He flipped the light switch and said, “Generally I prefer a very minimalist arrangement. Just a bed, bath, and mailbox to come home to. Too many complications in your day to day life will keep you from focusing your energies on what matters. You’ll learn that in due time.”
“Minimalist” was a good word to describe the condo, though “dingy” and “paltry” would have suited it better. Whether it had been built before disbandment or not long after it, the whole atmosphere and character of the place, right down to the smell of the air, seemed old and decrepit, like the sort of bombed-out shell of an apartment where you could imagine war refugees cowering to escape the violence outside. The main living area had a single sofa chair with a cushion so compressed it couldn’t have offered more than psychological protection from the springs underneath. Beyond that, there were tables and lamp stands situated at various points along the walls, very much like the furnishings of your standard roadside motel room. Through a space between the stove and vent hood, I could just make out a sink and countertop on which rested a dish rack loaded with plates that probably never found their way into the cabinets above. Of course it didn’t strike me as odd to find Dad inhabiting such a place; in the grand narrative I had composed for him, he was every bit as much a monster as the troll from the nursery fable, and so it wouldn’t have been too difficult to envision him living in squalor under a bridge while his money sat idle in an account or deposit box. I went to the kitchen and found two clean glasses at the bottom of the rack.
Taking the flask from my pocket, I said, “I’ll stick with vodka for now, but I’m eager to see what you think of the bourbon. The guy at the shop said it was a rare find even for them. They only had a few bottles left in stock.”
Dad collapsed onto the sofa chair and snorted skeptically. “He works on commission. Of course he’s going to say that.”
I unscrewed the cap on the bottle and eyeballed at least two shots over the clouded white ice cubes from his freezer tray. He took a small sip to begin with, smacking his lips together in consideration. Then he raised the glass again and knocked back more than half of what remained. I watched it flow into him. He leaned back in the creaking chair and sighed bracingly. He said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you overpaid. But for what it’s worth, it is a very nice label. Better than most of the swill you find these days.”
“Glad you think so. Drink up.”
I poured some vodka into the second glass and sat on a corner of the square coffee table. Across from me, Dad was already getting sleepy-eyed, or at least the energizing discomfort he had been suffering through all day had transitioned to a seemingly painless lethargy that appeared to suit him just fine. He was even smiling slightly, positioned as he was with his head tilted back, balancing the glass on his stomach between laced fingers. I tried to think of any other time in my life when I had seen him genuinely contented and relaxed, but nothing came to mind. In my memories of him, which seemed so much more real than the sick old man before me, nothing could break the current of hostility that permeated everything he said and did; not even that night at the whorehouse, not even all the whiskey and fatherly pride his money could buy.
I said, “By the way. I don’t know what this means to you, but Mom passed away four months ago. She’d been fighting cancer for a while, and it just proved to be too much for her. Thought you should know.”
Dad raised his head slowly. The frown he formed his lips into was less jarring to me than his smile, but there was a forcedness to it that felt particularly disrespectful, as though he still couldn’t bring himself to be honest with me, even if doing so would have meant admitting that my mother’s death didn’t bother him. He said, “I’m sorry to hear that. She was a good woman, Rachel. You were fortunate to have a mother who put your well-being above everything else.”
I raised my glass. “Cheers.”
Again I watched him drink. Again he seemed to grow more relaxed and groggy. He said, “Of course the real test of a woman’s character is how she treats her father, and her husband after him. That’s one feature of the modern world that’s taken an incalculable toll on the foundations of society, the notion that a woman or girl is independent from the man who looks after her. Years ago, some misguided fools got it into their heads that the man-haters were right, that the innate differences between the sexes are just superficial, and that women can take care of themselves. Well, I ask you, how many women were able to go without a man’s protection immediately following disbandment? And how many girls who didn’t have a man’s guidance succumbed to degradation in those years? Well, let me tell you, opinions changed for the better once the Republic was founded and normalcy returned to civilian life. Suddenly the time-honored truths passed down from the noble lords of old weren’t so superficial.”
Dad tilted forward in a way that suggested he was going to stand, but instead he leaned the bulk of his girth on one armrest and spread his legs out indecently. Drops of whiskey trickled from the corners of his mouth. The air conditioner must have been operating at full blast, but still his face was sweaty. He looked like a newborn baby, bald and pudgy and dripping with amnia. His mood was even unpredictable.
“Jesus fuck. When I think of all the bullshit that passes for popular wisdom, all the poisonous ideas that have been carried over from American times, I get so frustrated I can hardly stand to remain alive. If the mass of people were only capable of recognizing, if more than one or two percent of the population had any rational faculties whatsoever, then maybe I could tolerate their company more than I do. All my life, for as long as I can remember, I’ve had to fight their stupidity, and it’s always been an uphill battle. When I was a boy in the US, it was a very patriotic time. People used to talk about freedom like it was the most important thing in life. But I always knew they were full of shit. I knew from a young age that if you were to give them what they were asking for, of the ones that survived, ninety-nine point nine percent would come to curse their freedom in time. They would beg for the chain before long. But would they admit it? Would they ever learn to accept that the ones in a position above them were there for a reason? Hell, no. They would tear it all down before that. Their father, their husband, their employer, their God. They would snarl like animals and bite their masters’ hands rather than confess their own weakness. And those of us who were born stronger? What can we do except grit our teeth and try to bear the insults? That’s the burden I’ve been carrying my whole life. That’s the burden I still carry. Christ.”
This time he really did stand up, straining with both hands against the armrests as he slowly emerged from the sunken compression in the sofa chair. Staggering a little bit more with each step he took, he found his way to the rest of the bourbon. He could barely keep the bottle steady, and ended up with more on the counter than in his glass. He lost his balance turning and had to brace himself against the beam.