Hotels, Hospitals, and Jails: A Memoir

  Truthfully the man was a real bastard. I spent most of my childhood in fear of my father. Rarely did I do the right thing. Rarely was he pleased. I understand that he might have different memories of events, but it is not my fault his son became a writer.

  No one else will write about my father so I am his writer. And in the act of writing I hope to become again his loving son.

  Everyone must understand: when someone writes a memoir people get scorched.

  A couple of friends asked for autographed copies of JARHEAD. Since I had to buy my own, I knew you would not furnish them one. It would have been an embarrassment to me having to tell them that my bestselling author son is such a cheap ass. I had to buy my own—so you’ll have to buy yours. I purchased copies for them which you so graciously autographed. Kim offered to buy me the book on CD but I told her you had half-assed said you would send me one. Maybe it will happen some time when I am still on the green side of the turf. She did buy me the music from the movie. I just purchased the movie for myself so cancel that request. Your continued failure to send Art [an old Air Force buddy of my father’s] a book and his continued asking embarrassed your mother so much that she sent him one. But she would never admit to this as being irresponsible on your part. Life is better if some things are never said. Just as my thoughts here may be, as I believe some should not be in your book, I took as first-timer’s gloating. After the movie release the maliciousness continued. What is causing the unexplained behavior? Maybe you await a certain reaction. If so this may be it.

  I sent my father one copy of the galley and three of the hardcover of Jarhead. For some reason he doesn’t recall receiving them. And I explained to him that my publisher gave me only forty copies of my book and that there were a number of people I needed to send books to—former teachers, old friends, friends of the family. I also explained to him that if I went out and bought a book for everyone who asked me for one I’d be making about negative twenty dollars per hardcover, which seems like a foolish way to make a living—writing already being a foolish enough plan for making money. I know that my father wanted me to provide books to all of his bar and military cronies and some of the men who worked for him; I simply didn’t think it was my responsibility.

  And here is where I get angry for the first time, when he calls me a cheap-ass. He doesn’t know the money I’ve provided to my niece for rent and some help with college tuition. He doesn’t know the number of times I’ve bailed my older sister out of debt. He doesn’t know that I’m paying my younger sister’s university tuition and textbook costs. He doesn’t know that I’m paying for a medical procedure my aunt in Pakistan must undergo. He doesn’t know I paid my brother’s widow’s mortgage for six months. He doesn’t know any of this because I would never tell him. I am not a cheap-ass. I just thought that if my father was so proud of his son he wouldn’t mind going down to the bookstore and buying a few copies of the book for his buddies. Or, rather, tell them, “Go buy copies yourself, how do you think the little shit makes money?”

  The purpose of this is an attempt to discover why you keep adding distance between us—do I contribute? A reply is not expected but perhaps I will find the answer, as I continue.

  This is the first place in the letter where my father posits that he might be responsible for some of the distance between us. In typical John Howard fashion he asks the question and then tells me that I need not reply. By writing on, he’ll figure the answer out himself. But does he even want to know if he contributes?

  I would like to know more about your activities but I ask little, as you seem to feel it is an intrusion. I have asked you to do only a few things, but repeated requests have brought no results. I had hoped they could at least have been put in the form of a present—trip present—Christmas present—return from Europe present—Father’s day present—Birthday present. Fake hope. Several months ago I repeated my request. You said that your novel was completed and you were going to spend the next couple weeks catching up on things. I had been unable to shame you into granting my requests but hoped that would be included in “catching up.” Now after many months I see they are of no importance and I not much more.

  I know a bit about shame. My father built a roof of shame for his family to live under. You do not shame your father with your poor manners. You do not shame your father with stupidity in public. You do not shame your father by asking foolish questions. You do not shame your father by talking to adults, by speaking unless you have been spoken to. This shame turned me into a treacherous little kid: I was sneaky, I was a liar, I trained my hearing so whenever I heard my name, anywhere in the house, I’d pick up on the fluctuations and intonations of the voices so that even if I couldn’t hear all the words, I knew the intentions of the conversation: Tony will be grounded for not doing his chores. Tony will not go to Scott Seltzer’s house for a sleepover. Tony’s allowance will be reduced for eight weeks.

  The thing my father didn’t understand about shame was that once the son is in his early twenties the father can’t shame him. In fact, the attempts of the father to shame the son look, to the son, like little more than feeble attempts to regain a control lost many years ago. So my father’s attempts at shaming me backfired.

  And I wondered why, suddenly, when I’d had some success, he chose to become so involved in my life. He’d never been involved in my life when I was a boy, an adolescent, a teenager, or a young man. The other Little League parents thought that my mother was a single mother because over my six years of playing ball my father never came to watch one game or pick me up from a single practice.

  Once when I was in college he gave me two hundred dollars for books. When I loaded my rental truck to move for grad school he showed up and bought my buddies pizza and later took us out to a strip club. When at grad school in Iowa I eloped, he sent me and my bride a card and fifty bucks and he failed to show up for the marriage party at my mother’s house, an hour’s drive away from his. He didn’t even bother to call.

  You make trips to the area but no time to stop, not even time for a fuck-you phone call.

  He’s correct: there were times I traveled to Sacramento or the Bay Area and didn’t spend time with him. There were other times when I went out of my way to make sure I saw my father and that we shared a meal or a few drinks.

  And there is this, which he fails to recall or mention: during the spring of 2006 he’d been feeling rather fatigued each afternoon, and this, coupled with some low-level anxiety, had led the doctors to assume that there might be something amiss with his heart. All his other tests came back normal—his blood work was fine, they didn’t find a bleed on his brain, there were no signs of a stroke, so they decided to go into his heart, take a look around, and most likely they’d insert a stent.

  We talked on the phone about the procedure and I could tell that my father was quite nervous. I told him I’d come out. It was a Sunday afternoon, and his procedure was Tuesday. I booked an early flight out of JFK for Tuesday, which would put me in the Bay Area right around the time they’d be rolling him out of surgery.

  I felt like a good son, like I was doing the right thing by my father and my family. After my brother’s death we’d all been rather hospital-averse, so I thought being there with my younger sister, for my father, was the only right thing to do.

  I took a flight at a hideously early hour and landed in San Francisco at around ten a.m. As soon as we touched down I frantically called my sister for some news, any news. I called my mother in Sacramento and my sister in Montana; no one picked up. I started to panic.

  I picked up my rental and sped toward Fairfield and the big Air Force base where my father was being treated, the same base where I’d been born. My younger sister called and I picked up while ripping through the 880 exchange near Oakland.

  “How is he?”

  “Oh.” She laughed. “He’s fine. They took a look and his arteries looked great and that was it. They didn’t do anything. We’re on our way to Outback. Wanna meet us??
??

  I almost rear-ended a semi-truck.

  “Sure. I mean. That’s great. Amazing. Outback? Like, the steak house?”

  “Yeah. In the mall near Dad’s.”

  “I’m almost at Berkeley. I can probably be there in forty-five minutes.”

  “See you then.”

  I dropped the phone onto the passenger seat. My father’s heart was fine. No stent. No worries, mate. Now, on to Outback. I’d flown all the way across the US to eat subpar steak at a chain restaurant.

  I dropped my speed. I liked driving through the Bay Area. In the hills and waterways many fond memories of my early twenties lurked—epic drinking nights, making love in an almond orchard, houseboat parties on the Delta, making love in the Oakland Hills, circumambulating Mount Tam and making love at midnight in Muir Woods.

  I drove toward Vacaville and, without thinking much about it, more on impulse than from thought, I got off the freeway and tried to find the house from my childhood. I found it. A simple shingled ranch, oak tree in the front yard, bay windows, flower garden.

  I sat for a few moments and drove on to the nearby Outback.

  My father and sister were in a great mood, already settled into a booth. An enormous appetizer platter of fried food-like items landed just as I joined them.

  “So what’s the doc say?”

  “The ticker is fine, Tone. He thinks I’m suffering anxiety. Gave me some pills. Gonna check in in three months and see what he sees. Let’s eat some steak.”

  The irony seemed lost on my sister and father: a few hours after my father had left the hospital for potential heart trouble, here we sat at a steak house, ingesting heart bombs.

  My father didn’t thank me for flying out for his non-procedure. After the lunch I drove to Sacramento and spent a few days visiting friends and my mother before returning home.

  June has come and long gone with no greetings from you. No passes there.

  When I was a youth June loomed large as school ended and ceded to shirtless bicycle days and sunburns and poolside daydreams of girls I’d never kiss—and three family celebrations took place that month: my father’s birthday, my parents’ anniversary, and Father’s Day.

  June-time Sacramento sun warmed the pool and in it on those festive days we kids would splash and play, bark like dogs, while my father grilled burgers and brats and my mother made potato salad in the kitchen, occasionally yelling for assistance from my sister or me—we need more soda in the cooler! More napkins on the table! Gambler (our beloved Boston terrier) is chasing the neighbor’s cat!

  One particular Father’s Day I remember well, if for no other reason than that the gift I gave my father resides with me now. I must have been eleven or twelve. A few days before the big day I rode my bike the mile or so to the nearest supermarket with a friend of mine and we perused the aisles for presents for our fathers. My friend didn’t find anything that suited his father, but I thought I had.

  I remember my mother helping me wrap the cumbersome object and tape it up, place a bow on top. I was excited because this was no run-of-the-mill Father’s Day present, not socks, not a tie, not a new alarm clock or coffee cup or T-shirt. I gave my father a beer stein—which I now use to store spare change.

  My younger sister and I had been swimming for hours and our hands were puckered like an old lady’s. Picnic debris littered the table and the dogs ran circles around the pool, chasing the cat, chasing the rabbit, chasing their shadows as the sun dropped west. Country music drifted outdoors from my father’s massive reel-to-reel setup in the family room. Johnny Paycheck. Johnny Cash. One of the Johnnys.

  My father poured his Löwenbräu into the mug, and he drank from it, and I thought I was a pretty fine little son.

  Our most recent face to face was a dinner at Arden Fair. [Arden Fair is a large mall in Sacramento, but actually the dinner was at a great Thai restaurant called Pardees in a swank little mall in Carmichael called Town and Country. My mother and younger sister were in attendance along with my friend Douglas and his wife Sachiyo.] Which was well after your two weeks of “catching up.” You were finishing your taxes and had gifts. You gave me “Sorry about that Dad.” (No importance) I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I didn’t. What a snub! The likes of which no one deserves. Maybe payback for something in the past? No pass here.

  I recall giving my mother and sister textiles from a trip I’d taken to Vietnam. Before traveling there with Ava I asked my father if he wanted to join us, and he said no. I also asked him if he wanted pictures of any place, or any particular thing—a market in Saigon, a building, a street, a rice paddy, a particular stretch of jungle or river. And he said no to this as well. He told me he’d gotten out of Vietnam with his life and that that was the only thing he’d ever wanted out of the godforsaken country. I asked him if I should look around Saigon for any half siblings and he smiled and said, “Why not?”

  Giving my sister and mother gifts in front of him while offering him nothing was extremely rude. I feel horrible about it now. But I don’t know what I would have brought him. Maybe one of those red T-shirts with Che splashed across the yellow Communist Party star? I plead guilty to the charge of showing up empty-handed.

  He’s correct: I may have been trying to get back at him for something, or for everything.

  Last Christmas I sent you a check rather than a gift, which is what I normally do. I know it wasn’t much compared to what you are now accustomed to, but you cashed it. I wonder why I didn’t get a thank you, it would take very little of your precious time. Is thanks of no importance to you anymore? Or for such a small gift? Should a pass be given? Or should I chalk it up to an absent minded professor writer? Maybe even the thought behind the gift is of no importance to you? Should that excuse your ill-mannered conduct?

  I distinctly remember calling my father when I received the check and thanking him for it. I told him I’d used it to buy a great bottle of wine that Ava and I would share around the holidays. This is the first sign that he’s fixated on the sums of money he thinks I now make. The striking of the word professor indicates that he considers me a fool for walking away from a tenure-track teaching position to move to New York for a woman and to write full-time, as well his hierarchy of the two titles, professor and writer. A professor is, well, a professional. A writer is a bum. Any man with a pen can say he’s a writer. What man can say he’s a professor and a writer? My father’s maternal grandfather could; he taught music at Auburn and wrote church hymns. But I do not write church hymns.

  Maybe this stems from the time you borrowed my GMC. You stated you only needed it for a short period of time, until you purchased one of your own. Several times in the past you used my red S-10; only once do I remember you replacing the fuel. Failing to get an estimated return date [on the GMC SUV] other than “as soon as I have time to buy one of my own”—you offered to make monthly vehicle and insurance payments until it was returned. Since you were no longer a struggling student—it seemed reasonable to me. I have never had such a good deal and this arrangement would keep you from being rushed buying one of your own and cost you substantially less than renting one. You got distracted several times and kept it longer than most folks would consider reasonable and made no payments during that time. Maybe you felt for the first time you were in control of something in my life and were going to take full advantage. When you finally returned it, giving me a check which included reimbursement for one of your parking tickets; there was an air of arrogance as if you felt I should not accept your money. Which was confirmed later, when you accused me of gouging you—my own flesh and blood by taking money for the use of a vehicle. When it was time to renew the registration surprise—there were two more unpaid tickets plus late charges. Which had to be paid right there before DMV would validate the renewal. You had told me you were paying these tickets. What a lie! You never offered to pay for the oversight, which indicates you never intended to pay in the first place. I suppose you justified not keeping your word because I screwed y
ou by having the audacity to expect and take payment from my own “flesh and blood” for the use of a vehicle. To this day I cannot understand why you would expect me to furnish the vehicle “fee gratis,” then stiff me for your tickets. Especially since you were financially able.

  In memory my father and motor vehicles are intertwined. Even the genesis of my parents’ relationship involves combustion engines and speed: As a young airman in Moses Lake, Washington, my father ripped around town in a sleek 1957 Chevy. A high school senior with a bright red coiffure worked at the drive-in where my father and his military friends hung out on weekends. It was late in her senior year, she’d just turned eighteen, and she was supposed to start at Washington State in the fall.

  My dad was a madly handsome Air Force kid of twenty, and he wanted to take her out. He spoke in a deep amber Southern drawl and words fell from his mouth like sex. But the redhead said no, and again no, and no again. This dark-haired handsome kid returned each weekend in his tricked-out hot rod and the redhead always said no and sometimes added Go away.

  And then one night, near the end of her shift, a guy drove off with the tray and dishes my mother had delivered to his car. My father knew that the waitresses were charged for any loss of dishes and utensils, and he gave chase. As my father told it, the guy pulled over a mile down the road and handed over the tray, with all the dishes intact. My father returned the goods to my mother and finally she said yes. I now wonder if my father hadn’t put one of his buddies up to the stunt, or if he had handed a stranger a few dollars to enlist him in the charade. What does it matter? The redhead said yes and the Swofford motor vehicle legacy began.

  I use the word vehicle just like my father. Often when I employ it casually, say walking down the street with a friend and spying a Ferrari, I’ll say, “That’s a nice vehicle.” And the friend will laugh at my use of the word.