The Man Who has No Face.

Its been a lot and a while. I met with my oldest brother after nearly a decade and wrote this about my father who died when I was 8 or maybe 9.

A brick flew through the window today. 

Found me tucked and maybe drowning under a weighted blanket in a house that is not my own. 

And maybe it was not actually a brick after all but it was something heavy.

The man who has no face was sensitive. 

Death will do that to you, or so I’ve heard. 

Wipe your face from the memory of everyone who knew you.

Or didn’t.

Or cannot quite remember knowing you.

Or can sometimes

Or doesn't even really want to that much. 

My brother says I look just like him. 

Says I look just like the man whose face I cannot remember. 

Or can, sometimes a little...

Speaks to me of the man with no face whose face he has seen enough times to remember. 

Says he liked to drive fancy cars. 

Uses words like charming, and fit, and all american. 

Says he was unserious. 

And when he speaks to me

I remember

Not everything but some of the things. 

I remember seeing my Uncle Raymond in the hospital with staples in his head and crying because when I looked I saw my fathers intubated face. 

I remember my mothers voice before 

“There's your dad running” as we drove down Seward Park Drive.

I remember his smile and a bald head adorned with a rainbow clown wig. 

A drop top sky blue Cadillac that glinted in the sun. 

Laughter. 

I remember sitting on the steps of my grandmother's house eating ice cream 

And all the years I ate ice cream.

And what is a father anyway? 

And how come I can’t remember the last time I wanted one? 

Or worse, what if I can? 

My mother says she heard babies crying when she laid on the not quite faceless but absolutely dead man's chest. 

Years ago of course. 

More than two decades before. 

Before the birth. 

Before the not quite faceless but absolutely dead man became a father

Again.

I am told the man with no face- well, you know what I mean.  

My mother told me the man with no face was a sensitive child. 

A self proclaimed former “cry baby” 

Before of course. 

Before the grandfather whose face I never saw to remember beat it out of him or tried. 

It sounded familiar in a way. Beating the sensitive out of a child. 

Or threatening to at least. 

Or wishing you could and failing. 

My brother talks to me with some combination of unbroken and hurt in his eyes

Shows a tenderness so familiar I am not sure how I could have forgotten to remember. 

Speaks to me of losses before losses. 

Says his mother has a scar.

Uses words like abuser, addict, murderer.

Says I am better for not having known the not quite faceless but absolutely dead man

Who hurt him so much. 

An abuser.

An addict.

A murderer?

A father? 

Dead. 

My brother talks to me. 

Some combination of unbroken and hurt in his eyes. 

A tenderness so familiar

How could I have forgotten?

Speaks to me of losses before losses

Leaks water.

Speaks with the weight of being the firstborn son. 

Of carrying so much

memory.

And there is enough love and enough unbroken to break a heart. 

Says I am better for not having known the not quite faceless but absolutely dead man 

Who hurt so much. 

I look into his eyes and I am disturbed but not surprised. 

I remember. 

Not everything of course

but some of the things. 

I remember the rage I felt when I dumped his ashes into Lake Washington in the night. 

I remember sitting on my grandmother's porch waiting. 

An abuser.

An addict.

A murderer?

A father? 

Dead.

The man with no face was not a father after all. 

Only taught his children how not to love. 

Handed out hurt where I was handed absence. 

So God bless the children that parent themselves. 

God bless the children who fight to be

so much

better. 

God bless all that is hurt and yet still unbroken in us.