Pictures [kris]

There is a small boy. Skinny, with coke bottle glasses. Deep brown eyes. A thick mop of chestnut hair. He likes basketball and cameras and I really want to know him. He is alone. And by the time I come he will be much bigger, but harder to find. I will look because I love him.

1. “I’m four, I’m four today! I guess I’ll climb a tree!” That’s my birthday song and it’s my birthday and also the sunniest, prettiest day I’ve ever seen. Its 4 o’clock and Daddy’s engine rumbles in the driveway. I run to meet him in the foyer. Bright afternoon light floods in from the bay windows, making the wood floor shiny. I hear his key turn in the gold knob and Daddy’s shadow appears on the floor as the door swings forward, sunlight streaming in behind him. I leap to him and he bends down on his knee, arm outstretched. “Pink flowers!” I don’t hear his words because I’m enchanted by the roses that are all for me but when I do look up I see his big brown eyes and I feel so warm and happy.

2. Outside they are still playing kickball even though the streetlights are on. I hurt, watching in the dark from my upstairs window. Daddy has jus gotten home from work and I can hear him talking to Mommy in the kitchen, and then the steps creaking as he comes upstairs to my room. My face is squished against the glass and I’m snotty and sniffling. “Su-su-san and Sarah are still outside. . .” He kneels down next to me, “I’ll help you clean up and you can go back out.” I want him to help me but I don’t say anything. My heart swells, but I just can’t say yes. I hesitate. He waits a minute, then leaves. As he steps into the lit hallway, he pulls the door closed behind him and I watch the soft light draw back from my feet until it shrinks into a small sliver of yellow and then disappears from the carpet in the dusky room. Alone again, my tears can come.

3. Yanking the dresser drawer open, I pull out a pink shirt and leggings and stuff them into my backpack. I zip my bag up quickly, a corner of the pink shirt hangs out underneath the zipper but I pull it over my shoulder as is. Looking up, I see on my dresser the paper crown that I made at school. It is red with pink, yellow, and blue ribbons, gems and feathers attached to it by a generous amount of Elmer’s Glue. The front reads in Mrs. Haney’s handwriting “I am special.” I put the crown on, sobbing, and rest my head on the dresser. Where am I going to go? Out of the corner of my eye, I see Dad peeking around my bedroom door with his camera and I am so angry. I throw the backpack on the floor and sob harder.

4. My wiggly toes on the scrubby brown carpet are magnified. I look up and the tan doorway to Mom and Dad’s room bulges at the sides like a circus mirror. Holding my hands out in front of me I walk forward. “Whoa.”
“Krissey take my glasses off, you’re gunna fall down the stairs.”
Dad is tying a knot in his navy tie.
I look left at the staircase and then, glasses on, put my right hand on the wall and continue to navigate my way into the room. My eyes feel strained and there is a pulsing feeling in my forehead.
“I wanna try!”
Tommy is sitting on Mom and Dad’s floor and I hand him the glasses. Then I climb onto the bed to examine my favorite thing in Mom and Dad’s room, large wooden pineapples carved on either end of their headboard. I am distracted from my pineapples when I hear Dad open the top left drawer of his dresser; I know which drawer it is because it jingles when he opens it. This is the best drawer—full of loose change and colorful rubber juggling balls. Tommy knows this drawer, too, and Mike who has just come in to the room, “Dad, the shower, do the shower!” Dad is already juggling three balls as he walks over to the wall space between the bathroom and closet doors. He begins to juggle them high up against the wall—red, green, blue, red, green, blue—so that it looks like a shower. Mom is in the bathroom curling her hair and I can see her smiling in the mirror.

5. I want to be one of them. They are beautiful. They have long curly hair, perfect makeup, and they like football (or pretend well). And even though we are all only in Jr. High, they already know how to joke with boys. More importantly, they know when boys are joking. They eat chips while wearing bikinis at the cottage in Caseville in the summer. And I’ve never seen them cry. They are “Lantzy” girls, which seems to mean something where all of Dad’s family lives in Michigan. It’s good we don’t live here because back in St. Louis we’re the only Lantzys and nobody knows how awkward and sad I feel in this place. Its Christmas Eve and I’ve just filled my plastic red appetizer plate with exactly what Casey and Tara put on theirs: M&Ms, brownies, and chips. I follow them to the table and sit next to Tara. Dad is caddy corner a few chairs down with his brothers. He sees my plate and puffs his cheeks out like a chipmunk, his ‘big as a house’ face. “You don’t want to eat that.” He laughs and my Uncles look uncomfortable. I don’t want to cry, again, in front of the whole family, but it’s too late now. Later I will eat my brownie alone.

6. Water cascades off the windshield as the wipers sweep back and forth. Green stereo lights blink 2:31 at my right. I click the wiper wand a notch forward to compensate for heavier rain. The Buick is a huge car, we call it a boat. I’m not comfortable driving it through Ohio highway construction in the middle of a rainy night, but Mike and Tom are sleeping in the backseat and Dad (for once) is not criticizing so, determined, I focus again on the road. The only thing more uncomfortable to me than driving right now is the heaviness I can feel in Dad. I am so thankful that I have to look forward; I can’t handle sitting this close and having to look at him too. Time passes silently except for the rain and wipers. Suddenly Dad talks. “It’s just awful, ya know. . . to do something like that. . .” He sighs and shakes his head. We haven’t spoken much about this, and really, what is there to say? There is no one to be mad at; the murderer and the victim are the same. “Yeah,” is all I get out. Dad says more about how life can be that hard, hopeless. I don’t hear him as much as I feel him. He emits a heaviness that consumes all of the air in the car. It bears down on my chest and I feel like I am being torn in two. Tears rise and I squint to force them back, staring forward as we hug the white lines of the highway and press into the deep navy night sky.

7. We are lying on our stomachs next to each other a few inches apart on Gram’s teal bedspread, facing the foot of the bed. Scrooge and the ghost of Christmas Past are ten feet or so in front of us in black and white. I wonder if Dad is paying as little attention to this as I am. I can’t remember being this close to my Dad by choice. This trip to see my family at Christmas was barely a choice in itself—a mandate received with tears, anger, and pain from the wise heart of my mentor and spiritual father back home in PA. I am tingly and alert, all of me is aware of Dad’s presence. Nervous, but also excited to be near him. We have been afraid of each other for so long. Regardless of my disinterest, I am incredibly thankful for Scrooge at this moment. Words and conversation are more than a stretch, but its Christmas Day and, handicap or not, I am hanging out with my Dad.

8. 22 now and on my own for the most part, a few financial ties much too thin to hold this heavy relationship together. I am stronger and more confident, but still wearing the realities of my wounds and brokenness in extra flesh and emotional barriers. I am with my roommates in our living room. Julie is spread eagle on the floor leaning over newspaper clippings that she is folding into Easter birds. Marci is lying on the marshmallow couch, named not for its hunter green shade, but for its cushioning. Her legs dangle over the arm rest as she lies with her Macbook on her lap, scrolling the Larknews, laughing and talking intermittently. The living room is clean and square ham and pineapple pizza is on the kitchen table. Dad’s favorite—cold now though. I’ve been thinking about him all day. Would he rather see Sweet Sensations, my favorite coffee shop and home on Friday afternoons, or would Philly interest him, cheese steaks and South Street. I can’t wait to show off my city savvy for Dad. “You guys, maybe he will change his mind and stay for Easter.” Marci looks up from her screen and meets eyes with me. “That’d be cool Kris.” Julie looks up too, scrunching her nose to adjust her black frames. She pauses, but says nothing and then continues to fold birds. I glance at my phone, for what feels like the millionth time tonight. No calls. 8:15. Dad should have gotten in at 7. When he calls at 8:40, he says that he saw a Lowes and is stopping for a funnel to get the gas out of the Mazda before it’s towed. He doesn’t want to waste time tomorrow. He wants to “Get there, get the car taken care of, and get back on the road.”

9. “Jake, I haven’t told my Dad yet.”
“Really?”
Jake steers his purple Neon around a horse and buggy with his left hand, drumming a rhythm to a Lily Allen song with his right.
I sigh. “Yeah.”
“You gonna call him now?”
“I guess. . . I just don’t want him to freak out on me.”
We continue to climb route 72 and Dad answers after two rings. I tell him about the car accident with the Nissan Altima he brought me just six weeks earlier. My heart tightens in my chest and all defenses are up. I am prepared for his blows: disgust, frustration, criticism, disdain—I have done this before. Yes, it was completely my fault. No, insurance isn’t involved. My rim is bent and the repairs will cost $450. Here it comes . . . wait. . . He’s not yelling. He’s not angry. He asks for the number of Engle’s Auto Body and tells me he will take care of it. I flip my phone closed and look at it. He’s not angry?
“How’d it go?” Jake asks, drumming for Muse now.
“Ummm . . . good.” I don’t know what to feel. At first there is a rush of guilt, and as I start to realize what happened, a warm swell of gratitude laced with surprise. Grace, from my Dad?

10. Dad sprints out of the kitchen and is gone for at least ten seconds, which feels like half an hour in Guesstures. He returns, sliding across the linoleum and grabbing the edge of the island to steady himself. He tosses something small and gray next to the teal clapboard but before Tom can completely get out “CALCULATOR!” the buzzer cuts out and Dad’s last card has dropped, securing a win for the ‘kids’ team (whose youngest member is Tom at 21). “Dang-it!” He laughs and slaps his hand on the counter, we are laughing too. His face is red. Next is pumpkin pie and coffee. Later when the guests are gone and Mike, Adriana, and Tom are watching Christmas Vacation in the living room I go out on the deck to smoke with Mom and Dad. I’ve stolen one of Dad’s banana flavored cigars. Sitting quietly together, under cover of dark, I can study Dad. He is heavier now and his hair is more silver than chestnut. His lenses are still more than ¼ inch thick, but now he has thin wire frames.
“Dad I don’t really know that much about your family.”
“Oh.” He puts his cigarette to his mouth and draws deeply from it. I wait, but after exhaling he doesn’t take this opportunity to fill me in.
“What was Grandma Rita like?”
Another long pause and then Dad lets out a sort of nostalgic, pain-shielding laugh.
“She taught me how to play basketball.”
“Really? That’s pretty cool. What else?”
He doesn’t say anything else, and neither does Mom, so neither do I. We stay outside a little while longer, listening to the November night.

11. Night again. A deep, clear night. Bright white ice is our canvas, underneath a smooth canopy of indigo, dotted by silver stars and city lights. We are skating. Side by side. With speed. Dad is a good skater, and I have always been his rival. It might be the speed that makes it possible, the adrenaline that gives us courage, but without a word or glance, Dad takes my hand and we move together.