My Old Father

[kingtycoon]

This is a weird time in my relationship with my kid. When I was about 10 or 11, like she is, that's when I became acquainted with my father. He'd always been present somewhat you understand, but he worked, a lot. When I was born he ran his convenience store every day all day. When I was more grown he'd explain it to me, he'd say - "You can make money at something like this if you do all the work, these businesses fail because these people, they hire someone to work for them. But everyone is thieves." I mean - I have come to agree. After he sold his store he went on to sell real-estate and we'd sometimes go to his smoky office to watch him run the table on his coworkers. I mean, I guess work was done there, but the amount of work done probably equaled about a fifth of the amount of time spent playing cards and smoking and bullshitting. I've been a salesman too, I get it. You have to be there to get the calls, you end up being there all the time. Plus, it's a little dull spending time with your kids, it can be. Maybe. He worked a lot. When I was in the 5th grade I stopped caring about doing well in school and he acquired the video-store. That coincided with him building some shopping centers and suddenly he was pretty rich and had a lot more free time. This is when he and my mom started going on vacation all the time, and it's when he kind of noticed me.

At the time I was terrified of him, it seemed like I was constantly fucking things up and he was constantly mad at me. So I hid in my room and read books and learned how to be a dungeon master. Except, you know, he was a good guy, he was really loving in a way that I missed and didn't understand. He'd always get the season tickets to the cavaliers and would take me or my brother or sister to every game of the season. I didn't like basketball and I acted like an asshole (10 year olds do that) and it was awkward, weird and dumb. But he was trying, I get that. We still have nothing in common, nothing. And we can barely communicate with each other, but I got it, he was trying.

I'm starting to remember these things because I'm in that place now. Raising my kid is a weird journey into memory, I remember all these uncomfortable things about my own childhood which was, a childhood, but now in a different way. Everything is reversed and different and I am flashing back to things I assumed I'd forgotten. I remember leaving in the middle of the last quarter to beat traffic. I remember riding in the dark Cadillac home not talking, listening to the last minutes on the radio.

I won tickets to see the Cavs against the Bulls 4 seats - I took Agatha, my dad and my sister. Father/Daughter/Father/Daughter times. It was bizarre for me for reasons. First of all - Kid knows nothing about sports, I am explaining how basketball is played- the shot clock the 3-point line. "What's a turnover dad?" I'm frankly astonished that I know what all these things are, all the positions and everything. It's weird that I'm so knowledgeable about a game I never really liked. And stranger still are the things that return to me. My little brother loved basketball, loved it in a way that was notable. April to November you'd find him out on the driveway shooting hoops, always with the ball on his person, always talking about it. Basketball. I never played. I sat in the basement and wrote him a basketball board game RPG clone so we could play in the winter. Seriously, I think the first game I ever really made up was a tactical basketball simulation. Crazy.

Driving home in the dark Cadillac my old man would lament that I had no ambition, that I didn't value competition, that I was not a competitor and would grow up to be a bum. Homeless. You know - I was injured about this, then, I was a sobbing mess of childishness. He couldn't understand you know - he was feeding himself when he was 10, I was crying about my daddy not being nice to me. I've endured some shit, seen some things - I'm a harder man than I might have been, but still - nothing has made me more stern and tough that fatherhood. I think to myself - you know, he was worried. He was trying to get me to do something besides just fuck up his house, eat all his food and offer nothing interesting to conversations. I look at my kid and I am so glad that we have shit in common, things that we both like and are interested in because if not? It'd be a weekendlong staring contest every week.


We really do get along though, so that's fine. It's fine.

On the subject of competition - it's true that I'm not like, obsessed with the thought of defeating others. I realize that this lack of a killer instinct isn't all that helpful in the West. You really need to have a sense, a strong sense that everything that someone else has, they got by taking it from you. You'd have all those things if it weren't for those people - those enemies - taking them from you. I didn't grow up in scarce enough circumstances to get that sensibility. I'm competitive, sure, but in a sportsmanlike way. I want to win the trivia contest, I check to see if someone tall is taller than me, I get grouchy if I think someone is handsomer than I am. I only hit the books and study hard if I think that there's someone I know who's smarter than me. I think about my career and options only when someone in my peergroup seems to be more together, to have things figured out more. It's never a matter of having to have what someone else has, it's cool if they want to waste their lives chasing nonsense - that's their business, rather - I compete on a holistic level - once you discount money and possessions as the shorthand for success (and you should - it's ineffective for measuring anything of actual value) you get into the path of being the greatest man. I'm so into being the greatest man. It's like I have an example of some great man that I'm trying to overcome.

Anyhow, the Cavs won - we left at the beginning of the 4th quarter to make our bus, ended up walking around downtown more than we expected to, saw some sights and read from a gaming book with a lot of monster pictures. Kid loves monsters, what are you gonna do? Love monsters right alongside. Actually - we missed our stop and had to take alternate busses and routes just to get home because we were so distracted by reading about monsters.


November is over and I fixed my hair and beard. I really need to remember to do this more than every 2 weeks.

Comments

[mordicai.livejournal.com]

Well right-- because anyone you'd hire would have to own the business to actually make money. Sort of one of those self-defeating circles, right?

[mordicai.livejournal.com]

I shoot for two weeks; I shave the neck more often but trimming is a pain. I'm interested to talk about beards because this is my first real one.

Also: a game we like to play is "how will our kids rebel?" & I figure-- sports probably? But you have more of a head for it than me it sounds like.

[kingtycoon.livejournal.com]

I don't hate sports, I just think they're boring.

The only things I've expressly forbidden are - tattoos and pets.

Here's something though - I had to restrain her from throwing rocks at cars.

[mordicai.livejournal.com]

I don't mean to imply that I hate sports-- I have my opinions & they are contrary to yours, to wit, baseball is the worst, football is the best-- but I still figure it is a thing I don't really interface with, apart from my friends who do.

[kingtycoon.livejournal.com]

Baseball is clearly the best of the organized team sports. First- it's a game and has game like strategies. Second - and this was well illustrated at the Cavs game actually - there are no half-times, there are no cheerleaders.

The cheerleaders were up in the stands during the halftime show and youngster Agatha was blushing very hard. She's modest and bashful of ladies shaking their half naked asses at her (maybe this is the rebellion you spoke of?) My sister and I did what we do to combat embarrassment which is become critical and object loudly.

"You see that kid? That's what comes of not trying hard. That's what could happen to you if you don't make an effort at math."

And then we all agreed that baseball is superior because there are no cheerleaders in Baseball.

[mimerki.livejournal.com]

That last is a great pic of you. Just sayin'.

[kingtycoon.livejournal.com]

My goal of finally documenting that I really, truly do have Handsome Days has succeeded. Yesss.

Thanks!