Still

On Thanksgiving my dad called sounding choked-up and lonely. Don't all dad's call their children on holidays sounding choked-up and lonely? Don't all children who are twenty-three feel guilty for not being choked-up and lonely? Don't prostitutes need someone to wash their hair for?

He ate dinner alone at the Golden Corral. I had sex three times far away. One day.

My dad took me and my sister to dinner for Christmas tonight. Golden Corral. He paid thirty-six dollars with a Master Card. I hung around the cash register. My spoon had red and crusty on it. I scraped it off under the table with my fingernail. My grandma did my fingernails at 8 o'clock this morning.

Our server's name was Rico. I know this because after we collected our plastic orange trays, arranging water/water/pepsi and a stack of wet tan plates, after we chose our booth and made the seat squeal he stomped by under a pile of pudding and teetering spoons and dropped his card onto the table. The card said Rico. Rico was white. Rico is white. I realize that just because the sliding door hushed shut and locked behind us at nine-oh-two does not mean that Rico stopped existing. Rico has a girlfriend with a staring problem. Rico does not sleep in his name tag.

We left him five. I sighed relief as that final dollar made it's notepad departure from my father's wallet. I half expected to see the dead ends of spiral paper like a spine down the side of it. My sister congratulated my assertiveness with a pinch to my leg under the table. I wondered where that certain assertiveness had been an hour earlier when he insisted we all ride in the same car.

The crust had its own trough. Five rectangles of seperate steel means apple, cherry, peach and purple do not mix. You watch your hand move underwater behind the glass guard, operating a chrome spoon like a piece of construction equipment, mining the crusty parts, wondering at the globs of undercooked dough, filling your plate with sugared bread. You choose from assorted fruit. The blue plaque says "Assorted Fruit". Right next to "Okra." You make cobbler.

My dad used to finish off seven plates. No squirming, no whining, soup bowls of bleu cheese. He used to be good at glaring big. I guess he's gotten good at living small, I thought as I stood in his kitchen watching him write out directions on an old bank statement, watching me notice the numbers.

Maybe he wanted us to stay longer. Maybe that's why we toured the house twice.

There was a room named "Rebel," full of flag and brass-balled plaques.I kept an eye out for Playboy. His Christmas present to himself was a Bowie knife from Germany with his initials carved into the side. It hung from the side of his bed.

"This is the only way I can have sex. I lead 'em in here and-", brandishing the knife, dissolving into a laugh. "Hey! I'm just kidding," following me out of the room. He's just kidding. I have to get out of these rooms.

He got me a membership to the NRA for my twenty-first birthday. There were twelve months of magazines: "Womens Rifle" wrapped in cellophane and demanding poses, mass mailers indicating deals on hotels if I renewed; free postage stamps. I hid from the letters, expecting a burial. He'd ordered that knife from one of those catalogs over the phone, I'm certain. In the privacy of his own home he'd repeated his initials five times, had the receiving clerk repeat them back twice. He'd spoken slow and instructional. He'd called back to confirm.

Australia, Canada. Now, see they've all got national healthcare. My dad can't get insured. He's applying for disability. Him and his lawyer. I've inherited irritable...everything.

He gave me and my sister each a fifty. There was a small cardboard box covered in clear packing tape on his kitchen counter. It had my mom's name on it. He used permanent black marker, all capitals. It was the first thing I saw when we got to his house. It was the last thing he put in my hands before I closed the car door, before I breathed hard instead of saying everything I wanted to say to my sister at once. We shivered together and that was enough.

I dropped my sister off and drove away. I made twenty-six right turns in the shape of a maze I never found. I passed a police car shooting radar. I saw his tail lights jump. I checked the speedometer and a street sign. I was right on forty miles per hour and not lost. Tennessee streets must hang from my eyelashes. Pedals must pump beneath my feet while I'm walking.

I pulled into random gravel, leaning into the air. It came in slaps. The hinges creaked. The rubber seal gave its kiss of closure. It was warmer than before: my dinner mixed with rocks. The fifty slipped out of the car door onto my loss. I watched it blot like a white cotton bandage. I left it there. I drove away thinking roads and old pictures, how the fifty never slipped, how I wished it had. It's in my pocket still.