Finding Father

FINDING FATHER
By
Victor Martinez


    I found his address in the phone book. He lived in an area of town that had never been more than a slum, what newspapers and politicians would call a blight on the community. I was surprised. I'd always imagined him living in a swanky penthouse, traveling the world, or enjoying a comfortable suburban life with a healthy, well-educated family. I imagined he never even thought about me, if he remembered me at all.

    I had the taxi drop me off at the apartment building and I navigated through the posse of thugs and drug dealers who loitered outside.

    In the lobby, decades of accumulated grime covered walls and dark corners of the floor. The air had a stale, oily smell, and I didn't trust the elevator; it was one of those old-fashioned warehouse types with an accordion gate for a door. I took the rickety stairs up to the fifth floor, not daring to touch the banister. His was the first door across from the landing. Adrenaline took control of my arm and I knocked more loudly than I'd meant to. As much as I'd wanted to meet him, part of me was hoping there was no one home.

    He was in the middle of lighting a cigarette when he answered the door. Our resemblance was shocking; if he noticed, he hid it well. There was no doubt that he was my father. My mouth was from my mother, but this man and I had the same jaw line, the same eyes. He was wearing a stained San Diego Padres sweatshirt, and his thinning hair was long and slicked back, wet looking.

    "Help you?" he asked.

    I handed him my birth certificate. He unfolded it, read it, squinting. I watched his eyes widen in surprise. "Oh." He looked me over, suspicious and curious, like a hermit signing for a package he wasn't expecting. He stepped aside, using the birth certificate to wave me in. "Come inside."

    The apartment was small and dark, the wallpaper yellowed by years of nicotine. The air smelled like stale beer and cheap air freshener. It was something more suited to a college-aged junkie than to a 50-year-old man. The walls were thin enough to hear the couple next door arguing, a baby crying. The TV was on; the sound was turned down low, squeals and boings! from the cartoons barely audible.

    "Well, Franklin, it seems you caught me on a good day," he said. He led me to the kitchen and gestured at a chair for me to sit in. "Work called, told us not to come in today. Machinery's down or something. Didn't feel like it anyway."

    He sat across from me, cigarette dangling from his lips. He looked at the birth certificate again, and then set it down on the want ads he had laid out. I noticed his hands were shaking, just a bit, not as much as mine were. I clasped my hands in my lap.

    "Can I get you something to drink?" he hopped out of his chair and reached for the refrigerator before I could answer.

    "No," I said. "I'm okay."

    He sat down again, inhaled deeply on his cigarette. "That's good, all I got is milk." He chuckled a bit, and I forced a smile.

    "I'm sorry to just drop in on you like this, but I had to see you," I said. "I'm in town for a little while, on business. I couldn't leave without, you know..." I couldn't find the words. I didn't have a prearranged script to follow, no idea of what I should bring up. I just wanted to meet the man who, through his absence, made such an impact on so much of what had happened in my life.

    "Mom never really talked about you."

    "Yeah. How is your mom?"

    "Dead." I said. "Two years ago. Breast cancer." It came out colder than I'd meant it to.

    "Sorry to hear that." He looked down as if to avoid my eyes and caught the birth certificate instead.

    "It wasn't easy, but she was a strong woman. She went peacefully."
The long seconds of silence that followed magnified the sounds of traffic down out on the street. Then I said, "Look, I didn't come here to ask you for anything. I'm not torn up about child support or Little League or my first tooth or any of that. I just wanted to meet you. That's all."

    He sighed, and it was a sigh of relief, the sigh of a man who'd been holding his breath, expecting bad news.

    "You probably already know, I was a real screw-up when I met your mother."

    "Like I said, she never talked about you."

    "Well, not much to talk about, I suppose. I was running around on drugs, in and out of jail. I don't know what she saw in me. When she got pregnant, we thought it would be a fresh start, you know? Thought I'd get my act together, get a real job. Take responsibility."

    I nodded. "So what happened?"

    "I couldn't do it. The day you were born, I held you in my hands and you were so perfect. Your whole life ahead of you. I wanted to be a part of that, but..." He took a long drag on his cigarette, flicked the ashes off. "I knew I'd screw it up. I was 18 years old, drinking, and partying. I knew I wasn't fit to be a father. I wasn't back then, and I'm not now. I've never even been married. I mean, look at me. Look at this." He waved his hands to indicate the rest of the apartment. "I screwed up real bad, more than once. I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of. I'm clean now, but... trust me, you were better off without me."

    I looked my father in the eye.

    "That sounds cowardly to me."

    He sniffed and seemed to think it over for a moment, picking at his ragged cuticles.

    "Yeah, cowardly is right. And selfish. And weak. I can't change any of that now." He smiled cheerily. "Looks like you turned out alright, though. You seem strong. Determined. Smart. Your mom did good."

    "Yeah, she did what she could. I was a handful."

    "I'm sorry I wasn't a part of it. That's all I can say. I'm sorry."

    I wanted to grab him and tell him that he was a part of it. I wanted to tell him that every time I conjured up an image of him it made me want to fight to be a better person, because if I wasn't good enough for my own father, then I had to work extra hard to prove that I was worth anything at all. It was like fighting with one hand tied behind my back - I had to learn to kick. But I couldn't tell him any of that. There was too much to say, too many questions. All I could do was take a deep breath.

    "I didn't come here for an apology," I said.

    "Then why did you come here?" His tone was barely suppressed anguish, a sob choked in his throat. Years of shame and regret had etched lines into his face, and there was a fathomless sorrow in his eyes. I wondered for a moment if that's what I would look like if I lived to be his age.

    "I told you, I just wanted to meet you. Is that so odd, for a man to want to meet his father?"

    His face scrunched up; for a moment I thought he would just let go and cry, but he regained his composure.

    "I'm staying at the Regent." I slid the address over to him. "Maybe we can meet for coffee or lunch or something."

    I really didn't want to meet him for coffee. I didn't want him for anything, the way I thought I might. He was trapped in the shame of his past, barely keeping his head above it. That's all I needed to see. I needed to know that his past was as much of a burden to him as it was to me. Anything beyond that was pretending, and it was way too late for that. For some reason I still don't understand, I made the gesture anyway, even though I knew he wouldn't call.

    He took the address, not looking at it. He smiled at me. "You look like her," he said.

    "I used to think so too," I answered. "Until I saw you."

    His eyes welled up, and he looked away from me.

    "You were brave to come here," he said. "Braver than I am."

    "I should go," I said. I got up and pushed my chair in and he walked me to the door.

    "Take care of yourself," he said.

    "I always have," I said.

    There were no hugs, no handshakes, no plans to meet again. There was just the sound of the lock clicking behind me as I left.