First name, Middle Name, Last name.
That's the way I want to address him. But why?
Why his full slave name, and not "Sir" as I addressed my the abba? Well for one his last name is hard to spell and yes, I do pride myself on never having spelled it wrong. Doso, I already knew that it really was my dad and not mistaken identity. Then also I guess that he's my two oldest brothers' dad, but not mine plus before I was born, so I have no relationship or tie to him that would normally obligate respect. Now that I think (for the first time about this, admittedly ), perhaps I should stick with Sir. Perhaps not as maybe-accusatory. Ain't broke, don't fix it and all that.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Even with controlling for my newfound-obsessiveness with the past, I think I can honestly say that I just want others like me to have the same bitter joy that I have. And that goes for my brother who would rather smoke pot and hide behind our mother's skirt of denial than face the reality of who the abba is, who he was, who he wasn't, who she was and wasn't, and who he could be.
Eddie, on the other hand, I suspect he has a similar outlook.
Before I contacted my the abba, I talked to Eddie about it. "Hey dude you know that one guy when you were maybe 5-8 years old and he beat you and your mom as a kid and left you with a little sister with a dgooo nose and not-as-white-as-your skin to remind you...is it cool if I like, talk to and associate with him. Oh and btw can you drive me to the airport once in a while when I go to the house of this guy?
Well. I'm not that slick. But
If he were bothered by it, enough to express any such that I could detect, then I wouldn't have gone through with it.
Liar. Just not openly. No unsolicited updates on the State of the Bastardy at best, and yet another huge breach of trust between me and him. And since it was by the time David had already burned his bridge, everyone else I grew up with, at worst.
But none was detected. He just said go for it. Your dad, your conscience your life, y'know. In fact, he basically gave me the same reasoning I had when faced with David's "Huh huh I googled our dad he has another family in Minnesota" escapade of a few years ago.
"If my dad wants to find me, he can. I'm right here. Since he hasn't, I just assume he doesn't, and that's his choice. Aden, I think someday I'll just run into him at random and Aden, either I'll want to punch his lights out, or just tell him how I grew up, all the shit I had to deal with."
That's almost to the letter how I felt. Whether from premonition or anxiety about unaccompanied (and generally unapproved) interstate travel to "a land unknown," I wondered about the possibility of "randomly running into" my dad in Tennessee. Of course...I imagined that he'd recognize either his features or his ex-wife's in me, be shocked, and approach me. Perhaps identify me as Joss Hislastname instead of her maiden name. How would he really know, either way? Regardless, the main thing would be that, through neither volitional nor pleading exertions of mine, the disenfranchisement of non-identity and the shame from such that, decrying as "archaic" the social construct from which it comes cannot yet fool us into shaking off, would be unilaterally repealed by one of the few true co-legislators (co-conspirators?) on earth. Perhaps it's nothing to those who have never needed to need this.
Anyway, all I know is what he said out loud was very similar to what I told myself under the same hypothesis.
But is Eddie prepared? Could he handle knowing him, to see him? To be relieved, and disappointed? If he is, how am I supposed to know that? If not, when will he be?
Will he at all? If not, what is he lacking? Why then would it appear then, that some people are good enough to know their dad, and yet others no?
Do I mean to imply that about myself, that I somehow "deserve" to know more than and compared to others; that all of my mom's progeny were born deficient and undeserving yet I the youngest, somehow suffered enough to remit her (or my?) sins, before any of the older three?
No. That's silly. How did I make my leg grow back.
