The Man Who (I thought) Should Have Been Your Father

 This is in response to prompt #15 http://trailbrazin.blogspot.com/2016/06/prompt-15-behind-scenes.html

The influences for this:

"Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" by Billy Joel (song)

"There was a Dance, Sweetheart" by Joy Harjo (poem)

"The World War I Los Angeles Airplane" by Richard Brautigan (short story)

The Man Who (I thought) Should Have Been Your Father

by Helen Sadler

The crows gathered in the backyard, noisy and busy, causing an unspeakable chaos.  It was a rarity to see them gathered like this. It could only mean one thing -- the man I thought should have been your father was gone.

It is your sixteenth birthday. I see you attracted to boys who are so unlike you. You think that I am clueless, that I don’t understand, that I couldn’t understand, as I am vanilla and bland and wear only neutral colors. What can I know about crazy, lawless, unspeakable love?

There was a man. A dancer. At least that is the way I think of him. You are a dancer, too. Not so strange, I suppose.  You are named for him.  He was Leandro. You are Leeanne.

Shortly after the crows arrived, I got the call from his cousin – my long time friend, Carmen – that he had indeed died from the lung cancer that went untreated long enough to get into his bones and become hopeless.  Not even forty-years-old. I don’t have anyone to share this news with.  You see, Sweetheart, your father doesn’t really know about Leandro.  I have kept him quiet, a voice inside me that I am afraid to let out. If I speak his name to anyone besides Carmen I will lose a part of him that is mine alone. He remains an echo inside of me saying things like, “Come here” and “A bottle of red or a bottle of white?” or the lyrics of a Ramones song: It's not hard, not far to reach / We can hitch a ride to Rockaway Beach…

Today I am thinking of letting that genie out of a bottle. Maybe just a little. But first I need to think through what I want you to know, and what you can’t ever know. Then perhaps my decision will become clear.  I have to be sure I can keep the voice inside of me, singing and talking and reassuring, for if I was to lose that, I am afraid I would lose everything I know as life itself.

What You Should Know About the Man I Thought Should Be Your Father

1.     I met him at a party in 1995 put on by my friend Carmen for our high school friends Brenda and Eddie who were getting married.  

2.     Leandro was Carmen’s cousin who just came to the U.S. from Puerto Rico.

3.     When I first saw him, he was motioning to me with his head and mouthing the words, “Come here.”  When I finally gave in, walking across the crowded room, Oasis playing in the background, and he said, “Hello, Sweetheart” and we began to dance to what could be argued undanceable music.  But somehow with Lee, it was always possible to dance.

4.     He did not ask me for my name the first night.  Nor did he kiss me. We just danced.  He didn’t dance with anyone else.

5.     I was in love. It never went to the place I had hoped.

6.     Carmen and I drove him home that night. He sang to the moon and stars in Spanish in the backseat.  Carmen acted as if all of this was normal.  I was smitten.

7.     Once he knew my name and knew where I lived, he would show up at any odd time, unannounced. We would go to our favorite Italian restaurant.  Or to the movies. Or dancing.

8.     One night he showed up after he found out a friend had been in a bad motorcycle accident and might not survive.  He took me to the beach, put Bjork on the boombox CD player, and we danced late into the night, moving our bodies in weird ways to her unusual rhythms and vocals. For someone overweight as I, this freedom of expression was new and exhilarating.

9.     I thought that night we would kiss. We did. But as friends. No passion.

10. I decided Leandro must be gay. I asked Carmen.  She said, “Alice, bite your tongue.”

11. The last time I saw him in the Nineties was sometime in 1997. We had seen the movie City of Angels.  I cried and cried. He said he was going to start wearing clothes like Nicholas Cage’s angel character. He wanted to look like a black crow, falling off a building, giving himself willingly for love. I begged him not to give up his denim and leather jackets, tight blue jeans, black Beatle boots. It is all he ever wore. It was who he was. No need to change. But obviously, he was ready for a change.

12. As time wore on, I realized he wasn’t going to show up again. By 1999, I met your father, Michael.  A good centered man. Stable job. Solid future. We married. I gave birth to you in 2000.  I insisted we name you Leeanne.  Blame it on lack of closure, I suppose.

What I Don’t Want You To Know

1.     I cried myself to sleep every time I saw Leandro because I longed for him so fully, so unmercifully, and he didn’t want me that way.  It hurt more than words can describe. I often felt like I fell into a deep hole every time he left.  Only he could pull me out, yet there I would be, back in again by the time he left.

2.     I did see him again in 2005.  He had married Brenda (her marriage to Eddie had not lasted.) He had a kid. A steady job. He was dressed in a suit and tie, shiny shoes, hair cut close. I hardly knew him. We met at our favorite Italian restaurant. He tried to be the same, talking about the old days. He wasn’t.

3.     He said he barely recognized me, except for the sparkle in my eyes. (Corny?) Commented on my weight loss.  I almost thought he was going to say he made a mistake by passing me by ten years ago.

4.     Thankfully, he did not.

5.     He didn’t ask me about my life. Strange that. Not sure if Carmen had filled him in or whatever. He gave me no chance to tell him that my daughter is named for him. That I felt she was the culmination of all my love for him that just arrived through a different means.

6.     I am glad he didn’t give me the opportunity to say such a foolish thing.

7.     Despite it all, I kept loving him. Kept letting his voice speak to me. Kept the luscious secret deep inside, something I could not let go.

What I Want You To Know About Me and You And Your Father

1.     I do not regret anything in my life.

2.     There is no genie in the bottle.

3.     Your father is the only one for me. I have no questions about that.

4.     After I saw Leandro in 2005, I realized how foolish we can be when we think we are in love. And that’s okay.

5.     The voice I hear singing inside me is my voice – my voice alone. It is the one I used to rock you to sleep, singing softly about the moon and stars. It is the one I’ve listened to when I’ve had a hard decision. It is the one that says, when I look at you and your father, This is perfection.

6.     There is something to be said for letting things be what they are.

7.     Everyone we meet gives us a piece of ourselves. Without the uncertain relationship with Leandro, I could never have appreciated the ultimate stability and strength of character I found in your father, the best man I know.

8.     I was never meant to dance to undanceable music. My life is a musical score of rhythms and harmonies that complement each other. Like Michael and me. Like our family. In synch.

The crows have scattered, long gone from their perches, message received.  I don’t think I will miss them, nor will I pay much attention to them anymore.

I am at my kitchen table, surrounded by stationery and a couple of lists that have set my life straight. The voice inside me tells me that the letter I was planning on writing to you, Leeanne, doesn’t need to be written.

But there are things that need to be said.

I pull out a fresh piece of soft creamy linen, lift my fountain pen and begin to write…

Dear Michael…