Worms

When my father got out of prison, I was twelve years old. Growing up in a small sleepy town in Alabama, everyone’s father was either normal a drunk, or in the war. All other were dead, usually due to being the third kind of father. My father was gone by the time I was two, and I dint see him again until I was twelve. I didn’t think about it too much, because I never really had need for a father. My mom was great, not too strict, and a cook the gods would be envious of. I had two older brothers, and one married older sister, so I had plenty of guys to talk to or play football with or whatever. They did all the fatherly things. Beside, my father’s absence wasn’t too conspicuous, because growing up in the time of world war two meant most fathers were gone too. It was only later, when the war had been over for two years, making me ten, that I realized that everyone’s father was either back or dead. I asked my brothers, Louie, who was 13, and Joey, who was 16. They said not to ask. Finally, I cornered my mom in the kitchen one night, turned off the radio, and looked her straight in the eye. I asked one question. “Is my dad dead?” she sobbed, and I thought the worst of it, but she said “no, honey. He’s not dead”. She hugged me, tight, and kept crying. Then I asked again, “where’s is he then?” then she cried some more, and said she didn’t know how to tell me. Then she said to go to bed. I would’ve argued but she had that look in her eye, so off I went. He came back when I was twelve and we were worlds away. At first I didn’t know it, but I would find out later he’d just been in jail. Ten year sentence, for murder. The exact circumstance escapes me, but I know it involved the mob, which had some influence over us, though not much compared to its reach over our two sister towns, but enough to cause crime. When he came back, my mom said he was different. It made no difference to me, cause I didn’t remember him. For me, it was the same as meeting a stranger. I kept coming and going as I always did, and though at first my dad tried to discipline me, and tried to establish a new order, he soon gave up and took to the bottle. One morning, around eleven or so, I trotted up the front steps of my house, having dumped my bike on our lawn, to find my father drinking on our porch. I immediately stopped my fast, noisy pace, and tried to tip toe into the house. I had a fairly good chance, the porch was shadowed, n my dad probably in a stupor. I knew better than to just brush past. he would find offence in that and I’d catch a backhand, his preferred form of punishment, especially on me, as I got in trouble much more often than my brothers, and the fact that I didn’t care annoyed him all the more. Truth was I did care, but never showed it. He never used full fore, and the sting wore of quickly. Besides, I had come to term with my father existence and the fact that he as a felon by avoiding him as much a possible, and my existence continued much as it was before. That day, I nearly made it to the door when “Dean! C’mere.” I went, reluctantly. I sat net to him, the white wicker chair to big for me. We sat and he drank, and suddenly his head lolled and I thought he’d fallen asleep. I was about to go, when, “You know, I’m hard on you Dean. But you boys, you grew up lawless. We did too, my Pa did time too. You know, in jail, you get to thinking. Especially in solitary. Did most of my time in solitary Dean, did you know that?” I stayed quiet. This talk was giving me an uncomfortable feeling, that sort of flipping in your stomach, when something’s about to go wrong. We were finally acknowledging the elephant in the room, and I was scared. In fact, it was probably the longest conversation I’d ever had with my father. “You know how that happened? Probably my second year in, I got in fight Dean. With some bad guys. My being Italian, our being Italian, made it worse, ya know? I’ve always been proud of it though, so has your ma. Don’t you forget boy, you’re an Innocenzi. But, to keep me safe, keep my alive, I got sent to solitary. You think a lot there sons. The thought, their like maggots. Worms. In your brain. And they fall on your face, all wet and nasty and they suffocate. For those long, long years I tried to keep ’em at bay, but God, it was so hard and I was so tired. And I thought, when I got out, when I got back to my family they would go away. But they don’t. They fester, and burrow and consume.” We sat in silence, and I heard him breathe heavily. I was afraid he would die. The day turned to night before us. I never understood why he told me what he told me, but I think he needed to exorcise his demons. In the humidity of the early hours of the night, I heard my father whisper for the first and only time “I love you, son”. Then he passed out and I went inside to sit with my mother.