I Never Sang for My Father Page #7

enough to know your own mind.

I know my own mind.

I mean, taking on another man's children.

Did you mention this California

business to your mother?

Yes, and she told me to go,

with her blessing.

She would say that, of course.

But I warned you.

For God's sakes.

All right, go ahead.

I can manage.

Send me a Christmas card if you remember.

Dad...

What?

I've asked you to come with me.

And I told you I'm not going.

Well, I can understand that.

But not this "Send me Christmas

card if you remember."

I'm sorry if I offend you.

Your mother always said I

mustn't raise my voice to you.

You want me to make it easy for

you the way your mother did?

Well, I won't.

If you want to go, go!

God damn it!

I always knew it would be like this

after your mother was gone.

I was only tolerated in this

house because I paid the bills.

Shut up!

Don't you tell me to shut up!

Shut up!

I've asked you to come with me.

What do you want?

What the hell do you want?

If I lived here the rest of my life,

it wouldn't be enough for you.

I've tried, God damn it. I've

tried to be the dutiful son.

Commanded into your presence

on every conceivable occasion.

Easter, birthdays,

Christmas, Thanksgiving.

Even that Thanksgiving

when Carol was dying

and I was staying with her in a hospital.

"We miss you so. Our day

is nothing without you."

"Couldn't you come up for an hour

or two after you leave Carol?"

You had no regard for

what was really going on.

My wife was dying!

Is it so terrible to want

to see your own son?

It's terrible to want to possess

him entirely and completely, yes.

There'll be some papers to

sign for your mother's estate.

Be sure to leave an

address with your lawyer.

Dad.

From tonight on,

you can consider me dead.

I've given you everything.

Since I was

a snot-nosed kid,

I've worked my fingers

to the bone for you.

You're everything.

I am nothing.

I put a roof over your head,

clothes on your back.

Food on the table.

You ungrateful bastard!

What do you want for gratitude?

Nothing! Nothing can

be enough for you.

You resented every damn

thing you ever gave me.

The orphan boy in you

resented everything.

I'm sorry as hell about

your miserable childhood.

When I was a kid and you used

to tell me those stories,

I'd come up to my room

at night and I'd cry.

But there's nothing

I can do about it now.

And it does not excuse everything.

And I am grateful to you.

And I admire you and respect

you and stand in awe

of what you've done with your life.

I'll never even be able to touch it.

But it does not make me love

you, and I wanted to love you.

You hated your father and I

saw what that did to you,

and I did not want to hate you.

I don't care what you feel about me.

Well, I do.

I came so close to loving you tonight.

I've never felt so open to you.

You don't know what it cost

me to ask you to come with me

when I've never even been able to sit

in the same room alone with you.

You really think your door

was always open to me?

It's not my fault if you

never came through it.

Goodbye, Dad.

I'll arrange to have somebody

come and stay with you.

I don't want anyone to come in.

I can take care of myself.

I've always had to take care of myself.

Who needs you? Out!

I've lived my whole life

so that I can look any man in the

eye and tell him to go to hell.

That night, I left

my father's house forever.

I took the first right

and the second left

and this time went as far as California.

We saw each other a few times after that.

We visited him and he visited us.

But then the arteries began to harden.

We put him in a hospital

and he gradually slipped

into speechless senility.

Not long after,

sitting and staring without

comprehension at the television,

he died, alone.

Without even an orange in his hand.

Death ends a life.

But it does not end a relationship,

which struggles on in the survivor's mind

towards some resolution,

which it may never find.

Alice...

Alice said I would not accept

the sadness of this world.

What does it matter if I never

loved him, or he never loved me?

Perhaps she was right.

But still, when I hear the word "father,"

it matters.

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