My dad is a narcissist. He never apologized for anything, not once, not even by accident. Every problem in every room was somehow mine. And he could go from fine to furious in two seconds flat, no warning, no ramp up, just a flat line that turned into a cliff. If you've seen the show Ted, he's basically that dad, but meaner and smelled like beer and cigarettes. Gruff, foul-mouthed, allergic to softness, convinced his way of loving you was love even when it left a mark. “This hurts me more than you” kinda guy.
I have a lot of stories. These are only three of them.
The Softball Game
I was nine. I joined softball because my friends joined, not because I particularly wanted to, but because they wanted to and I wanted to do whatever they wanted to do. Turns out I would fall deeply in love with the game. Normally I played short stop or left field, because I had an arm — I was one of those kids who could rifle a ball in from the deep outfield like it owed me money. But I hated the outfield. I wanted action. So when my coach finally let me pitch, I felt like I'd been fucking knighted.
First pitch. Ball.
"Jesus Christ, come on Am," from the stands. My dad, obviously. The guy who went to exactly two of my games the entire ten years I played in my childhood.
Shake it off. Next one's in. Second pitch. Ball. Fuck.
"Ammm-ber, throw it down the middle for christ's sake." he shouted from the stands with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
I cut him a dirty look, then locked in, furious now, and threw a perfect pitch right down the middle.
CRACK!
Line drive, straight to my head. The whole crowd went quiet after hearing the sound it made tinking off my skull. I dropped to my knees and started crying, and I heard him again.
"Amber get the ball! Get the goddamn ball! Throw it to first!"
Not a flicker of concern that I'd just taken a fastball to the head. I looked around through tears, found the ball five feet away, grabbed it, and threw it to second because the batter had already rounded first. Second baseman caught it, tagged her out.
My dad, cheering from the stands: "Atta girl! Next time catch the fuckin' ball, ya dumb Hunyak!" Hunyak is an American slang term, that grew out of early 1900s immigration — likely a blend of "Hun" and the "-ack" ending from "Polack." It was used to label Central and Eastern European immigrants, especially Hungarians, working in mills, mines, and factories.
We have Hungarian roots.
I have DNA matches with King Samuel Aba, the first Hungarian King. He was a shitty King from what I understand too... Over time some families adopted it as an in-house nickname for someone acting foolish, oafish, or stubborn, with the slur edge softened or dropped depending on who's using it. In this case, it was my dad using it against me, his first born and only daughter.
I wish I'd punched him in the throat at least once before I went no contact. Just once.
The Ice
I’m ten now. Even though my dad was a dick, he wasn't a complete void. Every winter he flooded our backyard so I could skate, and I think he mostly did it so I'd stay out of his hair, but I didn't care why. I was out there for hours, every day, pretending I was Nancy Kerrigan giving the neighborhood the performance of a lifetime.
One night, after dinner, I went for a triple lutz in the dark, with only the back porch light shining on the skating rink and ate the ice face first. My head bounced. I think I blacked out for a second, because the next thing I remember is rolling over with my skull pounding. I went inside, woozy, found my dad in his recliner.
Through slurred speech, I said, "Hey Dad. I fell and hit my head pretty bad."
"Go get my pack of smokes over der." We’re Yoopers, so the “th” sounds like a “d”. Worse and more pronounced than the Canadian accent. If you ever get the chance to watch the Jeff Daniels film, Escanaba In Da Moonlight, do it. It’s an accurate representation of Yoopers. Anyway…
I got the cigarettes. Handed them to him.
"Dad, my head. It hurts."
"Get my lighter too." Already done with me. How dare I interrupt his TV show.
"Dad?" I started crying. He looked at me like I was the inconvenience, like my skull was a personal insult to his evening. He slammed the footrest down, huffed over to the medicine cabinet, handed me two ibuprofen, and yelled at me to go lay down. As I walked away I heard him mutter that it was just a bump, that I'd never be an Olympic champion if I couldn't handle a little bump on the head. Then he lit a cigarette and flipped his recliner back up as I weeble-wobbled to my bedroom.
Fifteen years later a CT scan showed a healed T-shaped skull fracture smack dab in the middle of my forehead. Exactly where I hit the ice.
Thanks Dad, I could’ve died.
The Last Visit
By the time I was a teenager and into my adulthood, we went time periods without speaking, years on and off, on and off. Eventually I decided to give him one more chance — not just for me, for my kids too. Maybe this time, maybe he’s changed. I lied to myself a lot back then. We drove seven hours to Wisconsin.
It started out good. Almost suspiciously good. Then he cracked his first beer.
By that night he was drunk-drunk, the kind where the stories get bigger and the eyes get meaner underneath them. We were all around the bonfire roasting marshmallows, and he was actually being funny for a while — old stories from the service, from his childhood, funny neighborhood gossip — and then something shifted. He threw a log on the fire, stood up in front of the flames, spread his arms, and announced, "I am the Grand Poombaaaa!"
For anyone who doesn't know, that's not a harmless joke. That's KKK leadership talk.
I grabbed my kids and went inside. He yelled after us, called me a drama queen, told me I was being ridiculous, that it was just a joke, to lighten up. I locked the bedroom door. Next morning we got up before anyone else was awake, packed the car in silence, and left. Didn’t bother saying goodbye.
That was twelve years ago. I haven't seen him since.
I think about the version of him that flooded the backyard every winter. I think about the version of him standing in front of that fire calling himself a Klan title thinking the joke landed and everybody would laugh. I don't know how to hold both of those men in the same hand, and I'm not sure I'm supposed to. No contact was my only option. He will never change and I didn’t want to spend another moment of my life or the lives of my children waiting.
What I keep coming back to isn’t the bonfire, or the fracture, or even the line drive. It’s that every single time, my pain was the interruption. Not the event that deserved care and compassion. The interruption.
I understand the psychology behind my dad now. I’ve done the work to comprehend him and heal myself. There’s still a little girl in me who aches for the dad who flooded the backyard every winter, and told jokes and sang Fats Domino with me in the garage, who took me hunting and fishing, and spoke quietly instead of yelling about everything. That ache is real, and I don’t expect it to leave. I honor it, accept it, cry about it and then look around and realize how beautiful my life has been without him in it. I have no regrets.
My Dad is broken and he doesn’t get to break me along with him anymore.
I still sing the song. I just sing it with different people now. Turned a sad into a glad. Sing it with me now!
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Thank you for being here. Seriously. You make this worth doing.
I feel this one. My kids never met my dad. He just can't behave himself and I'm not going to risk the pain he might cause. No contact is the only way.
It takes a lot of courage to tell stories that hurt so much.
💕💕💕💕