When I was fourteen my father came home and began discussing something important with my mother while sitting on the living room couch. I think I was building something with Legos on the floor, or maybe watching television. The parts I overhead were both interesting and puzzling to me. My parents came to a conclusion, my father would go and pay a visit. He then turned and asked if I wanted to come along. I had no idea what he was talking about.
Nonchalantly my father told me he was going to visit my older half-brother, who lived in a nearby town. Again, I was puzzled. What was he talking about? Then he shrugged and said, "you know, because I was married before and had a son". It was said completely matter-of-factly, as if this was common information I knew all about. This was typical of my family; they expected you to know earth-shattering information regardless of the fact they'd never told you any of it before.
My cousin Michael learned over dinner one night that his parents had actually divorced and then remarried while he was a baby. As he sat open-mouthed, his family went on eating their meal. The grenade had been detonated, but no one cared to throw it out of the foxhole.
Likewise, one day my mother informed my father that his mother (Grandma Perry, as she known to me) needed to change her bank account because it still read "Grace Alexander" since that was her legal name. When I questioned about this, my parents (again nonchalantly) informed me that my grandmother had been remarried after the death of my Grandpa Perry, but that the new husband committed suicide so she simply reverted to using her old name, but needed to change her bank accounts, etc. to reflect the change. Wh-wh-what?
Anyway, back to me suddenly having a brother I didn't know about:
I accompanied my father to his ex-wife's house. She explained that her son, Randy, was out at a friend's house but would return shortly. It seems Randy had been looking through some boxes and ran across the adoption papers with my father's signature. When his mother had remarried after my father, she and her new husband adopted Randy fully, and my father (who was about 23 or 24 at the time) signed away his parental rights. Randy had expressed a desire to meet his biological father.
When Randy, now 16, returned home, he was puzzled as to whom this person was. His mother announced that this man was his actual father. Randy was pleased, but still somewhat puzzled. They chatted for a little while, and made plans to meet up again in the near future.
Randy took me on a tour of his bedroom. To my astonishment he had just finished building a model of the Enterprise bridge, from Star Trek. I had just purchased that model, but hadn't started building it yet. He warned me that a lot of the parts don't fit together correctly. He was also reading, or had finished reading Larry Niven's Ringworld, a book I had just begun reading. I guess these things were pretty common with teenage boys, but I think it speaks a bit more about genetics vs. environment.
That summer Randy joined us on a camping trip to Little Cultis Lake where we were all eaten by mosquitoes. I remember that my uncles and aunts fawned over him as the "lost child" newly found, or the prodigal son returned. However, I really don't know if they succeeded in making him feel welcomed as a part of the family. Looking back I'm pretty sure my mother didn't succeed. She had always been fairly stand-offish with that part of the family. Just the year prior to this, my aunt was on diet pills and suddenly broke down and screamed that my mother wanted her dead. It was a very tense camping trip. This year I'm sure there was still a lot of tension going around.
I also remember that my father went off with the men-folk to fish, leaving the women-folk behind to tend the camp, and of course that included the children. Randy and I were left to "hang out". I'm sure he'd have rather went fishing with his father, than to stay back at camp. He took the little inflatable boat out on the lake even though he had been told not to. I don't know if that was a bit of rebellion, or he just really wanted to be in the boat. There were a lot of rules around camp. We were never allowed to help with the fire, although we were expected to collect wood. I remember being told "no" or "don't" about a billion times each trip, so I was used to it. This would have been a new experience for Randy, bar far the oldest "child" in camp.
All Randy wanted for the holidays was a bicycle. Dad made sure we bought him one. For some reason after this particular holiday, we didn't see much of Randy. I don't know what happened, perhaps my father simply didn't make a connection. Maybe my mother interfered. Maybe Randy's mother exerted undue pressure. I do know my father had a lot of trouble connecting with people, even though he was always a very social creature. I really don't know what occurred but I didn't see Randy again until my father's funeral. Not the best time to meet someone. A lot of terrible things happened around that funeral; definitely not the right time to meet someone.
I'll close this post with a little story which seems perfect for my last post regarding the "Way We Never Were". It seems my father had watched an episode of the Andy Griffith Show. Andy had taken Opie fishing with him and as they talked, they both discovered insights into the other's world. It warmed the heart. So, one extremely early morning, before the sun came up, my father's brother, my uncle Virgil came over and the three of us piled into my father's truck, aluminum boat in tow. We went out on Fern Ridge Lake just as the sun came up and the fog was still thick on the water. As we sat, my father and his brother argued constantly. I was about six or seven years old, and I got very bored. I would dangle my hand in the water or make up songs. Each time I was told "stop, you'll scare the fish", "don't move around so much", "be quiet". My uncle made some kind of wise statement and suddenly my father's anger flared. My father put away his gear and started rowing for shore. When we got to the truck I asked what was wrong. He replied, "we won't catch any fish with the way you're acting". Even as a little kid I knew the real problem had to do with my uncle and my father's relationship, but I took the blame. Here is where reality and a television sitcom simply did not jive. Unfortunately for my own half-brother, my father never really understood why life wasn't like that sitcom.
No comments:
Post a Comment