Memoirs of a Spashley Addict
Submission: June 7, 2008
Theme 3: Into the Spotlight
Character: Patrick
Broken Chains
On the day of my Confirmation, my dad gave me his antique gold pocket watch.
It was a family heirloom, passed down from father to son for the past five generations, making me the sixth in the line to receive it.
I was thirteen. Humble. Benevolent. Devout. Everything a good Catholic son should be. Dad was proud of me on that day. After the ceremony, he took me aside, knelt down to my level with his hand on my shoulder and told me I was everything he had hoped for in his only child.
Two pairs of eyes glistened as he handed me the newly polished watch, clipping the chain to my dress jacket and letting the comfortable weight settle into my pocket.
It was one of the last days I can remember getting along with him.
With the season of high school came the season of change. No, of revelation. I was still humble. I was still benevolent. I was still devout. But I realized I wasn't everything a good Catholic son should be. At least, not according to what I had been taught.
Dad didn't like Connor from the moment the two met.
He and Mom both said I shouldn't associate with a bad influence, someone so blatantly 'against God.'
I couldn't not be friends with him, though. Connor was, without a doubt, the opposite of everything wholesomely Catholic I had been raised to believe. I think that's what drew me to him. Needless to say, weekly confession became quite the…interesting…chore.
Dad did everything in his power to limit our friendship, and Mom did everything in her power to set me up with a 'nice normal girl'—all daughters of our fellow church goers. When I wasn't in school or in worship or confined to my room for studying, I was often suffering through a blind date.
The dinner with Spencer and her family was just one of many.
A sort of equilibrium was somehow established. Fragile, though it was, it prevailed for a surprising length of time. I jumped through the hoops my parents set, bathing myself in the light of the Holy Spirit to ease their worries, while I indulged in my escalating relationship with Connor in the shadows. Not the most enjoyable of situations, but it worked.
Then came the day Dad caught us in a more-than-friendly embrace.
After Connor was thrown out of the house, Dad struck me across the face and told me I was the biggest disappointment in his life. He told me I was a disgrace to the family, a vile sinner, and ill beyond repair.
Two pairs of eyes glistened as he ripped the watch out of my pocket.
I tried to hold on to it, tried to cling to the pride he once had in me, the love he once held for me, but the golden chain caught between our hands split and broke.
I was his only son. The only child my mother had birthed. Five generations of tradition, now threatening to end with me. Because of me.
Can you see now why I so desperately sought Spencer's affections?
To know she was gay even before she told me, to have heard the same lamenting in her voice as I've heard in my own, it wasn't hard to guess that her girlfriend was rejected by her family the same as Connor was by mine. I chased after her like it was a dream. A grim fairy tale that we were a perfect fit, so different and yet so alike because of it. That being together could somehow work, that we could appease our families and still each live out our indiscretions within a mutual understanding.
It didn't quite go as planned. I don't know whether to be dejected or relieved. Spencer has a strength to be admired, while all I am left with is half a chain, its golden links incomplete and without purpose. A stark reminder of the family that was and the family that is.
Funny. Broken chains are supposed to leave a person feeling liberated. All I feel, though, is an empty pocket.
End.
