Poppa was a rolling stone...

A few weeks ago I invited my father to attend a live acoustic show that would have been something I went to with Daniel had he not gone all loopy on me and end our relationship. The fact that my friends are somewhat restricted with respect to their artsy taste left me with little option in terms of who to invite, not that I don’t enjoy the company of my dad; I do. We made our way down to Murray Hill and settled into an authentic English pub for some fish and chips prior to the show and it was here that my father began to talk about his disdain for hipsters. I couldn’t help but laugh because I knew, undoubtedly, that my father didn’t even know what a hipster was. To prove this fact, I asked him ‘Dad, what’s a hipster?’ – to which he replied “I don’t know but I hear they are all wannabe Brooklyn” – Man, does it get any better than hanging with your dad over a pint of Blue Moon and discussing the Brooklyn wanna-be pretense of a hipster? I don’t think so, my friends.


We sat 3rd row orchestra and enjoyed the show a magnificent amount. Both of us are a bit on the spiritual side when it comes to connecting with art and it was interesting to see how the various changes in musical energy elicited similar emotional responses in each of us. On at least two occasions, the music brought us to tears which then brought us to laughter at how empathic we seem to be at times. We purchased our merchandise (A CD each; support good music!) and made our way out of the city by way of the Brooklyn Bridge, but not before making a stop down in the lower-east-side for an egg-cream at Ray’s.


If there is anything Brooklyn should be synonymous with it is egg-creams. I distinctly remember being a little kid down in Gravesend and walking to the corner luncheonette with my mother to get cigarettes or milk or lotto tickets, or whatever it was she needed, and my getting an egg-cream. They were something around $.50 back then – and they were prepared and served up just perfectly. Ray’s in the LES serves up a comparable mixture and whenever I am in the city and with a car I make it a point to stop there and grab a large-one before heading back into Brooklyn. Tonight was no different. My father has some decent egg-cream skills and when I told him about this place he immediately laughed at the idea of some spot in the now-trendy Lower East Side being able to produce something authentic New York. Soon after his first sip, however, he changed that tune and he and I enjoyed our large chocolate egg-creams as we continued our drive back into the county of Kings.


We took the scenic route to the FDR drive, taking a left off of Avenue A working our way down into the beast that is Alphabet City. My memories of this area as a child are far from coherent, but they are certainly there. I recall coming into the city with my parents as a kid – waiting for them to cop. Most of my memories involve being in the back of a car of some sort – waiting while one of them ran into a housing project. I suppose I should be happy my recognition isn’t clearer but the fact remains that I knew what we were doing there. Almost without fail, any time my father and I are in this area he points out to me the corner (Avenue C and 7th) where he was stabbed thus resulting in a decent chunk of his liver having to be removed. He wears a scar from the surgery they needed to perform on him that runs the length of his breast plate down to past his belly button. Today would be no different and as we drove past Avenue C he mumbled something or other about the stabbing. The clearer memories for him this drive-through were of the various dope-spots in the area. There was one building in particular that he pointed out in which there used to be a New Jack City style set-up. “You see those different colored bricks on the far end of the courtyard there – they’re a different color because they were nonexistent at one point. That spot used to be a hole in the wall, literally, where you’d place your money and out would come your heroin”. I suppose to some this type of conversation would be interesting? The ever-changing face of NYC was sitting next to me and, in a way, I had my own personal tour guide pre-gentrification LES. I wish I could see it that way – but I suppose I still have a lot of shit to work through.


Seeing as I have been trying to write this post for weeks now and any time I sit down to get started something (like the TV, my email, my cellphone) distracts me from actually tackling the feelings that go along with the story in the posting, I realize that I definitely do have some tension to work through with respect to my childhood. Tension is probably, no it’s definitely an understatement.


The truth of the matter is this: I am the child of drug addicts. My mother and father are both recidivists in the world of addiction and although at time of print for this posting they’re on a sober-run, I have absolutely no idea how long that will or won’t last and that is terrifying. Daniel would often ask me how I can even still have a relationship with my parents after all they’ve put me through – and my only answer is “they’re my parents” – And, they are my parents. I love them regardless of their battle with drugs and will continue to love them accordingly. Love is one thing, but tolerance is another and this last year I pretty much exiled my father from my life for a period of time.


It was moving time for me and Daniel - he was coming from Queens and I from Brooklyn so it only made sense to schedule our moves for the same day and meet up at the new apartment. Daniel’s folks had given him some extra money to assist in any moving expenses (shocker) and my plan was to hire some day-laboring illegals and use my father’s pick-up truck to transport the little amount of stuff I was actually taking to the new pad. Days before go-time, my mother who loves to watch a drama fire spark, called me and expressed her concern with my father’s mixing of Xanax and Oxycontin. As I listened to her talk about it – and express her concerns in a manner to indicate that her problems were of the utmost importance and with little regard to the fact that I was in the middle of planning a stressful move, scared of giving up all of my shit, and just generally under a lot of pressure, I became so aggravated that I flew off the handle and started screaming and yelling like a maniac. Two days later I had a discussion with my father in which I told him that unless he sought help for his behavior I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him and that this wasn’t something up for negotiation. Xanax and anything are a completely insane combination and I already lost one person I loved dearly to a Xanax cocktail, I wasn’t about to stand idly by and watch another go.


I’m not sure if it had as much to do with my cutting him off or the credit should go to the folks at his job who began to notice a difference in his behavior, but my father checked himself into a rehab facility a few months after my cutting him off and he’s been clean for the last 7 or 8 months now. I’m happy he’s on the right path – but I cannot deny, at all, the fact that that can change in an instant. As such, my relationship with him is one that has me asking a lot of questions.


Is it normal, I ask myself, for a father to show his kid (albeit 32 year old kid) the spot where he used to slip money through bricks to get a bundle of dope? Is it completely acceptable or is if just my own shame with the past? There is no mistaking the fact that my father is a heroin addict. He admits to it and anyone that knows me is basically in the know – him showing me the dope spot isn’t exactly an admission of guilt – it’s really more so just a matter of fact much like pointing out a good Chinese restaurant to a neighbor. I suppose that is a bad comparison. The real question I am asking here, though, is what is it going to take for me to be more at ease with the past? Will it be forgiveness? There are tons of self-help books that I review looking for the answers and they all seem to point toward forgiveness and acceptance. Acceptance is something I think I’ll have an easier time doing over forgiving. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure I even know what it specifically is I am so angry about that would solicit forgiveness.

There’s a lot of work to be done.