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Chapter Thirty-Four: The Family Mantra
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118 Chapter Thirty-four The Family Mantra Tonight my father bawls, wails just like the pansy he says my brother is when he cries. He doesn’t punch holes in the wall, throw chairs through the windows, or kick our bodies while blaming us for all his problems. This drunken night is different. He rolls on the couch in fetal position, sobbing. Sick from all the drinking and crying, he runs to the bathroom and vomits. Then he returns to the couch and cries some more. “He’s dead!” Dad screams. “He called,” Mom says. Then the crying. The ranting. My mother just sits there, listening to him rant and rave. Forced to admit his father is alive, something he probably knew all along, he grows weary of all his weeping and drives away to drink some more or to look for his father or visit a lover. I don’t know where he went but am glad he has left the house. The men in my father’s family were like the characters in the Bible who were raised from the dead. Years before, a dead uncle showed up at our door. I never understood the importance of these miracles, the need for these lives to return, but I had a burning desire to understand the secret behind those powers that raised the men from the dead, but never the women. Turns out his father wants to make amends with his children. One uncle and one aunt introduce their children to this man. But my dad continues to say he’s dead. Refuses to see him. Then he does die. No more time for apologies. Against my father’s wishes, I go to the funeral of this man who could’ve been my grandfather, this man my father despised. There he lies, this old man of seventy-two, resting in a coffin, the only one in the room who looks peaceful. No pansies around for this event. Everyone too sober to shed tears. Even he doesn’t bother rising for this somber occasion. Might as well stay dead. Diane Payne 119 After the funeral, we go to his dilapidated house and the neighbors bring casseroles and pies. His wife never says a word to me. We just look at each other. I had heard about the illegitimate older aunt, the dark-skinned woman who sits quietly in the living room, but I knew nothing of the aunt who was born the day after me. Those men in my dad’s family had a busy week sixteen years ago in August when father and two sons bore children day after day after day. Sitting next to my wild, redheaded aunt in a purple miniskirt and the newly discovered aunt born one day after me, I long to know my own dad when he’s peaceful. I want to ask my aunt if her father was as mean as everyone had said, but figure it’d be a rude question to ask at his funeral, especially since I already know the answer. At least she lives at a boarding school, far away from her father. I also want to tell her my father is just like hers, but she probably already knows that. Our family has a strange relationship with Jesus. Some grab Jesus’ hand tight and never cry at church or funerals, they’d just sing the hymns, forgiving and forgetting, while others drink like fools and wail all night long, and when they felt bad, really bad, they go to church surrounded by those speaking in tongues and let their demons fly; but, driving home from that country church, there’s that fifth they remember beneath the front seat. People in my family disappear for lengthy periods of time because they are experiencing religious breakdowns and need rest in an asylum or at Skid Road or in a lover’s arm. Some disappear for years, are considered dead, and then reappear. We are a family of odd miracles. I wonder if my aunt is like me and gets drunk just to forget, then fears she is already turning into her father, and nothing can prevent that from happening. I wonder if she feels drunk weeping in those same churches with faith healings going on, saddened that our faith is never enough to bring forth any healing. Looking at my aunt, I know we share the same family mantra: Forgive and forget. Over and over—forgive and forget—while we...