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from Chapter 1:
For nearly all of my life, I wanted to be just like my father. He was an Army brat and was born in Texas. He moved around a lot when he was growing up, never staying anywhere for more than two years. He joined the Army after graduating from the University of Arkansas.
He was different from most people around his age at that time. While most people his age were protesting against the war in Vietnam, dropping acid, and smoking weed, he supported war in Vietnam, only drink a six pack of beer on the weekends, and the only thing that he ever smoked were cigarettes.
He met my mother while stationed in Kansas in the summer of 1968. It was love at first sight for them both.
They were complete opposites in personality. I have never heard the whole story of how they met and fell in love. Staying together proved to be more difficult, as their different personalities repelled as much as they attracted. In the end, their differences proved too much for them to overcome and they drifted apart.
He wasn’t used to failing at anything, having accomplished everything that he ever set out to do in his life and didn’t know how to handle it. So, naturally, he blamed my mother for the difficulties in their marriage.
And to sooth his wounded pride, he started having an affair with a young, attractive accountant who worked in the human resources department at the University of Arkansas, where he was a professor of American history.
He was an honest man, and when he no longer could handle the guilt, he left my mother, after being married to her for almost thirteen years.
I was eight years old when he left us. Even then I knew that something wasn’t right between them. They didn’t act like the other parents of the subdivision where we lived. The only time that I can remember seeing them together was at supper time. When he wasn’t at work, he was out playing golf or sitting on his lazy boy chair, sipping beer while watching TV. My mother, when she wasn’t in the kitchen, was in their room, reading a romance novel that she had bought at the local Safeway.
I don’t remember ever seeing my parents smile at each other, kiss each other or laugh together. All throughout the house were pictures of me and my two sisters, but no pictures of all of us together. We were a family in name only, bound together by having the same last name, not by love or affection. It was a wonder that my parents stayed together as long as they did, considering how different they were from each other.
I stayed with my mother and sisters. For next five years, I only saw him on the weekends, on Christmas, and a week or so in the summer. I took our parents’ divorce the hardest.
My older sister was old enough to understand why our parents divorced and to see that our parents were happier apart than they ever could be together. My younger sister was too young to realize what was divorce meant and just accepted it.
I moved in with him and his new wife after finishing the sixth grade at Cook Elementary because my mother and sisters were moving to Birmingham, Alabama. My older sister had been accepted into the Alabama School of Fine Arts.
I had been living with them for only about a month when he told me that we were moving to Phoenix, Arizona.
He had been offered a job at Arizona State University, as the head of the History Department. He was nearly forty years old and I think that he was going through a midlife crisis.
I was sitting in my room, on my bed, reading an Incredible Hulk comic book when he softly knocked on the door. I looked up as he opened the door, walked into my room, and closed the door behind him.
“I need to talk to you about something,” he said, as he walked towards me. He then sat down on the bed next to me, sighing, with a worried look in his eyes and frowning.
I closed my comic book and laid it beside me. “What is it, Dad?”
“Well, let me ask you something first, okay?” He waited for me to nod and then he continued, looking down at his hands. “Are you happy here, living with me and Alma?” He took a deep breath, and slowly then raised his head, until he was looking me in the eyes.
Alma was the woman that he had been having an affair while he was still married to my mother. He married her not long my parents’ divorce was finalized, two years after he left us.
“Yeah, Dad, I am.” I was happy because for the first time in my life, I didn’t have to compete to get his attention. I hadn’t yet become rebellious and defiant towards him and still worshiped him, wanting to be more like him.
“I’m glad to hear that,” he said, smiling at me. “I’ve got a job offer out in Phoenix, Arizona and I’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
If I had been older, I would’ve objected to the idea of leaving Arkansas. But I didn’t, because at that age I would do anything that he asked of me. “Okay, Dad.”
“Good,” he said, smiling at me as he stood up and then got off my bed. “I’ll see you in a couple of months. And remember to be a good boy for me.” And then without another word, he left my room.
After he left the next day, it was just me and Alma. We were still in process of getting to know each other, which wasn’t easy because I was a shy, quiet, peculiar child that was uncomfortable around strangers and she had almost no experience with children, because she had devoted herself to her accounting career after she had graduated from the University of Arkansas.
My life had changed and I didn’t like it at all.
For nearly all of my life, I wanted to be just like my father. He was an Army brat and was born in Texas. He moved around a lot when he was growing up, never staying anywhere for more than two years. He joined the Army after graduating from the University of Arkansas.
He was different from most people around his age at that time. While most people his age were protesting against the war in Vietnam, dropping acid, and smoking weed, he supported war in Vietnam, only drink a six pack of beer on the weekends, and the only thing that he ever smoked were cigarettes.
He met my mother while stationed in Kansas in the summer of 1968. It was love at first sight for them both.
They were complete opposites in personality. I have never heard the whole story of how they met and fell in love. Staying together proved to be more difficult, as their different personalities repelled as much as they attracted. In the end, their differences proved too much for them to overcome and they drifted apart.
He wasn’t used to failing at anything, having accomplished everything that he ever set out to do in his life and didn’t know how to handle it. So, naturally, he blamed my mother for the difficulties in their marriage.
And to sooth his wounded pride, he started having an affair with a young, attractive accountant who worked in the human resources department at the University of Arkansas, where he was a professor of American history.
He was an honest man, and when he no longer could handle the guilt, he left my mother, after being married to her for almost thirteen years.
I was eight years old when he left us. Even then I knew that something wasn’t right between them. They didn’t act like the other parents of the subdivision where we lived. The only time that I can remember seeing them together was at supper time. When he wasn’t at work, he was out playing golf or sitting on his lazy boy chair, sipping beer while watching TV. My mother, when she wasn’t in the kitchen, was in their room, reading a romance novel that she had bought at the local Safeway.
I don’t remember ever seeing my parents smile at each other, kiss each other or laugh together. All throughout the house were pictures of me and my two sisters, but no pictures of all of us together. We were a family in name only, bound together by having the same last name, not by love or affection. It was a wonder that my parents stayed together as long as they did, considering how different they were from each other.
I stayed with my mother and sisters. For next five years, I only saw him on the weekends, on Christmas, and a week or so in the summer. I took our parents’ divorce the hardest.
My older sister was old enough to understand why our parents divorced and to see that our parents were happier apart than they ever could be together. My younger sister was too young to realize what was divorce meant and just accepted it.
I moved in with him and his new wife after finishing the sixth grade at Cook Elementary because my mother and sisters were moving to Birmingham, Alabama. My older sister had been accepted into the Alabama School of Fine Arts.
I had been living with them for only about a month when he told me that we were moving to Phoenix, Arizona.
He had been offered a job at Arizona State University, as the head of the History Department. He was nearly forty years old and I think that he was going through a midlife crisis.
I was sitting in my room, on my bed, reading an Incredible Hulk comic book when he softly knocked on the door. I looked up as he opened the door, walked into my room, and closed the door behind him.
“I need to talk to you about something,” he said, as he walked towards me. He then sat down on the bed next to me, sighing, with a worried look in his eyes and frowning.
I closed my comic book and laid it beside me. “What is it, Dad?”
“Well, let me ask you something first, okay?” He waited for me to nod and then he continued, looking down at his hands. “Are you happy here, living with me and Alma?” He took a deep breath, and slowly then raised his head, until he was looking me in the eyes.
Alma was the woman that he had been having an affair while he was still married to my mother. He married her not long my parents’ divorce was finalized, two years after he left us.
“Yeah, Dad, I am.” I was happy because for the first time in my life, I didn’t have to compete to get his attention. I hadn’t yet become rebellious and defiant towards him and still worshiped him, wanting to be more like him.
“I’m glad to hear that,” he said, smiling at me. “I’ve got a job offer out in Phoenix, Arizona and I’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
If I had been older, I would’ve objected to the idea of leaving Arkansas. But I didn’t, because at that age I would do anything that he asked of me. “Okay, Dad.”
“Good,” he said, smiling at me as he stood up and then got off my bed. “I’ll see you in a couple of months. And remember to be a good boy for me.” And then without another word, he left my room.
After he left the next day, it was just me and Alma. We were still in process of getting to know each other, which wasn’t easy because I was a shy, quiet, peculiar child that was uncomfortable around strangers and she had almost no experience with children, because she had devoted herself to her accounting career after she had graduated from the University of Arkansas.
My life had changed and I didn’t like it at all.
