Happy birthday, stranger

Ed Villarreal
How about no

I haven't talked to my dad since July. That's a long time considering we didn't have any kind of argument or falling out. And after considering the fact that we were quite close when I was very little, well, it's kind of tragic.

I remember back when I was about 4 years old. I would lie in bed resting in the shallowest of sleep. About 3:30 a.m., I would hear the back door open and my dad stumble into the kitchen. I would jump out of bed and run to the stairs like it was Christmas morning.

There would be my dad holding a bucket of chicken that filled the air with its greasy aroma. It mixed with the other smells he dragged in from the club: Schlitz, menthol cigarettes and the cheap perfume from one of his strippers. Together, they formed an off-putting yet strangely familiar and comforting super-fragrance as distinct as frying bacon or burning rubber.

I would run down the stairs with the excitement of a nervous Chihuahua with a serious methamphetamine problem. He would then grab hold of me with one arm, hold the chicken in the other and walk to the living room. I'd sit on his lap and grab a piece of fried goodness as he flipped on the Playboy Channel. Of course, I had no idea what was going with the featured presentation, but man, that was some good chicken.

Where does one buy chicken at 3:30 in the morning?

Okay, sure, to some, the idea of a 4-year-old hanging out with his drunken father while watching porn and eating chicken may seem slightly odd. But those were some of our closest moments, mainly because I didn≠t know any better.

As I grew older, he grew more distant. My parents split, thankfully, and I became a weekend/holiday/summer son. I hardly saw him, though. He had to tend to his bar and strippers as I played Nintendo. Sometimes he would take me to the track with him and let me wander around alone while he geared up and raced one of his horses, but I didn't mind. He made up for the neglect and distance with quarters for the arcade next to the betting windows.

In recent years, dad has discovered a new emotion: regret. He and my mother are on speaking terms, and he has apologized a couple of times for their failed marriage. He has grown much closer to my older brother and sister now that they have moved on and started their own families. Grandchildren make a wonderful bonding tool for the once-absent parent.

Then there's his relationship with me. Dad hasn't been officially told I'm gay, but he's not stupid. I'm sure at some point he noticed that I never talk about women and have never had a girlfriend. At 26 years of age, I should have had at least one girlfriend to speak of. Why wouldn't I? I'm a choice piece of meat, right? Right?

The fact is I'm not getting married anytime soon. I won't be showing up with any grandchildren unless there's some sort of horrible, horrible accident. He doesn't approve of homosexuality (that's why he doesn't want to be officially told). And we have grown so distant; the emotional attachment is too weak to compel him to reconsider his view. He is pig-headed, and I am just like him.

It was his birthday last week. I don't even know if he was in the country or if he went back home for a visit. I left a message on his answering machine.

Even though the bond between us grows thinner ever year, I still love him. He taught me some of the most important lessons in life. How many kids had a deeply religious mother and a strip-club-owning father? Thanks to him, I learned there is so much more out there than the traditional. He taught me that being an individual, even at the most incontinent of times, is not only okay but also good. And, of course, I had to form quite a sense of humor to process all of this over time.

I pay the price of being open about who I am. Due to my honesty, I will probably never get the chance to make things right with dear old dad. I guess I learned a little too much from the best.

Happy birthday, Dad. Thank you for skewing my perspective and opening my eyes to the dark corners of the bigger picture of life. And thanks for showing me how to live as myself. I hope someday you can read this and feel a strong sense of pride and redemption instead of sorrow and shame.

How about no appears every Tuesday. Ed is a junior in speech pathology. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily Egyptian.

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