I was an 8 year old skinny boy who liked to wear a denim overall. I liked to wear my denim overall because it was the only clothing my father bothered to buy me. All my other clothes were lovely too but I hated the doe-eyed pitiful look my neighbors gave my father and I when they reached those tiny used fabrics on our arms.
My father and I lived in an old shabby dusty apartment with creaking floors and loud next door neighbors. Most of the times, the noises were loud. There were too many people in our building enough to cause an angry mob to a company demanding to see the President for reforms and they'd let us. We were like terrible clowns in a rusting clown car with no way to explain how we could all fit in such a tight space but we did. Except there were no humor or hearty laughs, only screaming, fighting and breaking sounds.
It was a terrible place to grow up in. Maybe, I guess, it s the reason why I have a certain comfort level when it comes to chaos.
My father was a writer. Our little old haven had two rooms and a bathroom half the size of a common elevator. One was for sleeping in and one was just for us.
"That room is a fire hazard," I heard the chubby middle aged woman from next door comment.
"That sorry-ass man has a 5 year old son for god's sake! "said her skinny friend with the saggy arms and yellowed teeth.
I didn't remember the rest of what they were actually saying but I heard all of the whispered derogatory complaints. I really wasn't sure what the words were but I fully remember the disgusted worrisome looks painted on their faces when they talked about my father and how it made me feel.
That day, I ran to my father who had his back hunched from typing long hours on his typewriter. I loved that hunched back clothed in a sweaty blue button-up shirt. This was the man who taught me to write and read and count though I hated him for teaching me that. They were all hard lessons to remember. I hated it when he raises his voice when he runs out of patience but I loved the way his eyes creases when he smiles genuinely at me when I got it right. Though we fight and yell and break the furniture, I love how my chest suddenly feels light as a feather when he embraces me with those strong arms.
My 8 year old self thought he loved me.
So I embraced his sweaty hunching back. Willing the tightening in my guts to go away. Those wicked naggy hags were wrong. My father was the best father in whole wide world.
That day, my father finally released his breath in a lengthy exhausted sigh, relaxed his shoulders and his head fell back in a plump. My hug must have made him return from wherever he was. His fingers, then fumbled to the left side of the desk causing a sound of a click and whirring. Then, the sound of lazy plucking of strings eroded around the paper-filled room that was our home. From closed eyes and limp arms on the sides of the chair, his mouth barely moved but he sang it anyways:
Oh, give me the beat boys
And free my soul
I wanna Get lost in your rock n roll
And drift away.
Those were the very first words and the very first tune when my feet learned to move the way it liked. That was the very day my father twirled me around our little sun lit room as the dust particles swayed and moved lazily with us. The sound not so loud enough to raise complaints from the neighbors but just enough for the music to drown out the creaking noises whenever we moved. We raised our arms, wiggled our hips and we all laughed at ourselves at the silliness of it. It was the very first time the building was touched with such an innocent joy.
After several winters came to pass, I was 12 years, 5 months and 4 hours old. It has been 2 hours since the clock struck twelve. Today is my happy birthday. Or it was supposed to be. I woke up in the middle of the night just to tell my father of the joyous event. Birthdays, of course, are the only times when people get to give you stuff they don't normally give to someone except for Christmas. But the bed was cold and untouched. Father didn t come yet. Most recently, my father started coming home late. He was always grouchy and mad when he did so. This night, I hoped he purposely got late to surprise me with a handful of balloons and sweets he got from the bakery.
This night, I hoped to surprise him first.
So it was 3 hours after 12am at the very first hours of my birthday, I decided to bundle up on the sleeping bag in our fire hazard room of papers with my favorite quilt on my shoulders and sat several steps across the front door with giddy anticipation. Just before the hour of dawn rise to touch the sky with its fiery tendrils, he came in the room. The man looked like my protector. But this was not the man who danced with me on the eve of thanksgiving. He wore his coat, shoes, hair and eyes. But they were blood-shot. There was swelling on his cheeks. There was blood on his coat. And he didn't wear his shoes but he held it in his right hand.
"F-father?" I asked, my voice shaky at the sight of blood.
He didn t reply. When his eyes found me, his brows came close together and his scowl deepened at the sight of me. It was as if he didn't recognize me.
"Eleanor?" he muttered and his expression turned appalled when he did as if he quite didn't like the taste of it in his mouth.
I recognized him immediately. The harsh tone of his voice wasn't easy to forget.
"No, father, it s me" I said walking towards him to hold his palms. I put a bird made of paper inside his callused dry hands. It was warm and crumpled from my holding it all day but it was a surprise especially for him because it was my birthday. Because it was my birthday, I knew he was going to show me how much he cared just as the previous ones but today I was hoping to show him how much I cared.
He made a loud guttural noise in his throat, swiped the empty vase off the counter with his arm, and kicked the shelves as the thumping of books falling sounded like glasses breaking.
That night, he cursed, he stomped, he ravaged our sweet little old home. He went at it with such great energy; the wallpaper got painted in red as he angrily went about the room. When he finally recognized me in the room, he pointed an accusing finger in front of me, the paper crane no longer a bird in his bloodied fist.
That night, he told me I was an accident.
That night, he told me I was a mistake.
That night, he told me how he was really in love with my mother's sister and why he married my mother because it was the closest thing he'll ever come close to the real one.
My father longed for the moon but he grabbed the star instead in a jump; a poor substitute for the moon but the same light nonetheless. But a star wasn't enough. He wanted the moon. I was nothing but a distant dot overhead.
I got the message. I was unwanted.
And my 12 year old self believed him.
