home is burning

I try to jokingly get my little sister, Chelsea, to think and talk about the death of our father. I will ask her things like, “Hey Chels, do you know where Dad is?” or, while showing her a family photo, “Hey Chels, could you help me pick out one person in this picture that isn’t alive any more?” or, “Hey Chels, if you had to pick one thing that Dad is, dead or alive, which one would you pick?”

To get her thinking about old dead Bob Marshall, I gave her a simple task: name five things that you had a year and a half ago that you don’t have now, things that were living that aren’t any more.

She, while holding a banana, said, “Strawberries, bananas, milkshakes, and peaches.”

Using my counting and math skills, I said, “That was only four Chelsea. You still have one more. Think about something that isn’t a fruit or a milkshake, someone that was very important in making you, someone whose name rhymes with sad, mad, tad, rad, or had, as in, “I’m a tad sad and mad because I once had a rad _______.

Chelsea took a bite of a banana and said, “Apples. I don’t have apples any more.”

I recently pitched a hypothetical situation to Chelsea. I figure, at her age, with college on the horizon, she needs to sharpen that silly, fart-joke-loving brain of hers.

I gave her the hypothetical:

Me: Okay Chelsea, you have a pill in your right hand. If you take it, I die. You have a pill in your left hand. If you take it, Mom dies. You have to take one pill. Which one do you take?

Chelsea: Neither.

Me: No, Chels, you have to take one. Didn’t you listen to the rules, you stupid little fuck who has no self-confidence? The point of this whole thing is for you to make a decision about who you love and want to live on more: me or that shit-eater Mom.

Chelsea: Umm. Well, I would take half of each.

Me: What would happen then?

Chelsea: Have of you would die, and the other half would live.

Me: Could I pick which half died and which half lived?

Chelsea: Yeah, I guess.

Me: Well, I would pick the bottom half because my dick’s there.

Chelsea: But you use your mind more than your dick.

Me: Well, my dick and my mind are pretty much the same thing.

Chelsea: Oh, I never knew that. Then I would take the pill that kills you.

When I first came home to visit after leaving for college years ago, I excitedly approached our racist, Holocaust surviving Polish cleaning lady, Stana, hoping for a warm hug and a pat on the ass, maybe even a, “Wow, it’s so great to see you, Dan. Home isn’t the same without you.”

Instead, Stana took one look at me and said, “Oh, Danny, your face is so fat. You leavin’ for college and you is comin’ home with fat face.”

The grin faded from my fat face as I was slapped with the first comment that implied that I was getting older and more irresponsible with my body and health. I had been called many things throughout my life, mainly complimentary, things like, “Awesome,” or, “bad ass,” or, “Big Dick Dan,” or, “Awesome, bad ass, Big Dick Dan,” but I had never been called, “fat.”

Those simple words created what psychologist would call a complex. I now saw myself as owning a fat face. It soon became a part of my identity. I would say things like, “I have such a fat, fucking face,” and would assume everyone saw me as, “That fat ass with an even fatter face.” I tried exercising, but found it hard to lose weight in just my face. I tried sucking in my cheeks, but that seems to build cheek muscles that made my face even fatter.

I was finally able to grow a scrappy beard, that I currently sport.  I figured that people would mistake the fatness in my face for the fluffiness of my beard. Additionally, it seemed to give my face a thinner shape. 

I came home from graduate school sporting the aforementioned beard. I woke up and walked up stairs to Stana’s pleasant humming. I expected her to say, “Danny, you is lookin’ so good. Stana is bettin’ that you is gettin’ at sort of, how called, pussy in Los Angeles.”

Instead she said, “Oh Danny, you is need to get yourself together. You is lookin’, how called, homeless. You is need pull self, how called, together. You is shavin’ beard, and cuttin’ hair, and maybe one day, you is be a handsome boy again.”

So, in the eyes of Stana, either I shave my beard and have a fat face, or keep it and look like shit. Either way, Stana is no, how called, approvin’.