DON'T GO THERE

Don’t Go There,

The Elephant Between Them

As a boy of six, Jackie was teased, taunted, and traumatized by his older sister; the apple of her daddies’ eye, his “princess”. From the boy’s perspective, Daddies’ little angel was no angel. One day, after egregious levels of terrorizing her little brother, the boy snapped. In desperation, he picked up his sisters’ favorite doll by its leg and threw it at her. The porcelain head of the doll (more specifically its nose) clipped her forehead, drawing blood. The girl screamed bloody murder and ran to Mommy. Just wait ‘til your father gets home young man. That was the first and last time Jack spanked his boy, emphasizing with the phrase, “Real men don’t hit girls, ever!”

Six decades later, after three hours or so of playing Cribbage, the “Jack’s” spent an hour or two in the Arizona room while Jack Junior’s stepmom prepared dinner. Few words were exchanged while they played cards, but a greater silence befell the room after the shuffling and dealing and pegging was done. The old man settled onto his recliner and propped up a newspaper to block the view of his recalcitrant son. Junior generally sat staring at the man behind the paper as a cacophony of unspoken confessions/accusations roiled in his brain. A similar tempest raged in his fathers’ head, behind the newspaper thick wall of silence.

How long will it take, boy, for you to make amends to me? Isn’t that what your A.A. is all about? Amends? Sure, you quit drinking and it’s been years since you asked me for money but when will you admit that you staged that alleged robbery when you were sixteen? I doubt I’ll ever see a dime of that money back. Hell, I don’t even care about the money. It’s the honesty I need from you. Before I die. Is that asking too much? That paragraph repeated between his ears like a broken record on the turntable. How many times?

How many years, old man, will you keep up this charade, of blamelessness in forcing my mother to divorce you? How can you ever justify your womanizing after fathering eight kids? What about the pain and suffering you imposed on my biological Mom with those two other pregnancies? The one that resulted in the infant death of your first son and the miscarriage between kid four and five? You got her pregnant ten times in eighteen years and then you left the house, the night I stopped you from hitting her. Remember that night Dad? You broke down the door of the bathroom she had locked herself into to escape your wrath. I was fourteen. I yelled “Stop! Real men do not hit women, ever.” Can you remember that night, Dad?

These kinds of memory tornadoes recurred every time they played cards or bowled or went out to dinner. These two grown-ass men were emotionally incapable of communicating about their lifetimes of personal traumas. Their codependency on shared humiliation and shame was like an invisible elephant between the two of them, never forgetting, never forgiving and never mentioning it, ever. Anyone else in the room would be totally unaware of the silent, accusatory glances they threw at each other. Neither could broach one subject for fear that another subject would come up.

He recalled how the end of a busy day at work had him headed to the back of the store to put the days’ receipts in the office safe. The change drawer in the till had already been primed with bills and coin for the next days’ sales. His son was up front waiting for the stroke of eight when it was his job to turn off the lights and lock the front door. When Jack Sr. returned to the front of the store, the lights were still on and the boy was standing just inside the door crying. Junior, physically shaking, proceeded to tell the tale of a man wearing a bandana and carrying a handgun. He forced his way in, demanding money from the till. Checking the cash drawer revealed all that remained was the rolled coin. To this day Jack thinks Junior took the money. It didn’t occur to him at the time to ask the boy to empty his pockets. Afterall, why would he lie to his Dad? Right? If he asked about that time the tourist forced his way into the shop as he was locking up, he believed his son would counter with those much harder questions, about that time of infidelity, when Sr. supposedly cheated on his wife.

Jackie had been his Moms champion. He felt he had to do something to ease her pain. His parents had divorced two years earlier and though Jack was punctual in making child support payments, he insulted the mother of his children by only granting her twenty-five dollars a month in alimony. Twenty-five dollars a month. After all he had put her through. Really? That was a bitter, monthly, slap in the face.

It drove Junior crazy every time they waited for his stepmom to announce dinner is ready. His father poured over that paper as if talking to his son would be torture. It’s just as well. He knew he knows, about the money. Junior didn’t take the money for himself. He put it all in an envelope and anonymously stuffed it into his Mom’s mailbox. He felt like Robin Hood. He knew he should confess that he made up the story about the tourist/robber, but at the time, he felt justified.

As justified as Old Jack felt those many years ago, when he faced what people these days call a mid-life crisis. He had been deeply in love with Juniors mother once; make that ten times. There would never be any recreational sex with her. Her father and her grandfather had both been Lutheran preachers. They raised her well. And boy, was she fertile. Jack joked often that she got pregnant every time he looked cross-eyed at her.

He knew Junior thought he had been unfaithful. There was so much more to his gallivanting state-wide between the night he left the house and the divorce. He learned things beyond the missionary position. Things he could not talk about with his oldest living son. Jack smiled to himself as he lowered the newspaper to make eye contact with his son. The boy smiled back. Better to let sleeping dogs lie. So, neither of them ever started the conversation.

Sadly, those past slights had found obfuscation was the only thing that allowed the two men to coexist and not face the pain rehashing them would entail. Both have taken their personal traumas to the grave and both will need additional lifetimes to reset, redeem and recycle that hurtful karma. Silence is golden. Is it? Really?