Daddy Issues…

Carlo Andre – June 25, 1948 to July 10, 2004

I don’t think about him, seriously. It’s usually something or someone else that brings him to mind. My sister and I have called him Doo Doo Head since I was 12 years old. Yes, Doo Doo Head. I’m 33 years old… she’s 39… He’s been dead 8 years and memories of him are like scenes from ViewMaster… good and bad… a movie reel I don’t dust off.

Its odd how easily one can focus on the negative but today? Today I had the purest memory of him. The kind of memory little girls with good fathers grow up to have:

We lived in a corner 3 family house on 189th Street in Hollis, Queens. Our house… the big tree in the front yard had a fallen branch my sister and I swung from… but mostly me. I called him Mr. Magic Tree. My days were spent driving my mother’s tenant’s crazy (they were the other ‘families’ in the house), climbing trees, exploring the area, rolling down hills or just running around playing ‘war’. I wasn’t a wild child, but I was smart… and mischievous. I liked to figure out how things worked… how to break them… and how to put them back together again. Nothing irritated me more than something I couldn’t fix.

Then the bikes came. My mom and dad came home one sunny afternoon with a big blue 10 speed for my sister and a cherry red 3 speed… training wheels and all. I was 5 or 6, and excited. My dad whipped out the screw driver fully intent to remove those training wheels, but my mom told him no “Not until she knows how to ride it” and in his way he grunted his agreement.

I watched as he spent some time teaching my sister how to ride, and I just sat on mine patiently waiting my turn… leaning forward… making all types of “vroom vroom” noises. I watched as he held onto the back of her seat, running along beside her as he gave various orders, “pedal, sit up straight, watch where you’re going.” They performed this ritual once or twice. His expression frustrated, hers just terrified (I still find that funny), and then it happened.  He let her go… and she kept on pedaling. He ran few steps more after her laughing… his big ole pot belly jiggling like jello and then he turned to me.

I braced myself as I listened to his instructions, calm because what did I have to lose? I had training wheels.  He ran along beside me holding the back of my seat, and we worked this way for a while, my face scrunched up, determined with him panting along beside me… then he let me go and I pedaled this way and that for a time. “I got it!” I shouted as I stopped to look back at him, and I heard him laughing, “Now you learn to ride” He approached me and my cherry red bike screw driver in hand and proceeded to remove my training wheels.  “Let’s go.”

I sat frozen for a minute… long enough for the fear of falling to fully claim me.  “Let’s go” he said again in the tone I knew better than to argue with and we performed the same ritual he had with my sister earlier.  I pedaled when instructed, sat up straight, and fell over almost as soon as he let go several times, until I landed too hard and skinned my knee and elbow… every time I fell down he would disentangle me from the bike, dust me off and tell me to get back on. Bruised in several different places I began to cry… I didn’t want a bike anymore. He looked down at me “Stop crying. Wipe your face. Get back on. You can do it.”

Sniffling and tortured I cried through the next session, pedaling as tears streamed down my face.  I pedaled as I had my mutinous thought. ‘Oooooh he’s so mean!’ and I pedaled waiting for the impact of a fall that never came. Surprised I looked behind me and he wasn’t there. I was riding my bike! I watched my father in the distance doing a big bellied victory dance and I panicked… looking quickly ahead of me I pedaled and tried to remember what he’d said about stopping. I followed his instructions panting and stopped. I looked around for my sister but she was long gone, probably riding around the block somewhere. I felt the sun on my back as I looked up at my father’s beaming face “I knew you could do it”

This always brings a smile to my face. He was a rubbish father but this… a perfect memory left by an imperfect parent and as I look back if I’m honest, I have a few of them. Not everyone can say as much. I knew from my snooping that my toes could barely reach the pedals but in that moment I set my sights on my sister’s 10 speed…