The Past Sneaks Up

One of my favorite family photos is a tattered black & white shot of my mother, all of nineteen years old and her arms already full of babies. There's only two babies, really, but the one in the foreground seems to be larger than Mom- jesus, I was one fat-ass baby-by the time I was old enough to walk my head was already bigger than Mom's. I had great childhood nicknames like "Lard-O" and "Big Head." It seems kind of funny now, but I can't help but think that being teased like that might be be related to my pathetic self-image and marginal personality disorders.

The second baby is half-hidden in shadows, it seems to be asleep, though it's hard to tell, as it's face is hidden in darkness- the photo is an excellent , if inadvertent study in chiaroscuro , the three humans wearing white and sitting on apparent shadows; the hint of a tabletop, a fringe of a paisley carpet, a potted plant in the background; these are the only visible non-human objects.

I wonder, for the millionth time, who took this picture?
It's not the sort of photograph I can imagine my father taking, although that may not be fair to him. I remind myself that my father was a much different man then ; perhaps that father still had enough of himself left to take such a perfect photograph.
It's a bit difficult to be objective about your own baby photos- in reality the picture may not be perfect and I have no way of ever knowing who took it- but to me it's perfect.


I like to think that my parent's friend Forrest took it. Family notwithstanding, Forrest was probably the last person alive who actually loved both my parents. Forrest, who was queer as folk, had a hopeless, helpless crush on my father- I'll never know how my father felt or how far their relationship went, but I do know that something vital died in my father on the night Forrest killed himself. I felt it die too, but I didn't recognize it for what it was at the time. I was only fourteen and didn't have much concept of life, much less of Death, but Death and I are better acquainted now- we've danced so closely, Death and I, that there's really only one secret we haven't shared- and I'm in no hurry to learn that one.

At fourteen I was just embarking on what was to be a nearly fatal trip through the wonderful world of addiction; at the time of Forrest's death I didn't even know how to smoke pot - I hung out with the stoners and gamely puffed along, gagging on various joints and pipes, but I never really got stoned the first dozen times or so- I just liked being around the stoners because they were misfits - as was I.

We lived in the low-income housing section of the otherwise affluent suburb called Columbia, Maryland- a 'planned community' - a community in name only, the whole artificial city was really a horrifying attempt to establish a sort of new American Caste System on a local level, complete with different levels of Citizenship and corresponding color-coded Community ID Cards; the color of your card announced which bus you were permitted to ride, which clinic you were allowed to visit, which 'community center' you were allowed to swim at, etc. It's since been largely absorbed into the sprawling mess that is the D.C-Baltimore corridor, but in 1980 it was a profit -driven experiment in anti-humanist social engineering that was truly ahead of it's time- and not in a good way. The Columbia Plan talked about inclusiveness and diversity, but to me it's the most segregated, racist and classist place I've ever lived- and I live in Richmond, Virginia- the former capitol of the Confederacy.
Columbia took everything bad about socialism and seamlessly merged it with everything bad about capitalism- the resulting redundancy had a canceling effect, creating the sort of well-manicured oblivion that discourages all the good things about people by denying all the bad things.
The good human things, like the bad human things, are often messy and loud- and if a city could hate, then Columbia hated loud, messy things.

But...Back to Forrest.

I returned home after an evening of unsuccessful toking, hoping that my dad wouldn't smell the pot smoke on my clothes. I was late and would have missed dinner, if such a meal had been served in our household. Dad wasn't really the kind of parent who put food on the table- it's been self-serve as long as I can remember- so I was in the kitchen, scrounging the cupboards for something to eat, when the phone rang.

I answered it.

It was my grandmother, Lucille. (She has long since passed away)

"Hi honey", she said, " let me talk to your daddy."
That is all she said.

I handed the phone to my father.

"Forrest is dead", I informed him.
To this day, no one in the family can explain how I knew this without being told. I just knew. I swear, the world went entirely dark for a split-second- and I just knew.

Forrest had driven his car off a high bridge and into the James River. It was called an accident,
but I knew what is was.
It was a suicide. My father knew it too, as did the Twin.

The three of us huddled and hugged and cried for Forrest and for so many other things- tears for the past , the future- crying for the loss of what once was , and weeping for the things that would never be; and we cried for something else, something I couldn't understand at that age- we cried for my father, who had lost the only friend he still had and who would never have another.
That's the saddest thing, to me, that Dad was never able to make a single friend after that night, that terrible, awful night of knowing and loss.

That was the last time I felt really connected to my father.

After Forrest's death, Dad started drinking even more than usual- he just gave up on everything- himself, his family, the future- everything. As I write this, I'm not even sure exactly where he is, nor do I especially care.
I know that he's drunk, and that's all I need to know.

If there was any hope in my father (I feel that there was) I believe it died the night I answered that call.

I know that someday , any day now, my phone is going to ring; when it does I will know, without being told, that my father is dead.