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The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

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Archives for November 2010

A Decade of Dad

November 16, 2010 by Jack Steiner 1 Comment

Father posing with his son

Bathed in sunlight streaming in from the window behind him he smiled, shook his head and wondered like all parents do where the time has gone. It has been about a decade since we pulled the goalie and released the hounds he said in that not so clever way of his. They are silly, trite and overused euphemisms that the boys throw out when we talk about trying to get our significant others pregnant.

It is a curious thing this memory, wrapped up in a combination of reverence and irreverence. I sit here with a partial smile gracing my lips and images of  Gene Wilder screaming “Give My Creation Life!” I can’t speak for other men, I just know that there was something amazing about it. It was awesome, frightening and natural. I always wanted to be a father. There was never a doubt that I would do it but for so many years the objective had been to avoid doing that very thing. Be safe and be smart.

Now ten years later I sit here surrounded by pictures of my children, not child…children. Ten years of daddyhood. Technically my oldest won’t be ten until next month but I like to round up. I remember this time…ten years ago that is. It is the week before Thanksgiving and I am enthralled with the idea that this is my last time at the Turkey Table minus children. I have all sorts of images running through my head of faceless kids running around a house- it doesn’t seem real.

Later that week I’ll hit the mall with my wife and go crazy trying to prevent everyone and anything from crashing into her pregnant belly. I’ll lay down one of the greatest blocks of my life on a man running towards her. He is not looking and I can’t take the chance that he’ll knock the wife over and hurt my kid. Not going to happen on my watch.

I am a good twenty-five feet away but primal instincts kick in and I am gifted with wings upon my feet. I start running and realize that I can’t make it so I drop the shoulder, push off the ground and send myself flying at him. I am so wired that I don’t feel the contact, don’t notice his head snap back and slam into a pole. All I know is that primal instincts have kicked in and I have stopped the hungry bear from eating my family.

Ok, that is an exaggeration. I didn’t launch myself like some sort of human missile and leave the poor schmuck crumpled at my feet. But I did prevent the collision I feared. He really wasn’t looking and since pregnant women aren’t known for their agility it was necessary for me to physically prevent him from slamming into her.

I suppose that if you know me it is not surprising to hear/read this because I have a serious protective streak running through me. But it sticks out in my head because it is a moment when I began to realize the depth of feelings that being a father would bring.

All the jokes that I heard about dad being a bodyguard or member of the Secret Service took on a new reality. A reality that I was just beginning to learn about. I didn’t know yet what it meant to be afraid. I didn’t know the relief that I would feel after learning that my son was on a plane that had to make an emergency landing. Didn’t know how hard it would be sleep when at 13 months he had to be hospitalized because of a nasty virus.

I was just beginning to understand how crazy life could truly be.

It is nighttime and I am standing next to my son’s bed. His little body is tucked inside the blankets and he is fast asleep. In the morning I am going to catch a flight back east. In a hospital across the country my father lies unconscious and breathing only because of the machine he is hooked up to. They don’t know if he’ll live through the night and I can’t do a thing about it.

So I sit on the floor and listen to my son breathe. His breathing is soft and rhythmic. This little guy is 3.5 and he will not be happy to see me leave. In the morning pudgy arms will wrap around my neck and a soft voice will insist that I cannot leave. It will tear me up to hear it but I can’t stay. I have to go to my father because I can’t accept not trying to get to him. I am not a doctor but I feel like my presence can help my dad and my mother needs me.

It is a crazy moment. I am a son with a father who is stuck somewhere between life and death. But I am a father with a son and a pregnant wife. I have responsibilities that are pulling upon me from every direction.

In the weeks to come my grandfather and I will sit together and engage in a game. He knows that my father, his son, is seriously ill but he won’t ask many questions. He knows that he can’t do much to help, that physically the trip might be too much for him. He can’t be told how serious it is because without that fiction he will be forced to try do more.

So he’ll rely upon me to do what he can’t. Later on we’ll talk turkey and he’ll tell me that if things don’t change he is going to get on a plane and bring his son home. I remember far too well having to tell him that my uncle has died and though it is not my fault, I feel like I made him cry.

This is not something that I ever want to do again. In some ways it makes me miss my father more as it is exactly the kind of thing that I should be able to ask his advice for. Later that day my own son will talk to me about the baby and ask why it refuses to come out and play with us. I’ll tell him that the baby is still growing and he’ll look at me like I am an idiot and tell me that he is too.

I can’t fault his logic. He knows that he is growing and that he is not in mommy’s tummy anymore. I know that this is one of many discussions that he and I will have but I don’t realize that I’ll blink and discover that the 3.5 year-old is now 75 pounds of boy. I don’t realize that one day I’ll wake up and discover that he is 4 foot something and in need of help with fractions and decimals.

Or that I’ll need to explain why it is inappropriate to repeat that so and so’s father is a stupid asshole. (That whole question comes to me courtesy of the mother of a child in his class.) That comment will lead to a follow up question in which he’ll ask if it would have been more appropriate to call the father a “stupid fucker.” I’ll explain to him that “Jimmy’s” parents are very angry with each other.

Later on I’ll shift the discussion and tell him that one day I want him to play basketball with me. If he grows like I did he should be big enough to get out there and run with the guys in about five years. It blows me away to think about that. You can’t see the picture I am looking at now. You can’t see me holding him in the crook of my arm. You can’t see me staring at this baby boy.

Nor can you see a different picture of the two of us running side by side on a soccer field. It is a recent shot. He can’t beat me yet in a foot race but my time is so limited. I look forward to the day when he can finally beat me, but I’d be lying if I said that I was totally ok with it.

Because there is a part of me that wishes that somehow when he turns twenty that I could be the same age too. There is a part of me that I see in him, a joy that we share when we are running/wrestling together. And I wish that for a day we could have it in a way in which we are sort of equals.

But it won’t ever happen and I am ok with that. Besides, I am his father and that means that we aren’t friends- at least not now. One day I hope we are but for now that boundary is important. I have a lot to learn and a lot to teach him.

So strange, so magical and so amazing to think that I have been doing this dad thing for a decade now. Wonder what will happen in the decade to come.

Filed Under: Children, Feature

Things to Read

November 16, 2010 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

  • Words Left Unspoken
  • Late Night Music
  • More Than Just Words
  • Some Wounds Take Longer To Heal
  • What Is The Most Challenging Aspect of Blogging?
  • Dear June- Winter Comes

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Words Left Unspoken

November 16, 2010 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

“she runs from my words and hides from my heart
and all the while it weeps endlessly
while my soul reaches for hers
and wonders why it doesn’t answer”

Filed Under: Fragments of Fiction

Late Night Music

November 16, 2010 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald– Gordon Lightfoot
Without You Here– Goo Goo Dolls
Californication– Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Wings– Brokeback Mountain
Canto Della Terra-Andrea Bocelli & Sarah Brightman
All I Ask Of You– Phantom of The Opera
How Do You Like Me Now– The Heavy
Just Another Day– Oingo Boingo
Jack and Diane– John Mellencamp

Filed Under: Uncategorized

More Than Just Words

November 16, 2010 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

I dusted off the shelves and looked inside my head. I stared in the mirror of my mind’s eye and played the films of the great loves of my life. I watched as I laughed and cried. I stared intently at the boy whose heart was filled until it would burst and a part of me wept as I watched that same heart tear itself apart. It made me sad to see a part of him die and to remember that empty feeling, that hole that felt like it would never heal.

And then I watched in amazement as he found his way through the desert and rebuilt what was broken. Even though I knew the story I couldn’t help but smile as I watched him rediscover what it meant to not just love, but be in love.

I rejoiced with him as he remembered just how love could be the finest addiction around and that he knew that it didn’t have to die. There are some loves that surpass time and can survive death. It sounds hokey, it sounds like a cliche, but I know it to be true.

There are people who are so very right for each other that you cannot imagine them ever being with someone else.

Filed Under: Fragments of Fiction

Some Wounds Take Longer To Heal

November 14, 2010 by Jack Steiner 2 Comments

Valentina Zelyaeva- Ralph Lauren

It is the early 80s and an olive skinned boy with hazel eyes and curly black hair is wandering through the halls of his school. A few moments ago he made a quick stop at his locker to pick up his math book and is now fighting time. If he doesn’t hurry up he is going to be tardy.

He is a good student and most subjects are easy for him but math isn’t one of them. It could be one of his favorites. It could be something that tickles and stimulates his mind but it is not. Some of that can be attributed to bad math teachers and the bad attitude he has developed towards it. He is 14 years-old and has already decided that he knows as much math as he is going to need. But there is a bigger problem than his bad attitude and bad teachers.

Her name is Denise and she teases him constantly. From the moment he walks into class until the bell rings she will be the epitome of the mean girl. For 50 minutes she will pick apart his clothes, the way he looks, how he walks and anything else that she thinks will hurt him. For 50 minutes he will grit his teeth and try to ignore her barbs, pretend that he doesn’t feel their bite.

If she were a boy he would be ok because he knows how to deal with that. Were she blessed with a dangling appendage he would threaten her with bodily harm. Were she male he would be in her face and the traditional methods that boys use to work out their differences would be in play.

But she isn’t and he is at a loss. He won’t share his misery with anyone. It is junior high and he hasn’t developed the thick skin that will protect him later in life. Appearances are critical and he can’t afford to let anyone think that this girl has a thing on him. But it gets harder each day not to scream at her.

Each day that goes by takes a little piece of his patience. Each minute that goes by feels like it is an hour and he begins to dream of attacking her with water balloons and shaving cream. He is afraid of going that route because he fears getting suspended. Yet, the idea is exceptionally attractive to him. Because the one thing that he knows for certain is that she works very hard to look a certain way.

Time passes and she doesn’t relent. Eventually he snaps and in the middle of class he throws her purse, backpack and books across the classroom and screams in anger. Her eyes get wide and then she bursts into laughter. For a moment he considers attacking her with the erasers from the chalkboard. There are two of them just a few feet away- in seconds she’ll be covered in chalk dust.

But before he can do anything the teacher is standing next to him. She hands him the hall pass and says to go take a walk. When he returns to class the girl will sneer at him and threaten him with physical harm courtesy of her boyfriend. She doesn’t realize that this is much better, he knows how to handle that. Now he smiles at her and says that he will happy to give her an ice pack for her boyfriend to use.

A few hours later the boy will replay the events of the day through his mind and wonder what he is going to do about the boyfriend. He has calmed down and without the surge of adrenalin running through his veins he is a bit more realistic about things. The boy friend is older than he is and drives to school. That car changes the equation a bit.

Time passes and the sun sets and rises again. The curly haired boy takes a deep breath and walks back into his math class. It is the day after the incident and he doesn’t know what to expect. He takes his seat at the table and waits for the usual outburst. But she doesn’t say anything. There are no comments or threats- no words about what has happened.

Almost 30 years later the boy has grown into a man. During a short trip to the mall he walks into a Ralph Lauren/Polo Store and looks around. He doesn’t need anything there and doesn’t care about designer labels but it is marked as an outlet store so he figures what the hell.

A shirt catches his eye and he walks over to it. Suddenly he remembers that moment and feels a moment of sadness. He is both shocked and surprised by it. He is remembering that moment from junior high and for whatever reason the sadness the boy felt has come to visit the man. He can’t figure out why, but he doesn’t really care enough to try hard.

It is only a moment and then the feeling is gone. Later on when he writes about that moment then and the moment today he’ll remember that life is nothing but moments in time. Little memories intermixed with bigger ones and maybe that moment in the eighties was more significant to him than he realized.

Hard to say and not really clear whether it is appropriate to classify it as being among the wounds that take longer to heal- but that is ok. Because when all is said and done part of the purpose of blogging is the opportunity to reminisce and consider that which was and that which may yet be.

Filed Under: Life

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