Day 48 of the Ugly Secrets in the Cellar Road Trip
Dallas, TX
You are long gone now, so I don't have a chance to say any of this to your face. It would have been too late even then, with the weight of your illness humbling you so badly, and me too green for audacity. But I want you to know that I know.
I know what you did to them, how you humiliated them, how such small tokens of affection cost you so much. Do you remember when you beat him senseless over a haircut? I can imagine the feeling you got as you towered over him, eyes red with rage, able to stop yourself but enjoying it too much. So many things can be chalked up to the time, the place weren't your parents the same to you? It is a generation that inflicted cruelty upon children, after all. True enough, but there was a part of you that loved it, a part of you so damaged, so sick, that you couldn't stop yourself from splattering his blood upon the bathroom floor, because it felt too good. He saw it in your eyes and knew.
The liberties you took with women were legendary; a nod, a wink, a cruel clank of wine glasses over a dinner table because boys will be boys - but I know what else you did. I know.
What was left out of the mythology being tied to radiators? Enemas? It's one thing to abandon, yet another to torture. On and on it went until they all got old enough – and tall enough – to dare you to try it again. After that, it was all about the things, the stuff, the willful manipulation of couches and dollars equaling affection.
The people close to me aren't allowed to hate you; somehow they navigated the twisted trunks and roots of your mystique and ended up with a brokenhearted love. I think a part of you, somewhere deep in the bayou of your most naked self, you were capable of love too. But it is my job to know, to bear witness to what you did. You hurt the ones I love so badly, and with my unjaundiced heart, I will be the one to remember long after they have managed to forget.
Posted by at February 7, 2003 8:13 PM