Dad. William Wharton
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Dad’s so embarrassed by his parted teeth he’ll never smile or laugh without putting his hand over his mouth; so he’s sitting there snickering behind his hand.
We drink our beer slowly, listen to the music and watch the action for about an hour. We get home by ten. We’re both tired and manage somehow to climb into bed without turning on the TV.
The next day things start fine. I hear Dad back there fumbling around dressing, making his bed. I do my yoga and sweep. By nine o’clock he’s out. He even finds his own medicine, then sits down for a big breakfast with me. All his movements are stepped up by about half. He’s sitting straighter, eating faster. I remember how when Dad was young he used to wolf his food; I wonder if he’ll go back to that.
We even have a reasonable breakfast conversation. We talk about painting. Years ago, I gave Dad a box of paints. There was everything he’d need, including two middle-sized canvases.
So Dad took up painting and did some of the most god-awful paintings I’ve ever seen. He framed them for Mom and they’re hung in the bedrooms.
One trouble is Dad didn’t use the canvases I’d left. He said he was saving them; saving them for his great masterpiece, I guess. He went out and bought canvas board, crappy cotton canvas stretched over and glued to cardboard. These were all of about six inches by nine inches each. Dad sees paintings as hand made, hand-colored photographs. So he paints paintings the size of photographs. He paints from photographs, too. Nothing I say can get him to paint from nature or from his imagination. He wants something there he can measure.
He did one painting of an Indian weaving on a vertical loom in the middle of a desert; all this on a canvas not bigger than a five-by-seven photograph. Dad is probably the twentieth-century master of the three-haired brush. This Indian picture is an outstanding example of eye-hand coordination; but it’s a perfectly lousy painting.
He’s also done two paintings by the numbers. This is right up his line. The paintings are a reasonable size, maybe twelve by eighteen inches. One is The Sacred Heart, the other The Blessed Mother. He framed these, too; they’re hung in the side bedroom beside the bed where I’m sleeping. Again, he’s done an absolutely perfect job, perfect color matching, and he’s stayed completely inside the lines. These two could be used as models for a paint-by-the-number set.
But this morning at breakfast he tells me his painting career is finished. It turns out he’s tried painting one of the San Fernando missions. For him it’s a grand affair, practically a mural, fifteen by twenty-four inches. I hope for a minute he’s really gone out to San Fernando but its another photograph. He shows me this photo; has it squared off in coordinates. It’s a terrible picture to try painting. I’m not sure I could make a composition from this mess myself. There’s a clump of foreground bush, then about half the photo is empty California sky. Between the bush and sky is squeezed a yellowish adobe building, cornered at an angle to the plane of the photo. Worse yet, there are arches running across the near side of the building. It’s practically uncomposable, an arrowlike thrust from left foreground to right rear.
Dad tells me how he’s had one devilish time with those arches. The composition doesn’t worry him but those arches drove him crazy. Perspective is a mystery to him.
After dishes, we go out back and he shows me his painting. It’s hidden so Mother won’t see it. It’s a muddy mess with great green globs in the foreground.
I do a little drawing on it, showing him how to correct the arches and rough in a perspective idea, but it’s impossible to make any kind of painting from such a piss-poor photograph. Painting from photographs is never a good idea anyway; cameras have cycloptic vision, the dynamics of bioptic human vision is lost.
I’m dying to write Vron and tell her about the baby but I’m sure Marty wants to do this herself; it’s her baby; I’m having a hard time restraining myself.
Dad goes into his greenhouse. He sure spends a lot of time out there.
Soil’s just right now, soft enough so the spade sinks to the shaft but not muddy. New dirt opening up, shining where the metal’s pressed tight against it.
We visit Mother and tell her Marty’s news. Mom takes it easily, as if she’d been expecting it. Maybe when you’re almost dying, being born isn’t such a big deal. She might even be feeling pushed.
When we come back, I’m still restless so I go back and work some more on my motorcycle. When I’m finished, I get an impulse to take Dad for a ride. It’d be fun rolling slowly down to Venice beach. I think the sensation of riding might help brush away some cobwebs.
We happen to have two old helmets here. I search them out of the garage. Dad’s watching me.
‘How about it, Dad? How about a slow ride on my motorcycle down to the ocean; it’s a fine afternoon; let’s go watch the sunset.’
He stares at the bike.
‘I don’t know about that; it looks scary to me.’
‘If you get scared, we won’t go. Let’s try it around the block here one time to see how you like it.’
I help strap the extra helmet on him. I don’t know why he looks so out of it, not like a motorcycle rider, more like Charles Lindbergh in one of those old leather aviation hats. Also, the helmet makes his head lean forward as if it’s too heavy for his neck.
I straddle the bike and kick down the foot pegs. I show him how to get on. I tell him to put his arms around me and hold tight.
‘Is that the only way I can hold on?’
‘It’s the best way, Dad. I want you to lean when I lean, as if we’re one person.’
He grabs hold; I kick the starter, put her in first gear gently. We ease out the driveway and cruise very slowly up and down some of these short dead-end streets. I never get out of second gear. We roll back to the house and stop.
‘Well, Dad, how was that?’
‘It’s no worse than riding a bicycle. I haven’t been on anything with two wheels since I was a kid.’
‘You ready to take a chance going down to Venice? I’ll take back streets and we won’t hit any traffic.’
‘It’s OK with me, Johnny, but, boy, I hate to think what your mother would say if we have an accident.’
He giggles and straightens his helmet.
‘There she’d be in the hospital and we’d both be dead.’
‘Don’t worry, Dad, we’re not going to get killed. I’ve been driving motorcycles for twenty years. We’re safer than in a car.’
He starts climbing back onto the bike. I hook my helmet strap.
‘The trouble is, Dad, most people who drive motorcyles are maniacs. If those same people drive cars, they’ll have car accidents.’
I kick but it doesn’t turn over. I give her a little choke.
‘What kills you in a car is the steering wheel, the windshield and a face full of dashboard; the car stops and people keep going. On a motorcycle, there’s nothing to run into; you go flying through the air and slow down some before you hit.’
I hear what I’m saying and decide to shut up. It’s not exactly encouraging. Dad grabs hold and giggles again.
‘John, you could sell holy cards to the devil.’
He tilts his head back and laughs; he doesn’t put his hand over his mouth; he can’t, he’s holding on for dear life.
We start slowly along Palms. It’s a beautiful afternoon and the sun is low in front of us. There are gentle hills along here, almost like a children’s roller coaster. We lift up one side and lower on the other. We go along the Palms golf course and across Lincoln. I roll down Rose Avenue and park on the boardwalk.
We walk out toward the ocean;