Mind the Gap

What do you say to a father you haven't spoken to  in over twenty two years?

"Hi!"

 "Father,  it's been a while."

 "Wow, you've aged!"

Sissy and I, along with my nephew's then finance, Erica,  volleyed answers back and forth over the  four hour journey, our voices punctuated with anxiety, our stomachs percolating  like the old Farberware electric coffee pot that pumped out tongue scorching java for years until Mr. Coffee walked in.


None of these felt quite right and as we approached the old man's 50 acre spread in upstate New York,  we decided to name the mission. 

The Gates of Heaven or Hell?

What about "Storming the Gates," I suggested after seeing photographs of the impressive wrought iron gates that stood guard at the two entrance ways to his property.

"Showdown at the Gates."

"The Gates of Hell."

We stopped at the nearest bar and I downed two bracing vodka and tonics and knocked back an Ativan. Sissy had two goblets of red wine and we figured the world would be closer to a utopia if along with morning coffee and tea, we all popped an Ativan.

"I'll have a skim milk latte with a two milligram chaser of Ativan, please."

No wonder why so many housewives, including mom, were so placid  in the 70's. They didn't give a hoot if their popovers didn't rise, they were floating along life's turbulent waters on a Valium raft.

But we wondered how we would react seeing a man who had once been our father. Had he aged? What did he look like? Had his voice changed? Was he in good health? Would he yell at us? (That booming voice used to stop us in our tracks) Dismiss us like naughty children? Tell  his German Shepard's to attack? (Wear your sneakers, Sissy, in case we have to sprint out the door) Or simply just keel over at the first sight of his now middle aged daughters? ( I don't suppose we're in the will)

He'd always been an impressive and  imposing man, standing over  6 feet tall with hazel eyes, and wavy black hair that refused to lay flat on his head unless it was clipped every couple of weeks at the local barber's shop.  He even tried having it straightened but the solution burned his scalp, leaving red, weepy sores on his head for days.

Dressed in bespoke suits and crisp white shirts,  he made his fortune in the courtroom, his good looks, rehearsed posturing and deep voice won over jury after jury. And ladies, too. Lots of them.

The drive to earn more, to win more, all stemmed from his childhood days where he spent years battling an alcoholic father who provided little for his family. We remember Papa as a gentle man, with eyes as blue as a Cape hydrangea, who'd drive us to the penny candy store on Partridge Street and let us stuff bit-o-honey, bubblegum cigarettes and yards of dots into those little paper bags. 

Worn clothing, holes in his shoes, a stutter, Dad was our very own Horatio Alger who lifted himself from poverty and abuse by putting himself through college and law school while working full time and supporting a wife and three kids. He managed the local paper's distribution route, taught English at our community college, built several houses during law school. He moved us to Atlanta while he took graduate courses at Emory and we came back with enough y'all's to rattle our Yankee grandparents for months.

"My, my" our grandmother tutted. She'd been against us heading south. And we suspect against her only daughter marrying the scrappy kid who barely made it out of high school. He married my mother because he had to. He never loved her. 

We remember those early days with some fondness- a mischievous father who was always up for a water fight with the neighborhood kids, who climbed up on the roof one snowy Christmas Eve and rang sleigh bells, who taught us to ski by snowplowing backwards down the slope, who took us for ice cream at Ross' where the smell of french fries, cheeseburgers,  and onions rings punctuated the thick summer air with their salty, greasy scent.

But painful memories have a way of darkening even the happiest ones, eclipsing smiles and laughs, leaving gaping black holes where sunny recollections once shined, and  as we drove through his property, on a frigid January day, I slipped down into the car seat, wishing I could dissolve into the soft cloth and disappear.

Yet sissy surged ahead, her bravery fueled by Cabernet and more than 50 years of wisdom and strength.

"You're strong sister," she said. "Besides, no one fucks with the Cade sisters."

She was right. We'd been living without parents for over two decades. Had our worlds turned upside down, with little left to salvage. Been rejected once before. But we survived.

Could a second one be anymore painful? 

A not so ordinary life

I was cleaning the unnamed teen's room the other day when I happened to notice a big chubby booger frozen in time, adhered to bedroom wall like a little boulder.

And instantly, the image of Frank appeared in my thoughts.

Frank hung our wallpaper and painted our walls since I was a toe headed tornado terrorizing the neighborhood. And he was a fixture in our houses for as long as I can remember because mom changed wallpapers and colors as frequently as she changed her underwear.

He was a tidy little man, with black crescent moons under his watery blue eyes, a master wallpaper hanger who cut long rolls of imported wallpaper with the precision of a surgeon. He'd match up the wild floral patterns of the 70's and the heavily flocked wallpaper so well, you'd be hard pressed to find the seams.

I used to like Frank until he announced in front of a house full of guests that he'd found hundreds of petrified boogers on my wall and had to spend the day chiseling them off before he could paint.

Frank thought he was funny.

But I didn't.

Okay, I admit, I did pick my nose when I was younger. But I also used to poop in my pants. And stick pussy willows up my nose. However, there was no way in hell that I had covered my wall in boogers and the thought of entombing Frank behind a thick sheet of vinyl wallpaper is still floating around thirty five years later.

He'd mention the booger wall every chance he'd get.

"Frank," I'd snap. "That was like when I was five."

"Do you know how long I spent scrapping them off that wall?" he'd laugh.

When I found out years later that he had been having an affair with a blond beauty, I nearly fell off my stool. Frank?

Frank was just one of the many odd characters who blew into our life, some like a gentle breeze, others like a gale force wind. My father seemed to collect these wayward men and women, holding on to them for months or years before they'd disappear as quickly as they came.

I remember another Frank, a lumbering giant of a man who joined us far too often for dinner.

Frank reminded me of a mobile Perry Mason.

My father would bound into the house with Frank on his heels. Frank never wore a suit coat, but always had on a pressed white shirt and black tie. I don't think they made suit coats large enough to cover Frank's torso,

"Can we set a plate for Frank?" my father would say.

He always grabbed the seat at the head of the table.

My mother would force a smile, grab another plate while silently thinking that she'd like to ring my father's neck for not calling her first. She'd divide steaks, throw on an extra vegetable, and eyeball us throughout dinner not to take a second helping.

Frank loved mashed potatoes and always loaded his plate with a mountain of my mom's special spuds. We'd be left with a little dollop. He'd spear the largest steak and gulp down milk without taking a breath. He'd wipe out the whole table in a matter of minutes, leaving us with empty bellies. What was an interesting guest at first turned into a dinner stealing man who left us hungry and a little frightened. Frank seemed to grow right before our eyes into spud eating monster.

Then there was Fran, a glamorous ginger haired beauty who drove around town in a convertible with a silk scarf tied under her chin. She lived with her parents above their bakery and used to bring over boxes of stale gingerbread men for us to eat during the holidays. She bathed in Jean Nate', wore slinky pantsuits and had the most ear piercing laugh I'd ever heard. She'd give us hugs, leaving her scent on us as we slept, though sleeping was nearly impossible when Fran had a few whiskey sours. Her voice would rise, sweeping across the living room into our bedrooms just down the hall and jolting us awake with her cascading cackle.

Like Frank, she showed up announced, but she never hogged my potatoes. She'd come in, untie her scarf, the luminous ginger curls would unfold like an accordion, settling on her petite shoulders. And she'd stay, and stay and stay. Once Fran settled in, she was good for a few hours.

You'd need a few sticks of dynamite to get her to leave.

I think Fran was born into the wrong family, the wrong city. She belonged in Hollywood on the arm of an actor or director. But she was trapped in upstate New York, looking after a bakery whose customers seemed to be drifting away and two aging parents who got up long before the sunrise and retired shortly after its sunset.

It must have been a lonely life for Fran, so she took comfort in my grandfather's arms. When we learned of this steamy relationship from a family friend not too long ago, sissy and I nearly fell from our chairs once again. Fran and Papa? Papa owned an auto shop that backed up to Fran's bakery where obviously more than the sweet smell of sugar and spice wafted over into the two bay garage.

We'd had a George, a male version of Fran, who dressed up in white suits and patent leather shoes. He was so clean, he shined, like a silver plated statue. Or maybe that was the booze that made him glow. He was my mom's friend's second husband. George was an LPN but we never knew where or if he worked. His wife would dress him up and plant him in a chair. He had a monotonous creepy laugh that never fluctuated despite downing whiskey after whiskey. That man could knock back a whole bottle of Chivas Regal without so much as a slur. I never saw him eat or go to the bathroom or even engage in the spirited conversation whirling around him. He was a forgotten soul on a chair in the corner- the perfect little accessory to a woman who only wanted a daughter. And had one.

He has Alzheimer's now and mows the lawn in his underwear.

Then there was David, another petite man, who my father met while attending medical school in Barbados. A fellow trial attorney, David and my father had a lot in common and within weeks, I discovered that David had moved into the guest room across from my bedroom. But David was very hairy and left a carpet of fur in my tub every time he showered. Black curly hairs in the tub, on the floor and in the sink. Naturally, my father thought this was hilarious until I used a pair of tweezers to collect enough hair to fill a sandwich baggie and deposited the bulging bag on my dad's pillow.

Over the course of a few weeks, David began assimilating into our family a little too much- he knew a good gig when he saw it. He'd rummage through our fridge and grab the last drops of milk, the last piece of cheese, the last piece of bread. He'd lay on the couch in the family room, hogging the remote. He took my father's seat at the dinner table. He asked my mother to do his laundry.

That was the end of David.

I'm sure David was filing papers to change his surname.

But one of the most intriguing characters was Marcello- an Italian guy who owned a national tile company. Never without a cigarette dangling off his lips, Marcello, with his wild curly hair and cockeyed glasses, crashed into rooms with a thud. He was loud, lively and a self-proclaimed lady magnet, even though he had a lovely little lady right at home baking him bread and canning tomatoes from his huge garden.

Marcello's spirit was contagious, his stories of surviving the Andre Doria flowed faster than a swollen river, his thick lyrical accent made even the naughtiest words sound beautiful. He was an Italian tile superstar always on some type of bender. Speeding tickets, contract negotiations gone sour, the talk of cement shoes- he had my father on retainer for years, both sharing a passion for travel, fine food and women.

I don't know what happened to the Fran or the Franks, David or Marcello. I'd like to think that they enjoyed the time that they spent caught up in our dysfunctional family web. Because when I look back at the long line of characters that walked into and out of my life, it is indeed richer and more interesting because of them.

Life in my household was never ordinary.

And even to this day, if I happen to have an itch, and find myself without a tissue, I wonder if somewhere Frank is watching.