A Portrait of My Father in Eight Objects
/Jonathan Sulinski
1.
Dresser, pine, purchased as part of a set from a Sears catalogue in 1956. Right pull missing on second drawer. Mahogany veneer chipped away and finally removed. Crayon marks still visible on back panel. Sanded down by my father and re-stained by my grandfather several times to hide various scuff marks, including scratches from assorted dogs, cuts from a Boy Scout-issued pocket knife, and bumps from moving houses. Left carved base missing large chunk after tumultuous move from Maryland to Minnesota, never replaced.
Floor of the bottom drawer broken following my father’s attempt to pull out drawers and climb them like stairs. Top drawer containing at varied points in time: baby nappies, socks and underwear, sections of honeycomb, adopted fieldmouse, Pall Mall cigarettes, Trojan condoms, quarter pint bottle of Jim Bean whiskey. Baltimore Orioles sticker still adhered on back side, torn from unsuccessful removal. Dresser surrendered to Goodwill in 1991.
2.
One pair disposable bamboo chopsticks, nine inches in length. Never used. White paper sleeve advertises Ichiban Japanese Restaurant in Minnetonka, MN, where my father meant to propose to my mother on November 9, 1973. He was the son of a carpenter. Her family owned a hotel. Knowing nothing of Asian cuisine, he’d picked the fanciest, most exotic restaurant in the phone book, but had mistakenly reserved seats at a hibachi table with six other people. The two had to shout just to hear one another over the clatter of knives on the grill and the subsequent applause. The quiet romantic moment he’d pictured never came.
My mother noticed his disappointment on the drive home and said, “Well, aren’t you going to ask me?”
“Ask you what?” my father replied.
“You know. ‘Will you marry me?’”
“Yes.”
3.
Zippo lighter, brass with faux wood grain panel. 1.5 x 2.25 inches. Gifted to my father at his bachelor’s party by a veteran friend all too eager to show his own lighter’s engraving: a naked couple whose lustful bodies were aided by the windscreen’s back and forth motion. In times of stress, my father would fidget with the Zippo’s ignition wheel or cap and uncap it with the flick of his wrist. He did this most in places that denied smoking. The line of chairs where he awaited a job interview. The DMV. A suite at one of his father-in-law’s hotels. The waiting room at the hospital where I was born.
Of course, the clacking noise of a lighter is liable to annoy anyone. Case in point: the family alongside him in the waiting room, who were ready to leap on the payphone should their insurance company call back. They snapped at my father who grimaced and switched to pacing the room, giving them the eye whenever he passed. He was sweating and unshaven. The first pregnancy had ended badly. So had the second. A year had passed before anyone could convince my mother to try again. Along the way there had been complications but in the end: success. Upon hearing the good news, my father forgot the Zippo in the waiting room, and it was never recovered.
4.
Child’s swing. Two-foot-wide plank pine wood with hole bored in the center for a rope. Originally, the rope was suspended from an oak tree to entertain the neighborhood boys. My father sustained several scrapes putting it there. After a week, we grew tired of pushing each other and began climbing into the tree to leap with the rope between our legs. The added height gave us such inertia that when the swing came back up, we could almost touch the leaves with our toes.
The trick was to keep the rope taut. Any slack and the rider would be jolted as the rope straightened itself. When I jumped from the highest point of anyone, the sudden tug on the branch was so intense it snapped. Not a complete break, but enough to send the swing into the hard-packed ground. My howls of pain sent a few boys running. The others carried me home, fearing punishment but not knowing what else to do.
My father surveyed the damage: a bruise I’d carry for months, but my tail bone wasn’t broken. It’d be painful, he declared, but nothing to fret about. Unconvinced, my mother demanded he drive me to the emergency room. All her life she’d done her best to shield me from any kind of pain—no summer camp, no sports but badminton, training wheels and the best bicycle helmet we could afford. This overprotectiveness incensed my father.
“There are far worse things for a boy than a bruised ass,” he railed. “And he won’t be fit to face those things if he’s handled with white gloves all his life! It’s irresponsible!”
“Don’t talk to me about irresponsible,” she replied. “Didn’t you think to test the swing?”
He defended the girth of the branch and the strength of the knot as if on trial. But it was no use. That same night he climbed the tree as high as he dared in fading daylight, cut the rope, and tossed the swing into the forest. I’m sure it still lies there to this day, the plank rotting and the rope consumed by weeds.
5.
Registry book for Green Groves Inn, bound in black faux leather, containing guests from 1990-1992. My father’s precise, blockish handwriting appears every other week. The first time he’d used an alias, but quickly dropped the charade after the concierge noticed it didn’t match the name on his credit card. One might consider taking a mistress to your father-in-law’s inn an act of defiance. It wasn’t that. It was convenience. The inn was simply near her house in the poor section of town where there were rail lines everywhere and not a tree in sight. A neighborhood where no one knew him and no one would ask questions.
But questions had been asked. Accounts differ as to how my mother discovered the truth of the so-called “business trips.” I don’t dare ask mother directly. My aunt claims an anonymous employee rang mother at midnight and said if she hurried, she might catch my father in the act. Other people say the mistress herself made the call, but no one knows why. My grandfather, owner of the hotel chain, will leave the room anytime the subject is broached. Green Groves Inn was sold to a national chain a few years later. I assume the registry books were shredded after everything went digital.
6.
Alcoholics Anonymous “Big Book,” fourth edition. Several pages dog-eared, highlighted portions throughout. Pink slip used as bookmark.
7.
27 Sweet ‘n Low packets from the third booth in a Minneapolis diner. It was just the two of us: me with my IPA, father with his iced tea. He’d long since sweetened his drink, but as we talked about old times, his fingers fumbled with the little pink packets: folding them, twisting them, tearing them, stacking them into little piles, spilling the granules onto the table, and reaching for another. The first time we’d spoken face to face in years and his face was in a pile of sugar substitute.
I’d been shopping with my fiancée for a refrigerator when he called me out of the blue. He congratulated us on moving in together (an aunt or uncle must have tipped him off), and he asked when the wedding was. Standing in an aisle of microwaves, surrounded by weekend shoppers, I didn’t have the heart to tell him a date had been set but he’d never receive an invitation, not if we were to have an open bar. So, I merely said we weren’t sure about marriage as a concept. He laughed and readily agreed.
My father was all smiles when we met in that diner. The greetings were a bit too forced, the pats on the back a little too firm. There were so many things I wanted to ask him about: his third marriage, how he was holding up after rehab, the health problems my aunt alluded to but never clarified. Yet every time I brought something up, his face returned to the sugar packets, which had suddenly become more fascinating than anything I had to say. Even after so many years ignoring one another, I couldn’t play interrogator. I couldn’t push him away. I chose comfort over closure and stuck to subjects as saccharine as those little pink packets.
8.
Mylar balloon, navy blue with “Get Well Soon” in rainbow, cursive font. Once part of a floral arrangement I bought before my father’s surgery. It was an especially risky procedure. Tumors had reappeared in his pancreas, and there was no choice but to remove the organ outright. Father survived the surgery but not its aftermath. The details are too vile to mention here.
My step-mother texted me entire paragraphs explaining the state of my father’s bowels, but I was in no condition to look up all those medical terms, especially while stranded at Boston Logan, waiting for a Nor’easter to pass. I’d been strolling up and down the terminal when I found the flowers and that silly balloon waiting for me in a card shop. For two days I hauled it around, balancing it on my luggage and failing to keep the balloon out of other passenger’s faces. The roses and lilies browned as I was shuffled from airport to airport.
I was somewhere over Lake Michigan when he passed.
Upon arrival, I stuffed the flowers in my old room and didn’t notice them again until after the funeral. By then, the dry and brittle petals lay scattered across the desk. All the helium had escaped from the balloon. A draft of air had pushed it under a chair, and it looked like some poor animal cowering between the wooden legs. With a ballpoint pen, I put it out of its misery but couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. Instead, I folded it up and tucked it in my wallet, where it remains to this day.
Author’s Note: I was looking through old photos and recognized objects my family owned. “Oh, I remember that desk,” I’d say, or I’d ask myself, “Whatever happened to that toy?” These possessions witnessed a lot of family history. As a writer, I wondered if I could tell a family’s story just through objects. The story would be like an inventory or a box of junk you’re taking to the thrift store. Who says you can’t find treasure in the trash?
Jonathan Sulinski graduated from Knox College (Galesburg, IL) with a B.A. in creative writing. He has published art, poetry, and short stories in several literary magazines, including The Blue Earth Review, Colere, and Ellipsis. He lives in Colorado with his calico cat.
