Every Father’s Day I wake up unhappy. Stay unhappy all day. Don’t know why. And remember it’s Father’s Day and my father is dead. He had a pretty long great life. He left behind a loving family, I talk to my brothers just about every day.
We saw it coming. He got cancer. He was given six months to live and he lived 15 more years. He came out to stay with me. Got to see my place, meet my friends. I got to say goodbye to him before he died. I’m still sad he’s dead. I’m sitting here in a coffee shop and I half want to cry typing about him. But they’re playing EDM.
He had a long great life. At 17 he got arrested for attempted murder. My uncle paid off the judge to get him sent to the Marines instead of jail. He got sent to Camp Pendleton. Got out of going to Vietnam. He was an artillery mechanic. They gave him a standardized test, saw he was mechanically inclined. He was pipefitter like my grandfather at first and then a carpenter. A master union carpenter, which he was proud of.
He met my mom on a hike in the Blue Hills somewhere. Slept with her in her sleeping bag that night. They took a trip across country in a ’49 Ford truck he restored, to absolute mint. I remember that truck, gleaming black with a red interior. She told me about him blasting the heat trying to keep it from overheating over the Rocky Mountains. One thing he told me from that trip is never go to New Orleans. I haven’t.
He had scars on his wrists from scrubbing off tattoos with a wire brush. I’ll never get a tattoo.
He went to almost every state in the country. Sometimes getting away from the law. He told me some gas station attendants refused to serve him and his friend in the South because they had long hair, so he went back and stole all their tires.
He’d take me up to New Hampshire to see my cousins, up to the lake, and the kids sat on the shoulder part of the back seats in his Buick Skylark convertible whipping around dirt roads fast playing Kenny Rogers and the Village People YMCA. I’m gonna cry in the coffee shop thinking about this. He helped us make a fort in some huge rocks and hang up an old shirt painted with our name for a flag. He’d wait till the kids were swimming, cover himself in mud and weeds and jump out of the trees as a swamp monster.
He woke up before dawn and carried me down to the truck where he’d put cushions in the back of the super cab. So I could sleep on the way there. Wake up at the lake.
He cut the tip of his thumb off working for Bethlehem Steel. I think he got cancer from his work on construction sites, steel mills.
I miss my dad. He wrote me letters by hand once in a while. Sent me a check on my birthday and an update on his dog and his Cadillac. I miss him, I miss him. He didn’t like cats but he learned to like my cat, and my brother’s cat. He’s taking care of my pets in the afterlife.
He would have loved you. He would have loved the way you make rings. He would have loved watching you work on the metal and polishing it. He would have built you a workshop in our new house with tables at the perfect height for you, work spaces in the perfect place for your hands. He would have loved you and god damn would he have loved the dog. And the dog would have loved him. I’m almost sadder for her than for me.
delicioustacos 
I dislike all holidays, including father’s day, and I dislike my own father. I’m thankful I didn’t have a cool dad like you.
i believe strongly that people who don’t love their parents operate on a fundamentally incompatible societal wavelength.
you are entitled to your beliefs, and you are correct. however, some of us were born unlucky, and as a result have a father who is the most obnoxious loser in the world. some are lucky to have a cool dad but then unlucky later when their cool dad dies too early. oh well. such is life, imperfect. hey DT, thanks for letting me vent in the comments section.
I wake up unhappy every day, and stay unhappy all day every day. Happiness is a lie. An illusion. Pussy is the only consolation prize. Moments of pleasure. Your father got pussy. You got pussy. The Pussy-getting chain continued. If you have a son, he’ll want pussy when he hits puberty. If you have a daughter, she’ll want her pussy stimulated when she hits puberty. Cerno got it wrong; we don’t live in “clownworld”. It’s Pussyworld. Everything we do is for Pussy. And the Pussy must flow.
Did your father ever tell you about how he got arrested for attempted murder? I’d like to hear that story
I decided to take a break from work trudgery to read your shit. To get ‘caught up’.
I’m so glad i did. Congrats on the new lady, the new house, the new life.. you’re writing has evolved, less savage, still wonderful.
It was the weirdest thing, I had a thought pop in my head about New Orleans (i’m from Louisiana, and go to NO often, sponsor people there ect) and here you are mentioning that your Dad mentioned not to go there.. Very inside baseball, very strange.
I live for shit like that. It’s hard to encompass 12+ years of twists and turns sobriety (02/16/14 same as yours if i remember correctly) but stopping in here, fuckin off a day reading and wondering, has been a common theme. Thank you for providing me some breathing room in my life, it’s a blessing that is hard to convey, just please know I appreciate very much.
I thrifted Blood Meridian because of what you wrote, I didn’t realize it’s the same Author as No Country for Old Men… this is how my shit moves forward, piecemeal, connected but still tasting the finest flavors due to the attention of more refined and insightful men than myself. It’s exciting having a package on the way! I’m already sensing that ‘high water mark’
your shit is important, and have touched the life of a low down dirty dog ass drunk from across the country.
Nameste 🙏🏼