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There’s nothing worse than just enough success. The store was a slow death that took years to metastasize, sucking in more and more of Dad’s money and soul. He tried everything, including going upscale in a brief, costly branding experiment. All he learned was that reinventing yourself was not something people allowed you to do very often.
Once the writing was on the wall, Mom refused to work the register anymore. She had to get a job somewhere else to make ends meet, or so she said. Dad thought it was a betrayal. They grew heated and icy with each other in ways that didn’t cancel out.
After the store was liquidated at great loss—after we were thoroughly ruined—he left the house. Or was kicked out. It didn’t matter. His ability to interact with other people in a professional environment had deteriorated to the point where it was even worse than Mom’s. He wasn’t getting any kind of old job back.
Especially given that he had no higher education. My father had never gone to college.
When Mom told me he was living in the city on his own, I’d imagined the worst. A squalid apartment in a bad neighborhood. Unable to make ends meet. Drinking.
When I finally saw him after the split, he told me that I’d been spot-on. But only for the first few months or so of his exile.
At his lowest point, after he’d given up all hope for his continued existence, he’d taken a walk that brought him past this gym. The door had been open, blaring untz-untz beats into the sidewalk. He’d peered inside, confused by the sculpted bodies and clanging iron.
The one thing he understood was the NOW HIRING sign. On impulse he asked about it. Perhaps also on impulse, the young things on duty at the time took him onboard as the newest member of the CleanUp PowerDown Crew.
It probably saved his life. He was a middle-aged person doing an entry-level job, sure, but no one asked questions, no one wondered how it came to this for him. Perhaps that was due to condescension, everyone assuming that a minority sweeping up was the natural state of affairs.
But the trainers and therapists treated him with kindness, and he found he’d missed that very much. He had a wage and people to talk to. The elements of sanity.
And thus it was, up to this day. I liked visiting him here, where he was happy. And truthfully, he looked better each time. The employees had a good health plan and were allowed to use the equipment during off hours. He’d put on a little muscle for his age.
“How’s Mom?” he asked.
“Same.” I couldn’t think of a whole lot of news. About her, at least. “She entertained for some school friends. Got really into it, too.”
“Good. No better medicine when it comes to your mother.”
That reminded me that I had to have Quentin and his “parents” over again sometime. For Mom’s sake. I could stomach the embarrassment to see her cheered again.
“And how about you?” he asked.
“Honestly? Not good. I feel very . . . put upon these days. You ever get people telling you to do things you don’t want to do? Ordering you around?”
I realized that was a dumb question right after I asked it. I’d forgotten where we were, and thought I’d set him up to complain about the downsides of his current job. But he surprised me.
“I remember back at the insurance company I had a chain of bosses who were pretty awful,” Dad said. “They wouldn’t give you a reason for their decisions, and everything that went wrong was your fault, not theirs. It’s hard to work for those kinds of folks.”
“I know you’re capable of handling anything life throws at you,” he went on. “But you shouldn’t feel forced into a situation. Nothing good will come of it.”
He didn’t press me on who or what was bothering me, which was exactly what I was counting on.
I never had to get into specifics with Dad. He and I could have whole conversations without proper nouns. I mean, sure, his disregard for details probably contributed heavily to the shattering of our household, but for the moment I was grateful to not have to go deeper than I needed about gods. Or college.
“In this case, I should probably go along with it,” I said. “It’s actually pretty important that I do.”
“Then it’s an easy decision, right?” Dad said. “You have to pick and choose your battles. Fight too much and you’ll wear yourself out.”
Dad smiled at me. “You take everything so seriously. You’re still young, you know? I feel like I have to remind you every so often or you’d forget. Your future’s not going to be set in stone because of what happens today.”
His certainty, the same certainty that had gotten him into so much trouble, flowed out to me like a balm. He couldn’t conceive of my failure, of my unhappiness. All my faults lay buried deep within his mile-wide blind spots, where I could pretend they didn’t exist.
I didn’t love my dad more than my mom. But it was hard not to think of him as my favorite person in the world sometimes.
“Is that who I think it is?” said a booming voice behind us.
I turned to see two of the gym’s trainers—Brian and K-Song—quickstep over.
“Miss Loooo!” Brian hooted. “Whaddup whaddup?”
