Dead Rebel Of The Week
~ My Daddy ~
He stopped talking in mid-sentence. The irritation in his voice dissolved as he took a deep breath. These arguments usually only ended when one of us gave up, calling an unspoken truce. Arguing with yourself in a mirror rarely gives an answer, and this was one long distance phone call that had already reached its end. Although big enough to admit a stalemate, he was stubborn enough to refuse to hang up until he’d won – somehow. He changed tactics.
“So, did you hear the story about the cat?”
“What? What cat? What are you talking about?”
“The cat. There was this cat and that cat was out strollin’ around one day, just doing whatever he wanted to do. Then he came to this railroad track. “
“Daddy, what are you talking about?”
“Just listen to me. Are you listening?”
“Yeah.” To this day, my eyes still hurt from rolling so far back in my head. I leaned over on the kitchen counter. This was going to be a long one.
“So that cat was going to cross the railroad track but he saw a train coming at him down the track. Well, he wanted to cross over to the other side but was afraid that he wouldn’t make it before the train got there. So he just sat there, doing nothing and fretting about that train. Finally, right at the last minute he decided to GO. So he ran across the tracks as fast as he could. He made it! But then he was so worried about his tail behind him that he turned around to see if his tail was over the tracks too. You know what happened when that cat turned around to look at what was behind him?”
“Ummm... NO.”
“That train chopped off his damn head.”
Warfare by wisdom. It was ten years before I realized he’d won. If you worry too much about the past, you’ll never move forward.
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Anson County, North Carolina
1935
Five year old Ben and his sister, Rachel, played in the backyard of the old farmhouse. Everyone has a different version of the events of that day. Aunt Broadus, 15, was in the kitchen baking her first cake. Uncle Charles and Uncle Tom were playing with cousins down the road at Great-Uncle JC’s house. The baby girls were inside with Grandma. Granddaddy was probably in the woods with his hunting buddies.
The peaceful country air was suddenly split with the screams of a little girl. The game of “catch me if you can” was over. Grandma ran out the back door into the yard. Ben was on the ground, covered in blood. Granddaddy’s axe was beside him. He’d tripped while chasing Rachel with the axe. His right arm was nearly severed. Standing at 5’2”, and weighing in at approximately 110 pounds, I’m sure it took every bit of strength in Grandma’s body to pick up Ben. Adrenalin and a mother’s terror fueled her as she ran, screaming and carrying her son, down the road the quarter of a mile distance to JC’s house. My second cousin, Pick, told me a few years ago that a neighbor boy just happened to be at the house that day. He knew to make a tourniquet to slow the bleeding, and that was probably the only reason my dad survived. Being rural North Carolina in 1935, he lost the right arm and hand about five inches below the elbow. Using his almost illegible handwriting as a guide, I think it’s safe to say that Ben was meant to go through life right-handed.
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In the hustle and bustle of life, and in the dash to teach children good from bad and right from wrong, parents rarely realize the true impact their example has on their children. Never can they predict the highs and lows of their child’s life. Seldom can they foretell what tools the child will need when the parent is no longer there.
My dad wasn’t a rebel of any name. He wasn’t Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Jack London or even Wendy O. Williams, although he did yell at me once for blasting Pat Benatar while he was trying to sleep. Yet, in my eyes, he was a rebel in the highest sense of the word. He rarely yelled. He didn’t storm and stomp his steel-toed boots. His best friends were his dogs and his fondest fantasy was to have a cabin in the woods away from everybody and everything. Simple. Easy. Yet, underneath the quiet and unassuming exterior lay a constant rumbling.
His demons were his greatest gift.
One of my earliest memories involves a flat tire, a country road and my daddy. I remember standing on the grown-up ditch bank, watching him pull the spare tire and jack out of the trunk. I remember him jacking up the car and loosening the bolts on the bad tire. And I remember the curious grizzled old man who lived in the house on the other side of the ditch. Being of the Southern country persuasion, the man ambled out to the car to speak a few words to my daddy as he was changing the tire. A few cordial “How you doin” and “It’s a bad place to be broke down” were exchanged. Then it happened. I remember the shocked look on the man’s face when he realized my dad only had one hand. In an instant, he nearly tripped over his own feet to “Here, buddy, let me help you with that.” By that time, Daddy was aptly lifting the spare in place. “Ahh, thanks but I’ve got it.” The man’s friendly banter stopped. The air became thick with awkwardness. I was four years old and I didn’t know until that moment that my daddy was “different.” I just didn’t know any better and I didn’t understand why there was a problem.
Life goes on. Happy times become snapshots and bad times become regrets.
A few short weeks after the damned cat got his head chopped off by the train, my brother called to tell me that our dad’s “routine” heart catheterization hadn’t gone so routinely. A lifetime of Marlboros, bourbon with water and fried chicken had clogged his arteries all over his body. The dye used during the catheterization had broken off plaque in his arteries; they’d done emergency surgery to restore circulation to his legs.
Thus began the worst four months of our lives.
I lost count of the number of times he was in and out of ICU. We never got comfortable in one hospital room before moving to another. That hospital became our world. Sometimes he was conscious and sometimes he wasn’t. Sometimes he knew people and sometimes he didn’t. But he was always in pain.
Doctors were surprised to find him still alive when they returned from Christmas holidays. Something had to be done. The by-pass wasn’t working. They say that people in a semi-coma can hear everything. What they don’t say is that people in a semi-coma can get pissed off. Weeks later, Daddy told me that he’d overheard two doctors discussing his fate. They stood at the end of his bed and decided that they should go ahead with another surgery. He’d die without it and the chances were good that he’d die with it anyway. Daddy was pissed. Nobody was going to tell him when he was going to die. He’d die when he damn well pleased.
He lived.
Soon the loosened plaque settled in his feet. He would scream at the slightest touch. His feet and toes discolored. Then the hallucinations started: he was being held captive, the floor polisher in the hall was a robot patrolling the halls, and we couldn’t turn on the television because it was there to spy on us. It was gangrene. He lost half of one foot and most of the toes on the other foot.
He continued to live.
We took him home three months after entering the hospital. Early one morning a month later, he had a few small seizures and started vomiting. He looked at my mom and calmly said, “OK, now you can call the rescue.” Two hours later, he slipped away quietly. True to his word, he died when he damn well pleased. The soft, hazy look of peace that enveloped him as he passed told me he was looking at what was in front of him, and leaving what was behind him, without worry.
I wish my dad had realized that he was leaving behind him such a strong spirit of rebellion. I wish he had known that harnessed rebellion becomes strength.
My world crashed two years after Daddy died. I was diagnosed with scleroderma and polymyositis, both potentially fatal and crippling connective tissue diseases. Through the years people have often looked at me and asked, “How do you do it? How do you keep going?” My answer is simply “I just don’t know any better.” I don’t understand what the problem is all about. My daddy would never allow me to say “I can’t do it.” Ever. He taught me by example that one good hand is more than enough to change a tire, cut a steak, tie a shoe and screw up your daughter’s car. He taught me to keep going. He taught me to ignore the people who underestimate you. He taught me that if you can’t do something one way, find another way to do it. But most important, he taught me to survive.
He gave me rebellion.
As all things in nature, one rebel leaves and another rebel takes his place. My niece was born less than a month after my daddy’s death. She came into this world with our attitude, our stubbornness and my dad’s gray eyes. She graduates from high school next year and will be off to college – off to find her own way armed with her own rules. I need to be sure to tell her about that damn cat.
