I had to do the same a few times when his sister got her first few rounds of shots for school and that was bad enough because she was terrified of needles. But they weren’t cutting anything off her. The decision wasn’t even much of a decision. I was cut and my dad and brother were cut and it stood to logic the boy’s gear should look like his old man’s.

Teach him to treat every gun like it's loaded. Teach him to breathe and think before he says something stupid. Teach him to be a man.

Not to mention I came of age sexually in the middle 80’s and never met a girl who said anything fond about the uncut among us. It’s one of the few groups you can still freely talk shit about. I also knew two guys in college two who had their foreskin torn in a too dry parked car hand job incident so my boy was by god gonna have his business sorted down there and never have to worry about his junk smelling like the inside of a shoe nor having a good time with a girl or boy turn bloody. Neither of which are exactly true in the long run but never mind. I held the boy down while a doctor I’d just met ten minutes prior took a scalpel to his most precious instrument and now I can revisit both scenes in my mind when I least want to. I veer down the wrong dark tunnel in the black chasing other demons or hunting lost treasure in my mind and zig when I ought zag and find myself watching my boy cry over Bambi’s mother bleeding in the snow or myself holding my own blood down under the knife. Now twenty odd years later I revisit the list of things to tell the boy and remind myself that he turned out pretty cool wise righteous and brave despite the untold sins of his father.

Talk to the boy. Teach him to never forget mother's day.

peace.

*endnote. I drift into a fugue state too with the cutting of the boy flashback and surely I’m not the only one. Do you ever not stop think fuck me it’s fucking barbaric innit why do we still oh yeah the bible told us didn’t it but then yeah the other animals the other apes the chimps they get around just fine don’t they without cutting off extra bits and recently saw a comic a standup young named Tyler Fischer do a pretty goddamn wicked funny bit about himself being uncut and hits you huh nobody even really talks about it fucking ever. The only other comic to even go near it was Jim Jeffries whose bit about blowjobs and searching for the uncircumcised on porn hub pretty much kills too it’s a curious business considering how much shame and shade gets thrown about the feet binding lip stretching and genital mutilation of girls in religions cultures not our own but must stop there body modification surely deserves a post of its own.

fade.