Suprisingly, it was my sister on the phone.
"Hey."
"Hey, what's going on?"
"Oh, not much."
Right. She hadn't called me in San Francisco in nearly a year. And never on a weekday morning. Something was definitely going on.
"I just wanted to tell you that Dad is back in A.A."
I hadn't seen or spoken to my father in nearly ten years. Things had finally just sort of petered out between us. There was no final denouement, no cataclysmic blow-up, suitable for a made-for-tv movie. I just didn't appear at his house one year for Christmas. And he just never called to see where I was. Ever again.
And that's where we left it. A non-discussed, not-agreed upon, agreement.
For 10 years or so, holidays in Orlando had followed the same pattern. Early Christmas day, presents would be exchanged at my mother's house, her tiny bungalow festooned from end to end with the Christmas detritus of my childhood. Tree ornaments I made in grade school, cut out of greeting cards. Tattered felt stockings, on which I'd written my name with glue and glitter. That ridiculous cardboard fireplace that Mom put out every year, saved from our trailer in North Carolina.
Mom's portion of the day was at once comforting and melancholy. She'd get increasingly manic as the day went on, realizing that her time with my sister and I was growing short. She'd rush out story after story, and zip around the house grabbing at pictures we'd seen many times.
Finally, late in the afternoon, my sister and I would begin discussing "The Plan".
Our travel mode over to our father's house was always a big component of "The Plan". I preferred to follow my sister in my rental car, to maximize my departure options. She always wanted me to ride in her car, to maximize the impression that we were still some sort of cohesive family unit.
Another critical element of departing for my father's house was the advance reconaissance. That involved calling our step-mother and ascertaining how drunk my father was already, how drunk SHE was already, who was there, who was coming, when they were expected, and whether they thought they'd be going anywhere after dinner.
From all of that we'd lay out various strategies, excuses and escape plans...should the evening turn ugly. We were kidding ourselves, of course. The evening ALWAYS turned ugly. We'd be greeted politely at the door, cheek kisses from my step-mother, and a non-comittal wave thru the kitchen porthole from my father.
The house would be a madhouse of activity. At the front door, a steady stream of smashed ex-Marines trailed by a steady stream of bitching third wives. In the back yard, customers from my dad's saloon, gathered around an explosion of free booze, which my father had extorted from his suppliers.
At some point, there'd be an argument. Usually about the food, and where it went. My father would take the plate in question and smash it against the closest wall. My step-mother would wail and flee into the backyard, sobbing.
Standing barefoot in her rock garden, cigarette hanging from her lips, the ash nearly burned all the way down, swaying in a Johnny Walker haze, supporting herself by holding onto one of her plaster garden gnomes, she would scream at me.
"You know what, Joseph? Hey, you know what? The only pershun in thish whole FUCKING WORLD that understands what I am going through ish YOUR MOTHER!!"
She'd punctuate each sentence by jabbing her finger at me, her gaudy Shopping Channel bracelets sliding down her stick-like arms.
Inside the house, my father would turn his Vicki Carr record up to maximum, treating the entire neighborhood to a scratchy performance of 'It Must Be Him'. My sister would be on her knees, cleaning up the smashed food, tears silently sliding down her face.
So.
One year, as the time to leave for Dad's house came, I looked at my mother and said as I always did, "I don't want to go over there."
"So don't."
That suprised the shit out of me.
"Oh, you know I have to go."
"Every year you say you don't want to go. And every year it turns into a horrible nightmare. If you don't go this year, will you feel any worse than you do every time you DO go?"
Bingo.
I didn't go. And they didn't call. Ever again. And I felt like I'd just been paroled from some prison, the kind that specialized in emotional abuse. Bad metaphor maybe, but pretty close to what I felt.
Now, fast forward back to my sister's phone call to me in San Francisco.
"Dad is back in A.A.? Whoopee."
"Joe, this time he really means it."
Right. This time he means it. This is the same guy who'd get smashed and yell, "It's the easiest thing in the WORLD to stop drinking, I've done it a HUNDRED times!"
"e's already gone through seven steps, Joe. He's never made to step THREE before."
"ell, give him a gold star for me."
"And Step 8, which he's on now, is where he apologizes to the people who have been harmed by his alcoholism."
Fuck. The REAL reason for this phone call.
"Janet, are you trying to tell me that Dad is going to be calling me?"
"Um..."
"JANET!, did you GIVE Dad my phone number? Does he KNOW I'm living in San Francisco?!"
"Well, now Joey..." She only called me Joey when she was scared.
"Fucking GREAT! Thank you very much! Do I at least get to know when he's going to call?"
"Well, I gave him your San Francisco information yesterday."
Shit.
I got off the phone with Janet and went for a walk to calm my nerves. Just down the hill, in the Castro, I dove into Radio Shack and bought a Pacific Bell caller-ID unit. Back at the house, I got PacBell on the phone, had the thing active within an hour. For the rest of the week, everytime the phone rang, I'd jerk my head over to the caller-ID, my stomach already knotting up.
Monday morning, I was sitting at my desk when the doorbell rang. FedEx. I hardly glanced at the thick envelope when I signed for it. I was home officed, I got packages from the various delivery services all day. Later, after lunch, I scooped up all the mail and packages and sat down in the living room.
The first thing I picked up was the fat FedEx envelope. The return address caught my eye at once, my last name was on the return address as well as the delivery address.
"What could Mom be sending me?", I thought.
Then I realized that the zip code on the return address was NOT my mom's.
It was from Dad.
I ripped the tab on the cardboard, and out fell.....a videotape.
"Oh, you fucking coward. You piece of shit brave Marine!" I muttered.
My Dad couldn't even fucking face me on the phone, so he fucking VIDEOTAPED his Step 8 apology to me. My hand clenched so hard on the tape, it popped out my hand and clattered under the dining room table. I got on my knees and was reaching for the tape, when the phone rang. I grabbed the tape and walked over to the desk. Even with the tape in my hand, I was afraid it was Dad on the phone.
It was Mom.
"I don't know how to tell you this, so I'm just going to say it. Your father died this morning."
Dad had gone on one of his famous Las Vegas golfing expeditions with his buddies. He didn't drink the entire weekend. That morning, picking up his clubs from the baggage carousel at Orlando International, he collapsed. He died in the ambulance.
Putting the phone down, I turned the tape to read the spine. In my father's familiar crisp block lettering: FOR MY SON.
I've never watched the tape.
.