Let me begin by saying that I
started my life knowing there was very little worth doing, that there were no
rules worth following, that, regardless of my motivation or self-initiation, I
would always be what I was going to be. Some might call me a fatalist, maybe
even a Calvinist, although, I am hard pressed to believe that there are “chosen
ones.” None of us are worth saving in the higher being’s grand scheme.
My mother was an alcoholic. That
is all I ever knew her as. Apparently, when I was in my mid-thirties, she
cleaned up her act and began helping others. She really needed to help my
sister. She had followed mother down the same path. But, even when I knew mom
was clean, I didn’t want to see her. I could only remember her as the drunken
woman driving me around town to various men’s houses while dad worked long
hours starting his own business to put food on the table. I could hear my
mother fucking around. From the time I was three years old, I knew what sex
sounded like. I knew what my mother sounded like when she had sex. I knew she
would go into a room in jeans and a small white Tshirt, her hair curling around
her face. She would come out of the room sweaty, hair dissheveled, the white
Tshirt with a wet, circular stain that made it look gray.
I couldn’t forget those images of
my mother. I couldn’t forget the time she fucked a man behind a curtain in a
one room apartment while I played with toy trucks on the other side. When dad
told me mom was clean, I told him I didn’t want to see her. He understood, even
if he didn’t know the extent of what I had seen as a child. He didn’t press me.
I don’t think I ever would have changed my mind about my mom, had some epiphany
and realized that I really did love her and appreciate her for bringing me into
this world. I don’t think that was ever meant to happen. Regardless, fate made
sure it never would. On June 2, 2001, dad called to tell me that mom had died
suddenly, a brain aneurysm. I couldn’t help but think that all of those years
of drugs and alcohol finally caught up with her when she tried to go clean.
Fate felt the same way I did in this case. Mom could never get clean. When she
finally got there, she had to go. The world had no place for her anymore.
I recall not a single moment of my
birth. I suppose no one does, really, but usually parents have recounted the
story so many times that the details become part of a mutually-stored memory. I
wasn’t there when my half sister was born, but I remember it. My dad’s telling
of the story is a staple of family dinners. All of the grown children gather at
my parents’ house knowing that at some point we will see dad reenact the moment
she burst from the womb. She was filled with cries so loud her toothless mouth
was shaped like a giant half moon. I don’t know why dad never talks about my
birth.
I think there is an overwhelming
desire to believe that the way one enters into the world is a mark for how one
will live the rest of his life. Loud and angry, loud and proud, quiet and
reserved, quiet and scared… these could describe babies’ cries and personality
traits. I still don’t know what my cry said about me. I never had that story
from moment one to lead me on a path of personality or a mission for my life.
I spend my evenings sprawled on
this weathered off white couch with giant red and yellow flowers, a memento
from the married life. When Janine left, she left the couch. I never thought of
a good reason to get rid of it. Maybe that is why I’ve never thought of a good
reason to move on.
I live alone now, mostly. There is
this girl, Mary. She comes around after work and on the weekends when she knows
I will be just sitting, lounging on the couch. She tries her best to make me
feel good. She does make me feel better, but I don’t know what she sees in me.
I would feel guilty giving her reason to return to me here in this pit of
nothingness leading nowhere. I am not mean to her, but I am certainly not
romantic or loving. I do accept what she brings me. It might be the only thing
keeping me going. I convince myself that I don’t need anyone, that Mary around
or not around is the same to me; I don’t know that I’ve ever really thought
about it. In that deep-seeded kind of way of having someone around who isn’t
family, Mary is all I’ve got.
I never had kids, and, at the ripe
old age of 46, I don’t think I ever will. Mary and I have unprotected sex. At
least, I don’t think she is on birth control. I never really asked. She is 32,
still in prime baby-making years, but, as far as I know, she’s never had one,
we’ve never made one. I have always told myself that I don’t want children,
sort of like I always told myself that I never wanted to see my mom again. I
decide on an idea and I stick to it, then eventually fate steps in to confirm
or deny it. It is a very slow way of living life, leaving everything up to
fate.
At 46, I don’t think I can have
children anymore. My sperm are probably too slow. Fate has made a choice for
me. Fate also brought me Mary and took away Janine. Janine wanted kids. She
would have fought for those babies, thrusting her hips in the air to make sure
her eggs soaked up the sperm. But I had the power that tore through her
perseverance and drive, I told her I didn’t want kids. That having kids would
ruin my life. I told her she couldn’t convince me. Of course, she fought for
awhile. Multiple screaming matches across the living room, in the kitchen,
during a drunken night on the town. Eventually, she didn’t want to fight my stubbornness
anymore I guess. She up and left one day. She left most of her stuff. I still
haven’t moved it. Mary doesn’t seem to mind it. That, or she doesn’t think
about it. She can’t possibly think that I decorated this off white,
antiquarian, museum of a house?
Mary never talks about wanting
kids. It must not be a priority for her. In a way it makes her perfect for me,
but in a way it makes her boring. It makes me wonder if she is burying a true
desire. Maybe somewhere deep down in my soul I was hoping to find the person
that would break me free of my stubbornness, fuck me so hard that a baby would
appear. There would be no tears, no fear of lost love, the baby would just
happen. Fate. I would have to accept it, if I became a father under those
conditions.
