FORGIVING LOYD

I sit on my father's bed in the hospital room, forlorn. Alone. Rain from the ceiling.

My brother, with his beaming face — so much face — and easy words, in a chair. There were others too. I can't remember.

I should love the sonofabitch. And I did. I hated the sonofabitch.

God, the long, aching pain he had caused me. When I was a tad, how young I cannot recall, he was the man in my life. My mother said that he would come to my day-care and play with me. She said he loved me. Maybe I was just a path for him to get into my mother's pants; I cannot remember his deceit. Mom said he adopted me joyfully. That's why I am a Young.

I remember him giving me a snowball in Brooklyn, the first I had ever seen. Kid in awe. It had soot on it. He washed it with hot water and it disappeared. I did not hide my disappointment and sorrow, so he made another and we put it in the freezer.

I remember chasing him in the circle inside our house. He was so clever. I was so in awe of the way he could hide, his new trick every round or so, his funniness, and how quick he was. Was was was...

I loved him. A child cannot help but love. An adult cannot, should not, forget that child nor withhold love from that child.

He should have been my elder, looking over me, preparing me to meet my peers, to deal with women, teaching me to change tires and build a strong box and to pay my way, but instead he was gone, always fucking gone. I didn't learn how to fight. I didn't learn how to respect a women while gently maintaining my integrity.

When he would come home after too long a time, he would boss me around, as though he had the right! Never there, trying to act like a fucking parent when he was there, three or four days every other year or so. Tyrant! So easy to bend to my mother's poisoning when they divorced. She called him “the Prince of Lies” or “Red”.

Now he laid on that bed, weak and dieing. Repentant. Too late. Never asking me to forgive him.

When he came home, after too long a time, he would help around the place for an afternoon, then he would go and get drunk. And come home drunk, a happy drunk. But my mother would rise up against him. A fight would ensue. He would have to defend himself. There would be blood along with the screaming.

I hated that sonofabitch. And for good reason.

Because I love him so much, but he was never fucking there. Because he was a drunk.

Because I loved my mother. She was always there. She loved me, she loved my brother and sisters. She worked so hard to keep us well and to entertain us and to let us know we were wanted and loved. Slightly mad, but she loved us.

I am alone in this gray room. There is a nasty, misty rain falling from the ceiling. I am cold. I am alone here.

People are talking all around me and I am that little boy.

There is my chance for a dad dieing on the bed.

And no choice but to forgive him.