A Walk Down Memory Lane, and a Long Pier.

Last night my daughter was in a play. This post isn't about that. Oddly, my cousin came to the performance and brought her young daughter and my aunt, my dad's sister. My aunt talked to me like my dad and I were just fine, like we are father and son. Nothing indicating that he and I don't even speak, and never anything indicating he was a horrible and abusive man to my brother and I.

This has unfortunately been weighing on me the last 24 hours. I keep on going over things in my mind, things to remind myself of what a fucking monster he was. "Monster" is a funny word to use because one of his long time girlfriend's confided in me that he had told her what a monster I was as a kid, and that's why our relationship was so damaged.

When my dad was married to his second wife, the first after my mom, he and I had the roughest period in our relationship. It's odd to speak about it in such adult terms, since he was only 29 years old and I was only 11 years old, but the combination of him bringing this woman into our lives for the first time plus me transitioning from child to pre-teen was a rocky one at best.

I don't know what kind of kid I was, I know I didn't consider myself a bad kid, I got good grades, I was in the advanced program at school, I didn't drink until I was 20 years old and had never gotten suspended or in trouble with police or anything. Regardless, it was clear that my presence, and my brother's, wasn't do much good for my father's new relationship. He had been so mad at one point I remember him taking me into his bedroom and telling me, "If you ruin this for me Jeffrey, if you make her leave me, I'll kill you". I was 11 years old.

It sounds scary, but apparently not scary enough, because one night he came home from wherever he had been and his wife was not happy, specifically with me. When my dad got mad, he had this way of looking at me, I'm sure you're dad had a look too, but his, his was of unbridled rage. He grabbed me by the arm and took me outside, to his car, he put me in the front seat. He got in, and we left. He didn't speak. It was night, I'm not sure what time, but it was dark outside. It was summer, so it must have been after 10 PM. We drove, silently for 40 minutes deep into the city of Detroit from our house in Redford. I remember the drive clearly, I-96 to Jefferson, Jefferson Ave. to Harding Street, right on Harding into a dark and nearly abandoned neighborhood, then another right, into Kean's marina. We parked in the parking lot. He got out, came around to my door, opened it and "helped" me get out. He put me in front of him and started walking. He didn't need to touch me or push me, it was like we were two oppositely charged magnets, he walked and I walked the same direction two steps in front of him.

We walked onto one of the piers and down the pier, outward towards the vast blackness of the Detroit river, everything just seemed so calm and the closer we got to end of the pier, the blacker the world seemed to become. I don't think many kids ever even consider the possibility that their parent is taking them somewhere to end their life, but in my world, that was a very real thought.

We got out to the end of the pier and stood there, next to each other looking out into the nothing. He suddenly grabbed the back of my neck, he put pressure on me, he pushed me ever so slightly towards the water. He calmly told me that he could be my worst enemy or my best friend and that it was up to me. My actions would tell him what I chose.

I finally spoke, I told him I wanted to be his friend, his best friend. I was 11 years old (or 12, around there), this was my dad I was talking to. I tried to be tough, I tried to remain calm. I did not panic. He eased up on my neck. He let go. He turned around and started walking back to his car. I followed him. We got back into the car and the drive home was the drive there but in reverse, in silence.

My wife tells me I may have exaggerated how bad I had it as a kid, I may not be remembering everything as it really happened, and that's totally possible. Not this though. It's these moments I need to hold onto and remember when I think, "hey, maybe I'm being too hard on my dad, maybe I should let bygones be bygones and start over". I can't start over. I just can't.

.