Brick
As the silhouette of a tall,slender man came clearer into view, suddenly the beer in my mouth tasted rancid.
It was Dennis… my father.
As he approaches, I can feel every muscle in my body tense up and the anger I’ve been suppressing for years comes bubbling to the surface.
“Hey there, son.” He has the audacity to greet me casually, as if we chatted the other day when it’s been five years.
I stare at him, my rage a tangible force. All I ever wanted was for my father to grow the fuck up and take some responsibility for me. My mother died when I was a toddler. I have no memory of her. All I had was him and my grandmother.
I even gave him a chance to apologize five years ago, but Dennis was so oblivious to my feelings and his behavior, all he ended up asking me for were season tickets to the games.
“What do you want?” I ask with a stony look as everyone I’m with watches with rapt attention.
At first, my father refuses to look me in the eye. Good, maybe that means he has some sense of remorse, something I didn’t think was possible when he was drinking and drugging.
“I just wanted to see you,” he says, his voice shaking with emotion. “I wanted to see you and heard you were down here playing a game of touch with your friends, like in the old days. I thought this would be a good time to have a talk with you. You look good, son.”
I still say nothing as his hollow words hang in the air between us. After a few moments, the silence is too much, and I look my father in the eye and say, “I don’t have anything to say to you, Dennis. Nor do I have any more money to give to you. You wasted your time coming here.”
With that, I turn and walk away, leaving my father standing alone in the grass. I leave my friends as well who look in shock, not sure what to do or say. Everyone but Kaya.
“Brick,” she calls after me. “Wait up.”
“I’m okay, Kaya. Go back to the group.”
“No.” She grabs my wrist to stop me from walking any further. “You’re not all right.”
I look down at her and all I see is concern etched across her beautiful face.
“Don’t worry about me.”
“That was intense back there.”
“That was Dennis being Dennis.”
“Did you know he still lived here in town?”
“It doesn’t matter to me where he lives, Kaya.”
“I think you embarrassed him back there, Brick.”
“Then he shouldn’t have approached me at a public park in front of everyone!”
She grabs my upper arm this time and steps in a bit closer toward me.
“He’s your dad, though.”
“He is my biological donor. He has never been a father. You know that.”
“I know he isn’t perfect, but it’s got to be better than not having a father at all.”
Of course, my reaction seems extreme to her after losing her own father when she was so young, but it’s not the same.
“I appreciate what you’re saying and what you’re doing, but we’ve all got our shit, right? I have to accept that no matter what I do or who I am in life that my father never wanted me. He just didn’t. That doesn’t make him evil or make me a saint, it just makes us two people who have no connection anymore.”
“It probably is also something that makes you both sad.”
