Little Boy
My father was a little boy once.
I was once a little boy too. But that was a long time ago.
Other little boys may read this, however old they may be in the moment. No little girls need apply. This is boy time.
It’s 2021. I listen to a vinyl copy of Yes’ “The Fragile”. I have a photo of you, holding up that same album as a present, proudly, as a new release in 1971. You were 8.
All the years since you’ve been gone, I’ve felt like a little boy crying out for his father. And forget you were once a little boy crying out for yours.
I remember the loving man with the fault-line volcanic tendencies. Molten in a moment. Afraid of his own feelings and scarred by his losses. You were a typically shitty teenager, like we all were. But you were a shitty teenager with terrible timing. You were 16, peak rebellion, when your father died. Most of us have the good fortune to experience the “Parent-Hating” years of adolescence venn diagram without overlapping into the “Parent Dying” circle. But Drahams were never lucky. These are the circles fate drew for you.
Luck of the Irish.
You lovingly told me one of your final memories of your father. You came home late without calling. You acted tough. Your Dad was already dying of cancer, but you challenged him, and he said, “Bring it up here” to the top of the stairs. And he knocked your ass cartwheeling down the steps, cartoon violence style. You laughed as you described it. It was the Flintstones and Hamlet all in one. “To BE or NOT to BE? I’m just a dishwashing bird-a-saurus, what would I know! The rest, is silence.” (Laugh track)
A few months later he was dead.
I feel sorry for you Dad. Not enough to absolve you for doing the same to me, only willingly.
Pills. Whiskey. Heartbreak. A bad country song mixing in your stomach. You gave me the blessing of us being on good terms. But not much else. I was reduced to that little boy.
But here I am. Married. Adult. Trying to become a father myself. And the modern miracle of YouTube, I’m watching your favorite children’s TV shows. HR Pufinstuf, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. The Banana Splits. (On your wedding in Jamaica, you noticed Bob Marley’s “La La La!” sounded too much like the Banana Splits “La La La!” and engaged native Jamaicans in an argument that Marley must’ve plagiarized the man in the lion suit and fireman’s helmet. “What a charming American!”, they must’ve thought.)
I picture that little boy. So excited for his favorite show. Singing. Enjoyment. No scars yet, no addiction. No pain. No hurtled by grief into the thresher that would consume him. Sitting on your father’s lap. Your healthy father’s lap. In a beautiful moment tainted only by its brevity.
The sounds and pictures of that little boy reach me, 50 years later. 12 years without you.
A little boy in 2021 cries for his father. A little boy in 1971, who won’t have all that long to happily bounce on his father’s knee. The world outside is waiting, to challenge, and drain, and take. And it is coming for us all. In 1971, and 2021, the echo is still the same.
La la la, la la la la, la la la…..