In my early 20’s I begun to suffer from terribly painful headaches. Not migraines, just painful headaches. This was around 1997 a time when I taking home about $200 week and then finding a way to pay rent, keep my car insured and eat. My primary entertainment was sitting in my studio apartment with a headache and keeping these headaches a secret from people.
By the spring of 1997 I had been suffering from headaches for about a year and had done nothing about it. When you’re broke you have to decide what is essential and what you can do without. I was almost 23 years old and my essentials included the aforementioned rent, food and car insurance. On top of that there was the cost of gas for the car, a phone for my apartment, beer and increasingly… gin. Fashion was not a priority, which explains why 90’s era photos of me look so bad and finally, health care was not a priority for me even if this meant not treating things like my terrible headaches.
Not seeking medical care was not new for me; after spending hundreds of hours with doctors in the first 8 years of my life I pretty much stopped going after that. Part of this was due to the fact that I was generally physically healthy but mostly I was afraid that going to a doctor might turn us something wrong and that would cost me a lot of money. I told nobody until finally I found myself unable to do anything for more than a few hours without having to lay down due to the headaches. This was when I finally confided to my then girlfriend that I thought I had a brain tumor and was going to die.
I considered her the sensible one in our relationship so when she told me that I might be getting headaches due to eyestrain I wanted to believe it even though I had never had eye problems in all of my years of taking the eye tests at school or when I took the eye test to get my driver’s license. She asked me to go to an optometrist just in case. I agreed to try it.
A few days later we were on our way to the optometrist and I casually mentioned, like I always did, that the street signs on Long Island were impossible to read because they were so old and faded. She ignored this comment because she had grown tired of hearing it from me. We got to the eye doctor’s office and I went in to take my exam.
I talked about the headaches, I took the eye tests and in a few minutes the doctor advised me that he had good news and bad news: The good news was that I probably didn’t have a brain tumor. The bad news, which suddenly seemed manageable, was that I had a severs astigmatism and would need glasses. He also advised me not to drive until I had glasses.
Out in the lobby I found my girlfriend in the middle of a: “Oh my god what if they find nothing and he IS going to die” style panic. After spending a selfish moment basking in the realization that hey she must really care about me to get this upset I gave her the good news and asked her to drive me home, which she did. I also asked her to drive me to and from work for the next week and she told me that this was not going to happen.
As she drove home she didn’t complain about the road signs once. I drove myself to and from work like I had been doing for a year but I didn’t drive anywhere else that week.
After a week my glasses were ready. To keep up appearances my girlfriend drove me to pick them up. When I tried them on I was amazed. Everything looked different. Because I had never worn glasses before my depth perception would be off until I adjusted to the changes but everything else was suddenly so clear. My eyesight had declined so gradually that I never realized there was anything wrong.
Since I was still adjusting to wearing glasses my girlfriend drove us home too. As she drove I said to her: “Hey while we were in there they must have replaced all of the old street signs.” She didn’t correct me. I would figure it out eventually; the road signs, my priorities and more.
Note: That girl in this story and I eventually split up but not before me and my glasses moved to LA to give it one last try. We are still friends to this day.
The first part of this story can be found here.
I didn’t look up as I walked past my father on my way out of the bar because I didn’t want him to see me leaving. Out on the sidewalk I considered my options for a minute and looked for a payphone.
I was walking towards the corner my father burst through the door of the bar and called my name. I stopped and turned around but didn’t say a word. We stood silently for a few seconds. Less than two minutes had passed since I left so he couldn’t have known what Estelle had told me.
For the first time in my life I knew something about my father that he didn’t want me to know. Telling people that my mother was dead when she wasn’t crossed a line in my mind and I wasn’t about to pretend it hadn’t happened just because I might need a ride home.
I walked back towards him until we were standing face to face on the sidewalk.
My father lit a cigarette and looked at me for a moment. He might have suspected something was up but he played it cool and said:
“Little late to be going out for a walk kid.”
With my voice shaking I said: ”Go home without me, I’m leaving.”
My father asked me where I was going and I honestly didn’t know but then he asked a more important question:
“Why are you in such a rush?”
It was time for me to make a decision. I could take the easy way out and avoid the confrontation or I could let him know what I knew. I was just angry and drunk enough to say:
“I guess I still haven’t gotten over mom’s death.”
My father took a step back and looked surprised. He took in what I said for a second before he spoke.
“Whatever she told you in there, it’s none of your goddamn business.”
I was not going to back down. For the first time I was going to take my father on. I breathed heavily as I searched for something to say. When I couldn’t find the words I used my fists instead.
As much as I had a right to be angry I was in over my head. My father was bigger and stronger than me. More importantly, he was calm. He saw what was coming and stepped back, catching just the slightest glancing blow on the left cheek from my right hand. I caught him solidly in the ribs with a left but if I hurt him he didn’t show it.
While I waited for him to hit me back, time stopped. I could not hear the street traffic anymore and I couldn’t see anything but my father standing in front of me. I had my hands up to defend myself but there was no need. He wasn’t going to hit me back, at least not the way I expected him to.
My father looked at me and asked:
“You done?”
My hands fell to my side. I had taken my shot and missed. When I didn’t say anything he stepped closer and said:
“If you think you have something to be mad about you’ve got another thing coming. What I do and what I say is none of your business.”
I interrupted him and shouted: “Bullshit. It IS my business. That’s my mother and you should respect her. Why are you telling people…”
My voice trailed off as my father put his hand up to signal that it was time for me to stop talking.
“You just took your shot tough guy and you missed. If you EVER do that again you will regret it. You got me?”
I understood, but I said nothing.
“What do you know about respect? He asked. “Don’t think about it, I’ll tell you the answer. You don’t know the first thing about respect. For years you’ve treated me like an unwanted guest in your life because that’s how your mother treated me. She’s the one who left but I’m the one you treat like garbage. I’ll say and do what I want and if you don’t like it that’s too damn bad. You don’t like it, that’s tough. You can go hang out with your mother.”
I turned my back on my father and walked away. He might have had more to say but I was done listening. Sure he might have had a valid point about the way I had treated him but I was just reacting to the way I felt he treated me. Regardless of the reasons why we didn’t get along I wasn’t willing to forgive him for what happened in the bar.
When I finally got home that night I began waging a battle against my father.
First I changed the outgoing message on my answering machine to:
“Please leave a message, unless you’re my father. In that case, hang up”
Next I mailed him back the keys to his house because I planned to never set foot in it again.
These were my ways of sending a message to my father and getting a small measure of revenge for the things he had done but they did little to make me feel better. I didn’t really start to feel better until I started having lengthy phone conversations with his “secretary” Estelle.
When Estelle and I first began talking it was so that she could get more information about my father’s past, which I was happy to share. However, this did nothing to dissuade her from spending time with him so over the course of several weeks we shifted to other topics. Over a series of lengthy and boozy phone calls we discussed things like music, movies and personal issues before finally landing on the topic of when she and I were going to meet up so we could, as she put it: “get together without your father messing things up.”
The first time she suggested I come over I ignored it because I was pretty sure that she was coming on to me. Yes she was smart and attractive but she was also banging my father.
On the other hand, spending time with his secret girlfriend would really make my father mad and there was nothing he could do about it. The next time she got drunk and invited me over I took her up on it.
As I rode the train to meet her I tried to convince myself that what I was doing wasn’t completely screwed up. I told myself that it was perfectly okay that I was going to meet a woman who I thought was interested in me. It was okay even though the woman was also dating my father and I was doing this all in an attempt to get back at him for telling that woman that my mother was dead. This was Greek tragedy style screwed up and I knew it, but I knocked on her door anyway.
Inside of her apartment I sipped a drink and looked around for signs of my father. He certainly wasn’t there and there were no signs to indicate he had ever been there but I still felt like he was there on her couch with me. There was no getting around it; I was doing something really stupid.
I finished my drink and started to tell her that I thought it would be best if I left. Her phone rang before I could finish my thought. The phone kept ringing until her answering machine picked up. After the beep a familiar voice filled the room; my father was leaving her a message.
Estelle froze when she heard his voice and I reached for my coat. The last thing he said before he hung up was: “If you talk to the kid, tell him I said to call me.”
I left before I made a bad situation even worse.
Estelle never called me again. Eventually my father and I would speak to one another. We slowly found a way to communicate and eventually built a solid relationship that we were both happy with. This relationship was dependent on not asking questions and never mentioning the night I met his “secretary” at a bar.
Part one of a two part story.
I’ll never forget the night I spent with my father in September 1997. It was the first time anyone asked me how my mother died.
We were drinking at a bar in the Bronx when my father had introduced me to his secretary. My father’s job as a construction foreman didn’t require a lot of typing so it was unlikely that he actually had a secretary but I didn’t want to ruin a good time so I let it go.
Once the introductions were out of the way my father laid some cash on the table to cover the cost of our drinks and disappeared through the back door of the bar.
She and I quickly settled into a pleasant conversation and I could tell by the way the woman’s eyes lit up when she talked about my father that she was more than just a co-worker stopping by to say hello. I had met people who worked with my father before; they called him boss or the big man not Mike. None of those other coworkers knew as much about me as this woman did.
Going to a bar with my father was an uncommon event. We had a distant and uncomfortable relationship. It had been like this ever since my he and my mother split up but once or twice a year we’d try to put everything aside and do something together. On this particular Sunday we attempted to bridge the divide by going to a New York Jets game and then to the bar where he left me behind to talk to this mystery woman.
There was no sense in asking either of them to tell me the truth. My father never revealed more than he absolutely had to. His favorite way of explaining how he got something was to tell me he had: “Won it in a keeping your mouth shut contest” and people who were part of his inner circle were equally secretive.
Challenging the secretary story would get me nowhere so I sat at the table drinking my beer and ignoring the lie that was at the center of the conversation.
Truthfully, I didn’t care that my father had lied to me about who she was. I was happy to be let in on the lie. I felt like his letting me in on this secret meant he trusted me. I imagined that the acts of keeping this woman’s existence secret from the wife he had at home and the existence of that wife from the woman sitting across the table from me could heal our fractured relationship.
Being honest had not gotten me far with my father but maybe I could lie my way into winning his trust. On the other hand he might have simply been reckless, but either way I think he knew that I valued his approval enough to keep my mouth shut.
Back at the table she and I kept talking and drinking through the cash my father had left behind. She and I were having fun. Her name was Estelle; she was smart and seemed genuinely interested in me, which went a long way towards making me feel better about not asking questions. About 45 minutes after my father left I started to wonder what she saw in him.
I was about to find out exactly what she saw in him and I didn’t like what I discovered.
After Estelle and I had finished three beers each I reached for my wallet. We’d need more beer and my father was nowhere to be seen. I pulled out a $20 and my ID in case they asked for it. They had been serving me all night but I was only 23 and used to showing proof of age. Months earlier, for no reason at all, I had taped a thumbnail sized picture of my sister to the back of my ID. In the course of my conversation Estelle and I we had touched on a lot of topics including my siblings so she knew I wasn’t an only child. I turned the back of my ID towards her and said:
“That’s a picture of my sister.”
She looked at it, smiled, and asked me how old my sister was.
“She’s 3.”
“Not in the picture, I mean now?” She asked, with a smile still on her face.
“She’s 3 years old.” I said. I was used to getting puzzled looks like the one she was giving me because I’m 20 years older than my youngest sister. I was not prepared for what happened next. Estelle stopped smiling as she slowly asked me:
“Sam…when did…your mother die?”
I assumed I had misheard the question so I asked her to repeat it.
She asked me again. Slowly to make sure I heard: “I’m sorry to bring this up but how old were you when she died?”
I was still completely confused but at least I understood that Estelle thought someone close to me was dead.
I tried to get to the bottom of things: “When who died?” I asked.
She reached out for my hand and said: “You mother” like she was worried that she had broken this terrible news to me.
I paused and over the course of about a half second I realized that this woman thought that my mother was dead, and that my father had most likely told her that she was dead. This was more of a secret than I was prepared to keep.
Keeping my cool I said: “I guess I was 23 because if she’s dead it happened today after I spoke to her.” and then turned towards the bar to get a round of beers and fully compose myself. I didn’t look over my shoulder but I was sure that behind me she was as shaken as I was.
Placing two beers on the table I took my seat and asked her if she wanted to ask me anything else.
The lie she had been told was unraveling, she still had several questions:
“So your mother is alive?” She asked.
I assured her that my mother was still alive.
“But your father raised you?”
He didn’t and I told her as much.
“What about his second wife” she asked.
Relieved that there might finally be some truth being told I confirmed that my father had remarried. I was still aware of the fact that I had to see my father again so I didn’t give out any details like the fact that he was still married to this second wife. My father’s second wife was a perfectly nice woman who was sitting at home at that very moment, under the assumption that he and I were having a nice night out bonding as father and son.
I kept these details to myself and just confirmed that there was a marriage.
In my head I thought about what had happened up to this point: Day out with dad goes great. He introduces me to his secret lady friend, which is weird but cool in an “I trust you to be in my weird inner circle of lies sort of way.” Sure it wasn’t ideal but at that point I just wanted some sort of relationship with the guy.
After I discover that he’s told this woman that my mother is dead and he raised me I feel shaken but maybe he has a reasonable explanation. At very least, I tell myself, things can’t possibly get worse.
This little bit of reassurance I give myself turns out to also be false. Things were about to get even worse.
She and I drank our beers and she tried to change the subject but after about 3 minutes of talking about music she picked up where we had previously left off.
“So let me see if I understand this,” she asked me: “your mother is still alive but they are divorced and his second wife took off a few years ago?”
I put my beer down and contemplated my options. I could confirm these things and just avoid things getting any worse but the whole: “Telling people that my mother was dead” had made me angry, anger much greater than the fear I had of my father. It might have been the angriest moment of my life to that point so I decided that I was going to just lay it all out on the table. This would probably lead to an altercation with my father but so what, I was willing to deal with that in the name of truth and anger.
Instead of answering I came back with a question of my own:
“What did he tell you happened?”
I figured I was ready for whatever was going to come next but I underestimated my father’s ability to sell a story. She started over from the beginning. In this version of my father’s life he had married my mother and had three kids before she tragically passed away of some undisclosed illness. My father, who was raising three children, bravely gave love another try after meeting a woman from Brazil named Nina Fernandez. He and Nina wed and were set to live happily ever after until that no good Nina took off with all of his money, leaving us all behind.
After taking this in I responded with the facts. I explained that my parents had split 15 years earlier and all three kids had lived with my mom. There was no illness and no Nina.
It was out in the open, she was wounded and my father was going to be angry. At this point I figured it would probably be best if I just finished my beer and found my own way home. She had other ideas because she had more questions.
“So, what about his cousin?”
I thought of the dozens of cousins before I asked: “Which one?”
“He said he lives with his cousin…I guess that’s not true.”
I shook my head no and she continued: ”he told me that after Nina left him his cousin moved in to help with expenses and she still lived with him, but she was protective of him and that was why I couldn’t call the house.”
“You are the dumbest person alive.” Was the only response I could muster, which was unkind but I didn’t know what else to say and well…it all seemed so stupid…but I could see why she would want to believe that he lived with his cousin and not his wife. I had spent most of my life near my father but not close to him and I probably would have believed almost anything if he would have only told me anything. It would take several more years for him to open up to me though, at this point I was still trying to get into his inner circle and what happened that night wasn’t going to accomplish that.
As she pressed me for more details the back door opened and my father walked in. He stopped by to check on us and we didn’t let on that the world had shifted over the previous hour. We just said we were fine. He turned and headed for the bar to get a drink.
Sitting across from me, the woman whose life I had just unraveled was writing something down. She scanned the room before she slid a piece of paper across to me and said: “I’d like to talk more about this later.”
There was a phone number on the scrap of paper. I stuck it in my pocket and made small talk for a while longer while my father talked to the bartender and a few guys up at the bar. This part of the conversation was the easiest part of the night. Something important had passed between us.
We both had more questions to ask one another but at that moment my main concern was figuring out a way to get home on my own. I took the last sip from my beer and tried to make it to the door before my father noticed I was gone.
Part two, where things get even weirder, can be found here.
