The Provider

My dad is hard of hearing—to say it politely. To be more direct, my dad has acute selective-hearing. More annoyingly, when I am able to cajole his attention away from The Big Game or his business papers, he sticks to his own unavoidable agenda of conversation topics: sports and my personal fitness.

Unlike his communication profile, his business-slash-social life is less predictable. He could still be home at one o’clock on a Thursday instead of at the office; he might be at a fundraiser instead of his usual lounge chair in front of the television on Saturday; he may very likely be at a banquet across town at nine at night on Monday instead of having dinner with his family. The best way to know if my dad is home is to see if his wallet is in its usual resting spot. If his wallet is relaxing innocently on the corner of the bar in the kitchen, he’s home.

Just like every other proper child in well-to-do suburbia, whatever conversation I may initiate with my dad, it always ends with an inquiry for a few extra spending dollars. And just like every other father in well-to-do suburbia, I know he’s good for it. But once I am able to establish my dad’s presence at home by the company of his wallet, it’s fastest to circumvent the inevitable fifteen minute, or more, interrogation about my latest workout and instead head straight for his leather bound cache. Cut out the middle man. If you want something, go after it with everything you’ve got. Every good parent’s generic life lessons become clear in situations like these.

My dad and I don’t use the same word for this folded piece of cow hide. He calls it his billfold, while the other three members of the family, all female, call it his wallet—the same way he asks if we all have our swim trunks instead of swim suits when we pack for vacation. To save face for both of us—me not training long or hard enough, my dad unable to come up with anything else to talk about with his daughter—I simply navigate my way to the kitchen to locate his wallet. I separate the black Italian leather at its most vulnerable seam. Beyond the mountain ranges of gold and platinum cards that cascade up the undersized filing system, and between the rivers of stashed receipts that are coiled and entwined with each other, frothing white as they stick out of the closed wallet, lies the prize. And in the well traveled kitchen, there’s no question about my whereabouts, like there might be if his wallet was in my parent’s bedroom or in his office. It’s so easy, it looks like it might be a trap—but it’s not. So, unnoticed I pluck one or two twenties from the well stocked leather pocket and am on my way.

The word ‘wallet’ or ‘billfold’ has been used since the first century A.D. Wallet initially meant a larger sack used to hold necessities—like a survival pack (Wikipedia.com). Therefore, it’s logical that the goods kept inside wallets have been coveted, and on many occasions stolen, for some time now in order for the thief to get by. Why stop the trend? I’m not trying to rewrite history. In fact sponging bills from his unprotected pouch has come to be a kind of tradition in the family, pasted down from mother to daughters, just as it’s been passed down through the generations worldwide.

After awhile of this embezzling routine, I’ve started to picture my dad and his wallet as two sides of the same coin. The black exterior emulates my dad’s black hair. The hand woven stitches parade around the edges of his wallet and his dress shirts. Both he and his wallet have the musty smell of his old office building. My dad protects his wealth and business practices like the folds and pockets protect his flashy plastic cards and evidence of business transactions. The precious cash is like his completion: fair from being locked away in the dark, away from sunlight, and craggy from years of dealing in business. I’ve started to think of his wallet as being the family provider—perhaps in more ways than one. Spending those intense few moments with his wallet is like spending time with a silent version of my dad that listens instead of waits for a response.

He doesn’t seem to mind that his wallet is lighter every time he picks it up from the kitchen bar to stuff in the back of his pants. Either he appreciates not being disturbed by the request of a sure thing, or he doesn’t notice that any of his money has mysteriously evaporated. But judging from the circumstance, I think this is one themed discussion tacitly understood as gratitude.

Gays vs Nazis—At Least in the Game

“It’s not like Adam and I do anything, gosh Mark-ie.” Abel adds a cutesy –y or feminine –ie to the end of everyone’s name once he’s been around them long enough: a time table understood in his mind only. Nothing about Mark is cutesy or feminine. Like every evening during the limbo between what should have been dinner time and the end of happy hour, this unattractive fact is proven again by the glow of the television monitor recoiling off of Mark’s bloated features. Otherwise hidden in the stale darkness, Able illuminates the air around him with his Love Spell perfume. The plums of fragrance are degraded to yet another racial knock, “Mexican bath,” blindly stirring up resentment throughout the room. By the off chance that something appealing does enter this dilapidated hole-in-the-wall bungalow, its essence are quickly drained from its core to the surface by the time it steps over the broken door jamb to the time its sinks into the stains and filth on whatever surface it attempts to rest upon.

Mark is now sprinting down the wooden floor; he’s dodging those opposing him and meeting eyes with those on him team. He receives a firm pass, and he shoots and scores. Videogames have successfully replaced actual exercise and sincere imagination in this hellhole. Tugging the joy stick all around and remembering the sequence of buttons to push are enough to tire Mark’s swastika inked arms. His smoke abused lungs are heaving under the weight of his man-boobs. This is too much excitement as proven by the baritone coughing fit that follows the animated, provocative victory dance of the videogame basketball player version on Mark and Abel’s initial implausible guarantee.

“Does he fondle your two big, bouncing balls as part of these rub downs?” Mark is able to squeeze this question out with the characteristic “gay lisp” he’s coined himself, between muffled throat clearings. He drops the videogame controller into this lap in order to bring his hands to chin level. With palms up, he wiggles his swollen fingers one after the other in an attempt to recreate what his last inquest meant to illustrate.

Abel places his nearly completed cocktail on the makeshift side table, among the armfuls of now bone dry vodka half gallon containers, empty pill bottles tattooed with names of people we’ve never met, plates that never held any kind of food but instead hold unidentified powders and straws, and other piles of garbage that detail the remains of our forgettable lives. His face shows no sign of disgust or rage from Mark’s flamboyant gesture. Instead, Abel crosses his legs, clad in his easy slip off Victoria Secret athletic pants, crosses his arms, shaping his biceps with his hidden hands, and bunches his mouth to the far side of his face as if to keep what may flow out of it as far away from Mark as possible. Everything on Abel’s body is locked up besides his eyes. His stare bores to the back of Mark’s head. Intensity and truth burn the communication airway between these two men. Mark’s forced to retreat back to his childish videogame while Abel continues to nurse the remains of his cocktail.

“That isn’t a ‘no’,” Mark points out in a dim, slightly quizzical voice as he lowers his gaze to the TV stand in attempted observation. The mood has changed; nobody is sure which team they’re rooting for.

My First Thought

My first thought was to turn my back on it. I intended to let my eyelids take on the weight of the situation, where upon I encouraged them to drop like horizontal blinds on the window to the entire day. My first thought was to ignore everything and smile subliminally as I allowed the next course of action to wash over me in a pool of ignorance. Everyone else could get on with his day. The world could turn, the clock could tick. I just wanted to crawl into the dark corner I had prepared for myself.

However, the sirens would not let me forget, or hide, or play dumb. It was constant and forever echoing itself. No matter how badly my cheeks and forehead reached for each other, for a grasp that would instantly lock my eyes shut, no such grip could keep the sound from reaching my ears. And still the screaming persisted. I couldn’t escape from the noise without fleeing from the sanctuary of my paralyzed state—comfortably numb in darkness.

Head-throbbing rotations of noise finally coax me out of my asylum, forcing me to move from the spot that gave me my last bit of consolation. My first thought, to turn my back to this whole mess, to simply ignore it, was a fading fantasy at this point. My body sunk deeper into its depression, under the load of surrender. My face relaxed its clasp on my eyes. It was only a matter of time before I was forced to face reality head on. All my physical and mental strength flowed to my arm as it left the warmth surrounding my body. To prove I was unarmed, I showed my open hand to the source of my annoyance. My sweaty palm reached outward it: a sign of mercy to the cruel sirens. Just as I looked most pitiful—head buried as if to cover shame, eyes still unaware of the light creeping its way into the room, hand surrendering all defenses—I turned. Instead of begging for forgiveness, I deliver a slap to kill. My hand plummeted down from its highest peak with the mass of my arm behind it for influence. At last, some part of my hand managed to collide with its small target, the off button on the alarm clock.

For a good minute, or maybe a year, that first thought returned after the noise is gone. That first thought and I, we were sorry we ever left each other; we felt stupid for thinking we could ever stray to another. I had comfort once more. I was still curled up in the warm layers of sheets and blankets, and for the time being, this first thought promised me that everything will be alright.

But it was too good to be true. This first thought of the day is a poisonous drug that clouds my perception. I had to quit it cold turkey and suffer the withdrawal. The layers that condensed the warmth were peeled away. My eyes reluctantly unveiled themselves. The cold and the light rushed toward me like a current overloading my circuits. This sent my body into spastic contortions as if my hands and feet were suddenly and dramatically repelled from each other. Each end of my body wanted to reach some distant point in opposite directions. This was my morning stretch: the cure-all to my first thought of the day. There is no looking back once this line is crossed—until tomorrow when it starts all over.