Dad and Me (A work in progress)
May. 22nd, 2007 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thehefnerThis post serves a few purposes. For one, it's an exploration of thoughts that I will flesh out in a future Hefner Monologues book. For another, it's to vent something that's seriously bothering me today, on more than one level. There may or may not be a coherent point here. Bear with me, skim, or read at your leisure. Thanks.
He thought it was an impacted wisdom tooth, but the pain remained even after the tooth was removed. So I took him to the ER of Sibley Hospital, where I was born, and according to him, they spent all day doing every kind of test possible, but found nothing.
Typical, I thought. Here's a 76-year-old alcoholic with such severe gout and--Mom and I are almost certain--brain damage, a man who used to drink a pack of Miller Lite per day, and whose glass of gin and tonic is never, ever anything less than a quarter full... and there's nothing wrong with him. Mom is sure he's going to be just like his own mother, herself a manipulative and hateful alcoholic, who clung on and clung on for years, no matter how bad she got.
He's house-bound. The man shouldn't be living in a small two-story house on top of a hill, but he'll never move. I have to fight to talk him into getting maids and cleaners to come fix up the house every six months, because I sure as hell ain't gonna wipe up the stains of blood and pus and spaghetti sauce. He doesn't like strangers in his house. He damn well sure doesn't ever want to leave it; Don Hefner is happy to be trapped inside him home, simply because it is his.
I visit every Thursday to bring him groceries, the occasional fresh loaf of rye bread with seeds (sliced), and things like light bulbs and AC filters, whatever he needs. I no longer buy his tonic water (Canada Dry, always)after I exploded in his face; I still have no doubt that he would've eventually made me buy the gin (Seagrams, always). Usually I'll spend an hour or two with him, which is the utter highlight of his week.
His day to day life consists of sitting in his kitchen, listening to the classical and news stations on his little black fifteen-year-old pocket radio. He can no longer read the paper, much less bundle up the stacks for trash pick-up. He doesn't even have basic cable on his ten-inch 1992 Zenith television, because he's held a grudge against the cable company for waking him up as they came to install around 5 AM. That was over twenty-five years ago. So all he does every day is sit in the kitchen, listening to the radio or often just stews in the silence, and drinks. Every day, for six and a half days each week.
At this point, I shoud mention that I know most of you probably just have a vague idea what my father was like all my life. Even the very few of you to know the details don't entirely understand. Because, frankly, not even I entirely understand it myself. The biggest challenge I can ever think of, as a writer, is trying to properly convey just what exactly happened between us all those years. It's not like physical nor sexual abuse, which has a straight-forward surface level that everyone can immediately appreciate and understand. It's not something than can be summed up with a single instance.
That hasn't stopped me from trying, of course. Trying like crazy to get people to understand just what the hell it's like to grow up with this man, to live with him and to love him. One of these people was Nita, Dad's last real friend in the world. She was an old girlfriend of his who, according to Mom, he lost interest in once she got too old for his tastes (ever a Hefner, Dad liked 'em college-age... and lucky for him, he was a professor), but she remains devoted to him even today. Her husband too, for that matter. They love Dad, and are the only ones--besides me--he hasn't alienated or pushed away. They do so much for him, more than they really should. More than he deserves, Mom would say. When I'm too busy, they drive him to doctor's appointments and get him whatever supplies he needs. Including, on more than one occasion, tonic and/or gin.
At Mom's iinsistence, I called up Nita one day. I wanted to see just how much she understood that my father had a problem. To see if she had any inkling of the sort of person he was underneath the charming blue eyes and the withering Paul Newman looks. The sort of person only my Mom and I truly saw.
Nita didn't believe me. Not that she said so outright, nor did she exactly challenge my accusations. But it was pretty clear that she couldn't possibly, not in a million years, imagine Donald Hefner ever capable of being like that. The drinks make him happy, she said he said. That's all he has left, and it's what lets him live out his twilight years in comfort. Mom always said he thought of himself as a "happy drunk."
So it was Nita who finally forced Dad to go back to the ER when his pain wouldn't subside, even though he was sick of being tossed from doctor to doctor to doctor, some of them never even calling him back. It was she who called me up yesterday to tell me the news.
At this point, I should mention that, as I was spending my two-or-so Thursday hours with him one day six months ago, Nita called up. When I answered the phone, Nita greeted me with, "Oh, John! Well, I'm surprised to hear you there." There was a strange sort of undercurrent to that statement, but I wrote it off as probably just being my imagination. I mean, I'm just there once a week and I never answer the phone. There couldn't be anything more behind that, right?
Well, when she called me up yesterday, she asked me where I was. I told her that I was on my way to rehearsal, that I've had rehearsals for stuff pretty much every night lately, it seems. Ignoring this, she told me that they're gonna do a biopsy on him tomorrow, so we won't know anything until then. I thanked her profusely for her help and told her, "If you need me, call me up and I'll make time for him." To which she replied, "Yeah, o-kay."
And y'know, it could mean nothing. But for the moment, let's just say my fears are true for the moment, because I could easily, easily imagine that she thinks I'm a bad son. That my crippled, weak, and desperately lonely father sits at home, alone, wanting nothing more than to spend time with his son. A son who barely grants more than a few minutes of phone conversation every couple of days, an ungrateful and bitter son with such resentment towards things that just had to be exaggerated.
Because that's the sort of game my father would play with me all my life. If I didn't spend exactly, down to the minute the same amount of time with him as I did with my mother (divorced, living three miles away), then I was an ungrateful little shit.
"Love is a two-way street," he'd be fond of saying. "You have to give if you want to get."
Again, to really try to convey the enormity of all this, I'd need an entire book. And even then, I don't know if I could pull it off. It scares me, it really does, because it's something I'm going to need to accomplish someday. Something that even someone like Nita would read and then, finally, even she might finally get it.
Because even if she didn't mean that, even if she doesn't think that way, there's still that part of me that does. Want to know one reason why I love Harvey Dent as a character? Perhaps this could give you some insight. There's that part of me that's been trained from youth to doubt every single thing I do, think, and say, the part that demands that someone else be there to verify or validate my life and my memory. It's why I never want to travel alone. I want someone else to be able to say, "Yeah, you're right, we went there."
So I called my mother, for a number of reasons. The first is that, obviously, she knows exactly what I'm talking about. Second is that she's a nurse. But most importantly, she's the reason why I'm as functional and good-humored as I am. When I was in elementary school to high school, she would pick me up from his house promptly at 6:00 (any earlier and he'd yell at either or both of us for cheating him out of our time). I'd often come to her car in tears, miserable and self-loathing and feeling guilty. And often, the hurt was softer, quieter, but still there nonetheless. And every day, she'd ask me:
"So, what did your father do today?"
So I'd tell her, very hurt and very serious and just pouring my poor little heart out, pleading for understanding and forgiveness. And every single time, her reaction... was to laugh. To cackle heartily at the pure ridiculous absurdity of it all. Because what my father said was absurd! If you were anybody else, the venom-dripping words of this old souse would come off at befuddling at worst, and uproariously surreal at best.
For example, he hated my step-father Gordon so intensely that he completely forbade me ever speaking his name aloud in Dad's presence. I've never heard Dad say it either, except for one instance... sort of. You see, he was spewing out hateful words, verbally lashing out at nothing that I recall, and referred to Gordon as, I swear to God, "That 'Gerdin' thing!"
That Gerdin thing? What the... who says something like that? It's ridiculous! It's hilarious! Except... it wasn't. Not when these absurd, bizarre tidbits are laced with such venom, and that hatred is directed at me. But Mom always managed to turn it right back around, to show me how crazy it all was, and to laugh right along with her. It's because of her that I can still survive being no-skinned, not even thin-skinned, and perhaps not have it ever corrupt me like so many idealists before me. She's why I've been able to bounce back from every hurt I've had so far.
Mom said, "It's like I've always told you. If you were to write it in a book, no one would believe it. It's a very subtle kind of manipulation he's pulled on you. He's cultivated and molded you all your life, and no matter how far you've come, you're still so vulnerable to even the slightest hurts when something like this happens. To put this in perspective: the man wanted me to abort you. He made me promise that I would never have children, but I broke that promise because I knew, somehow, that I had to have you. And even though I gave him the greatest thing he's ever had in his entire life, he never forgave me. It was always my fault, just as it was my fault that the marriage collapsed. 'You broke up our happy little home!' he said."
Seriously. That's what he said. How can you react to someone who talks in such a way, yet with such passion behind those infantile words?
"I had no idea how bad it was until I married him. I knew some, but I had no idea it was that bad. I'm sorry for your genetic material! But at least you have stories!"
"Heh, yes, well, I always do have that, don't I?"
"He's always making you doubt yourself. It's what he's always done, and you've always been an expert at it. The slightest thing can set you off."
I said, "I'm a walking open wound. You know this!"
"Then put a band-aid on it!"
"Heh, well, that's why I called you."
She said, "You do more for him than any son I've ever seen. Any other child in your situation would have been gone by twenty-one, if not earlier. Yet you still see him every week, you still shop for him, you still talk to him and entertain him and love him. You do more than he deserves after everything he's done to you. Nita will never understand. She should stop and think to herself, why doesn't he have any friends? Why doesn't anyone call him? Why doesn't he have anyone left in the entire world but her and you?"
And it's true. If only because he doesn't want his old friends to see how far he's fallen, he's pushed all of his old pals and colleagues aside. Never to be seen again. Why does he still have me? Because maybe I still haven't broken free of him. Or maybe I have, but I stay because I love him. No matter what, no matter how I try, I will never stop loving him. Even when I hate him. Some of you know what it's like to hate the person you love. Those that don't, I pray you never do.
The fact of the matter is, ever since I put my foot down a year or two ago, he hasn't pulled any of the old shit on me. Oh, he's tried once or twice, but I've actually learned how to shut him up and shut him down. Now he knows how busy I am with my plays, my work, my obligations, and no longer demands anything of me. He no longer tries to dangle my inheritance in front of me in exchange for my love. He hasn't played a single game with me in the past couple of years. The fact of the matter is... we've never gotten along better in my life.
But I'm so afraid to allow myself to love him, even now. It's crazy, because I'm going to love him no matter what, but I'm so afraid to allow myself to feel that love. To enjoy that love. I should, because I should finally savor it, while I still have time. And this, of all things, should be the wake-up call of that fact. But I still feel like any second, he's gonna rip it right away from me again, hit me right where I'm most vulnerable, and find a way to tear me to pieces. To play the games, to make me doubt, to trigger that voice that said I'm worthless, that I'm a shit, that I'm insensitive, that I don't care. It doesn't matter if I know better, of course I do. I'm a walking open wound, and those words are like salt.
But here's the thing I realized. If anybody's doing it, it's Nita. Even she might not be, and maybe it's just Harvey inside me. But he's not. He could be, easily. He could easily pull any number of tricks to make me feel like I don't take better enough care of him, after all he did for me, after how he "busted his ass," (an old favorite)... but he isn't. He knows I have a life. He's happy and supportive of me for the life I have. He's grateful I give him as much as I do.
He understands.
I called up his hospital room. The man on the other end sounded weak and swollen, hardly like him at all. We didn't say much to one another, only that I'd try to come by tomorrow, to check in on him even if I wouldn't be able to see him. And then, for the first time in over five years, probably more, I said, "I love you, Dad."
Without a flicker of shock or passion, he just said right back, "I love you too, John."
(A postscript: I came home tonight from rehearsal to find my mother had bought me chocolates and beer to cheer me up. There's some real Hefnerian irony going on there, that my mother bought be alcoholic beverages to brighten my day.)
He thought it was an impacted wisdom tooth, but the pain remained even after the tooth was removed. So I took him to the ER of Sibley Hospital, where I was born, and according to him, they spent all day doing every kind of test possible, but found nothing.
Typical, I thought. Here's a 76-year-old alcoholic with such severe gout and--Mom and I are almost certain--brain damage, a man who used to drink a pack of Miller Lite per day, and whose glass of gin and tonic is never, ever anything less than a quarter full... and there's nothing wrong with him. Mom is sure he's going to be just like his own mother, herself a manipulative and hateful alcoholic, who clung on and clung on for years, no matter how bad she got.
He's house-bound. The man shouldn't be living in a small two-story house on top of a hill, but he'll never move. I have to fight to talk him into getting maids and cleaners to come fix up the house every six months, because I sure as hell ain't gonna wipe up the stains of blood and pus and spaghetti sauce. He doesn't like strangers in his house. He damn well sure doesn't ever want to leave it; Don Hefner is happy to be trapped inside him home, simply because it is his.
I visit every Thursday to bring him groceries, the occasional fresh loaf of rye bread with seeds (sliced), and things like light bulbs and AC filters, whatever he needs. I no longer buy his tonic water (Canada Dry, always)after I exploded in his face; I still have no doubt that he would've eventually made me buy the gin (Seagrams, always). Usually I'll spend an hour or two with him, which is the utter highlight of his week.
His day to day life consists of sitting in his kitchen, listening to the classical and news stations on his little black fifteen-year-old pocket radio. He can no longer read the paper, much less bundle up the stacks for trash pick-up. He doesn't even have basic cable on his ten-inch 1992 Zenith television, because he's held a grudge against the cable company for waking him up as they came to install around 5 AM. That was over twenty-five years ago. So all he does every day is sit in the kitchen, listening to the radio or often just stews in the silence, and drinks. Every day, for six and a half days each week.
At this point, I shoud mention that I know most of you probably just have a vague idea what my father was like all my life. Even the very few of you to know the details don't entirely understand. Because, frankly, not even I entirely understand it myself. The biggest challenge I can ever think of, as a writer, is trying to properly convey just what exactly happened between us all those years. It's not like physical nor sexual abuse, which has a straight-forward surface level that everyone can immediately appreciate and understand. It's not something than can be summed up with a single instance.
That hasn't stopped me from trying, of course. Trying like crazy to get people to understand just what the hell it's like to grow up with this man, to live with him and to love him. One of these people was Nita, Dad's last real friend in the world. She was an old girlfriend of his who, according to Mom, he lost interest in once she got too old for his tastes (ever a Hefner, Dad liked 'em college-age... and lucky for him, he was a professor), but she remains devoted to him even today. Her husband too, for that matter. They love Dad, and are the only ones--besides me--he hasn't alienated or pushed away. They do so much for him, more than they really should. More than he deserves, Mom would say. When I'm too busy, they drive him to doctor's appointments and get him whatever supplies he needs. Including, on more than one occasion, tonic and/or gin.
At Mom's iinsistence, I called up Nita one day. I wanted to see just how much she understood that my father had a problem. To see if she had any inkling of the sort of person he was underneath the charming blue eyes and the withering Paul Newman looks. The sort of person only my Mom and I truly saw.
Nita didn't believe me. Not that she said so outright, nor did she exactly challenge my accusations. But it was pretty clear that she couldn't possibly, not in a million years, imagine Donald Hefner ever capable of being like that. The drinks make him happy, she said he said. That's all he has left, and it's what lets him live out his twilight years in comfort. Mom always said he thought of himself as a "happy drunk."
So it was Nita who finally forced Dad to go back to the ER when his pain wouldn't subside, even though he was sick of being tossed from doctor to doctor to doctor, some of them never even calling him back. It was she who called me up yesterday to tell me the news.
At this point, I should mention that, as I was spending my two-or-so Thursday hours with him one day six months ago, Nita called up. When I answered the phone, Nita greeted me with, "Oh, John! Well, I'm surprised to hear you there." There was a strange sort of undercurrent to that statement, but I wrote it off as probably just being my imagination. I mean, I'm just there once a week and I never answer the phone. There couldn't be anything more behind that, right?
Well, when she called me up yesterday, she asked me where I was. I told her that I was on my way to rehearsal, that I've had rehearsals for stuff pretty much every night lately, it seems. Ignoring this, she told me that they're gonna do a biopsy on him tomorrow, so we won't know anything until then. I thanked her profusely for her help and told her, "If you need me, call me up and I'll make time for him." To which she replied, "Yeah, o-kay."
And y'know, it could mean nothing. But for the moment, let's just say my fears are true for the moment, because I could easily, easily imagine that she thinks I'm a bad son. That my crippled, weak, and desperately lonely father sits at home, alone, wanting nothing more than to spend time with his son. A son who barely grants more than a few minutes of phone conversation every couple of days, an ungrateful and bitter son with such resentment towards things that just had to be exaggerated.
Because that's the sort of game my father would play with me all my life. If I didn't spend exactly, down to the minute the same amount of time with him as I did with my mother (divorced, living three miles away), then I was an ungrateful little shit.
"Love is a two-way street," he'd be fond of saying. "You have to give if you want to get."
Again, to really try to convey the enormity of all this, I'd need an entire book. And even then, I don't know if I could pull it off. It scares me, it really does, because it's something I'm going to need to accomplish someday. Something that even someone like Nita would read and then, finally, even she might finally get it.
Because even if she didn't mean that, even if she doesn't think that way, there's still that part of me that does. Want to know one reason why I love Harvey Dent as a character? Perhaps this could give you some insight. There's that part of me that's been trained from youth to doubt every single thing I do, think, and say, the part that demands that someone else be there to verify or validate my life and my memory. It's why I never want to travel alone. I want someone else to be able to say, "Yeah, you're right, we went there."
So I called my mother, for a number of reasons. The first is that, obviously, she knows exactly what I'm talking about. Second is that she's a nurse. But most importantly, she's the reason why I'm as functional and good-humored as I am. When I was in elementary school to high school, she would pick me up from his house promptly at 6:00 (any earlier and he'd yell at either or both of us for cheating him out of our time). I'd often come to her car in tears, miserable and self-loathing and feeling guilty. And often, the hurt was softer, quieter, but still there nonetheless. And every day, she'd ask me:
"So, what did your father do today?"
So I'd tell her, very hurt and very serious and just pouring my poor little heart out, pleading for understanding and forgiveness. And every single time, her reaction... was to laugh. To cackle heartily at the pure ridiculous absurdity of it all. Because what my father said was absurd! If you were anybody else, the venom-dripping words of this old souse would come off at befuddling at worst, and uproariously surreal at best.
For example, he hated my step-father Gordon so intensely that he completely forbade me ever speaking his name aloud in Dad's presence. I've never heard Dad say it either, except for one instance... sort of. You see, he was spewing out hateful words, verbally lashing out at nothing that I recall, and referred to Gordon as, I swear to God, "That 'Gerdin' thing!"
That Gerdin thing? What the... who says something like that? It's ridiculous! It's hilarious! Except... it wasn't. Not when these absurd, bizarre tidbits are laced with such venom, and that hatred is directed at me. But Mom always managed to turn it right back around, to show me how crazy it all was, and to laugh right along with her. It's because of her that I can still survive being no-skinned, not even thin-skinned, and perhaps not have it ever corrupt me like so many idealists before me. She's why I've been able to bounce back from every hurt I've had so far.
Mom said, "It's like I've always told you. If you were to write it in a book, no one would believe it. It's a very subtle kind of manipulation he's pulled on you. He's cultivated and molded you all your life, and no matter how far you've come, you're still so vulnerable to even the slightest hurts when something like this happens. To put this in perspective: the man wanted me to abort you. He made me promise that I would never have children, but I broke that promise because I knew, somehow, that I had to have you. And even though I gave him the greatest thing he's ever had in his entire life, he never forgave me. It was always my fault, just as it was my fault that the marriage collapsed. 'You broke up our happy little home!' he said."
Seriously. That's what he said. How can you react to someone who talks in such a way, yet with such passion behind those infantile words?
"I had no idea how bad it was until I married him. I knew some, but I had no idea it was that bad. I'm sorry for your genetic material! But at least you have stories!"
"Heh, yes, well, I always do have that, don't I?"
"He's always making you doubt yourself. It's what he's always done, and you've always been an expert at it. The slightest thing can set you off."
I said, "I'm a walking open wound. You know this!"
"Then put a band-aid on it!"
"Heh, well, that's why I called you."
She said, "You do more for him than any son I've ever seen. Any other child in your situation would have been gone by twenty-one, if not earlier. Yet you still see him every week, you still shop for him, you still talk to him and entertain him and love him. You do more than he deserves after everything he's done to you. Nita will never understand. She should stop and think to herself, why doesn't he have any friends? Why doesn't anyone call him? Why doesn't he have anyone left in the entire world but her and you?"
And it's true. If only because he doesn't want his old friends to see how far he's fallen, he's pushed all of his old pals and colleagues aside. Never to be seen again. Why does he still have me? Because maybe I still haven't broken free of him. Or maybe I have, but I stay because I love him. No matter what, no matter how I try, I will never stop loving him. Even when I hate him. Some of you know what it's like to hate the person you love. Those that don't, I pray you never do.
The fact of the matter is, ever since I put my foot down a year or two ago, he hasn't pulled any of the old shit on me. Oh, he's tried once or twice, but I've actually learned how to shut him up and shut him down. Now he knows how busy I am with my plays, my work, my obligations, and no longer demands anything of me. He no longer tries to dangle my inheritance in front of me in exchange for my love. He hasn't played a single game with me in the past couple of years. The fact of the matter is... we've never gotten along better in my life.
But I'm so afraid to allow myself to love him, even now. It's crazy, because I'm going to love him no matter what, but I'm so afraid to allow myself to feel that love. To enjoy that love. I should, because I should finally savor it, while I still have time. And this, of all things, should be the wake-up call of that fact. But I still feel like any second, he's gonna rip it right away from me again, hit me right where I'm most vulnerable, and find a way to tear me to pieces. To play the games, to make me doubt, to trigger that voice that said I'm worthless, that I'm a shit, that I'm insensitive, that I don't care. It doesn't matter if I know better, of course I do. I'm a walking open wound, and those words are like salt.
But here's the thing I realized. If anybody's doing it, it's Nita. Even she might not be, and maybe it's just Harvey inside me. But he's not. He could be, easily. He could easily pull any number of tricks to make me feel like I don't take better enough care of him, after all he did for me, after how he "busted his ass," (an old favorite)... but he isn't. He knows I have a life. He's happy and supportive of me for the life I have. He's grateful I give him as much as I do.
He understands.
I called up his hospital room. The man on the other end sounded weak and swollen, hardly like him at all. We didn't say much to one another, only that I'd try to come by tomorrow, to check in on him even if I wouldn't be able to see him. And then, for the first time in over five years, probably more, I said, "I love you, Dad."
Without a flicker of shock or passion, he just said right back, "I love you too, John."
(A postscript: I came home tonight from rehearsal to find my mother had bought me chocolates and beer to cheer me up. There's some real Hefnerian irony going on there, that my mother bought be alcoholic beverages to brighten my day.)
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-23 03:57 am (UTC)There is SO much I want to say to you here, but I'm going to type it all in IM, since we're chatting on IM right now anyway.
But.
Never, EVER underestimate the power of what happens to you as a small child and young person, and never, EVER underestimate the power that a parent has in shaping your self-image. We shape our self-image most powerfully based on the way our caretakers perceive us, and what they tell us, both verbally and non-verbally. I think it's time you went to someone safe to talk about this.
I've been through cancer with my mom, and my dad died very suddenly of heart disease, so I know what it's like to NOT KNOW and be up and down emotionally literally one second to the next until you find out. So lean on your friends, talk to me, talk to Danny, talk to those of us that know and love you, and LEAN on us.
And remember: this kind of emotional roller coaster is just that. Never, EVER place any expectations on what you're "supposed" to be feeling right now, because in a situation like this, you can feel everything from wild and mysterious elation to deepest sadness to panic. So just be prepared for that, my love.
xoxoxox
Me
We've never spoken of our fathers have we??
Date: 2007-05-23 04:00 am (UTC)Wonderful in its terriblness and terribly full of simple human viscera.
Re: We've never spoken of our fathers have we??
Date: 2007-05-23 04:07 am (UTC)It had helped me. It's a Hefner Monologue. It's why I tell them, why I need to tell them, and why I want to be able to keep doing them. They keep me going.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-23 04:24 am (UTC)That's the stinker about manipulative people when you're a writer, half the time you don't even believe what they're pulling and you're hearing them say it!
I'll be thinking of you tomorrow and in the upcoming week. (Have you seen Cradle Will Rock yet? Might take a load off your mind for a while.)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-23 04:37 am (UTC)But yeah, rather than actually try to bring up some of the ugly feelings myself, I'm going to have Mom be the one to say that (and she has more to say on the matter of my father than I do!) and we'll let the readers discern the truth. That's what I'm thinking for now. Because I just don't feel like I'm in any position to write anything other than my own perspective. And even that, it seems, is suspect!
Thank you for thinking of me! That actually means a lot, especially coming from a strange LJ person I really do need to meet one of these days. (And no, not yet; my movie time has been consumed with one of the most fascinating cinematic experiments I've ever undergone. Look for a post on that in the near future)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-23 06:50 am (UTC)By the end, it sounds like he recognizes that (the "soul intact" thing, not that you're somebody I'd hang out with. Obviously. That means nothing to him). I guess I'm saying it's safe to love him now, or something. You're stronger than he is. And even having never actually met you, I can categorically say that you're not insensitive by any stretch of the imagination.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-23 05:03 pm (UTC)Another thing I'd go into in the book is that Dad's always been racist and anti-Semitic. Not that I've seen too much my experience; Mom said he was worse when she knew him. And not in the marching, angry, white-trash kind of way, just in that subtler passive-aggressive suburban manner.
That said, he got to see first-hand what I was like for the three years I had to go through Tammy, Misty, and Dave. So when I started dating Bloo, Mom couldn't wait for me to tell Dad, just to see how he'd react. When I finally did, he was actually really happy for me. Because he saw how happy she had made me, how much happier I'd been for the first time in years. Of course, Lord knows how he would have reacted had I married her, or a black girl, but I like to think I'd have made enough progress with him at this point that he'd accept it. And I'd have another story.
By the way, I *just* got your card. Wow, what a thing to wake up to! The marker "you" got a little scuffed in the process, but that just makes you look battle-worn. But does "real mail" really have salamander stickers? Because it *should.*
I'm gonna have to keep my eye out for some snazzy return postcard or something. Hmm... hmm...
By the way, you *are* aware that the "Stepfordian" aspect was the least of what occurred to me when I read your street name? Tee hee hee, I have a dirty mind.
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Date: 2007-05-24 08:45 am (UTC)I have a way of sneaking up on people and so, apparently, does my mail! That was pretty fast, actually. And I'm battle-worn from fighting aliens! I don't know if "real mail" has salamander stickers. Mine does, I guess. I never get real mail, unless it's school or the bank and that doesn't count. But those would be vastly improved by salamander stickers. At least to indicate a small amount of human involvement.
Hmm indeed!
Hahaha, of course I'm aware! I always win at the porn-star name game! You think that's bad, though? Close friend of mine used to live on the corner of Hyman and Hardwood. Seriously.
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Date: 2007-05-23 08:39 am (UTC)Thanks for sharing
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Date: 2007-05-23 05:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-23 11:42 am (UTC)Good stuff, by the way.
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Date: 2007-05-23 05:07 pm (UTC)Thankee, that's awesome to hear. I wouldn't have written it otherwise.
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Date: 2007-05-23 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-23 05:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-23 03:19 pm (UTC)From a literary standpoint, I know you're a writer and so will feel compelled to edit this at some point. But I've got to tell you: no matter what you do to it, right now, as it is, it's perfect. I probably shouldn't say that, but it was my first thought upon finishing. You have gotten across the feeling, though it's vital that you stressed how difficult it would be. Even if someone can't sympathize, the truth is plainly and as always, beautifully stated.
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Date: 2007-05-23 04:32 pm (UTC)... I just woke up. This is my first chance to sleep in in many a week, so I'm a bit bleary.
Perfect? What I just wrote here? Well hell, fucking yes, that's excellent. I really do want to do the whole book someday, though. I want to paint a much fuller picture of this man, who was "more of a Hefner" than I could ever be. Not just him, but Mom (who's clearly becoming one of my more popular characters!), my brother, "that Gerdin thing," and, of course, my grandparents.
I've actually started interviewing Dad with my webcam. I already know exactly how I want the book to end, no matter what happens to my father in the coming years. So far, I can't think of a better ending.
So thank you, thank you for saying so. Now I know I can do this. Maybe I can even do it better.
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Date: 2007-05-23 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-23 05:11 pm (UTC)See, yeah, both Mom and Dad need a whole book. Behind Tammy and Guy Bender, she's my most popular character from people who've read the Hefner Monologues book! She's the reason why I'm not a quivering puddle.
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Date: 2007-05-23 09:13 pm (UTC)Is that similar to a Sanity Clause?
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Date: 2007-05-24 04:49 am (UTC)Re: Screen or delete this once you read it.
Date: 2007-05-24 04:51 am (UTC)But seriously, I'm very glad to hear this. It really, really means a lot to me.
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Date: 2007-05-24 08:34 pm (UTC)Heffie, we've talked about our dads, and i know a fair bit about yours.. but even still, i read this and nearly teared up (gotta pull it together, i'm in my office). i found myself praying, for your dad and for you.
i thank God for your Mom, and that you had a parent there to give you love without strings.
but even aside from Roberta, i want you to know that you have others who love you. i love you, little brother. and anytime you need to hear it, i am happy to tell you how much you've grown in the time i've known you.. how proud i am of you.. how grateful i am to have you as my friend.
even reading this, i see how you've learned to not just take your dad's abuses, but to love him while standing for yourself. and you are right to love him, he *is* your father, and he loves you as well. i know how hard it is, from my experiences with my father, to understand how someone can love you but be so dysfunctional with you as well.
you know i'm always here, and you can always unload what you are carrying with me.