The Wish to Be a Red Indian

Smoke, blue-tinged and lithe, curling up from the end of his cigarette. The lampshade is stained amber from it, and the curtains, stiff fiberglass sheets, are discolored as well. Even the windows have a parched film, a nicotine tissue on them. A perpetual, shifting veil of it hangs at face level in the living room and defines a zone of separation that my father silently inhabits.

He sits on the couch in his bleached-white underwear, his pale stork legs crossed, one draped over the other. At the end of his right foot hangs a leather slipper, the skin of it cracked and peeling, its creases and crevices whitened with the residue of regularly reapplied baby powder. Occasionally he dips that foot, adjusting the slipper slightly, releasing a puff of powder that hovers and never seems to land. His right arm comes up and he takes another long drag off his cigarette, each one pulling him that much closer to the rest of his routine: a shave that leaves his face and neck looking raw, followed by a slap of aftershave. An assault on his teeth with toothbrush and paste that produces ropy strands of foam and spittle that dangle from his mouth; he’ll brush his tongue down to its roots until he retches and nearly vomits into the sink. In the bedroom, he’ll slip into one of his suits and step into a pair of shoes polished to the luster of new glass. After checking his hair a final time in the mirror, he’ll descend the steps, give my mother a kiss that looks like a hard rebound off her face, and head off to work.

But before that, he still has this prelude of smoke and silence.

Outside the window is a dense grove of treetops, species of oaks, maples, elms, and hickory. They provide a cover that’s thick and enveloping, a maze for my father to lose himself in. He takes another drag and runs his hand distractedly across his chest, his fingers searching his graying hair.

Inside with him is his family. Mother is making lunches for me and my six sisters, and we’re running up and down stairs, in and out of rooms, looking for favorite shirts or homework assignments or ways to get out of having to go to school. He knows all this and he never says a word. He smokes and stares, his features slightly swollen from last night’s sleep. Outside, the trees lean as a breeze comes through, making a sound like water in a stony riverbed.

It’s time.

He takes his last drag and stabs out the cigarette, driving it into the corner of the ashtray, extinguishing every last ember. Then he polishes the ashtray with the butt, burnishing the bottom of it until it squeaks. Satisfied, he nimbly unscissors his legs and stands to his full height.

In an instant he becomes an elementary school principal living in the suburbs, with a wife and seven children. And he can’t afford to be late for work.

He walks to the stairs, his slippers slapping up against his feet and puffing out smoke signals of powder that fall and leave outlines of his footprints across the carpet. Mother will run the carpet sweeper over them after everyone is gone.

I spied on my father for most of my life. He was hard to get close to, easily driven away by any obvious emotional need. In turn, I think he spied on me. He wanted to see what I was becoming, what direction I might pursue, what kind of man I might be. And I think the category of “man” was important to him because he felt so ashamed about his own accomplishments as one. He’d grown up dominated by a standard that—even though he could see that it was specious—had a humiliating influence on him. I think he looked to me to transcend it, to do better than he was able to.

I had no idea what went through my father’s mind when he...