Father's Day

CHAPTER ONE Loud Blouse It wasn't so long after my father killed himself that Sheila Gray came to town and told me quite a story. Wait. Let me try that again. And this time, I need you to pay attention to Sheila and the story she told me about my mother. That's what I wanted you to hear. The part about my father was just for chronology, but it felt like more than that, didn't it? It made more noise than that. My father's death turns out to be like a very loud blouse, like a shrill leopard print or an acid Pucci pattern--nearly impossible to coordinate. It overtakes just about anything I put next to it. It would have been simple enough, I suppose, to say that Sheila came to town after my father died. I could have left it at that, and his death might have floated by like a little silk blouse in that version--like an ecru blouse at that, just as unremarkable as can be. Sheila's story about my mother would be front and center then. But somehow I can't say that. Time and again, I'm drawn away from the little silk blouse, toward the screaming colors of a Versace print: My father killed himself. It feels almost like I have to tell you. Once I've said this much though, I don't want to say another word. I want to retreat. Just this much, and not a word more. I want to use his suicide like a stun gun--to shoot you into submission with it, have you defer to me because of it--but I know it doesn't work like that. This story doesn't make you docile. As soon as I say my father killed himself, the question "how?" comes roaring back at me, as if the information I gave were disinformation, as if my confession just begged the real question: "So how did he do it?" And that's just the beginning. But after I've climbed so far out on a limb that I've actually spoken the word--suicide--all I want is to crawl back to safety, toward the solid trunk of a hundred-year-old maple. I'd like to take a break then--tell you next that he was six feet tall, or that he had lovely gray eyes and smooth, smooth skin. But I know how this works. His faint smell of citrus is of no interest to you. No, you want to know how he did it. My father put a bullet through his head. There, I've told you. But now you might think he placed the gun at his temple, sideways, and fired. That's not how it was. You see, when you ask for the "how?" of it--the "where?"--you take me right back to the crack of the gunshot, when I'm nowhere to be found and everywhere at once. Like a man with an airtight alibi whose fingerprints cover every square inch of the murder weapon. When the steel gray bullet with its shiny copper tip is loaded into the empty chamber. Click. When the nicely manicured hand lifts the gun heavily upward. When the jaw goes slack. You can't ask for more than this: He shot himself through his open mouth and straight out the back of his head. Happy now? When Sheila Gray started talking, I most definitely didn't ask any questions. Not a one. No, I receded. Let her tell me what she would. I'd met her only once before, after all. Think 1974. She flew into town from New Mexico back then--some place she insisted on calling a colony--with long, center-parted hair and a gauzy red gypsy skirt that she wore three days running. She smelled of sandalwood and guessed all our astrological signs correctly. With one look, she saw straight to the heart of me, and still she gave me the highest grade: Libra, just like her. So proud to be seen through, for a change. Are you sure there's no mistake? "No, no," she said. "It's clear as day." Grateful not to hide any telltale sign of who I might really be--not from her anyway. No, she saw itGalanes, Philip is the author of 'Father's Day', published 2004 under ISBN 9781400041602 and ISBN 1400041600.