Daddy

Though I'm sure I must have, I don't remember ever calling the man who helped make me Brooke by the name "Daddy." In my mind and memory he's Dad and Father and Roy. Growing up we weren't yuppies either--in fact, Dad and I just spoke on the phone this evening, and he warned me not to turn into a yuppie as per my fear of mice, which I was scared to explain to him may just be his fault (see previous blog for explanation). So he's not the "just call me Roy" type of dad. In my memoir I refer to him in every way but Daddy. But tonight, when we got off the phone, I almost said I love you, Daddy, but instead said Bye, and we'll talk soon. And just like every time we get off the phone, I already miss him.

My father can recite lines from all eight of Shakespeare's history plays. Tonight he quoted Hal's line from 1 Henry IV, "I do. I will," as it's the prescient moment in which Hal promises to someday banish Falstaff. He then summarized 2 Henry IV for me, as I haven't read it, and said that the only actor out there capable of playing Falstaff is himself, but it's too bad he's so fit and good looking.

At another point in the conversation my dad started talking about the Germans and the Russians and some important historical interchange between the two, and this was leading up to a witty joke, only I couldn't hear what he said because, you see, my dad doesn't really know how to use a phone. Half the time he's covering up the receiver with his index finger. I've seen him murder many a cell, and sometimes even use it as an ashtray.

I'm no Plath, thank god, but I've romanticized my father in similar ways. Intellectually he's a genius, but when he was married to my mother she had to do things like change the light bulbs because he couldn't. If I ever had a question--historical, philosophical, religious or otherwise--I'd think, man, I should ask my dad about that...only he wouldn't have a phone number for me to call. He'd be living somewhere mistakenly auspicious-sounding like the Friendly Inn, smoking more than cigarettes and more than that other thing you might suspect one would smoke at the Friendly Inn. During high school and college, I only knew him as the man who was never a phone call away.

Where is this going? I've always begrudged girls their daddies, I guess. Daddy's girls grew up and found ways to own other men, thus own the world. Meanwhile I could barely own myself.

An ex-boyfriend once told me that girls who were abandoned by their fathers were the best kind: so willing to please, so loving, so...desperate. According to him Daddy's girls were the pits, and I was the shit. We weren't together very long, probably because he'd so savagely sized me up without even realizing how much it hurt me to be so plainly seen. I'm guessing he was a Momma's boy.

Don't fear for me though. I'm a big person now, have learned how to love and be loved with relative ease. I still hold one thing against my father, though: he didn't teach me any salable, interesting skill. Other people in the world, people I admire, can build things and cook things and climb things and sew things and grow things and film things. Not me. I interpret things.

Though I don't underestimate myself. I want you to know I believe in my importance. Therefore I will make a correction to a previous post. In "Musophobia," I said my dad wanted to teach me to read before I turned four; it was actually before I turned three. At sixteen months I could read the words "moon" and "boy," and perhaps these nouns were prescient for moments in my life that my father would never know about, only because he wasn't curious--I would have gladly admitted everything to him.

Still, don't think I have no skill. I can be a brilliant sixteen-month-old. I can long for a Daddy like the Dickens.