There was huge span of time when my mother and father fought bad. This was a few years ago. Dishes flying around, screaming, threats of killing each other. I would wake up early in the morning to this or in the middle of the night; I would try and cover the sounds with my pillow, which never seemed to work. I hated this more than anything, not because of them fighting, but I worked up in my imagination that my father was going to kill us all. Also during this period of excessive fighting, my dad always watched Forensic Files. The show was about how scientists used forensic science to solve violent crimes. I thought he was studying how to kill us, especially after one episode when the father was home and shot the mother and daughter as they walked up the stairs of their home, leaving a final struggle with the son before the father shot him.
Every once in awhile when I am listening to my iPod or my iTunes while driving around or doing homework, one song that always sticks out to me when it pops up on shuffle is “Daddy Wasn’t There” by Ming Tea. I have been involved with sports for over a decade now, it is part of who I am, and no exaggeration, I can recall only one game that my dad attended. The funny thing is I didn't even know he was there at the time. It was back when I was in fifth grade, so I was about ten years old. I was playing a C.Y.O game at my parish St. Clements. We had a great team that year; we ended up winning the whole thing. My mom asked me before the game if my dad could go because she knew I was not very fond of him. I said I did not want him there, which did not surprise her. After the game she told me he watched through the glass of one of the doors in the hallway. This annoyed me.
I think it started off as embarrassment of him. When I look back now, I used to do a ton of activities with him. We would fish, catch frogs and turtles, explore, and go to the local arcade. We did this quite often. Something was missing though. We mostly did what he wanted to do. There was never a time that I remember him asking me what I wanted to do. Even today if he asks me to go out to eat with him 99% of the time we go to his friend’s restaurant. You can only have the same kind of food so often before you begin to despise it. As I grew up I did not want to participate in these activities with him. When I was little I never wanted him to drive me anywhere or see any of my friends. He has an unusual sense of humor. One joke that he did that always sticks out in my mind is every time my sister or I brought home a new friend, he would always ask them if they were Jewish. There was no reasoning behind this. My dad can be an ass to people but he is not prejudiced. Another joke he used for awhile was every time we would go out to eat as a family (which is really rare nowadays) he would order some dish, and when the waiter or waitress came back he would say he had not ordered that but that he’d ordered the fish. This would go on for a few awkward minutes before my mom would say he was just kidding. He has the power to make anyone feel uncomfortable at any time. He also always reeks of cigar smoke and I wanted no part in this; however, it seemed to follow me wherever I went. I always felt like I had been encompassed by an evil cloud of smoke my whole life. Maybe that is his way of always being with me.
I blame my mother for his smoking problem. Apparently every time we went on vacation he would smoke a few cigars during our stay in tropical paradise. Hey, it’s vacation, the man deserves to relax and unwind one week out of the whole year. However, this one time he bought a bunch of cigars and he was not going to finish them by the time we left. So my mother committed a crime and smuggled them in her suitcase. Looking back now I wish she had gotten caught. Yes, my mother did smuggle them in, but I know I cannot blame her for his habit. It could have happened anyway despite her evil act. The man smokes a few cigars a day. I guess he needs something to relieve his stress since he does not drink. It is ironic how my father can take something you do casually and make it into a daily habit. I just try and look at the bright side; it could be worse.
Addiction is a serious problem on my father’s side of the family. My aunt Debbie is a recovering drug and alcohol addict for like the fifth time that I can remember. She was supposed to die a while ago from liver failure or something. My uncle Tom apparently used to be a heavy drinker, until he got into a bad accident at work one day, and knew he had to change. My father used to have some problems of his own when he was younger, and this is why he does not drink anymore. People can be addicted to anything especially when they are susceptible to addiction from their family line. My father is addicted to work. He lives his life around what he does. He owns an amusement rental company with over 300 rides and attractions. He usually works seven days a week and sometimes he is so busy he sleeps at work. His hours are crazy. Yes, my father complains about all this work, but he wouldn’t know what to do without it. When we talk, he usually goes on about his employees; it is always something with them. The people that come in and out of my father’s company are characters. They each have some crazy story. He is so obsessed with his workers and all of the idiotic things they have done over the years that he wanted to write and publish a book about them. On his days off, which are rare, he does not know what to do with himself. He wakes up early and drives around. He is lost without work. He has been talking about retiring the last few years, with plans of buying a house and moving to Florida. I have no complaints with that and I do not doubt that one day we will, but not in the near future. He keeps finding new projects to start up. His father worked just like him and owned his own business as well. Soon after he retired he ended up dying of a heart attack. I feel like the same thing will happen to my dad once he is done with work. I do not think he can live without it.
It’s no surprise that I work for the family business. I don’t mind working and I know it’s good for me, but work for me is completely different than the average teenager’s. My dad wants me to work as much as I can during the summer. He trusts me above all of his employees and I actually get things done because I am not incapable of doing simple tasks and following directions. Working for my dad is not challenging, but it does require long hours, which no teenager, who wants to be social and train for basketball, wants to do. My father couldn’t care less if I miss basketball or anything. He is all about work and nothing else. There have been so many fights between my mother and father about balancing out the two. As soon as I got my license he had me driving box trucks and towing trailers all over the state. I have had to set up and run events by myself for eight hours at a time. He has made me stay on call some nights, which means I had to leave the house at any hour of the night. If something went wrong I would have to open up the warehouse, find what the workers left behind this time, and drive it hours a way. There is nothing that I want to do more than drive in the middle of the night chugging coffee, frightened that I may close my eyes for a second too long and crash and die. Summers are supposed to be about happiness and fun, not feeling like you are alone in this world and that your life has no meaning besides to work long hours, just to get home and do it all over again. Maybe if I had one of his cigars life would be easier. Working does not help the relationship between a father and son either.
My father has even managed to ruin surprises for me. Every child in America looks forward to a nice surprise. Two stick out in my mind. My dad travels to Florida a lot for business and he told me he had a great surprise gift for me. I had no idea what to expect, but as a kid you imagine something terrific. He came home and gave me this object that was wrapped in brown paper. I unwrapped it and almost hit my head on the kitchen ceiling, I was so scared. He gave me an alligator head. He could not understand why I hated the gift, he loved it. Another time my dad decided to buy me a boat after I received my boating license. Well, I did not deserve it, neither did my friends. He took us to a class that ended with an exam. Once we got to the exam part the instructor started reading us the answers. The sad thing is I do not think we got a perfect score; there were one or two questions we could not hear. The instructor got locked up a few weeks later. Anyway my dad bought me a used Coast Guard boat. There has to be a reason they were selling it, I think it was brand new sometime in the eighties. It was kind of boxy looking for a boat, it wasn’t what I was hoping for, it was too mean looking for me, it did not have the clean look that I loved about boats. I always longed for a boat to hang out on, not avoid all together. The first time I saw it, I really did not like it, I had my friends convince me it was great. It was black on the bottom and white on the top with the famous orange Coast Guard line in the middle. I used it once by myself. The next time I used it ended in a four-hour rescue. My dad was captain that day so I blame the whole fiasco on him. The boat was a planing boat built for speed, and when it slowed down water would rush in the back, and sit in a little pool, until most of it flowed out.. There is a certain height at which the water starts to get pumped out. Unfortunately that day the bilge pump decided not to work and in flew the water. Next minute you know I was jumping out the side of the boat, then my friend, then the boat capsized with my dad underneath it. My friend and I were holding on to the bottom of the boat that was now on top. Seconds later he pops up from beneath the boat. Well I never dreamt of my boat capsizing. Thanks Dad. The funny part is my dad negotiated the purchase for $5,000 when the boat was worth $10,000. So after insuring it for $10,000 it ended up being a great investment on his part, almost at the expense of his son’s life. Now when someone says I have a surprise, I say no thank you.
I obviously have serious father son issues that were and will probably never be addressed. I know there are millions of people out there who are missing a father completely. The thing is I do not really consider my dad my dad. That does sound a little bit harsh, but I just don’t feel that so-called bond between a father and son. I respect what the man does for his family; he supports us by working insane hours during the week to put food on our table, to send my sister and me to boarding school, to buy us clothes and whatnot. There are things I do with him that I would not do with him if he were not my father, such as going out to eat every once in awhile, going fishing, looking at property, or working for him. I feel obliged to attempt bonding per se. I mean we are blood related but he has never really been there for me and this has shaped me into the man I am today. I enjoy working out and playing sports, but I have never been a “dude.” I only have my mom that I am really close to. I am more in touch with my feelings than the typical guy. I’d rather hang with girls than guys because they actually talk and don’t just sit around grunting. I would not change this for the world, but at times I feel like if I’d had that strong male presence growing up I would be able to have more fun with life and not be so serious all the time. I was forced to grow up early. I wasted my childhood, the best times of your life, caring about my life too much and being more mature than my friends. I always feel lonely even when I am with people. I think this hole in my psyche will never be filled because it was meant to be filled nineteen years ago by my nonexistent father. He has made me hate him most of my life. Things are better now, but he lost the title of my father years ago. I am not the only one who feels like this either. My sister Ruth and my mom feel the same exact way. Well, Ruth does not like anyone and the only reason my mom is still with him is us. She would not be able to support us on her own. The only one in the family that is really close to him is my littlest sister Tessie. Maybe he realized he lost his two other kids, by never showing up at events at school or in athletics, or showing support for his kids, or pushing us to succeed. He cannot possibly strike out on this game of parenting, or can he? I feel bad for him at times. I do not think he knows any of this. He lives in his own world at times and neglects the things that are around him. It is too big a world to feel alone all of the time. How can you go around living in a house where people do not feel comfortable living with you?
At this point in my life I do not want to get married and settle down to have a family. I mean yes I do, but I find that love just sucks. It is completely overrated. There are so many fights and unhappiness that whatever happiness exists does not outweigh all of the pain. This may be because I grew up in a dysfunctional family watching how much my mother hated my father and only stuck with him because of her three kids. It never looks this extreme to the outside world, but it is bad even if not openly bad. I am afraid to become a father, because I feel like I will turn into exactly what I despise in the father department. Also, what would I name my son Mark Zientek the 3rd…?