by dada » Mon Jun 18, 2012 5:36 pm
I'm not a dad. I do live with my girlfriend and her kid, have been for around 7 1/2 years. I met him when he was just turning eight, and now he's fifteen. We get along famously. I had a step-dad from when I was six years old, an easy-going all around great guy that spoiled my brother and I as rotten as he could, and I take after him. Seeing this kid at fifteen, he's turning out so much better than I was at that age. I'd like to think I have something to do with it, but probably not. He's just a much cooler kid than I was.
He sees his dad, stepmom, step sister and new baby brother every other weekend, and we get him the rest of the time. They're christians. I bought him books about Buddha and Krishna and the gang when he started getting curious about the bigger questions, just to give him some wider perspective. No pressure from this end, just the facts. This year was the Hitchhikers Guide, and some Joseph Campbell for school. He's coming along just fine. He's into Minecraft, and we used to play Nintendo together, but he doesn't have so much time for that, now that he has a girlfriend.
Even though I do all the dad stuff, our relationship is not the same as the usual step dad/son thing. I'm more like some crazy old wizard that buys the groceries. He calls me George. I don't get a father's day present. I like it that way, actually. I like different.
My dad was hardly around, but when he was, man we had a great time. There was always this sense of urgency with him, like he was trying to squeeze all the juice out of every moment with my brother and I, and tell us everything at once. Now that he's gone, I understand that a little better. He used to take us to the Knights of Columbus bar in Canarsie, he'd drink, we'd play pacman. Also we'd go down to the shore one week a year, and I'd play more video games. Funny after he died, I got so into the games again. Like "hey dad, look how good I can do on the games!" He was a drummer, and also got me my first guitar. And here I am still playing. I could swear that I play for myself, but the psychology behind it is undeniable. I'll just say it's a happy coincidence that I enjoy the things that also happen to subconsciously be the things I do to impress my dad, and leave it at that.
But seriously, fuck father's day. We can't do anything about the drones maiming and killing indiscriminately? Than why should we be honored. Isn't dad supposed to do something about that? I don't know, it just bugs me. Pardon my outburst please.
In the third book, Harry Potter is saved from the soul eating dementors, he thinks it was his father that rescued him. Later he goes back in time, and is standing on the other side of the lake, watching himself being attacked. He's waiting for his dad to come save him, but then realizes it was him now, the him from the future that saved him, not dad. So he saves himself. There's a lesson there somewhere, I think.
Both his words and manner of speech seemed at first totally unfamiliar to me, and yet somehow they stirred memories - as an actor might be stirred by the forgotten lines of some role he had played far away and long ago.