LITMIR.BIZ

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      Sophisticates and intellectuals praise the value of discerning various shades of gray as a marker of one’s, well, sophistication and intellectual prowess.

      But developing human beings need to know where they stand.

      They need practice standing on the ground of their own feelings.

      A dense low-lying fog makes it impossible to distinguish oneself from the background.

      It negates clarity. It feels dangerous and lonely.

      The puppy was distinctly marked brown and black and was with me for six short, brilliant months.

      His soulful chocolate eyes spoke to me daily. They would say,

      “When I look in your eyes, I see your heart.”

      “You are the greatest.”

      “You are so good to me and I love you for that.”

      And I would feel valued.

      And I would remember how that felt every day.

      And the puppy’s eyes would also say,

      “When I put my head down in your lap, I feel safe and comfortable.”

      And when he did that, I felt that way too.

      When we played with a ball or wrestled on the floor, the puppy’s eyes would say,

      “We’re good pals, aren’t we.”

      And I learned what that was like and how important that felt.

      My father’s good intentions in bringing home that puppy were, sadly, lost in the turnaround six months later when my father’s abrupt, unexpected, and unexplained “allergic reaction” made it necessary to find a new home for the puppy.

      My mother told the news.

      “The neighbors will take him.”

      They had a son just about the same age as me.

      Here the fog enveloping all emotion came in very handy.

      At Home with the Family

      My father’s intentions were not, on the surface, designed to be purposefully hurtful.

      He simply and utterly lacked awareness of what was happening for me,

      or for most anyone else for that matter.

      He was fabulously diligent in asserting his own way of being—markedly unaware of how it may have been impacting any other sentient being.

      He was simply keeping track of his own priorities—the patterns so central to his own existence. Not only did it include things like keeping his shoes scrupulously polished or his car scrubbed inside and out, it also encompassed his disgusts, his dissatisfactions, his stinging views all circulating in a world only he could keep track of.

      A hard worker bee assiduously cultivating his life-blood—never moved or interrupted by an empathic moment.

      Center stage, with ducks in a row.

      No one was immune.

      My mother, a gifted and dedicated cook, after serving a lovely pot roast, could easily be victimized with a dinnertime remark,

      “This meat is too wet,” accompanied by a look of disdain more fitting, I thought, for the hit and run death of somebody on a bicycle.

      The critiques came easily for my father—shot from a grim but blank face.

      It was his first and only nature.

      He censored himself little.

      And it was the bulk of what I ever knew or witnessed about him.

      For me, there was no escape.

      It was pretty much all there was to gather from him.

      If anyone in the family was especially targeted by my father, it was most certainly my older brother. For him, comments and looks at the dinner table were augmented with some regularity by the addition of a moderate crack on the knuckles with the butt end of a butter knife.

      The infraction hardly mattered.

      (My brother parlayed that particular style of parenting into a lifetime of marijuana abuse.)

      Surely it generated a profound reaction in my brother, but to me, in the moment, it turned into a brilliant education in fear.

      And fear is a powerful anesthesia when it comes to knowing oneself.

      I failed to pay attention to the details of my brother’s reaction, as my own parallel recoiling dominated the scene for me.

      I wondered when I might encounter the same treatment.

      It was an effective stimulus, even if indirectly delivered.

      Dinnertime provided a wide array of its own standard drama night in and out.

      My mother’s bachelor brother, my uncle, had lived with our family for most of his life. My mother cooked for him and laundered his clothes.

      My uncle kept to his own quiet routines, arriving home from his construction job promptly at 5:00 pm.

      My mother had dinner ready for him each weeknight. Alone at the table, head down, my uncle dutifully worked at his plate.

      He rarely spoke.

      No stories from the day or comments about any people were forthcoming. He actually bore a slight speech impediment evident when he tried to grunt hello or goodbye. His hands were likewise gnarled, from a construction work mishap.

      I would sometimes acknowledge his presence with a brief comment on the woeful local baseball team.

      My uncle usually, at least, acknowledged me with a full-mouthed nod. We were both somewhat secure in knowing that we shared the same interest in a sport and that the sharing would indeed be brief.

      Brief was especially valued, because we also shared in the vague but palpably anxious anticipation of my father’s arrival home from his own workday, promptly at 5:20 pm.

      My mother undoubtedly shared that anxious anticipation while she circled in the kitchen, none of us comfortable, none of us speaking about it.

      My father’s entrance is characteristic and relentless.

      It seems timed and well coordinated with the tail end of my uncle’s dinner.

      My confusion is reinforced with each repeat of the drama.

      I never understood the back-story of how those two men ended up living under the same roof.

      Neither is there much immediate information to be learned from my father’s face.

      I try to observe it, but it remains empty and coldly impassive.

      There’s the brief glimpse of disgust flashed toward my uncle.

      There’s no greeting to anyone.

      Now the determined move to the living room happens.

      Then there is the unfolding of the daily newspaper, the ultimate blockade of his face.

      The entrance may be quiet, but my father’s message is loud:

      “I do not eat dinner with him.

      I will not even appear in the kitchen until he’s gone.

      He and my wife are to be vaguely punished with my absence and my silence and my

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