SULLIVAN #3
Every time is like this.
He’s currently living in a trailer parked on the outskirts of town near the lake.
Sunrise Point is a contradiction of a small town.
It includes the second homes of the mega-wealthy who spend summers here.
There are the slightly more modest residences of retirees and true lovers of the place who are also mostly rich and keep downtown clean, running, and thoroughly gentrified.
There are the people who work in the places the rich residents depend on to make them feel bougie enough to call a place like this home.
My mother is one of those people, which makes us townies.
And there are people like my father and his crowd.
The people who can’t afford to live here and can’t afford to leave, squatting on land no one wants in tents or trailers, taking advantage of the proximity to wealth by doing odd jobs or selling drugs and illicit services to the kind of people who’ll pay top dollar.
A man I don’t recognize answers the door, and I’m instantly annoyed.
I told myself on the way over not to be disappointed with whatever happens today.
I won’t allow myself to be fucked up by my father or whatever I find here.
The man is younger than my dad, and probably also younger than he looks.
He’s thin and lanky with dirty hair partially pulled into a top knot.
He might have been good looking once, but his skin is dull now, his lips are cracked, and his teeth could use some help.
His clothes are dirty, too. Wrinkled and reeking of weed, cigarette smoke, and that particular smell that lingers at the bottom of laundry baskets. It’s what my father always smells like, too, when he’s not in a treatment center.
Framed by the door, the man strikes a pose which I think is meant to look seductive. “Hey pretty boy. How can I help you?”
“I’m here to see my dad.”
The creepy leer disappears from his face in a hurry. “You’re Mike’s kid?”
“Yes.”
“Babe?”
Babe?
The man steps out of the way, and I enter the dim trailer. Most of the windows are covered with dirty, half-closed blinds, and there’s a haze of smoke lingering in the air with no place to go.
It’s stagnant. The first thing I do is crack a window.
“There he is.”
I don’t turn until I have two more windows open.
When I do, there’s Dad. He doesn’t look any worse than he did at Christmas, and I guess that’s a good thing.
His dark hair is overlong, needing a cut, and it’s dirty, too, showing all the finger tracks he probably just made trying to straighten it up, but he looks more or less his age.
He’s still got his teeth, and they’re in decent shape for someone who probably hasn’t seen a dentist in more than a decade, but that’s because he doesn’t smoke his drugs. He snorts and injects.
He’s got a slight glaze in his eyes now that tells me he’s not entirely sober, but he’s up and moving like this is whatever his maintenance mode is. He gives me a hug, covering me in the horrible scent of this place. “You met Davy.”
“The one who called you babe?”
Dad chuckles, pulling away from me and holding me out for his inspection. “You’ve lost more weight.”
“You’ve got more gray,” I counter.
He lets go of me to run a hand over his speckled beard. “I like the gray.”
“How are you?”
“You know, we’re hanging in there.”
Davy has plopped himself down on the couch and lit a cigarette.
I look from him to my father with a questioning glance. “Just friends,” he says with a wink.
“Uh-huh.” I’ve learned that when it comes to my father, it’s better not to ask questions. He’ll say enough eventually anyway.
Davy’s cigarette smoke quickly fills the cramped space.
“How’s school?” Dad asks.
“I flunked algebra.”
“I wish I could help you there. I was never much good at math.”
“I get that from you, then, I guess.”
“And your mom and sister? How’re they doing?”
“The same,” I say. “Hanging in there.”
“Is she still working at the middle school?”
“Yep.” My mom works part time as a special needs aide at the regular middle school, too. Never in my life has she worked one job at a time.
“Can I get you something to drink? I think I have some Pepsi.”
“No thanks.”
“Why’re you so skinny anyway?” Dad asks.
“It’s a new look I’m trying out. And I’m not that skinny.”
He gives my bicep a squeeze, and I flex it to prove a point. “Is this your bow arm?”
I nod looking directly into his watery gray eyes.
He grins with pride, and goddamnit, it lights me the fuck up. “My brilliant boy.”
My heart softens as it always does after a few minutes in his presence. “Want to go for a walk?” I ask.
“I’d love to.”
My father loves me. He loves my mom and my sister, too.
This affliction he suffers from—it’s not addiction so much as it is a deep, deep sense of pain and inadequacy.
Life hurts him. The lows and the highs of it.
He’ll kill himself one day. Maybe by accident, maybe not.
Whenever or however it comes, I want to make sure he knows I loved him, too.