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The ‘58 Retractable Hardtop
Barren and frozen 20 years ago
Erie ore boats
Slip in low and embarrassed
Ride out high as if trying to stay out of the cold dirty water
One hundred miles to the south
A red brick house full of pain
In the middle of a corn field
Rough dry rows waiting to be picked clean
I sit in the ’58 retractable hard top (parked in the side yard)
It opens up and down like a Nike silo
But I don’t feel safe.... I feel embarrassed
As I wait for Father
Up and down
Playing the radio all the time
Wishing for a “normal” adolescence
American Bandstand girls and buddies to teach me about sex
Dad bought this classic for me
Seat wells rusted through to the tail pips below
Quarter panels gone...engine seized (they were doing 60 without oil)
But the top works.....up and down like a Nike silo
Waiting for him to pick me up
For the trip to the Airport to work together
And his discourse on authenticity and quality
Corrupted power and the communist conspiracy
Up and down like a Nike silo
Big flat panel of Erie steal trunk lid
Whines up to reveal the thicker top panel at rest in it’s box
It flexes up and out as the front tip rotates from underneath
The straightened assembly reaches forward
Yearning to touch the chromed windshield frame
Where two corkscrews mate with two metal vaginas
And I don’t know what a vagina is
I sit there in the driver’s seat
But AM I driving my own life?
I thought I was...
At least I thought I was supposed to
Or are my parents their elected officials
And the local draft board are doing that?
I had a sense that I wouldn’t make it
I had a sense of being alone when I shouldn’t be alone
He pulls up the driveway
I get in for the drive to the airport
His anxious, angry, earnest and determined monologue begins
I listen for hope.... for some visible faith
For thirty minutes we move over rivers through small woods
Over the highway and across the flat land near the airport
He sings his quality blues
But he also sings his own stuckness.... his own desperateness
He tilts against what men are just supposed to acquiesce to
He does honest things that piss people off to keep his soul alive
He is judged a gross man
He is unable to give in but will he give up?
Something in his will-ing-ness
Something in his felt pain
Something in the irony he kept pointing out
But would he ever get somewhere with all this?....would I?
He had to make it or where was I?
He had to keep believing in his own vision
He had to learn to surrender without giving up
He had to tilt with the windmills that I shared with him
Or I would be completely alone when I wasn’t supposed to be alone
Or I would be naked in a world of armored people
Or I would be faithless in a world of faithless people
Or I would have nothing other that my inner alternative world
But as he tilted I was embarrassed
I wanted more than anything to be normal
What he gave me instead was his ongoing struggle
His pain. His not giving up. His vision of the possible.
We worked on that old Ford for about two years
Got the engine done and some of the body work...
Then my marriage, my child and my moving 2500 miles away
We had to grow back the rusted parts... at a distance.
Even at that distance I found myself sitting in that car
Watching the metal vagina receive it’s phallus
Waiting with dry throat for him to pull in the drive
Wandering what his fury would demand of me this evening
I knew that the ’58 Retractable Hardtop...
Was a gift he tried to give me.... a true surrender
Trying to reach out without words to keep me near
Trying to tell me he wasn’t giving up
Twenty years that old Ford rested unfinished
While we worked on our lives.... not giving up
It sat in the garage...filled up with parts and possibilities
We labored 2500 miles distant from one another
But as near as the garage....and the memory of a gift
Unfinished business being sanded, polished and painted
Protecting the Erie steel from further cancer
Protecting my son from some of the pain but none of the possibilities
Us kids didn’t let Dad forget
They told us to say what we felt
Over decades his willingness listened
He kept his passion and but his hate and fear faded
We are all able to see his healing now
The magical healing of husbands and wives
The magical healing that makes healed sons and daughters possible
The “magical healing” that took years and years of not dying
How he managed to persevere
How mom was able to tolerate his terrible pain
How we kids managed to wait in angry, faithful hope
How life managed to put off tragedy for us.....I don’t know
Dad called today to tell me that he blew up the tires
(They took air after all these years)
And moved the Retractable Hardtop out with all it’s parts
Because he was giving it to a friend
Someone about my age
At first I was angry (even though I had asked him to sell it)
Then I was worried that it might mean a giving up
But I realize the deepest feeling was completion
Dad kept it until he felt like he was done
He had work to do and “Don’t get in the way...damn it!”
He was determined to be finished..... before he said he was finished
He was determined to be a good father
You can fish in Lake Erie again. We never gave up.
My son goes off to work with passion and hope
Perhaps he will remember my Dad as one who didn’t give up
Perhaps someone will read this and wish to have a Dad like mine
As I sit in that old Ford in my head
And run the top up and down
It is finished and it is a real beauty
I am done being embarrassed and am now full of pride