by KEVIN PARKS

The last time I saw my father, he entered feet-first through the bathroom window. A clumsy, uninvited—though, to me, not unwelcome—outlaw eyeing one last score.

“Jimbo! Shit, son,” he caught his breath and dusted window debris off his pants, startled at his own surprise. “Didn’t expect you!”

“At home?”

“Well, sure, on a Saturday afternoon.” He shut the window and gathered the remaining particles, scattered evidence of his intrusion. He walked past me and into the kitchen, wiping his hands together over the sink. “Say, what’s with the tux?”

“Talent show is next week,” I said. I kept a few feet back, not sure where he was bouncing to next. “I was waiting for Burt to call so we could rehearse.”

“Dress rehearsal? Over the phone?”

My father squinted and jabbed a nail-less pinky into his ear, digging deep to cleave some wax off his brain and regulate his thinking. Hard of concentration, my father was sensitive to sounds and distractions of any kind, and he turned the volume down on the TV, sneaking in a quick chuckle at the Muppets. His valiant Kermit and my relentless Miss Piggy. His Statler and my mother’s Waldorf.

“Your mother at work?” He knew this.

“Yes, only for another hour or so.” I tried to hide the warning in my voice, but my slouched posture yelped discomfort.

Moving through the parlor, wordlessly but with an eyebrow raise and wink at me, my dad inched toward the bedroom, his back pinned against the wall, mimicking a stealth criminal. When he knocked cautiously on the bedroom door, though, it was a defeatist’s gesture, simultaneously acknowledging his marriage’s failure and utter absence as a parent. I turned away and scoped out the living room, giddy to assume the role of a lookout, a complicit partner in his swindle. Outside, he’d parked his sad, gray car on the sidewalk, signaling his infrequent visitor status. I hadn’t seen or heard from him in months, and I hadn’t asked my mom, not for fear of upsetting her, but because she might confirm my worst fears.

“A-ha!” my father shouted from the room. “This’ll do.”

“Sharp,” I said. I sized him up, his short-sleeved Tommy Bahama shirt appropriate for the September climate, yet for what this’ll do meant, I had no idea. He stepped into a pair of pleated Dockers and grabbed keys from the front hall closet.

“Well, I’ll have to settle for second-best dressed in the house today,” he said. He stepped out the front door, lunging towards the finish line, his victory—an efficient escape—now in his grasp.

“See you next week?” I asked, and he saw through the innocence of the question, interpreting it as a provocation or a needling reminder.

“Birthday lunch!” he cawed after a meaningful pause. “You bet, pal. Ribs, appetizer samplers, and all the friggin’ soda you can guzzle.”

We both froze, silently communicating our disappointment: mine because he was leaving, and his because I wouldn’t leave him alone. I stood taller, my father’s shoulders bunched up, and he extended a hand, yanking me outside.

“C’mon, fancy guy,” he pulled my other shoulder and rustled my bowl cut. “I gotta greet our new neighbor. Be my wingman, k?”

On the walk over, I kept pace with my dad’s hurried, ambitious strides. The house was diagonal to ours, less than a football field away, but the new-money sheen glistened a tacky, haughty glow. Since closing on the home in the summer, the Builder family’s front lawn and driveway had seen a constant flow of contractor activity during the weekdays, and especially on weekends. Tree stumps and wheelbarrows of cement led from the curb up to the front steps, all evoking a brand of superiority my father found disgusting: pre-renovation, the modest split-level had been identical to ours.

Granted, my father hadn’t been around to notice this. And his tucked-in shirt, cupped hands, and picture-day smile to greet the Builder patriarch suggested an artless dodger on the make, in pursuit of a favor or a friend. I clenched my sphincter, frightened at how my father might approach this hulking, handsome man with effortlessly coiffed hair, an upwardly mobile WASP who might’ve found employment at an investment bank after a brief stint modeling underwear.

Some people rise to the occasion, summoning grit and gusto to meet the moment. Others wither, succumbing to intimidation and the gravity of a charged encounter. My father told jokes. At his father’s funeral, he batted away any grief and sincere emotional outreach with a protective war chest of old-timey zingers (“So he says to me, ‘I know a man with a wooden leg named Smith.’ Then I says to him, ‘what’s the name of his other leg?’”). Leaving our house that summer after a wicked verbal brawl with my mom, he called me out to his car and shouted the very punchline he was about to deliver to Roland Builder.

“Now try coughing!” He cued a stolid Roland, and I giggled to erase the silence. My father’s next move was to explain, which only widened the social distance between them. “That’s the joke the husband told. While he was dying! Smacked into a tree—wham! Killed him and his daughter instantly. What a movie! What a joke.”

“Oh, I love comedies,” Roland said, glancing at his watch. “I just don’t go to the movies much these days. Kids keep me pretty busy.”

“Kids, plural! That’s fantastic. Alls I got is my boy Jimbo here.” My father uncrossed my arms, guiding my right hand towards Roland’s.

“Jimbo,” Roland said curiously. “You’re in Dora’s grade, yes?”

“Uh huh,” I shook his hand and returned to my father’s side. “Same homeroom.”

“Yes! That’s it. I swear I recognized your last name. Not your first, though. You go by a nickname in class, yes?”

My father’s face turned down, then twitched toward me, channeling and repressing disappointment that should’ve been directed inward, but instead, shot like a laser at me. And yet, a simple explanation would have cleared any tension: ahead of the talent show, Burt and I insisted that our peers call me “Statler” and call Burt “Waldorf,” the bickering curmudgeons we had been rehearsing and would be performing as in front of the entire school.

“Nicknames, what a phase,” my dad said. Wounded but resolute, he turned back to Roland. “When I was young, I wanted my parents to call me Catfish! Like the pitcher! No dice. My mom was so upset, she started to call me by my middle name: Winston. Ugh!”

“Nice to meet you, Winston.” Roland extended a hand.

“Jimmy,” my father’s chubby, hairy hand swaddled Roland’s sleek digits. “Duh, fucko I am. I gab so much, forgot why I came over here at all! First step: introduce myself. Check! Second step: welcome a new neighbor to the block.”

My father fondled his back pocket, uncovering his slender wallet, the aging brown leather worn, bereft of currency and character. Roland peeked overhead, sensing the improvisation at play, anxious for the charade’s big reveal. Working against the clock ticking in his head, my father retrieved a slip of paper in comparatively acceptable condition, surprising himself when he unveiled a Chili’s gift card.

“From us,” my father said. He pointed at me but avoided eye contact, a tacit admission that he was giving away something intended for me or for our phantom future meal.

“Kind of you,” Roland saluted me and smiled down at my dad, looking like he tasted throw-up. “Apologies, I really must be going.”

“Say, can I ask a personal question?” My father asked. He accepted Roland’s pursed lips as an affirmative response. “What’d you pay for this home? Gah. No, no, no, no. Throw the flag, ref! Fuck me, right? Sorry, Rol. Not cool.”

“Quite all right,” Roland shielded his discomfort with a giant, toothy smile. “All part of the public record anyway, right?”

“Reason I ask?” My father stepped down from the steps, guiding Roland’s eyes towards our house, still in the line of sight but a sad pittance compared to Roland’s shrine. “Would you believe that your house and mine looked exactly alike?”

“You’re kidding,” Roland said, but not in the conversation-filler tone. My father flinched, unmoored at the sudden shift in tone. “Oh, maybe you forgot. It was a long shot anyway. I reached out this summer, offering to buy that house of yours!”

Another blow to the old man’s moxie, and my father couldn’t hide the confusion, the unbridled loneliness of a caregiver willingly kept out of the loop, fitfully insisting that he doesn’t care anymore that the loop sealed shut. I picked a patch of dirt to stare at while Roland squished his cheeks, wincing and processing that he might’ve said something he shouldn’t have.

“Hey, that’s marriage for you,” my father said, gathering the rubble of the conversation, daring to reroute it. “It’s an open, transparent partnership until it ain’t!”

“Preaching to the choir,” Roland said. He rubbed two hands together, and my father stared at his ringless left hand. “Practically had to beg my ex to let Dora spend an extra day here.”

“Crock of shit,” my father lamented, and then covered his mouth, an exaggerated oopsie. “Language, forgive me. Blame the day job. I cuss like a friggin’ sailor.”

“Not to worry,” Roland said. His demeanor softened at his brother in spousal grievance. “I work on a trading desk. You have no idea the crap I hear there.”

“Trading desk!” My father perked up, tempering the devil-may-care smile which betrayed the secret that of course I knew you were Wall Street! “Now I’m worried we might have too much in common, Rol!”

“Yeah? Buy side, or sell?”

“I’m a hunter, Rol, not a gatherer,” my father said, grabbing Roland’s wrist. Sensing that he overreached, my father released Roland and backpedaled onto the lawn, nearly tripping into the wet cement of the walkway. “Man, look at this house. I know it’s a work in progress, but what a work, what progress!”

Roland bowed his head to thank my father, then looked over his shoulder, hoping Dora was passing through so he could excuse himself. Undaunted, my father continued.

“That house? I bought it during the S&L crisis.” My father paused, then smacked my back, connecting with my shoulder blades. A bitter, unloving blow. “No, junior, not Saturday Night Live.”

“Great timing,” Roland congratulated my father, sparing any hint of irony.

“You bet. Best investment I ever made. Ten years later, what do I have to show for it? The equity, up two-fold, maybe three-fold, and it’s trapped! My share of the house is being held hostage. Pleading, begging for oxygen, a little liquidity. And I’m like, please, equity, talk to my soon to be ex about that!”

“Golden handcuffs,” Roland said. He clapped his wrists together. “When the Nasdaq sold off last year, I tried to tap our HELOC so I could buy more stock, but of course, no bank would lend to the splitting half of a marriage, no matter how punitive the rate.”

“Vultures!” My father’s head whipped at the indignity. “Meanwhile, the market’s fully recovered, and still, credit’s tight and rates are up.”

“The easy money has been made.”

“Crooks,” my father offered, an empty grievance leveled out at the world, ready for any culpable party to accept it. “Can I level with you? When I saw you move in, I had my mind made up about you. All the renovation, the nice new car, the friggin’ Port-o-John for the hired help. I figured: Wall Street. So, my plan was—was!—to waltz over here and axe you for a job.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m not so sure.” My father paced the finished brick walkway. “Instead of a favor, I’m wondering if maybe we could help each other?”

“Sure, Jimmy, maybe we could talk about it all another time?”

“Pardon the sales pitch. And beware the sales guy promising an investment, not a loan! An opportunity, not a favor! But for real, Roland. We met today for a reason. I’m not gonna say it’s fate, but it’s something like it.”

“Huh?” Roland yelled upstairs, where I saw Dora peeking through blinds. “Okay, sweetie.” I hadn’t seen her lips move. There had been no audible sign she was trying to wrangle her father.

“Think about it,” my father continued. “Instead of borrowing at Prime plus to buy into a rigged stock market, how about you lend at Prime plus against an asset you know? An asset you tried to buy? An asset which is set to jump in value since, hello! A savvy new home buyer just printed an identical comp months ago. And a couple of dozen grand above market!”

Roland pondered the offer, giving it the minimum level of feigned interest. He put his hand on the side of the door and reached for my father’s, a universal signal that he would think about it.

“Yeah, no need to answer now,” my father said. “I mean, really, this is kind of like insider trading! You make the loan to me against my half of the house, and then, plop—you see a realtor sign out front in a few months. Divorce clears, house sells, I repay the loan plus interest, and a kicker, maybe? Ah, I dunno. Anyway, Rol. Welcome to the block. Chili’s on you next time?”

My father pointed at Roland’s pocket, where he might’ve stashed the gift. Then he took off towards the house, and Roland waited until we were in the street—seeing us off not as a courtesy, but a precaution—to shut the door. I jogged to catch up, nearly tripping over my father’s back feet when he stopped suddenly in front of his Oldsmobile.

“What was that about?” my father shout-whispered, opening the car door and keeping his head down.

“I know, right?” I said. I waited for him to turn around so I could interpret his ambiguous question. Instead, he sunk into the seat, pulled the door closed and begrudgingly penetrated the ignition with the key.

Poor me! He must’ve thought. Poor him! I can grant him now, at some remove, an inability to articulate his fears, to attach words to feelings that don’t so much boil over as they do swirl around inside his stomach, until he finds a tail he can chase long enough to forget the litany of injustices waged against him. Still, my love for him swallowed any self-pity or clear-headedness about his juvenile behavior. And so just as the car was about to putter away, I hopped into the passenger seat, clutched my father’s hand, and grinned like a maniac, the piercing blue sky ahead of us an on-the-nose symbol of our future.

What actually happened wasn’t that at all. My father gave one last disapproving look at my tux and imitated my “I know, right?” in a pitchy squeal. And then he sped off as fast as his decaying clunker would allow. Frozen in that moment, I thawed out and approached the front door and could hear the phone ringing. Burt or my mom. It could only be them, but I couldn’t get in. I faintly remembered my father snatching the back-up keys. I would have to enter the same way he had come in earlier, through the bathroom window in the backyard.

On the slow walk back there, I labored to declutter my mind of its surfeit of teenage angst, ennui and overall suckiness. Despite my effort to keep my dad’s antics out of my skull, I heard his voice in there, retelling the same joke he used—in lieu of an introduction—on Roland earlier.

A patient has a chronic cough. She visits a doctor, telling him she’s tried everything! Nothing works! The doctor pauses, scribbles into a notebook, then holds a finger up. A-ha! Doctor picks up the phone, and in minutes, a nurse walks into a room and hands the patient a folded brown paper bag.

“Voila,” the doctor nods his head.

“A laxative?” The flummoxed patient asks. “For a cough?”

“Yes,” my dad’s voice shouted into my ears. “Now try coughing!”

At this point, my mind had redirected my body away from the house, willing it towards Roland’s yard. A bossy autumnal wind ushered me past the Builders’ home, where both Roland and his daughter stared at me behind curtains. That same gust vaulted me away from the cul-de-sac onto the side of highway, and into a strip mall parking lot three miles from home, where my father’s car was double parked amid a bevy of open spots.

The Chili’s logo lit up, blasting garish green and reds, serving as both invitation and warning. The pre-dinner crowd was sparse and predictable, mostly older couples and bargain-seeking solo diners. I scanned from the inside for a table where my tux wouldn’t single me out, until I saw my dad seated alone, a polished plate in front of him, alongside an untouched glass of cube-less water.

“Just one, pal?” A multi-tasking server breezed past, but I was focused on my father.

“Sure, just me,” I responded, watching my father gather his two sets of keys, dab a napkin to his lips, and sneak out the restaurant’s back door. The bill lay unpaid on his table, a final grift complete, while the waiter disappeared behind the kitchen’s saloon-style doors. That was the last time I saw my father.

Ω

Kevin Parks is a freelance writer and film critic whose writing has been published on Drunk Monkeys and The Movie Buff. He is also working on a debut collection of short stories. Kevin lives in New York with his partner, their daughter, and their dog.

Enrique García is a proud (dis)-abled person of color who has persevered despite many mental and physical health complications. He recently graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. His photography, poetry, and prose can be found in various issues of Transfer Magazine. Overall, his artistic style gravitates towards the surreal, undefinable, and absurd nature of living in a paradoxical world, where hope is minimal and pain is in excess.