So I'm talking to you, dad. It's lane four and I'm wearing rented, tight-pinching shoes.
I'm surrounded by actors. I love actors. One on one, intense, unyielding discussions over dinner. Watching them work. But put more than four of us together in a room and it's like a methadone clinic. Addicts being addicts. Loud, boorish choruses of our shadowed selves that can grate. Or, in my current situation, anxious, itchy, sullen types who grow paranoid based on the slightest unsettling stimuli.
Not judging.
I switch between these modes all the time.
And we're bowling. I always forget, until the moment I'm walking down a lane with nine pounds of sluggish stubbornness, why I don't bowl. You tried your best, dad. Held my bony hand inside your weathered paw, offered a shy smile, reminded me to point my thumb and my wrist straight, follow through, pelvis out. It just didn't take, like all other sports. Naturally, I gave up and and went back to my favorite activities: daydreaming about being in love, singing made up songs to myself, and reading.
It's the third frame. I've got a score of 6 at the moment. And you know me, dad. I'm not half-assing it. I don't half-ass anything. I'm taking my time, hearing your voice in my head, trying to follow the steps. And it just doesn't work. I'm eight again, and I have no skills and everyone else at this party are in love and happy and ripe with promise and I'm just a fat weird poor brown kid from modesto who can't roll a ball straight.
First ball down the lane. I stare down the pins, and find myself pleading with you: C'mon, dad. Help me out here. Don't let me further embarrass you. Summon up some wind. Something. An earthquake, maybe. Just strike down these ten soldiers rising up against me.
And I roll.
The bowling ball shoots steady and fast down the middle for a few feet, then wildly skips to the right, lapping at the gutter.
Ten pins still stand.
My head drops. And then a friend spies me, cheers me on.
Even though you died over seven months ago, dad, I can hear you sigh. It's an orchestral sigh. You sigh because you know that this friend, with the holes in her stockings and a grin that shoulders a river of hurt, this friend is another silly crush of mine. Unobtainable. You sigh because you've seen it before and there's nothing you can do to save me from my foolishness. It's not my path, relationships and all.
While I wait for the ball to return to me, I apologize for my terrible bowling, mutter: "You know, I'm the only kid in my family who never won a bowling trophy".
I wedge my fingers into the misshapen holes, lift the mass, and walk down the lane again.
But just as I lean back to release the ball, she says:
I'll make you a trophy.
Dad, my wires crossed, and I almost sat down on the ground. I turned my head, choked back a sob, and disguised it as a laugh. Tossed the ball and knocked one pin down, head swimming.
I'm 34 years old, dad. Same age you were with three kids. Something like that shouldn't unravel me. You dealt with floods and children who almost died and children who were mislabeled as autistic and incurable. I'm a potted plant.
My role in improving this human experiment has been minimal at best. I need to give more people trophies. I need to stop wanting them so much from others. And if I'm given a trophy, I need to be grateful. Not glum out and wish it was bigger, or more prestigious, or a friendship trophy instead of a boyfriend trophy. Just give thanks.
I hope you're well, dad.
Love you...
